The Ensign. GORE : THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21. TEACHERS' PENSIONS.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 856, 21 February 1901, Page 2

The Ensign. GORE : THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21. TEACHERS' PENSIONS.

The recommendation of a recent conference that a pension system in favor of school teachers ' and inspectors should be adopted by Parlia- j merit is one that should not be lost sight of. ' In this matter a very worthy class in the 1 community is deeply concerned. We refer ! to school teachers generally—the inspectors 1 do not bulk so largely, neither is their avoca- 1 tion attended by the same risks and diffi- 1 culties as those peculiar to the career of the teachers. In several branches of the State service pension or superannuation systems have vogue, and the good effect of these must be obvious. No public servants are entitled to greater consideration at the hands of the Government than those in whose charge the destinies of the raw are practically entrusted. To secure the proper education of the young any parsimony ranking under the guise of economy is criminal; is, in short, an act of wilfully stunting the growth of the nation and limiting its possibilities. Even in the best circumstances the life of a State school teacher bears little charm to excite open or covert envy. It is one of arduous labor, it tills a most important part in the colony's political economy, and its efforts rank among the poorest paid of all the professional classes. The true significance of the teaching profession is all inadequately realised. Its members are tolerated as necessary ornaments upon a scheme of progressive civilisation, and thoy are often ground down upon a pittance which many a manual laborer would scorn. A school teacher cannot be said to enjoy even a secure tenure of oflice; the very fact of his or hoibeing under the direct control of local committees forbids the privilege. Practically at the beck and call of a stated number of individuals the Legislature has seen fit to entrust with vital powers in educational matters in every school district, the ' teacher is faced with the possibility of being harassed and persecuted from one year's end to another, until fortune favors his efforts to remove to a more congenial c-ntre. That such a haven should be available for him is in nowise due to the beneficence of the State. It is dependent solely upon whether good luck has decreed that a common sense body of men are 'comprised in any given school committee. It is a debatable point whether the powers of such committees should be curtailed, and while matters remain as at present constituted, some little compensation should be offered to school teachers to counterbalance the risks they run from the contumacy or ill-nature of members of local committees. The most desired compensation, we are persuaded, is in the form of a pension obtainable at a certain age or after a stated period of service. The policeman and the railway servant are privileged in this dirrction, and there is nothing unreasonable in the request rf school teachers to be brought within the fame category. We believe that if more inducements (such, for example, as we have mentioned) were held out the profession of teaching would be much moro sought after than it is at present. That being so, its status would necessarily be raised, because the area of selection would be widened. The eflieient education of the young is as essential to the progress of the nation as is the provision of means for healthpreservation in the form of physicians, but there is no comparison between the monetary reward accruing to members of the two services. School teachers as a class a-e undoubtedly poorly paid, and, until some mean? can be devised for bettering their condition in that respect, it is not extravapant to hope that the Government will at least make their lot in life more attractive by instituting a system whose effect will be to lighten the cares of old age or misfortune. The school teacher is continually under the public eye, and his employment, more than that of anyone else in the community, is dependent upon the sufferance of some few individuals set temporarily in authority over him, by virtue of no other qualification save being householders. Therefore we say that those engaged in the gravely responsible duty of educating the future men and women of the colony, are entitled to the most generous and considerate treatment within the power of the Government to bestow. A pension or superannuation system is quite feasible, and now that the teaching profession has pronounced strongly in favor of its adoption, the country should be prepared to make some little sacrifice to secure its enforcement at as early a date as possible.