TEACHERS FOR OVERSEAS SCHOOLS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 29 December 1926, Page 6

TEACHERS FOR OVERSEAS SCHOOLS

When travelling round (he Empire as commissioner of the Rhodes Trustees, Dr. M. J : Reitdal! visited many of the independent schools, which, he says, are endeavouring, often against heavy odds, to-joainUin something of what may be called, without offence, the culture and traditions of -the English public schools. In a letter to the "Times," Dr. Kendall says their chief difficulty is to get and lo'rctafn a good leaching staff, and upon this point he writes: —"I went out with the hope of. carrying the system of interchange, already (thanks to the League, of Empire) in active operation in primary schools, into the held of secondary education; but experience showed that this could seldom be effected. There is, however ,an alternative scheme, which might, if the system were once established, be quite as effective as interchange. My suggestion is that some of our best teachers-to-be, public school men with high aims and goods degrees, either before starting their career in England or after a few years' service at home, should do their best for the Empire by seeking a poet in some school abroad either for one two or three years. They will find the boys delightful, the salaries good, the holidays superb. They will carry with them ' something at'least of English ideals and standards, the most valuable commodity we have to export, and they will bring back with them an experience which will widen the scope of all their teaching and, incidentally, shake them out of many conventional ruts; it will, moreover, last for a lifetime. The scheme presents difficulties. It demands real good will on the part of headmasters abroad—l can only say that I found no trace of jealousy or suspicion they were ready one and all to open their doors to us. It demands co-oper-ation on the part of headmasters at home; this they are prepared to give. It demands, above all, great qualities of iieart and head in the men who go out. England must send of her best."