SCHOOL HOLIDAYS.

Evening Star, Issue 7876, 8 April 1889, Page 3

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS.

TO TIIE EDITOR. SIU, —With your permission I wish to reply to Mr Bennett's letter in your issue of Saturday night, The " apology " Mr Bennett received from mo was to tho following effect:—" 30th March, ISS9. Referring to the clause in your report to this Committee last evening that a statement reilecting on the staff of the school had appeared in tho Board's report, apparently from tho Committee, which has greatly irritated the staff as a whole, I have to mention than an error occurred in the letter. It was not intended to reflect upon tho teaching staff as a whole, but only on thoso who ought to have been at their posts when the school reopened. No one regrets more than myself that this stupid blunder happened, as I do not wish needlessly to hurt tho feelings of anyone. I am, etc." Of course anyone can easily understand that the Committee had no desiro to, and did not, blame those teachers who were present when the school reopened, it was only with thoso who were absent that any fault was found. I may further add that the letter was sent at tho express request of Mr lugs, the late chairman of tho School Committee.

At the Schools Conference, in moving the resolution that a uniform system of holidays be agreed upon, I stated that in this school district the Committee at first arranged that the break-up of the school should take place on tho 11th December, tho pionic on the 12th, and that the school be reopened on the 22nd January, thus giving forty-ono days (or almost six weeks) as holidays. On this having been intimated to tho head-master, he, not only in personal interviews with members of Committee and myself, but by lettors, urged that tho holidays should bo extended to tho 29th January, as a number of teachers intended to proceed to Melbourne to the Exhibition, and tho U.S.S. Company had offered them certain concessions if they would all return by the same steamer, which would arrive that morning ; and a deputation of tho teachers also waited upon the Committee one evening to urge the samo. Tho Committee, after considerable hesitation, granted the request; but when the school reopened the second male assistant teacher did not turn up until two days, aud one of the pupil-teachers nearly three weeks afterwards. I further said that the school reopened on tho Tuesday, and Mr Bennett, without consulting tho Committee, gavo tho children a half-holiday on the following Friday in order that tho children might run olf somo prizes for toys which they had been unable to do on the day set apart for tho picnic, which, being wet, was not held ; that the Committee refused a holiday on tho first day of the races (Cup day), and consequently tho attendanco at the school on that day was very small ; that they had granted a halfholiday on the occasion of luying the foundation stone of tho Exhibition; but Anniversary Day occurring three days afterwards, and falling on a Saturday, when the school was closed at any rate, they had refusod a holiday on the following Monday and in order to do away with any jealousies in future about one school being closed and another kept open, I thought it desirable that a uniform system of holidays in all the schools in and around Dunedin should be adopted, and moved accordingly. That was my speech at the Conference, and I dofy Mr Bennett or anyone else to point out a single sentence which is either incorrect or false.

Mr Bennett is too ready with his assertions, lie says that " the statement that the teachers had received a smart lesson, etc., was unauthorised, and wac repudiated by the Committee." It was nothing of the sort, as tho minute book dhows. He further states " that out of a staff of twelve teachers no one was to blame except a pupil-teacher whohad only entered tho schoola few months." He conveniently forgote the second male assistant, who was not at his post until the 31st January, and whom the Committeo hauled over tho coals for his absence, they considering that he, of tho wholo staff, ought to havo been present when the school reopened, as ho was a member of tho deputation to the Committeo asking for the extension of the holidays from the 22nd to the 29th January ; and as the concession was granted, he of all others should have made it a point of honor to have been at his duties when the school reopened. I am not aware that the school status has been "lowered" or the teachers' salaries " reduced " by the Committee's refusal to grant holidays on Cup Day and the 25th March ; but this I can authoritatively state, that the incomo of the Committee has not been curtailed. Despito " their imprudence and obstinacy," their allowanco for the quarter ended 31st March last was of the same amount as the quarter ended 31st December, 1888. I must apologise for tho length of this letter; but I have entered thus fully into tho matter in order that I might clearly show that Mr Bennett's letter, stating that this was false, that incorrect, and the other wrong, will not bear scrutiny ; and that he really ought to be more careful before he writes to the Press upon subjects some of which he must necessarily be ignorant of, and some, as in this instance, which prove upon examination to be positively untrue.— I am, etc., Thomas R. Dodds. South Duncdin, April 8.