Interference with Schoolmasters.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 907, 8 January 1881, Page 4

Interference with Schoolmasters.

At too late an hour yesterday, to give the matter extended notice we received a communication from a resident drawing our attention to the fact that schoolmasters have a good many unpleasant things to put up with at the hands of either the committee, or some of the parents whose children go to their school. Our correspondent says, and we agree with him, that these causes of complaint should be removed ; and he furnishes us with the following, with a request that we will publish it, in order to show how groundless many of those complaints are, and what sneaks they are who resort to the reprehensible practice of anonymously maligning a teacher in the columns of a newspaper. We are in accord with these remarks, and often wonder at the anomalous position our school teachers occupy. They are men of education, refinement, and generally of equal, if not superior intelligence to those whom the Education powers place over them ; and it is pity that the law which gives a man a power which he cannot wield with discretion, should take from the teacher any possible hope of redress.

He has to suffer from the caprice, ill-will, and prejudice of a lot of ignorant men, and, in various ways has to submit to contumely because, although far their superior, he has to occupy an insultingly inferior position. The following is a letter on a cognate subject furnished to the Auckland Weekly News : — KAUKAPAKAPA SCHOOL AFFAIRS. Your comments on a letter signed by a “ School Committee-man ” in your “ Answers to Correspondents,” in the Weekly News of the 7th inst., caused much surprise here. No one could imagine what the schoolmaster had been doing to provoke such remarks from you. There was but one opinion as to who “ Committee-man ” was. The chairman of the school committee considered it his duty to convene a school committee meeting, and give “ School Committee-man ” an opportunity of laying the charges he had made in the letter in question before the committee. The meeting took place on the 12th inst., but the suspected “ Committee-man ” would not acknowledge that he sent the letter to the Weekly News, but commenced reading a long statement. The Chairman said that unless the letter was acknowledged by some-one of the committee it could not be discussed. The chairman asked each member of the committee present as to whether he wrote the letter in question. All disclaimed it except Mr. E. C. Henly, who would neither acknowledge nor disclaim it. There was one member of the committee (Mr. Hutchenson) absent, and the meeting was adjourned to ascertain from Mr Hutchenson whether he would disclaim or acknowledge it. The adjourned meeting was held on Saturday evening, when Mr Hutchinson disclaimed it also. Mr E. C. Henley was the only member who had not disclaimed it, and th* committee could come to no other conclusion than that he sent the letter in question. Mr R. Sinclair, the chairman, commented strongly on Mr Edward C. Henley having written to the newspapers, making charges against the teacher, when he (Mr Henley) must have known that the teacher could not reply through the same medium. The Chairman read the regulations of the Board on the point, and moved the following resolution : —“ That the statements in ‘ School Committeeman’s’ letter which called forth the editor’s comments regarding the teacher at Kaukapakapa in ‘ Answers to Correspondents ’ in the Weekly News of the 7th of August are entirely without foundation ; that the teacher did not in any way infringe the regulations of the Board of Education, as would appear from the comments referred to ; that this committee censures the action taken by ‘ School Committee-man ’ in writing the letter in question to the Weekly News, and altogether disapproves of any of its members writing to the newspapers on any matters under their control until at least such matters have come before the committee.” This was seconded by Mr. Hutchinson, and passed unanimously.