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Evening Star, Issue 16777, 4 July 1918, Page 4

The Duueain Eiceuiive of the lied Cross asked a number of ladies to meet them th.s v.mn.l; to discuss the question of teach-;r-'4 art crafts to the mure infirm returned soldiers at the Montecillo Homo. The matter was fully discussed, and the outcome was that the ladies invited responded to tiie suggestion in a most generous-man-ner, not only refraining from raising difficulties, but doing their best to smooth out such difficulties as had to be faced. It was decided to form an Art Ciafts Instructional Committee, with Miss Doris Ramsay as..secretary, and arrangements were provisionally made by which the ladies under* taka to teach basketwork, pyrography, stencilling, crewel work, mat making, enamelling, pewter work, embroidering, raffia work, .and leather work, both plain and colored. The ladies who have undertaken this task are members of the Red Cross. Two of their number will attend the home every day. Every means will be taken to interest the convalescents and to help them to get fit. A thoroughly up to-date workshop is <"lso to be provided for the use of those of the men who can get about, and in' this shop they may _get practice at carpentering:, shoe-mending, 'injts&wiug, shorthand, ■ typewriting, and

The Education Commission of 1912 recom T mended that tho ThO Council Of Council of Education Education. should funiish.to the Minister, for presentation to Parliament, a report covering their operations for each year ending the 31st December, such report to be presented to Parliament not later than July following. This recommendation finds no place in the now Education Act. Last week tho council met for the third time and passed a number of motions, which we now have before \is.

These resolutions deal largely with the question of salaries, but only with those of beginners in the- teaching profession and tho high officials. The salaries of tha former should certainly be at least equal to those of the cadets in other branches of tho I'ablic Service, but we do not think there is need for incroaso in tho salaries of the higher officers of tho department. The council recommend at least £1,500 a year to tha Director of Education, and material increase in the number and the salaries of inspectors. They say not n, word about the salaries of the teachers of schools of Grades 1 and 2, which comprise more than half tho schools of the Dominion, and are taught by women, who, owing to the distances of their schools from tho nearest neighbor, have to support as companion a mother, a sister, or a friend. They live and work under exceptionally expensive and trying conditions, and, owing to tho system of payment upon average attendance, most of them are inadequately paid. Owing to the same cause salaries within the same grade vary largely between wido limits. In Otago, for instance, the salaries of teachers of Grade 1 schools vary from>£llo to £l4O, and those of teachers of Grade 2 schools from £l4O to £l9O a year. Such variation within the same grade of schools seems to us indefensible. It is our opinion that to each of these grades should be assigned a salary fixed, liberal, and entirely independent of average attendance within the limits of the grade. The Treasury might well relax its purse-strings to this extent. Wo do not forget that the amount paid as teachers' salaries for the year 1815 was £361,504 more than that paid in 1912. Our point is that the Council of Education havo recommended increase of salaries at the wrong end of the service. Wo think, too, that there is no present need for increase in the staff of inspectors, but believe that it would bo profitable to education to appoint some organising teachers, who should be under the direction of tha senior inspectors, and whose duty should bo to spend a week or two in such -schools as seam to the inspectors to need special attention.

Other recommendations involving- tho expenditure of public money are the supply of stationery to schools, the establishment of hostels for secondary schools, and such changes in tho superannuation scheme as would entitle teachers to claim retiring allowance based 011 "the salary for the three highest years' service." While- there does not seem to us pressing need for stationery and hostels, which will come in normal times, wo think there aro good grounds for tho change in tho superannuation scheme, provided that the words we have enclosed in inverted commas are intended to mean the highest salary for three consecutive years, and that the premium fixed for this salary is paid during the years of service (if any) subsequent to the three years of highest salary.' Tho following motions seem to have been passed in ignorance of the provisions made by the department: That emphasis should be laid on utilising literature as an instrument of moral culture. That the history course should bo reviewed, with a view to using it so a* to attain a more effective realisation of how tho conditions of to-day havo evolved.

With regard to the first, it is clear from paragraph 35 oE the regulations that the department has already emphasised the value of literaturo as an instrument of moral culture; and with regard to the. second, it is equally clear from paragraph 34 of the regulations that from the suggestions made therein teachers should find little difficulty in constructing a programme of work the intelligent treatment of which would lead their pupils to realise how the present has grown out of the past, it would have been more to the point if the council had recommended the Minister to exact from candidates for the teaching profession a higher standard of equipment in English literature and English history.

We endorse the council's pronouncement on the question of medical inspection, and would add that the department is at fault in allowing education boards to adopt for use in schools books the type and the spacing of which conform neither to the advice of their own medical otticers nor to that of other experts. We are also in entire agreement with the recommendation that in every schoolroom there should be l'A square feet of iloor space per child ; and we believe that this is the basis on which the department is and has for a considerable time been constructing its class rooms. The council urge as a necessity that the Government should, without delay, "make provision for more adequate space in buildings and playgrounds, and pay more attention to the sanitary condition oi the buildings." If this is intended to include present schools and playgrounds m the cities and larger towns, we may rest assured that the department will not enter upon an undertaking that would entail so large an expenditure of money. When will irresponsible people cease to urge what is urux-alisabie? What we most need and what we can and must aliord are not bricks, mortar, and space, but well-equipped and well-paid teachers ; and it is foolish to urge upon the Government what is beyond their power to provide.

The necessity for the establishment of' continuation classes was pointed out by the Utago inspectors ten or twelve years ago, and was set forth by Mr P. Goyen in his evidenco before the Education Commission of 1912, who made a very pronounced deliverance in support oi this reform. .The question is now, so to say, in the air, and the Council of Education have recommended to the Minister tne establishment of these classes and compulsory attendance thereat by boys and girls between the ages of 14 and 17; but the minimum time limit per year recommended will not secure what these classes are intended to achieve. The recommendation is 120 hours a year ut least, or an average of about three hours a week, which is about a third of the minimum time recommended by the authorities in England. What that is worth doing in several subjects can be done in three hours a week?