"DIRTY LINEN."

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14981, 29 April 1909, Page 6

"DIRTY LINEN."

Witbs we read the report of Mr Russell's remarks at the annual meeting of householders in tho Richmond School on Monday evening wo assumed that tho teacher who tad excited his indignation had been gudty of some indiscretion in setting her laundry class a task to which the young people and their parents coidd fairly take exception. We could not believe that a gentleman so closely associated, with the educational work of the community as Mr Russell is woidd make a violent attack uppn a lady teacher without having some real grievance to excuse his extravagant language. But after reading Mr J. H. Howell's explanation of tho incident we afe satisfied that all the indiscretion in. the matter has been displayed by the. member for

Avon. The director of the Technical College shows that it is usual to provide the members of laundry classes with articles to practise upon, and it seems to us that tho custom is quite unobjectionable. Mr Russell's suggestion was that tho teacher had got the girls to do her .own washing in order to save her the trouble of doing it heree-lf or the expense of sending it-to a public laundry. "He had never heard of a greater piece of impudence on tho part of any woman in all his life," ho is reported to have said. "It was a scandalous thing that the children of any school should have been asked to wash a teacher's clothing." Language of this sort would have been hardly justified if the teacher had been guilty of. all the crimes Mr Russell attributed to her, and in tho light of Mr Howell's explanation it is utterly un.pardonable. It was simply to help on the work of the class that the teacher gave her pupila some of her own belongings to wash and iron, and mothers who instruct their girls at home will understand how little she had to gain by this arrangement. We can only suppose that Mr Russell was labouring under somo strange misapprehension of the facts, and that in a fit of pique he was betrayed into saying a great deal that he is now regretting. The letter ho sends to us this morning rather strengthens this impression.