INDIGNANT PROTEST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 July 1940, Page 6

INDIGNANT PROTEST

ON BEHALF OF TEACHERS AGAINST UNSUPPORTED CHARGES. PROFESSION UNSURPASSED IN LOYALTY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “Unfounded and unwarranted allegations against the loyalty of teachers have become so frequent as to demand an emphatic denial,” said Mr D. Forsyth, president of the New Zealand Educational Institute, in an official statement. “All sorts of fantastic charges, quite unsupported, by evidence, had been made by persons not all of whom could be classed as anonymous irresponsibles, Mr Forsyth added. Those whose duty it was to discuss educational affairs should be particularly careful to avoid making statements calculated to undermine public confidence in the very service upon which the democratic system relies most for its continued growth and progress. Yet examples had not been wanting of indiscretion bordering upon irresponsibility in the statements of some public men. Teachers had given and were giving wholehearted support to the national war effort.

“On their behalf.” said Mr Forsyth, "I state quite bluntly that those who by rumour-mongering and by making unsubstantial charges undermine public confidence in the teaching service are themselves guilty of subversive activities. Teachers as a body have no sympathy with subversive elements of any political colour.” During a recent tour of the North Island, where he met literally hundreds of teachers, Mr Forsyth observed, he had been impressed by the manner in which they were facing up to their responsibilities and by the wholehearted enthusiasm with which they were entering into all forms of community and patriotic efforts, in many cases as leaders and organisers. Everywhere. too, they were smarting with indignation at charges made in vague generalities, with no substantia] facts that might be fastened on and refuted. He was convinced that teachers as a whole were as loyal as any body of people in the Empire.