TEACHERS’ CERTIFICATES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5553, 15 January 1879, Page 3

TEACHERS’ CERTIFICATES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —Your correspondent “A Wellington Teacher " seems to be very much exercised in his mind on the subject of tho new departmental certificates issued by the InspectorGeneral. It is not my intention to reply to the remarks of “ A Wellington Teacher ”in detail, but to show by the invincible logic of facts that Mr. Habens is fully justified In the course he has puisued. The grievance of which your correspondent complains so bitterly appears to be that Mr. Habeas has not accepted the certificates of the Wellington Board at their nominal value. Permit me to say that by accepting those certificates at their actual instead of their nominal value, Mr. Habens has shown at once his good sense and his peculiar fitness for the high office which he occupies. “ A Wellington Teacher ” evidently thinks Mr. Lee’s certificates were equal, if not superior, to all others. I, on the other hand, think they are radically and fundamentally defective, inasmuch as they were given for literary attainments pure and simple, and without reference to the professional experience and ability of the recipients. In fact, Mr. Lee admitted as much at a recent meeting of the Board. I have long held these view with regard to the Wellington certificates, and therefore hail with unqualified satisfaction the beginning of better days. That considerable dissatisfaction and dissapointment should be engendered by the rearrangement of the classification is only natural. No man likes to be reduoedfromafirstpositiontoafourth or fifth rank, and I 'sympathise very strongly with the teachers thus situated. For I must admit my sympathies are with the teachers whenever they have a clear case. The altered circumstances of many teachers in this district, as indicated above, arise from no fault of theirs, but is attributable solely to the vicious system under which they entered the service; a system, indeed, which violated the first principles of equity. The great objection to Mr. Lee’s system of awarding the higher certificates was this, that they tvere given for literary attainments only. And hence it has been no uncommon thing for a young man, ignorant of the alphabet of the profession, but possessed of some classical or mathematical knowledge, to obtain a first class certificate in a few months. Did the possession of this certificate make him a teacher ? I answer decidedly and emphatically no. While this has ■ been going on, men upon whom the Board have depended to do their work, who have occupied the first positions so far as responsibility is concerned, and who have contributed not a little to bring the education of the province into its present high position ; men of great general information and unquestioned ability, but who were not classical scholars, were . classified in the lowest rank and received the lowest pay.

Surely professional ability and experience should take equal rank with mere literary attainments; and herein a grievous wrong was done to many excellent men whose laborious exertions in the cause of education and continued success would elsewhere have place d them in the front rank of the profession. Whoever heard of an apprentice boy receiving bis indentures and being placed on full pay as soon as he entered the workshop, while first-class workmen upon whom the master depended to do his work received apprentice wages ? Yet this is just what has obtained in

the teaching profession in this district, and I think we may heartily rejoice that we see “the beginning of the end ” of it. Far be itfrom me to discourage high literary attainments among teachers. In fact, I believe the time is come when much higher qualifications in this respect in the teacher will be necessary than those which hitherto characterissd the “first-class man.” But experience and a thorough knowledge of the profession cannot be dispensed with, and must be coordinate with literary proficiency. And herein, to my mind, lies the peculiar excellence of Mr. Habens’ classfication. He has done tho one and not left the other undone.

I have extended these remarks to a much greater length than I intended at the outset ; but tho subject is an important one, lying as it does at the very foundation of the efficiency of ouf teaching staff, —I am, &c., Another Wellington Teacher.