CINDERELLA.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1378, 2 March 1912, Page 11

CINDERELLA.

UNDER-PAID, UNDER-BATED. The Cinderella of tho professions is that of the schoolmaster, writes a correspondent to tho "Sydney Daily Telegraph." Speaking broadly, wo may Bay that it is tho least regarded by tho public generally, and it is the worst paid. .Every other has its rich prizes, and has a largo number of places thnt are, if not richly, yet very adequately, rewarded. A popular medical practitioner, or n skilful specialist, or a family surgeon, can count upon making a large income, and if there aro a number of doctors who are practical failures, as is tho case with every calling under the sun, a largo body of competent medical men can live well, provide for their children, retire from too active scrvico before they aro exhausted, and leave a competency behind them. Tho young barrister has, as a rule, a notoriously evil time for a few years, but how many can command large lees with their briefs, on work up a practice too valuable to retign even iti a Judgeship, and how many can riso to the Bench'and then retire with an assured pension! To turn to the other branch of the legal profession, it is possible for a few solicitors to bo crowded out, and so to bo compelled to becomo managing clerks, but tho number is very largo of those who can earn a substantial incomo or even n moderate, if not a large, fortune.

Barely Subsisting. ; But who would mention the teaching profession by the side of any of those, least of all the schoolmaster? Tho University professor may count upon a substantial salary, though his assistants have to bo content with much less;, but tho man who gives his life to teaching boys and girls may often think himself lucky if he earns enough to.educato his children as well as ho is educated himself; and, if ho manages to lay:by a little for old age, that little may havo to go a long way. Of course, in tho British Dominions there are scholastic positions that aro highly remunerated, hut if count were mndo of all tho positions'in Australia to which anything of a substantial incomo is attached, the »yes of people might bo opened very wide. And if this is truo of the men who hold tho prominent positions in cur schools, what is there to bo said of the army of those who assist them, whoso best energies are occupied in the daily drudgery of the classroom, whoso days aro spent in teaching, and their nights in correcting examination papers and exercises, and to whom little opportunity comes of adding in other ways to their moderate means?

And to a largo extent the public thinks that, this is not an unfair thing. It pays its teachers in two ways. By preference, it pays them from the Treasury, so that children can be educated for nothing. Iu some cases it chooses to pay the moderate fees asked for schools not sustained by tho Government, and grumbles over the cost of children's schooling. Supposing o. parent pays twenty pounds a year for his boy's education, and many pay less, and very few pay more (for tho higher foes paid in boarding-schools are paid for boarding, which in some form the parent would havo to pay in any case), what is that to a man with a thousand or even five hundred a year,, especially if ho docs not pay for more than two or three years? Ho is • dissatisfied with the school if too many boys are in a class, and expects a good amount of individual attention. When out of tho fees paid there has to be taken rent of buildings, attendance, cleaning, lighting, repairs, fnd land tax, a teacher' would need a very large class before he could make anything like the income of an average medical practitioner. And yet his training waa probably nearly us long, nearly as expensive, and quite as exhausting. . ■But in the eyes of the public generally tho schoolmaster is fairly treated, ' and gets as'-much as ho deserves. After all, the'nverago parent thinks it is liot such & difficult task to teach bo much geography, or arithmetic, or Latin, and he cannot teach more than fivo or six hours n day, and he gets long holidays. But the length of'holidays is not fixed by his needs, and if they,were all to be considered the holidays would bo reduced to their lowest terms; holidays are determined by the necessities of growing .children, and not 'by' any consideration 'for ' the' 'children's teacher. As to the five hours a day, if the teacher's work began when he entered his classroom and ended when ho left' it,' he might be thought to have an easy time, but no teacher does his work on those terms, and no school teputation was ever built upon it. It is the long hours of out-o£-school work that make the drain upon the teacher's energies. But there is another fallacy that underlies the popular satisfaction with things as thoy are, and that is that all the teacher has to do is to impart a certain amount of information to nis pupils, or fiualify them to pass some external examination, or secure'them some immediate position. It is by somo such rough test as this that a teacher or a'Echool is 100 often judged.

Ths Moulder at Work. It is the far-reaching influence of a life like Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, and Mr. Wiegall, in Sydney, that is the best rebuke and refutaion of the iniserablo estimate of the schoolmaster's work that many are content with. It is the revelation of what can be done, and what ought to ba done, and what parents should look for. supremely, in thoso to whom tJicy entrust their sons. More especially their sons of inaturer age. 'If Mr. Weigall had been compelled to part with his boys when they were 14 he could not have done for them a tithe of what he did. But the man to whom are entrusted boys up to the age of 18 or 1!) has something more to do than to give them so much pedantic instruction. Ha reoeives them that ho may shapo their minds indeed; but yet moro that ho may mould their characters. Tho schoolmaster that fails thero fails at tho 'most critical point. Ho may do everything else; instruct them, drill theni, train them in this language or that science; but unless his school is primarily a-school for character-building, he is missing the supremo opportunity of his life. It is just because boys, at the age suited to the secondary school, aro so open to impressions good and bad, that it is of vital importance that they should bo in the control of those that understand them and love them and can guide them.' As parents recogniso that, they will be Blow to judge their boys' masters by the marks they get for their lessons, or by mere academic success; they will look for results in n. far higher sphere; and, when they do, the profession of the schoolmaster will ceaso to be the Cinderella of the professions.

Th« death occurred l-ecsntly of the Rot. JT. E. Calvert at Christ Church Vicarago, Bacup. The death of his elder daughter, aged six years, prostrated him. He immediately took to hed, and death ensued from shock and throat trouble. He was about forty years of age. Hemlock, foxglove, monkshood, the neds o! laburnum, common laurel, and vew aro all poisonous to human boings.