The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1913. THE SCHOOLMASTER’S TASKS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 99, 3 May 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1913. THE SCHOOLMASTER’S TASKS.

It is very truly remarked by the Wellington Post that as parental care

and responsibility slacken, the tasks nt' the schoolmaster increase. The l*ost goes on to say: More and more he is expected to act in place of the parent, as a citizen-maker, from the mental, moral, and physical standpoints. “Send it to the school,” is the cry of every enthusiast who has a notion for bringing the millennium a little nearer. The latest worry is connected with the medical inspection of children. This is a necessary insurance against parental ignorance of the early stages of ailments, or their neglect in many cases when l trouble is apparent to any close observer. The teachers do not deny the need, bu t they have just cause for complaint against some of the tedious statistical recording which they are expected to do. A headmaster may be required to do much drudgery as a “junior clerk” in filling the cards on which the pupils’ state of body is registered. If this were the only “clerking” work that the masters had to do they would not be grumbling, but it is only one of a number. The modern passion for statistics and returns demands much official writing from the master. Obviously the principal purpose of his life is to teach—to turn nut boys and girls equipped for the world—but more and more, year by year, he is obliged to produce a multiplicity of figures and statements about them, till he is tempted to believe that Ids function is rather to pile up statistics than to deliver tho real good:, to have a |l :'b ~T

paper currency of tilings scholastic rather than a living circulation of trained youth. Statistics, in reason, are necessary, but it is absurd to have the teachers overburdened with clerical hack-work. If the authorities persist in a belief that everything must be pursued to a remote place of decimals, they should make proper provision for the industry. The teachers have more than enough to do without this excessive junior clerking.