THE CANTERBURY CERTIFICATED TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 13, 15 June 1874, Page 3

THE CANTERBURY CERTIFICATED TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION.

The monthly meeting of the members of the Canterbury Certificated Teachers' As ociatiou was held on Saturday afternoon, in the Durham street school-room, and was numerously attended. The President, Mr Cumberworth, occupied the chair.

A letter was received from the secretary of the Nelson Teachers’ Association suggesting that steps should be taken for the formation of a Teachers’ Association for the colony. The secretary was requested to acknowledge the receipt of the letter, and to state that the Canterbury Association would be happy to co-operate in bringing about so desirable an object. The Vice-President (Mr Jacobson) then delivered the following address ; “ Mr President, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — It is with great diffidence that I now address you. Our president last month touched upon neariy every subject of vital importance to the masters of the province, and all I can do is to speak more particularly upon certain points on which he has not spoken fully. You will no doubt think I might have chosen a pleasanter subject than ‘our grievances’ to enlarge upon, but it is the peculiar privilege of our nation to growl, and I think that growling has done a great deal of good, as it it is this spirit that tends to make us seek out and correct abuses, which, if unnoticed, would soon grow into evils of great magnitude. In speaking of the grumbling that does good, I do not mean a mere faultfinding spirit, but a desire not only to expose evils but to remedy them ; and I sincerely think that if these evils are plainly spoken of by us at our meetings those occupying the higher places in the Synagogue may take a hint, and if they think the evif great, may remedy it. There is an idea now widely spread throughout Canterbury; that teachers' salaries are enormous; and it is certainly a fact, that, any reasonable man can live and bring up a small family without getting into debt, but that is all. Taking the tables in the last “ Gazette ” which gives the results down to December 31st, 1872, we find that out of the sixty-four Government schools twenty-six did not have an average attendance of more than thirty children, so their masters’ were only entitled to the lowest grant 8f £l3O per annum and a house ; fourteen were attended by between thirty and forty children, entitling their lucky possessors to a salary of from £l3O to £l5O, though the average is under £l4O ; eighteen were attended by between forty and eighty children, and their masters received £l5O ; one received about £IBO for a school of ninety-eight children, and five received from £IBO to £240. Now it appears from this, that out of the sixtyfour head-masters employed during 1872 fifty-eight received from £l3O to £l5O a year and a house, and only six a larger remuneration. I am aware that during 1873 several large borough schools have been erected, and that there has been a great increase in the children attending school, but still the great majority of the masters are receiving _ from £l3O to £l5O per annum, and I certainly think that, considering what is expected of teachers, it is by no means a large remuneration. I hear that the lowest remuneration for a draper’s assistant is £l5O a year, and we all know that skilled manual labor is better paid than we are, many artisans making from 12s to 15s]per day. Comparatively speaking, therefore, I do not think we are by any means too largely remunerated, and we are certainly not so well remunerated in proportion to the wages of the artisan as the English teachers. It appears to me that the idea started by a near neighbor of mine, which was enlarged upon in an article in the “Lyttelton Times,” was a very good one. You will remember that that article urged that there should be some difference made between a master conducting a school of eighty, and another of only forty children, average attendance. There are a great many schools where the attendance is more than forty, and yet it would be impossible to get up the average to eighty, the master in this case is likely to be less anxious as to his attendance ; he thinks —I am sure of over forty ; what’s the good of looking up the children and bothering; all I shall get for my labor will be extra trouble, and J. shall get no thanks for it. Now all country masters know how much good looking up children does, and how greatly it adds to the attendance and anything that would tend to make teachers anxious to increase their schools, will be beneficial to the public till we have compulsory education. I feel sure that It would benefit the province if the Board gave a few pounds for every additional ten children that a teacher manages to attract to his school. Looking over the ‘ Pall Mall Gazette’ of February 13th, I found an article on the Irish National school teachers. It appears that these gentlemen have been very inadequately remunerated, and have held public meetings at the larger towns to impress this upon the public. What has been the result of this niggardly treatment ? The schools are in a most inefficient state, and the teachers men with very little ability. To quote the i Gazette’ “ The natural consequences of the niggardly treatment meted out to the teachers has, of course, followed. ‘The smallness of the salary attached to the office of teacher,’ writes one inspector, ‘ and the wretched condition of the school houses, seem to me to be the two great impediments to the efficiency and progress of primary education in this district. . . . It is an anomalous state of things that young men who might reasonably aspire to rise to the head of their profession as teachers leave it to become gangers or junior clerks in minor Government offices, or emigrants without having any definite prospect before thern.’ And another inspector says still more definitely : ‘ More than one-half of the principal teachers of the district are in the third or lowest class, including seven probationers ; and when the attainments of these are considered, it will be evident the condition of the schools cannot be satisfactory, and their condition never will be satisfactory until well-trained and thoroughly competent teachers be placed in charge of them. The prospect of attaining this end is not encouraging, as the supply of male candidate teachers is yearly diminishing, while those who do offer are of an inferior stamp. Matters will go from bad to worse unless a large and substantial addition be made to teachers’ incomes.’ It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of the work that is being done in Ireland by the National Schools, but, as we see, their efficiency is rather decreasing than increasing. Indeed,

there is a danger that the supply of com petent teachers will shortly fail altogether/ In England, also, there is a large demand fpr teachers, and the supply of good men quite inadequate to the demand. To illustrate tv.-., a gentleman in this room, who is n® trailed man, and, in fact, never taught in * Government school before he came to New Zealand—and that is not long since—received a letter from a member of tha London School Board, informing him that ha was appointed to the Stepney endowed school, if he chose to go to England, and the appointment to a large London school was guaranteed in a few months. In conversing with those gentlemen who have recently arrived from England, I also discover that, in a pecuniary point of view, they are not by any means better off than they were ak home. Now, having pretty fully discussed the matter of salaries, I come to the point as to what we are expected to do for our money. Any master, to hold even the lowest certificate granted, must pass an examination more difficult than that exacted at home, besides showing a certain aptitude for the work, and if he wishes to attain a leading position, and take a first or even a second-class certificate, he must not only have received during hij» youth an excellent education, but must have kept up his reading. I believe that there are few men in the colonies who, without months of careful study, could pass the first class examination here with credit—anti schoolmasters are no exception to the rule. Many think that being a master tends to improve a man’s education; but this is not the case. The main object in a school is to make the scholars attain a certain degree of efficiency, and when they have reached this they leave to pursue their various occupations, and others supply their place. A school is like a treadmill: you may go on for ever and ever, and yet never reach beyond a certain point. No doubt it tends to make a man perfeat in elementary knowledge, and that a certain routine becomes perfectly well known; but in very few schools does the standard approach the degree of knowledge necessary to take a high certificate, not that the teasfeera are not capable of reaching it, but that the very limited time allowed by the majority of parents for their children to be educated in entirely prevents their attaining any high standard; and we all know whai a strong disinclination one feels to do work of this sort after the school is over, and the more energetically ha has striven to do his Work the more he naturally craves for fresh air and mental rest. Ik should be certainly the effort of the Board to keep the standard of teachers as high as pog* sible, and I am not grumbling at the examination, On the contrary, I am delighted that the effort is being made to raise the Canterbury teaching power to a higher standard of efficiency. All I say is, is it likely that young men of ability able to paw a first-class examination will be likely t<r devote their time and energy to teaching when there are so many other professions so much more highly remunerated? We will suppose a young man has passed, after careful study, an examination entitling him to a first or second-class certificate, and is appointed to a district school of, say #l5O per annum, are his troubles over, and ess he settle down steadily to impart the knowledge he has acquired with so mueh trouble to the future men and women of New Zealand? Xa some few instances he may, but in mosk cases he has merely passed the Scylla examination to strike against that terrible Charybdis—a school committee. A school* master at present is entirely under the command of his committee ; he is not allowed to communicate directly with the Board, but must do so through the chairman of his committee. It is his committee who decide how many hours per week shall be devoted to sewing ; it is his committee who, sitting in mysterious conclave, pass censure upon his actions, how often with great injustice the past can show, I can fancy the amazement and horror of an unfortunate farmer should a dozen schoolmasters be appointed to judge his work } imagine his disgust at their absurd criticisms on the breadth of his furrows, the quality of his beasts, or the proper sort of wheat to suit particular soils. Fancy what a universal shriek of horror they would raise from one end of Canterbury to another, were they subject to such a thing; and yet every teacher here is under such control. There are many committees, of course, that are composed of men capable of judging, bufc there are many where the majority of the members are not. Local interest in undoubtedly a good thing, and should- be fostered, but the vocation of a committee should be to keep the grounds in proper order, observe that the buildings were in aproper state of repair, and of course, see that the teacher kept the school open during the proper hours and conducted himself properijfc but there their power should end; thqy should not be able to appoint a master or discharge him, that should be really as it is now nominally, the province of the Board. If the committee wished for any alteration in the manner of teaching, let them be allowed to write to the Board, and then let the Board communicate with the taacher. If feh® teachers generally could only be brought to look upon the Board as their friends, anxious to help them, and not ashamed to recognise them, except through the stately medium of the chairmen of local it would remove one strong objection to our profession. As we are at present situated we are nobody’s friendt, bat fair butts to the world at large. Many think that the local committees comprise the wealth and wisdom of a district, but it is too often the more seisy and factions taefci who thrust themselves forward to hold this position. One great difficulty in the present scheme is this, that a teacher takes a small country school and signs an agreement to the effect that he must give a certain notice of say three months before he can leave. He may be a remarkably good man, holding a first or second class certificate, and a capital teacher. Years pass on, and he thinks that it is time that he was promoted to a bigger school. Well, he sees an advertisement in the paper, a superior school is vacant, and he thinks that if he applied he should get it. Perhaps he is a man with a wife and children, and therefore anxious neff; to leave hi* present employment till he nas procured some other situation. What can he do, even supposing the vacancy will be open for three months. He must give immediate notice to his committee, who of course at once advertise for another master. Suppose at the end: of the three months he is not elected, he is thrown out of employment. But great majority of cases he has not even, this chance, for most sehools are advertised only a week or two before the master is wanted, and the consequence is that his engagement with his committee utterly preclude his having the chance of applying, and the consequence is able teachers vegetate in small country

schools, while others, allowed to be inferior in every way, gain the larger schools because they were out of employment at the time the vacancy occurred. There is only one remedy for this, and that is apparent to all of us. We are all classed and ticketed, and why does not the Board assign to us our various positions ? Is it right, is it fair, that those who have been doing good work for years should be passed over, and others seize the prizes ? How much better it would be if the Board would appoint some one as a reward for his exertions in a more limited sphere. Imagine how it would spur us on if we knew that after a certain amount of drudgery there was some goal to be won, some higher point to be reached, instead of a dead level of monotonous existence with a background of weariness and death. And this brings me to one other most important point, and that is the anxiety we must all feel for the future. Teaching is exhausting work, and the average lives of teachers are very short. Nearly all of us have wives and children, some of us a great many of the latter, and though £l4O or £l5O a year is. no doubt, an immense income, yet at the year’s end, what with dressing our wives and children respectably and living reasonably, most of us find that we cannot lay by an immense sum of money for the benefit of our dear ones. The soldier and sailor are pensioned, and the members of the civil service are pensioned, and yet we who undertake arduous duty of instruction, who by means of that instruction save the country thousands by lessening ignorance, and therefore crime, and the costly paraphernalia of policemen and prisons, are left, if illness or infirmity come upon us and prevents us from actively pursuing our calling, without any succour to struggle on to a miserable death, or if we die our dear ones are left destitute. Surely when millions are being disposed of some small amount might be granted to masters after a certain time of service, and granted as justice, not charity, so that there might be no humiliation in accepting it—after having passed trial by examination, trial by committee, trial by parents, trial by children, and trial by inspector, surely it it is not much to ask. I sincerely hope to see the time when the children of all, whether rich or poor, will attend Government schools, when through a serious of graded schools every intelligent child shall be able to receive a liberal education at a small cost, and a race of men and women raised in the colony capable of taking an intelligent interest in the prosperity of their beautiful country, and I do not think that in this age of progress it is too much to look forward to—but to do this we must make the profession attractive, for we cannot get outside aid, as teaching power is scarce all over the globe,—the object therefore should be to attract the wisest and best of the colonial youth to adopt it. No object is of more importance or will better repay the money expended on it. It must be borne in mind that I have been speaking generally, in my own case I have been lucky enough to meet with great kindness throughout my scholastic career, and, take it as a whole, it has been a very happy one, but that is no argument that great reforms are not required. If we will only work together, only try by means of remonstrance-to call the attention of thinking men to our position amongst them, sink our own petty disagreements and absurd jealousies, get out of the petty groove we are apt to fall into through being small monarchs in our way, and take broad views of men and things, there is little doubt that we shall be able to do much good both to ourselves and the public—to ourselves by imparting to each other our various ideas on the different methods of imparting instruction and rubbing off the odd corners and angles in our character, of which most of us have one or two to dispose of, and to the public by putting forth our views on education from a schoolmaster’s point of view. An idea was mooted some time ago that a master should be a member of the Board, in order to express the views of his class, but it will be seen at a glance that this is almost impracticable, and if it were, “ What would he be amongst so many ?” Instead of that, let this association be the member of the Board ; not certainly taking its seat with that body, but from time to time giving to the public, in the voice of the united schoolmasters of Canterbury, our opinion on matters connected with education. Such a voice should and would have great consideration, and I am sure that the Board —which I know we all agree is composed of men any province might be well proud of—will be thankful for any suggestion we may make ; they all wish to see us happy, as well as to see education prosper, and it is our duty to help them in their arduous task by pointing out the way in which they can help us, and help the cause of education. Let us remember above all things, not to be factious or •violent 5 while expressing our opinions freely, let us always show proper respect to those placed in authority over us, and then they will respect us. Ours is no combination to attain certain ends by exercising our power, no trades union ; we are merely a deliberative body that give our opinions from time to time on matters that affect us vitally. With expressing that opinion let our functions cease ; if it is a good and true one, it will be eventually adopted. In conclusion I trust that the association is to be no temporary outburst but a lasting institution, We are all in the same boat, and have the same ends to seek, and until the Governtdent take some steps we should certainly hit upon some plan by which our families, if deprived of us by accident or death, will be placed above the reach of destitution, or what is merely a lesser evil, charity. Surely some annual levy might be made upon us all, and the money so raised be claimed as a right and not as a charity by ourselves if incapacitated, or by our families in case of our death. A distressing case has recently occurred, and I hope that all those gentlemen present (if there are any) who have not already subscribed will communicate with Mr Elwin on the subject, as he knows all the particulars. That this institution may long flourish and be of great benefit to the public and ourselves, is the sincere wish of your Vice-President.”

On the motion of Mr Elwin, a unanimous vote of thanks was accorded to the vicepresident for his valuable address. It was determined that the annual meeting should be held on the second Saturday in July, when the election of officers for the ensuing twelvemonths will take place.

On the motion of Mr Elwin a sub-com-mittee was appointed to draw up a scheme of mutual assurance, so as to provide a fund in cases of the sickness or death of teachers. At the next monthly meeting a paper on “Infant Education” will be read by Mr J. B. B. Taylor, B.A. The meeting terminated with a vote of thanks to the president.