Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, JAN. 21, 1898. "Upholding the Status of the Profession."

Manawatu Herald, 21 January 1893, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, JAN. 21, 1898. "Upholding the Status of the Profession."

-«. _ We have pointed out many peculiar acts on the part of the Wanganui Education Board, but the moat peculiar of their actions has been left to the Chairman of the Board to disclose for the admiration of the public. We are indebted to the meeting of the New Zealand Educational Institute fir this information a3 it was not till the Chairman of the Board felt so grieved at the members having in their ignorance fallen " foul of a Board which employs a less proportion of the cleverer sex than any other Board, save one " that he admits that the oue end and aim of the Wanganui Education Board has been " to keep up the status of the profession. }< Wo wonder how many of the members knew they were acting thus, and it is no question that what the Chairman claims as the work of the Board in securing this object was neither fair or correct. The teaching profession includes both males and females yet the Board claims to have endeavoured to have " kept* up the status," as laid down in the leader in Tuesday's Wanganui Chronicle, by having employed the greatest proportion of male teachers, with the exception of Otago, of any Board in the colony, admitting thereby that the claims of the weaker, or as the chronicle says the " cleverer sex," have been ignored. It is a funny way of claiming credit for friendship to the profession by acknowledging a gross act of partiality to one portion of it. The Wanganui Board was expected to administer the Act so as to benefit as much as possible the very large numbers of taxpayers, by building schools and supplying efficient teachers at the least expense, and without consideration to sex. We have uttered complaints about the working ot the Board, and we have not been the only one by many, as from nearly every district the incapacity of the Board to find money for Committees, and schools for children has been com • mented on. We have likewise very strongly expressed our belief that the members of the Board were led by their officers, and nothing is clearer now, after the Chairman's admission of the supposed mission of the Board to uphold the status of the profession, but that they were. Who among the nine members con.sidered they had this duty to fulfil ? At what meetings of the Hoard has this important question been dis cussed ? It has a quper look, this status business as though it was an afterthought of the Chairman's, who feeling vexed at any teacher in the Wanganui District daring to act independently and say what he thought, would, more in sorrow than in anger, point out to the wretch what a hardened and ungrateful fellow he was. It must have arisen thusly, or how is Mr Carson, the Champion supporter of Woman's Franchise . goinor to explain this gross partiality ' to the male teachers under his ! nominal control ? . The leader in the ' Chronicle shows the unstable mind of the Chairman, if not of the Board,

s^ well us an exhibition of temper, as the teachrire are told that the Chairman ha 3 long baen- aware of " a pretty general feeling prevailing among the people that teachers are too yell on 0 , and are paid higher salaries than there is any necessity for," yet in face of this knowledge-he admits '• the Board has under consideration a proposal to reduce the capitation to Committees and to let the salaries stand as they 1 are *' 1 ! ! Autocratic chairman ! never mind the general feeling, the Board has determined upon a course "to uphold the status of the profession" therefore the tax payer must fall down and worship them. The tax payer, in the eyes of the members of the Board are of no account If " the status of the profession " is to be maintained by the Wanganui Board, it must be as pointed out by this leader, in the manner they choose to view it, by unquestioning and uncomplaining behaviour on the part of the teachers* more especially the male teachers, otherwise, Quoting again from the Chairman's leader in the Chronicle, " the recent- agitation among the teachers may well cause tha Board to ask themselves whether there is not a better way of economising "111 If anything in addition to the past acts of the Board was needed to show the urgency there exists for a thorough alteration in the constitution of the Board, this leader in the {Jh'onicle would provide it. We there have before us the simple admission of the Chairman that the best interests of the district have been sacrificed, as he puts it, to uphold the status of the profession. The Board's idea of carrying out this view is by showing gross partiality to only one portion of the teachers employed by the Board. That though the members are well aware of a general feeling that salaries ranged too high the Board intended to ignore public feeling and reduce the present small grants to committees so as to pay higher salaries " than the average for the colony." It is only when they have discovered that even by these unfair attempts they cannot ' gag ' their teaeherp, they find that there may be some other way of economising which will also have the effect of punishing the utterora of outspoken eriticisims. This is our Wanganui Education Board ! ! 1