THE DRAIN OF WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 September 1917, Page 5

THE DRAIN OF WAR.

ON PRIMARY TEACHERS. ''Because the schools all appear to he going on as usual, few people realise the great drain made by the war on our teaching staffs" states the Minister for Education (the Hon. J. A. Hana.ii) inthe annual report of the Education Department. "Up to tho present fully 850 primary school teachers liavo gono on acti\e service. This is over one-third of the number of men teachers employed when war broke out. The remainder consists almost entirely of men of the Second Division, youths under twenty years of age, and men who have enlisted 'but have been rejected as medically unfit, Secondary school and technical school teachers have an equally proud record, while four school inspectors, a training college principal, and two professors have also enlisted. It is little to be wondered at that tho boys who have been taught and ( influenced in our schools by teachei s With such evident devotion to their country should follow the example of their teachers and conduct themselves both on and off tho field in a way that wins for them our love aud admiration. "To show in a definite way how the depletion of our staffs through enlistment has affected tho schools," adds the Minister, "it may be stated that in most of our largest school" where there are to be found from two hundred to four hundred boys there is only one male class teacher,' and very few have more than two. In one purely boy 3* school six assistants out of seven aro women. The thanks of the parents of the Dominion are due to the large number of ex-teach-ers, some of them superannuated, who have como back to the schools to keep the v ork going."