THE STATE & EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 151, 23 December 1918, Page 3

THE STATE & EDUCATION

TO ID I EDITOR.

Sir, —On many occasions you have made it clear that in your opinion our Government has failed to give due consideration to, the problems of education. Your correspondent "Fidus Achates" now emphasises an aspect of the problem that has never been sufficiently emphasised That is that our educationists (and more especially our scientists) have never asserted themselves in such a way as to make their presence felt in the community Our teachers generally—primary, secondary, and University—instead of leading the community openly and fearlessly in intellectual, social and other connections apparently shrink from asserting themselves and claiming their due. This timidity is a survival, no doubt, from the da.ya when education was a mere adjunct of the Church and the teacher the humble subordinate of the parson or the priest. Members of Parliament, State school teachers, and University professors are the servants of the people—but servants, who should lead and not servilely or silently follow, if any real political, social and educational progress is to be made Surely, in all reason, a State school teacher in charge of a school of say, 160 pupils, i» entitled to social status and emoluments equal to those of the average successful doctor or lawyer. Can any sound reason be assigned why the teacher (primary, secondary, or University) should not be entitled to as high social status and to as high emoluments as their brethren in the various branches of the medical and legal professions? The "profession" of the teacher is surely as. "learned" as that of either doctor or lawyer, and of as much value to the community. As .a . matter of fact the "average" headmaster in our State schools receives far less than half the salary paid to the higher officers in the purely mechanical departments of the Civil Service, while the educational and intellectual equipment of such headmaster is infinitely higher. Read the advertisement columns in the press and you will find that managers ■in drapery stores, boot stores, grain stores, dairy factories, etc., are offered higher salaries than secondary teachers, and even than University professors. There is surely something radically wrong when such a condition of things is possible! It is high time (hat our teachers should wake up and mnke their presence felt, and their voices heard in the community. They have been exploited all too long—and sad to relate— the only political party which can be said to show any genuine sympathy for th«m is the Labour and Socialist party Perhaps that party alone can give \is such a re-classification of society as will give to intellectual labour its due place, and indeed; to all forms of social service the place and remuneration to which they are entitled. Think of the sorry figure the present Minister of Education cuts under the auspices of the Massey-Ward regime! No money to spare for education! Ample supplies for cold storage to enable meat people a.nd middlemen to feed fat on the helpless bottom-dogs of the Empire and of this Dominion ! Ah ! Yes, a Daniel has come to judgment in the shape of the learned President of the Employers' Federation, who can apparently, with a clear conscience claim before High Heaven and the Capitalists and moneymanipulators in the community that the economic status quo has been the making of us, and its retention onr only hope socially and economically!—l am, etc., SOCIAL SERVICE.