TEACHERS' HOLIDAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 5251, 16 December 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

TEACHERS' HOLIDAY.

TO THE EDITOB. Sir—Permit me to make a benevolent but nevertheless not, I think, an impudent or unreasonable suggestion. I wish to ask the Government, one of whose members was a teacher, to give to all New Zealand teachers in the employment of Education Board 3, as well as to " Native" teachers, free railway passes for all the New Zealand railways for a period commencing January Ist and ending February 28th, 1879, on certain conditions. The conditions I propose are as follows :—I would have the passes limited to teachers who have received favourable reports from their respective Inspectors, and whose salaries are not above Ll5O per annum. I would exclude all pseudo teachers, such as, for example, unprofessional wives who may occasionally assist in the school, but who are not recognised by the Board. If the boon I ask is granted, let it be clearly understood that teachers who receive it receive it for themselves alone: parents-in-law, uncles, nephews, cousins, and wives, and sisterb, and sweethearts, must be rigidly excluded so far as relationship is concerned. I would extend the boon to pupil teachers. A teacher, like a preacher and editor, cannot know too much. Travel is the best remedy for the diseases which make men and women oneeyed people. Prejudice yields to friction^ No one wants travel more than the poor village teaoher. As matters are now, a very brief trip, without exhausting his curiosity, very rapidly exhausts his attenuated purse. When I travel I have to pay exactly the same price per mile and per meal as the lord'y squatter, who makes more money while he and his wife are snoring, in one hoar, than I can possibly do in all the hours in all the year. What is Europe to me, or I to Europe? Practically, what is Europe to my pupila ? I, you, we, they, am, and are New Zaalanders. Like it, or like it not, we are practically lifelong residents of this freab, noble land. And, practically, what do we, teachers, know of New Zealand.

We know a very little from a few bouks. As oar witnesses aud eye witnesses we know, I suspect, even less. And yet it is our duty to inform our pupila of the circumstances of their native home. We handsomely pay immigration agents to go to Europe to coax men and womenjto our shores. Surely, sutely, we could afford a few railway tickets to our teaphera, who would on their return from travel invest their pupils' adopted home with an additional charm, borrowed from actual observation. It seems strange that this practical suggestion w»b never proposed at any meeting of our Educational Institute. It might be replied, of course, if teachers receive thin privilege, why should not other Government officers la receipt of Rmall salaries receive a similar boon ? I answer, simply because nmallness of salary constitutes only one element of reason in this request. It is useless to argue this question with people who will weigh a teacher's skill in the identical scales in which they will weigh a pound of butchers' meat, or who will measure his intellect by the same yard-stick employed by them in measuring a Hoyle's print. No; I don't want to Btop the Atlantic with a toasting-fork. Naither do I want to convince people who measure brains by a money utandard. The results produced by an efficient teacher are simply incalculable, and the fact that these results are for a time hid away in some remote village only intensifies his deaire for olairasforrecognltion.becauseitis the village, not merely the city, which most requires tbe presence of at least one intellectual missionary. Let tho Ministers of Education and Hallways interchange notes on this question, and forward tickets to each Education Board, and Romething will be done for the national schooltoaster whioh will throw a gilding of pleasure around his Christmas feast, and restore him to his chair fresh in body, aud grateful in roul. The faithful schoolmaster, who lives and dies in tbe service of education, deserves the best recognition his fellow man can award him.

" Whether on the noffold Ugh, Or In the battle b van— The noblost place for man to die, Is whoro he dies lor man." I am, &c, M. W. Stack. Cambrians, Dec. 14,1878.