TEACHERS' RESIDENCES.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13901, 28 November 1910, Page 6

TEACHERS' RESIDENCES.

The investigations into the condition of teachers' residences in this district that have been conducted by the North Canterbury branch ot I h< , Educational Institute have brought to light a number of tacts which fiiiiy support the complaints made yimo time ago about the lack of comfort in the houses provided for teachers, particularly in the ease of country schools. Correspondents' lettui*,, some of them apparently being written by wives ot country schoolmasters, set forth in detail tho discomfort r.nd inconvenience caused by the absence from these reai-dt-ne-es of such elementary requirements a.s bathrooms and pantries. No clerk or artisan would, if he could help himself, live in a house without a barnroom, nor condemn his uife to muddle alony without ji scullery or a washhouse. Vet the Institute's enquiries revoal.that out of 110 schools in North Canterbury, 97 have no bath, 3-j no eeullery, .11 no pantry, (U no washhouse, and 32 no coal-shed. The conveniences mentioned cannot, by any process of reasoning, ho regarded a.s luxuries; they are among the most ordinary necessities of decent comfortable life, and it should not be left to a teacher, who may not occupy the schoolhouse in any particular district for more than a couple of years, to spend his own money in providing conveniences which are as necessary to the comfort of himself and his family as doors and chimneys in his house. Of course, not very much can bo expected in the case of residences that wero built thirty or forty years ago; they were not designed to meet the standard of comfort to which the average householder is accustomed nowadays. Sooner or later tho Board of Education will have to undertake a re-building programme on a tolerably extensive scale, and it is with that emergency in view that it has wisely built up the reserve fund which was the subject of Mr Fowlds's criticism, and which was seized upon by him as an excuse for withholding tho usual grant last year. In the meantime, the Board, from the point of view of policy as well as of humanity, should do what it can to improve the conditions under which its teachers live. It is not as if the latter had any choice of residence, for in many instances in tho country the official residence is tho only house available, and in any case tho fact that the schoolmaster doe 3 not have to pay rent for it is not forgotten in fixing his salary. Tho idea that all that: a teacher needs is lour or five rooms and a roof is a mistaken one, and one. that may have had .some effect in making country schools unpopular.