TEACHERS AND EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2871, 8 September 1916, Page 6

TEACHERS AND EDUCATION

Sir, —I read with interest the annual report of the Secondary Schools Assistants' Association of' New Zealand in your issue oi Monday. Two very important points are raised. First, ie tho question of salaries; second, tho necessity for a closer "rapprochement" between tho people engaged in administering tho different grades of education. By tho goneral public, topics like these when mentioned - in the Press are skimmed and lightly dismissed as belonging to tho old familiar category of teachers' grievances. Teachers' grievances aro notorious tho wide world over. Like tho poor, they are always with us, and they obtain just about tho samo measure of grudging relief from time to time,' which serves to accentuate the position without doing anything really solid to ameliorate it. The present crisis in tho world's history has been the means of concentrating the attention in many countries on the need for educational reconstruction.

Reconstruction is wbat is wanted; reform is only another term for tinkering. The danger to be apprehended in these numerous cries, for more efficient educational systems is that the aim, as a rule, is avowedly utilitarian, the desire to escapo from or to mitigate the material consequences of this war, and to provide for the contingency of a next. Tho moral aspect, as far as I can 6ce, is receiving scant recognition. How many thoughtful people are content with tho ruling conditions of our social life? Is it true or not that there is an. increasing dislike of sharing or incurring social responsibilities, that honest work is re-, gaTded as a disagreeable necessity, that the line of least resistance is usually chosen,' tliat the old craftsman's delight in giving the Inst detail of finish to his. handiwork is fled, that delations between employer and employeo are not cordial, that there isia pitiless class discontent_ abroad that finds oppression in unfaithful service, truculcncej and reprisals, while_ on all hauds there is a feverish anxiety to drown tho irksoiteness of the inevit* able daily bread-winning in,all kinds of riddy and soul-destroying pleasures ? The naked truth is that the material nircumstances of certain sections of the community have improved in regard to hours of labour and emoluments without any corresponding intellectual and spiritual advarxe that would enable these advantages to he properly applied. This is the greater problem that education lios before it, namely, to create generally a higher cthical outlook better proportioned to the physical disadvantages which modern material progress is continually adding to us, and liere is "par excellence" the work of tho teacl'ing piofessio/t. . . Now, people with grievances are not going to' solve ,this problem. I believe that teachers' grievances are very real. No doubt, the blame for some of the failure of i education is to bo put down to the teachers themselves, but for tho greatest part of it the public are to blame for the perfectly niiserable financial and social recognition accorded to the profession as a whole. A roan trusts his cash to his banker, his 'deeds arid documonts to his lawyer, his children to a teacher who very often, has a soul ten times as large as his own. He hobnobs with his banker and lawyer. '''His children's teacher stands without this select circle, and probably gets the pay of a wharf lumper. This is the encouragement too commonly received by those who have undertaken tho nation's highest work.

In Now' Zealand the colleges am usually large, tho number of headmasters' positions consequently small, the opportunities of an assistant-mas-ter for rising to a headmastership limited, hence the great majority of secondary school teachers must always bo content with an assistant's position carrying from £150 to £250, or in a few cases £300 per year. - On this ho must dress respectably, maintain, if married, a certain standard in his domestic arrangements, buy books, etc., to enable him ,to keep up with tho latest developments in his profession, and respond to • the social calls which it is supposed can be lawfully made on one in this position. i

The case of his brother in other countries is similar., It does not requiro greater intellectual power to become a lawyer or a doctor than to become a teacher; but would these professionn be deemed so desirablo if what I have above described were the ultimate' prospects?

Oil tho question of tho second important point-raised in the report, that the time is ripe for a closor connection between the primary, secondary, and university stages of education, a few words must suffice for the present. The individual to be educated ■is a unity the stages of whoso development merge into one another in a Very gradual fashion, in • spiie of the fact that at certain periods are' characterised by well-defined phenomena.. As, therefore, tho growth of the individual is single and_ continuous, so.it is only rational to insist that his education should be a closely unified process. It is therefore no very extravagant demand that the- agents who have charge of the process should be in thorough "rapport," and that there'should not only be a close co-ordination of tho work of tho three ordinarily recognisedhut that there should exist in tho mind of each ono engaged in his sphere a clear conception of the meaning of his own part in relation to the other two. If I were asked tft rehearse some of tho fundamental articles of my education belief at the present moment. I should state them somewhat as follow.-—

I'believe first and foremost that the uplifting of our national and social life can only be effectively accomplished by a right education of the individual through all stages. All the educational sermons must be preached from the text, "Train up a child in the way lie should go, and .when he is old he will-not depart from it." I beliovo that whatever reorganisation of education is undertaken depends absolutely on a reorganisation of the teaching profession, and that it will bo futile to waste time formulating scliomes of educational modification and extension without at tho (same time making provision for a supply of teachers competent to carry them out.

I believe that as education is a process of securing the adjustment of tho individual to his physical and social surroundings, tho educator must know .both tbo human organism and tho environment with which hejis to be brought into effective , relations. In ■ his anxioty to drivo home the mere symbols of environmental relations, tho teacher is too often oblivious of*the relations thcmsolvcs. Toachers must, then,, be fully alivo to the social and economic conditions and problems of their day, and mako their contribution to their solution of them; and' as they exert influence 011 the rising generation for a long period of their most impressionable years, thoy aro in a position to achieve much.

I do not agree with your correspondent of Wednesday that the state of things to-day is the result of too much education, but of too little of tho right kind. Your correspondent is apparently a Christian man, and does not need to have the parable of tho talents oxpounded to him. ■ As tho foregoing portion of my letter makes clear, I am at one with him in liis statement that tho problem is "First a matter of teachers, and seoond tho objec' to be attained," though I 'would invert tho order of it, and put it a little more explicitly by affirming that the task

that educational reconstruction has to faco is to deal with the' individual child, and discover as definitely as pos: sible his potentialities, and then devolop them to maximum efficiency; and, secondly, to provide a big enough supply of teachers, who are trained to assess potentialities, who know their subjects, and who have a just appreciation of the community conditions which they are training their charges to face.—l am, etc., S. R, DICKINSON. Scots College, September 7.