EDUCATION REFORMERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9184, 13 October 1888, Page 3

EDUCATION REFORMERS.

TO THE EDITOK. Sin, —Your issue of to-day contains an ' effusion from " Education" which reflects little credit ou the writer, and shows that "Education," with all his education, is bubbling over with spleen against the Education Board, because, forsooth, he is possessed of a high certificate, and only receives £175 a year. " Education" knows full well that the Board, in making its appointments;, takes into consideration other qualities besides a C certificate. A teacher holding a C certificate may be an idiotic, bumptious, self-conceited mass of humanity, that is altogether unfit to bo placed in high authority. He may be one who, while able to decline a Latin verb or solve a problem in Algebra, i? notcompetenb to teach properly the requirements of our primary school standards. 1 fail to see why a , teacher holding an E certificate, and who has shown that he is qualified to pass pupils in the sixth standard, should not be entitled to any appointment under the Board. No secondary subjects are required in the public schools. The abolition of the seventh standard proves this, and I quito agree with Mr. Cooper in saying that the seventh standard should be abolished, as in many ceses where seventh standards exist) they are not composed of the former pupils of the schools, but strangers who come to get the higher branches cheaply, at the expense of the pupils of the lower classes, and if successful in taking off a scholarship, reflect credit on their late teacher, and not on him who laid the foundation, and passed them in the sixth. This in not fair to the general public, and only finds favour with those parents who hav© children in a seventh standard. "Education " is evidently discontented with his present lot, but it seems to me there must) be some good grounds for his lowly position in the profession. He may be one who perhaps " plays fantastic tricks" with his committee or the Board. I would advise him to show by the results of his teaching that ho is a teacher as well as one who is educated, and probably he may succeed. In " Education's " eyes all who have not a C certificate are ignorant. The very tone of his letter stamps him at once as a man of narrow views, and a jealous nature, for why throw mud at the many good teachers holding E certificates?—l am, etc., Onk of the Ignorant. 10th October, 1888.