TEACHING AS A CAREER.

Taihape Daily Times, 16 January 1919, Page 4

TEACHING AS A CAREER.

CAUSTIC OPINIONS. The plight of the average school teacher must bo a very miserable one at the present time judging by remarks made by speakers at the New Zealand Educational Institute’s Conference at Wellington. Mr. H. F. Penlington said that if any young man came to him and asked advice as to whether ho should enter the teaching profession he would reply that if he must go into the profession then he would have to utter to him the words used by Cardinal Wolscy to Cromwell, “Fling away ambition.” Was there anything that would kill ambition more quickly than the teaching profession as at present administered? He had in mind a young man who had taken up a teaching position some eleven years ago. This young man had plenty of ambition and heaps of ability. He had given every satisfaction in his work, but in spite of many applications he was still in the same position. An-

other man with a quarter of a century’s work behind him received just enough pay to allow 8s 10d a week cash for his wife, the members of his family, and himself. “1 have in mind also a normal young girl,” added Mr. Penlington. “She is' merely waiting in the profession now until that time wbe she hopes to meet her affinity. She will wait no longer, for she has an absolute horror of the thought of still being a teacher when she is 40 years of age.”