Teachers and Military Service.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16271, 23 July 1918, Page 6

Teachers and Military Service.

From his reply to a deputation which waited on him in Auckland last week, we conclude that tho Minister of Education is in favour of the exemption of

primary school teachors from service in the Expeditionary Force. He had latently discussed the matter, he said, with the chairman of the Efficiency Board, who agreed with him that tho time had arrived when, in the interests of education, they should call a halt in the drafting jof teachers. Accordingly he intends to ask Mr Ma&sey and Sir Joseph Ward, when they return to New Zealand, to give the Director of Education the power of lodging appeals. At present appeals for teachers on tho ground of occupation can be made only by tho Education Boards, and tho practice of the .Boards is not uniform. Somo appeal, and some do not. The Canterbury Education Board decided at its last meeting that it would not appeal for any of its teachers, this decision being based upon the fact th'at hitherto there has been no great difficulty about filling the places of teachers called up under the Act. That appears to us to be a sound attitude to adopt. Other Boards, of course, may not have been so fortunate in securing substitutes, for conditions may vary as between one district and another. It seoms to us that it would be better to leave the power of appeal to the various Boards instead of placing it in the hands of the Director of Education. If the Minister contemplates that the Director of Education should appeal only where appeals are desirable, then the present toothod will do just as well, for the Director would have to seek the advice of the Board concerned in order to know whether any particular teacher could or could not be satisfactorily replaced. If, on the other hand, the Minister's idea is that teachers generally should b;> exempted, it i 9 a bad idea. We feel as strongly as anyone can tho tremendous importance of avoiding anything like the crippling of our education machinery. The teacher's function iB as im* portant and essential as the function of any other useful citizen, and more important and essential than most. It would be as bad business—to carry the case to. its extreme —to send the last teacher away us to send the last farmer away. But a farmer cannot expect exemption from service on the sole ground that he is a farmer; nor should a teacher. There is a point at which any further depletion of the supply of teachers would be unwise, but it is not clear that that point has yet been reached generally. In the case of Canterbury it has not yet been reached. We welcome every piece of ovidence of a growing appreciation of the importance of the teacher in the community's organisation, but we are 6ure that the Minister ought to give further consideration to the matter before committing himself to the idea that teachers, qua teachers, should be exempt from service.