THE WAIMATE ADVERTISER. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1901. THE TEACHING PROFESSION.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 101, 12 September 1901, Page 2

THE WAIMATE ADVERTISER. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1901. THE TEACHING PROFESSION.

At the present time there is a great scarcity of teachers in South Canterbury, and several times lately the Education Board have either received no applications for teachershipe advertised, or the applicants did not include a teacher suitable to the vacancy. The North Canterbury Board, also, is Gridingconsiderable difficulty in obtaining teachers for relieving work, and we learn from a contemporary that there are no fewer than ten vacancies advertised this month among the Otago schools, most of them small schools with a salary of £7O. In Otago there is a scarcity of teachers seeking temporary employment as relieving teachers. No doubt these three districts are but typical of the whole colony. Under the new scale of staffing schools, aB proposed by the report of the recent Teachers' Salaries Commission, a large number of additional vacancies for teachers are created, while in effect the number of pupil teachers is "reduced. A very few years ago the colony had a supply of teachers out of all proportion to the number of schools, this being a result of the lavish employment of young people under the name of pupil teachers. The scarcity then was in the number of ( vacancies. Great numbers of i

young teachers, who had served their apprenticeship to the teaching profession, finding that that profession was overcrowded, and that- those who did obtain vacancies were underpaid, looked for Boine other employment. The beßt of them were as successful in this as they had been at teaching, and finding many advantages in the different callings they had taken up, declined to go back to teaching when they could. And who can blame them ? They are

offered in this profession, one of the most responsible there is, the noble snm of £7O a year, and in some cases leas. Fancy offering an educated man or woman £7O for a year's work, in training our future citizens in the way they should go., Were it possible for the teaching profession to be brought under the operations of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, the rise fn salary they would g§t would be the biggest recorded by

the.Conrt. Fully 50 per cent, of >tbe colony's teachers regret that they did not talre np some orber; ' profession, and \this regret is daily * growing when, tboylre© the; high f wages paid for mechanic^'work* J The riie in salary recdmmisnded t Joke- itftifflii: MtfM&lki* I

ia "well-paid there can be no caance of attracting the beat and most suitable men to take np the great work of "teaching the young idea how to shoot."

THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL SERVICE.

FOR the past year, daring which New Zealand's mails have been carried by Mr Sprecklea via San Francisco, the mail service has been most unsatisfactory. At sthe time when the service was commenced- it was thought a three-weekly service would be much superior to the former monthly one, but these expectations have not been fulfilled. On very few occasions have the mails been delivered up to time, and on one occasion the steamer was as much as ten days late. At one time it was defective engines, next strikes interfered with the despatch of the vessel, and then other causes intervened, until it almost seemed as if the line were ill-fated. The New Zealand Government did not subsidise the line by paying a certain fix<nl sum every year, but the payment of about three times the usual rates for the carriage of the mails was really a subsidy with another name. Mr Spreckels refused to enter into any agreement a year ago, and so could not be penalised for-the dehys that were for ever occurring. Now he seeks to make an agreement for five years, but it is to be hoped that the Government will not entertaii the idea for a moment. Mr Wilford and other members ot the House have condemned the service on a-ntun-ber of occasions, and the- press of the colony are against a continuation of the present unsatisfactory arrangement. It is a suicidal policy to the British Empire for any of its dependencies to subsidise or encourage in any way the trade of a country whose avowed object ia to crush "Britain commercially, and in this cape there is no excuse for such action, batisfactory arrangements could be made with Canada and Australia for an " all-red " mail route via Vancouver, and the Govei n,ment will be failing in its duly to the colony if they do not mal o such arrangements.