South Canterbury Times, THURSDAY, MARCH, 17, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2493, 17 March 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, THURSDAY, MARCH, 17, 1881.

In the examinations for teachers’ certificates that have just taken place in Canterbury, it has been found that although there are plenty of girl graduates willing to accept the training of youth as a stepping stone to matrimony, the male pupils generally prefer the trowel, the anvil, the plough, the counter, in fact anything in the shape of steady work to the treacherous drudgery that a schoolmaster’s life implies. The cause of this is obvious enough. Of all occupations, that of a State school teacher is the most harrassing. He is the meanest of all dependants. The miner works late or knocks off early ; he can be diligent or he may take the world easy ; he has none to upbraid him save his inner conscience. The farmer tills his fields and “ laughs the whole world in the face,” provided neither banker nor merchant are dunning him. The humblest laborer smokes his pipe of peace, sells his labor in the dearest market, and demands his money without bow or scrape, as if his employer and not he were under a compliment. But the average teacher has hardly a soul to call his own. He travels on thin ice, never aware of the moment it may yield under him. In South Canterbury the school teacher is particularly insecure. During the past year the salaries and status of the district teachers have been modelled and remodelled, till the teachers’ hopes and fears have begun to oscillate like a pendulum from month to month. Some have been dismissed owing to the imposition of new standards of competency ; schools prematurely brought into existence are being closed j and, worse than all, there has been an aggravating kind of cheeseparing economy going on. In every possible way the teacher is tortured ; his feelings are lacerated by insecurity, and his miserable allowance of the comforts of existence are periodically lessened. Hence it is that for the occupation of a State school teacher the number of

aspirants arc becoming beautifully less, and the schools that we have been rearing at so much cost and trouble threaten gradually to become totally emasculated.

The representative of France at the Melbourne Exhibition, M. de Montabon, speaking on educational matters, has strongly denounced the system of subjecting the appointment of school teachers to departmental or political influence. He pronounced himself in vigorous terms, to be strongly opposed to any display of patronage, and he suggested that the power of patronage should be effectually taken out of the hands of the Education Department. In other words he recommended the system which prevails generally in the public departments of France—in the army, police, and education departments alike—whereby promotion and pay are earned by individual merit, exertion, and assiduity. There can be no doubt that in New Zealand, as well as in the Australian colonies, the teacher is tramelled and impeded by the system of patronage which has inaiduonsly been introduced. In this colony his. path to proferment is rendered particularly tortuous and irksome. On the one side he has the Education Board and its inspector to dread, and on the other the School Committee; He stands between two fires, inasmuch as thc r ' Boards and the Committees frequently take up an antagonistic position, the unhappy teacher being the hone of contention. In this warfare the belligerents have nothing to fear, but the school and the teacher invariably suffer. What aggravates the position of affairs is the charming ambiguity of the Education Act, the clauses being so loosely framed that the Boards are able to torture them into any shape that will best answer their purpose. Another source of misery to the teacher and injury to the whole system arises from the circumstance that the rate of remuneration is subject to the district Boards. There is no finality ; no security. Every Board can alter or vary the standard of payment at pleasure. Schools may be closed or new schools created at the whim of the Boardsmen. The teacher has therefore to depend abjectly on the Board for his bread and butter. Now, this is a state of affairs that ought to be altered, and which must be changed if the schools of New Zealand are not to degenerate. The patronage vested in the different Education Boards is altogether impolitic. School teachers have no right to be placed from month to month at the mercy of the Boards, which, on account of the way in which they are elected, can hardly be deemed responsible to the people. What the colony requires is an Education Act containing regulations as to the size of the schools that will be tolerated, the salaries that will be paid, and the conditions under which these salaries will be sanctioned. From the disposition which certain Boards have shewn to abuse the patronage vested in them, and from the constant irritation to which teachers are subjected, through the conflicts of opinion arising between Boards and Committees, it is evident that the interposition of the Legislature is highly desirable, and that the sooner an amended Act is passed which will regulate the remuneration of teachers and the circumstances under which schools can be established the better will it be for the cause of education in the colony.