FOURPENCE AN HOUR.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9387, 5 March 1909, Page 7

FOURPENCE AN HOUR.

The average man, if questioned, would at once express the opinion that we are living in an age which !ia intensely appreciative of the value of education (remarks the Melbourne Age). The world professes to be hungry for .knowledge. Specialists and experts ate everywhere in demand. Books ate multiplied, and the very name of science is apctheosised. All these are signs that education is at a premium—tbat the schoolmaster is abroad, and that his business should be flourishing. And yet we have ail round us seeming proof to the contrary. Either people do not really value education to the degree that they pretend, or else the supplv of teachers is so over-done that the work is at Take as an example the following advertisements, cut at random out of the scholastic columns of the daily paper:—“Governess wanted, one pupil, 1 3 hours morning, English, Latin, French, piano, violin, drawing, painting; 7s 6d week. Latin, P. 0., S. Yarra.” If this stood alone it might be treated ak a broad jest, intended to cast a mark of contempt on all kinds of polite accomplishments, Bot it does not stand alone. It is intended seriously. It can be matched by scores of similar notices. And, taken as it stands, it signifies that in the estimation of the advertiser the time of a lady who has become proficient in English, Latin, French, piano, violin and drawing, making allowances for time and cost of transport, is worth only 3d or .4d per hour less than the pay of a stable boy.