TEACHERS’ SALARIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12531, 19 June 1901, Page 9

TEACHERS’ SALARIES.

TO THE KDITOB. Sir, —I have read with interest the correspondence that has taken place in your oslumns -upon -the above subject, and seeing reference was made to a leading article of °yours which I had missed reading, 1 made it my business to look it up, and I must confess that its tone more than staggered me. I conld hardly believe I was reading an editorial article in a leading Liberal paper. I came to the conclusion that it was written, with an object, and that object was to back up Mr Hogben’s near scheme, which i® intended to make a r-eduoti-on in the -salaries of teachers throughout the colony of some £SOOO, mainly by di-splaoing male assistants, reducing them- to a lower grade/and filling -their places with female teacners. With' regard to the assertions made in your article, they will not hear the light of examination. For instance-, you -compare -the lot of teachers with clerks, and point out that after eight years the ©nances of improvement or openings are fewer and far less inviting than in -the teaching profession. What! Well, i don’t, wish to b© rude, but I could instance in 'this city young men who are in .business on their -own .account afie-r a ’/h-orter period than eight years. Wire, nearly every leading merchant and bi;.s:r. man of this city wa-s at one time- ;l i’. employee, and I never heard of any Cun: / -h or Vanderbilts -being evolved from the teaching profession. 'With regard to the plum-s, as" you call them, being numerous, in -the name of fortune who toM. you that? A vacancy for a headmaster in tone of the large city schools does not occur once in, a quarter of a century. So much for your numerous chances. And what is the salary of a -public schoolmaster compared to that of a manager of one of our 'Leading mercantile institutions? In conclusion, allow me to state that I -am not a school teacher, but the father of children attending a public school, and -as such I don’t want salaries reduced. I want them increased, so that "the'best men may bs attracted -to the teaching profession-, for I consider nothing is 'so important as the training of our children, and the better teachers w© have the better equipped will -our children be to enable them to -go out, in the wor.d and fight tno battle of Life. —I am, etc., ANIT-SWEATING.