TEACHERS' WORK

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 69, 23 March 1939, Page 10

TEACHERS' WORK

"ELEMENT OF PATRONAGE"

Much of the fine things said about teachers and their profession was mere lip-service, declared Mr. F. Martyn Renner, headmaster of Rongotai College, in addressing the Parents' Association last night.

"We hear a good deal of that kind of thing at annual-prize distributions,"' he continued, "or when distinguished personages visit the school. Whether all the nice things said are to confirm the boys in a belief that they may find it difficult to hold, or whether it is in the nature of a word of comfort to people who spend their lives remote from the active adult world and whose work is concerned with children, I cannot pretend to say. But that there is an element of patronage, an air of sympathetic pity in the business and professional man's attitude to the teachers, I am convinced.

"The conception of a teacher's life, and the measure of what he shall or shall not contribute to the thoughts and ideals and policy of his country makes it difficult for him to live a complete life even in the British democracies; and yet a teacher's position in a democracy is important, however much convention or law or custom may bid him stand aside from any intelligent participation in making his contribution to democracy. , . ."