PUPIL TO HEADMASTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 28, 2 February 1928, Page 6

PUPIL TO HEADMASTER.

Death in the prime of life is always tragic, and at fifty-five a teacher should be at his best. Mr. James Drummond was not spared long to control the great school at which he had been a pupil. A typical product of an educational system designed to open careers to the talents, Mr. Drummond all his life gave his very best to his profession, and there was something peculiarly fitting in his appointment as successor to Mr. Tibbs at the head of Auckland's oldest and most important secondary school. A sense of frustration is mingled with sorrow. Many years of hard work and wide experience had gone to prepare him for this post, but fate willed that he should not hold it long. The question arises whether the conditions of his., post did not contribute materially to his breakdown in health. He was not the only headmaster of a great secondary school who during the last two or three years had to leave his work. These schools have increased enormously in size, and the strain upon headmasters must be very great. The whole question of a headmaster's position as affected by the newer system of schools approaching a thousand in roll number —whether, for example, he has too much detail to attend to —and by the Department's policy of centralisation, should be investigated.