MR. MANTALINI IN THE SCHOOLS.

Observer, Volume 6, Issue 154, 25 August 1883, Page 3

MR. MANTALINI IN THE SCHOOLS.

Mantalini has got into our public schools, and the creature now dismally wails out that his life is " one demn'd horrid g'ritd." The poor, dear martyr, it seems, has to turn the pedagogic mangle for five days a week, from half -past nine in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, with an interval of an-hour-and-a-half for dinner 1 — about five hours' occupation in all out of the twenty-four, or twcnty-iive hours a week. This, he tells us in a prolonged whine, is " a severe ! mental strain," which his wearing his life ; away, and sending him down with sorrow and | grey hairs to an untimely tomb. He has no leisure during the remaining nineteen hours for billiards, football, doing the block, or invigorating his mind for the herculean intellectual task of j instilling a knowledge of the elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic into juvenile heads. The poor, dear Miss Mantalinis are similarly oppreseed j and over-burthened. Such is the "severe mental strain " on their delicate intellectual and physical organs that they are unable to indulge in the relaxations of writing lillets doux, strumming on the grand piano, or spooning with Augustus Ferdinand in the drawing-room. No wonder that continual appeals are made to our compasI sion on behalf of these unfortunate victims of an exacting Board. It is really heartrending to observe how these wretched slaves of worse than Egyptian taskmasters are wearing away to skeletons under the strain — the Grand Bashaw, for example. We could weep tears of blood over the cad spectacle if onions were not bo very expensive in these hard times, and if there wasn't a man just outside our front window who has been working ever since eight ©'clock this znornin the rain for five shillings a day. -* .

A lawyer — if he is not a briefless barrister — has to wrack his brains (and some lawyers have brains, G-arrard, to the contrary, notwithstanding) from ten o'clock in the morning, or earlier, over knotty legal problems in order to extricate some client from a dilemma, has to sit for hours in the stifling atmosphere of a Court-house, and simulate grief, anger, or admiration over the wrongs or virtues of the party whose cause he has undertaken to plead, and on almost every night of the week has to burn the midnight oil to prepare cases for the next morning. A physician or siu-geon is out among his patients all through the clay, rain or shine, and called out of his b.ed at all hours of the night in cases of emergency. Merchants and business men, after -the wear and tear of the day, the problems of commercial fluctuations and market prices, the excitement of speculation, and the anxieties of gains and losses, are often occupied far into the night in the study ef their ledgers, writing business communications, or planning out the operations of . the -morrow. Clerks' and accountants grind through the late hpurajn -.posting.

up their books; and the pale, jaded editor or reporter, after scouring round for news all day, is engaged until the small hours preparing, the broad sheet for the morning breakfast-table. j But are these professional classes everlastinglyposing as marfcys, and deluging the press with i lachrymose lamentations over the severe " mental and physical strain " which their duties impose upon them ? . *

i Another burning grievance of these illused ! pedagogues is that the Board of Education proposes to reduce the period of their holidays- from six weeks and three days to six weeks, and, instead of giving the holidays in one unbroken, period, to give a week at the end of each of three quarters in the year, and three weeks during the | Christmas season. The teachers who write letters to the newspapers tell us that the change, and especially the loss of these three odd days is going to produce the most calamitous results, mental and physical prostration, and complete disorganization and chaos in the schools, that, unless they can get a clean six weeks to ruralise in the country, make shooting and fishing excusions, or enjoy forty-five days of torpidity like a dormouse or a toad, their faculties must crack under the fearful strain, and there will be a frightful increase of mental paralysis and insanity. But how many among the other professional classes, to whom reference has been made are able to snatch, an interval of even a month from their ceaseless, Ixion-like labours ? And yet we are not called upon to shed a sympathetic tear over their hard lot. It is regarded as a matter of course thafc they must grin and bear it. Lucky may he count himself who can shut-up shop and get away into the green fields and fresh air of the country for even a week. As for the journalist, he has absolutely no holidays at all, and even the Sabbath. rest is denied to him. While other folks are enjoying their holidays he has to chronicle their doings at picnics, excursions, tea-fights, and the like. It is only the delicate, white-handed aesthete engaged in the gigantic labour of imparting a knowledge of the three R.s that suffers from the round ennui and wearinegs of the flesh.

And yefc we have not exhausted the long catalogue of poor Mantalini's wrongs. As if it were not enough to chain him to the school-room mangle fov five mortal hours on fire days of the week (with intervals of six weeks' rest in the year), and to rob him of three days' holiday, the cp.n of his bitterness is filled to overflowing, the last straw is laid on his breaking back, by compulsory calisthenics. Limp young men deficient in backbcne, only held together by the tailor's art, and. tender young ladies with unyielding pullbacks, high-heeled boots, and insecure false-hair, are subjected to the barbarovsL tortures of clubs and dumb-bells by tiafc cruel military martinel and despot, 'Captain Mahon. "If you have tears, prepare to shed them now." The spectacle of these fragile creatures racking their delicate limbs and bending their jelly-fish backs in all sorts of excruciating and undignified attitudes, is enough to drawtears from the eyes of a crocodile. The plain j ktci of the matter is this — The Board recognised : the r-ec-^Jty of physiga} training for the young > j avn, i/nrling- :haf. Captain- Mahon could nofc K^Mlie •'••) c v-?h.n<ls of rill the schools, have { b!"^ •jiitliTYo-.viny ie instruct the teachers - 1 ; j t'l^-^-'hCi;ic:v oi-Jer thafc Uiey umy in turn I imniirb irJS^UrJ'O.: v.; tliny -]r£]}«. ' Jtip n-.it tyoQ^ '■ .--.. -o-..-.>ne>££^opro.-^Hfcrl \n Sft'r-, fhat bofcH .■-■rrc-.s :uc c'.o.r<j:'Cd io^et.ii--f Vv'e h&v c hyiovft us the tim^-f'i!.;]! 1 ■•;:7vi\ up ->y ike L'j'iiicipol of She Auckland Trtunltjg CViiii§.e, v.hi^ii is as follows : — 10.20 to 10.50, Ptiidoni,s "Ti-ttiping College : 11 to 11,40, pupil teachers, not p^s-^iixsi-- .'•::?'- ".£.4U~" to 12 20 y male teachers ; X2.20 to i, temale i teachers. ■* _

This is the sum of that long catalogue of woes on account of which we are continuallybeing asked to "pity the poor teacher." The Sorrows of Werther are nothing to it. There is, however, one plain inference to be drawn fronx this dreadful picture of the teachers' sufferirfgi?; They must be mentally and physically deplorably inferior to other classes of professional men who have to bear without a murmur ten times the amount of mental and physical labour that is imposed on these teachers ; and this being so, a little exercise in the development of their muscles cannot fail to have a beneficial effect. If this fails, they had better try some occupation more fitted to their extremely delicate constitutions.