Untitled

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9172, 29 September 1888, Page 4

We have been given to understand that a very large section of the teachers of the district have very keenly appreciated what they are pleased to term the "scathing terms" in which we commented on the action of those schoolmasters who took on them to censure the Board of Education and the School Committees and the Press ; but we have been told that we have not sufficiently discriminated between those who took this role upon them, and those other teachers who, in the background, were tickled at the proceeding. If this is so, it certainly was not what we intended ; nor can we think that anyone could justly take our remarks as having reference to the whole body of our teachers, amongwhom there isa very large number of as sensible and rationally-minded men and women as are to be found in the community. These were represented even among the speakers by at least one who vigorously denounced the futility of attempting to curb the Press, and the unwisdom of it, if it could be done ; and by more than one who objected to the tenor of one or other of the foolish resolutions. _ That such at. these are injured by the impru- , dent demeanour of their more forward colleagues, and that even a prejudice against the order itself is liable to be created by the natural resentment which the public will feel at the assumption of untenable rights, and privileges 011 the part of a few with larger bumps of self-assertion, we are "free to confess ; but there is no intelligent person who will ini volve in one general condemnation the deserving and the undeserving. It certainly might appear as if all those present at the conference of teachers were tacitly assenting to the proceedings in allowing tne resolutions to pass without dissent; but we are informed that it is not so, and that even some who were present—to say nothing of those without, who had nothing to do with the resolutions —are not to be regarded as having any sympathy with the spirit of the principal speakers. This we can readily understand. V* have in the provincial district of Auckland as -worthy and as able j teachers as are to be found in New Zealand, and as conscientious and hardworking workers as are to be found among any class of the community ; and though the bumptiousness of others may tend to direct the linger of amusement sometimes to the " dominie," there are plenty of teachers to redeem the character of the profession as one that is, of right, second to no other calling or profession in the community. That the fantastic vagaries of some of the profession are a source of amusement, if not of annoyance sometimes to these, we can understand: and we shall be happy if our remarks have the effect of producing 111 some minds a juster appreciation of the proportion of things; and of the amount of feasibility in the well-meant; eflorts of Dame Partington to repel the advance of the tide with her broom.