SERVICE TO EDUCATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 227, 23 August 1935, Page 8

SERVICE TO EDUCATION.

TEACHER’S RETIREMENT. MRS M. EGGERS. With the acceptance of the resignation of Mrs M. Eggers. head teacher at the Whakarongo School, by T the Wanganui Education Board, this week, there is drawing to a close a period of teaching service which lias brought to Mrs Eggers the highest regard of all with whom she has come in contact. The resignation is to be operative as from the end of the year, its early submission allowing the board to make a permanent appointment to date from the beginning of the new year. All Mrs Eggers’s teaching experience has been gained under the Wanganui Education Board and dates from 1897, when she became a member of the staff at the Manaia School as a cadet —a position which, incidentally, carried no salary. The headteacher received £5 a year which he very kindly paid to his cadet. Following that came an appointment at the Mangamingi (Eltham; School which was an observation school, or one selected as a desirable standard of attainment by others, Mrs Eggers being tire sole teacher. From there Mrs Eggers went to the Poliangina School, and then to Waituna West, before being appointed to the AVhakarongo School nine years ago. At Whakarongo, Mrs Eggers has had the satisfaction of seeing the school, which has a roll of between 50 and 60, graded, for the last four years, among the comparative few given the term “excellent.” It was when the Wanganui Education Board had in its area a considerable portion of what is now the Taranaki Education Board’s district that Mrs Eggers commenced her teaching career, and the secretary of the board was then the late Mr A. A. Brown (the first secretary the board had). Then followed the late Mr W. J. Carson, Mr W. H. Swanger (now retired) and the late Mr J. H. Bree, whose position was taken by the present secretary, Mr G. N. Boulton. For six years Mrs Eggers left the teaching profession owing to her being married, but Mr Eggers became ill and is unfortunately still an invalid. The only other break she had was in the year following the influenza epidemic, during which she was stationed at Poliangina. Mrs Eggers’s services in the course of the epidemic to many of those residing in the vicinity earned her much gratitude, but she subsequently suffered a nervous breakdown, which entailed an absence of two months. Following the close of her teaching career, Mrs Eggers intends to take up her residence at Raumati, Paraparaumu.