Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express, etc. — 1917-02-03 (Penistone, South Yorkshire, England)

LOW SALARIES.  'Altierin--ari--C-.—A.-I`ir.aia..--sis-t:a.itini at a meeting of the Berkshire County Gunnell, said the starvation salaries paid to some of the teachers employed by the Education Committee were a disgrace to the country. lle knew of a teacher art an infant school who 11511.4 P:litj only 11. a week. . . Aid. E. 1). Mansfield said that of the 'MO supplementary teaehers in Berkshire, 44 received lis. 31d. a week and the others even less.'  Now that ie what our fine , alk really mimes' to; that is really how we appraise the work of training our future citizens! Observe, too, the opening of the quoted advertisement: 'Head Teacher (Female) Required.' The Metropolitan Asylum Board might have maid more hriedy, Ileealmietress'; hut that would have lost them the chance of publishing our national and official cootempt for teat.hers. The gitted lad who wrote 'Little Arthur's History of England' used to say that she would at soon be nailed a bitch as a fi male, and I think most women will agree with her in thought, if nut in word. The contemptible under payment and under estimation of teachers is not a matter that. concerns ouly teacher; themselves; it is a matter of urgent national important. Our indifference has checked and deteriorated the supply of entrants to the professirm in s way that can be called nothing but alarming. The ccrutitry is petting barely half the number of teachers at needs, in spite of the fact that the standard et preliminary requiremean; has now been so lowered that young people too stupid and unintelligent for anything else can be drafted whokeale into the work of teaching—if naiad-slaughter hr incompetent pe.rsons can be called teaching. This, then, is the starting point for all and any schemes of educational reform. The nature and proceses of education itself have been energetically discussed by all teachers from Plato to Montessori. There is ecaroely a single point of theory and practice upon which all the experts are in agreement. Methods change from age to ego, and system swiftly replaces system. But there is one essential of education that never changes; there is one element permauent and unalterable in every system, whether the neweet or the oldest; and that is the contact of the pupil with the soul, the mind, the whole personality of the teac.her. In education the leacher is almost everything, the sy,tem almost nothing. The right Demon can make bad sygtems good, and good systems better; , the wrong person would spoil a system delivend with all the authentic thunder' of Sinai. _  Now, what quality of "females' (and 'males') can we hope to attract to work that is often intensely irritating and always most exhausting, when the rewards are so contemptible that the very Napoleon ot 'females' can never hope for anything beyond three pounds a week (with dinner on school des). and the wretched underlings have to drag out their existence on a few shilling*? When the governors of a well-known public lichool in Routh London wanted • headmaster recently they offered a salary of 42,000 per annum. The whole thing is quite simple. If you want good people you mute make it worth their while; if you offer low salaries and no prospect of anything Twetter you will imply get all the 'duds' who bare not intelli-J genre enough to get reputable jobs. The first, rhe very first, and the moat j urgent of ;ill educational reforms. must be the !payment of such honourable and sulfi-j cient salaries to teachers as will ensure a competitive supply of the right persons. Without that initial reform all the relit will he so utterly I.IqPIVVI that we must oppose them very eiguronely as a wicked waste of public money and effort. The whole potation needs complete readjustment. My Rilftgfrition is that the purulent of teachers should be made a national concern, and be taken altogether out of the halide of petty srangling local aputhorities. Sock a plan could be carried out in several wain that need not he discuss/eat here—the simplest way being the ear-marking of a portion of the (lovernment grant WI a salary fund. If this amount depended on average attendant*. then the evil of very large classes (i.e.. of deliberate under-staffing) would be suppreated. We must really make up our minds to dc, something of the sort. If we want the future eitixens of the Empire to he worthy of their birthright we must give them the beet teachers. If we want the best teachers ' we must pay for them; lint if we are content to let the minds of our children he starved or murdered be eleven ehillingsworth of 'female' - -then in Heaven's name let its stop prating j ahout our :cal for edswation."