TEACHERS’ LOYALTY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 August 1941, Page 3

TEACHERS’ LOYALTY

RECENT ATTACKS INDIGNATION EXPRESSED. AN OUTSPOKEN PRESIDENT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, August 8. Indignation at recent attacks on the loyalty of teachers, culminating in today's debate in the House of Representatives was expressed tonight by the president of the Now Zealand Educational Institute, Mr D. Forsyth. “Teachers of New Zealand, by their actions overseas in the Air Force, Army and Navy, and by their leadership and work in various patriotic and other military and semi-military activities at home, have proved thenloyalty by deeds, not words,” said Mr Forsyth. “They have been specially selected for criticism from the outset and have suffered in silence, preferring work to talk.” Mr Forsyth said he believed that parents and the public generally appreciated the teachers’ work but it did seem unfair and unjust that because among the 6000 teachers in the Dominion there were some, very few, who chose to exercise what was, when all was said and done, a legal right and had appealed as conscientious objectors, the whole profession should be attacked and the loyalty of its members questioned. Every teachei’ had taken the oath of allegiance and to ask for a fresh one would merely insult the 99.9 per cent of loyal teachers and would not in any way worry the .1 per centage who were disloyal, if the figure were so high. Nor would it increase anyone’s real patriotism by one iota. It was particularly annoying when statement's against teachers’ loyalty were made under the protection of Parliamentary privilege, Mr Forsyth added, and one could not but feel that if that were the official attitude by the Opposition it should be openly stated. If it were not, recalcitrant members of the party should be kept in check.

Finally, said Mr Forsyth, teachers owed a debt of gratitude to those members of the Government, who had so firmly defended their loyalty. Teachers as a body took second place to no one in their practical loyalty.