LIFE OF A COUNTRY TEACHER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 170, 28 June 1900, Page 4

LIFE OF A COUNTRY TEACHER.

[By D. Dickenson Metge, Headmaster, I Helensville.

(From a paper read befor# the Auckland Branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute.) It is no uncommon thing to hear cer-! tain persons discuss the status and circumstances of the State school teacher, From the standpoint of the outsider, the teacher's portion in life is a bed of roses, what with his regular pay, and what with his holidays, he is to the uninitiated a man wholly to be envied. Unfortunately, there is a reverse side to the shield, and I propose, in order to arouse a sense of justice in those responsible, to let you look on the other side. In doing so, take a typical case of a country teacher. "A" has spent 10 or 12 years preparing for his work, and finds himself, after many vicissitudes, master of a country school at a salary of .£l2O a year, plus a house to live in. "A " marries, his school increases, and he prospers, but after perhaps a score of year's earnest and successful work, circumstances arise over which the teacher has no control; the timber is all cut out, the gum all dug, the population has dwindled. "A's" salary, after having increased for some! years, begins to decrease at regular intervals. Meantime "A" has a family of children to educate, and, being of a sanguine temperament, he supposes that experience, attention, care, and diligence, wi'l, as in other professions, bring a reward; he awakes, however, to the fact that these things count for nothing, and that because the population has shifted in the direction of "B," he must see his dearest wishes and aspirations for his wife and family sacrificed, and that at an age when it is too late for him to change his occupation. No other public servants are treated in this way, the Conciliation Board and the Arbitration Court take care of that; no public company could possibly carry on its operations were its servants subjected to periodic and arbitrary reductions in salary. Surely it were possible to devise a scheme by which, wheu once a teacher had thoroughly proved himself a good man and a capable one, he should, by removal, as opportunity arose, have a steady salary, a salary in proportion to his skill and length of service, an increasing salaryif possible; certainly not a diminishing one. Before any appointment is filled, the list of teachers should be scanned, and any teacher placed in such a position as has been I indicated, should have an opportunity | of accepting the vacant place. Again, briefly, why should a teacher be punched because an epidemic happens to visit the district, or why should his children lack bread, because other children's labour is justly required by their parents during fruit harvest ? These matters have been taken up by the Council of _ the New Zealand Educational Institute at its annual meeting at Timaru, and some amendment may reasonably be looked for. Teachers who belittle the Institute should take notice of the Council's action.

It is, however, a matter of deep regret that our representatives at the Educational Conference did not per ceive that in the matter of retiring allowance " A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush," and vote for a yearly bonus to those teachers who had grown grey in the service. Now we shall have to wait (the writer has been waiting for nearly a quarter of a century) for the evolving of some superannuation scheme,- the proposals for which in the past have met with strong opposition at the hands of the teachers themselves— the very men and women who would probably now have been reaping the benefits of such a' fund, had not difficulties been placed 1 in the way of the promoters. We all hail with satisfaction the proposed introduction of a colonial scale of salaries, and we sinctrely hope that the scale will be one acceptable to the country teachers. At present, as you are aware, the salaries are calculated on the average attendance. This is a most unsatisfactory basis on which to work—l say further, it is an unfair basis, and if the attendance is to be taken into consideration under the new system, the bona fidt number on the roll, and not the average attendance, should be the thing considered in fixing salaries.

How can we characterise a scheme |of salaries which is dependent on the vagaries of the weather. Consider how a country teacher under the present absurd arrangement, may have his [ wages lowered for three months simply on account of one wet day 1 There is nothing which causes so much consternation in the teacher's household as the uncertainty of his salary. Well may the New Zealand schoolmaster look upon the possible arrival of a letter from the Board's secretary, intimating that his salary Ims been reduced, as a veritable " Sword of Damocles," for the possibility hangs over the unfortunate man's head from the first morning to the last afternoon of the quarter. Happy indeed is the teacher to whom the elements have been kind—whose neighbourhood the furies of disease have missed in their wreiched flight, who, at the end of the quarter, is in a position to announce to those depending on him, that for the next period at least their broad will be forthcoming, and their water will be sure, and who can honestly exclaim in the now historic words of General George Stewart White, of Ladysmith : " Thank God, we have kept the llag flying !" i Who will adequately tell the true] tale of the country teacher—in many cases cut off from the society and re-! fining influences of cultured men and I [women —denied the amusements and' recreations of town life—tied to a! wearisome round of irksome toil ? He, as "The Man with the Hoe," loses the spirit and misses the wine of life— ' the very genius of his work vanishes,' and as a remedy for this it is proposed forsooth to reduce his salary ; in short, to accentuate the evil. i

Although the writer has an unblemished record for 21 years' service, his salary is £3O less than it was some time ago—and the cause assigned for such reduction ? A falling-oil" in tho attendance! How absurd this must

appear to the Post Office clerks, or even to the members of the Police force. Surely here the labourer is of value to the State, the price of his labour when conscientiously done cannot be over-estimated - cannot be adequately rewarded in hard cash. But if the monetary reward be at once meagre and precarious, there arises this'serious danger to the State, that the \Vork of education may be done — but done perfunctorily and as a matter of routine, without that vim, without that care and cultivation which would bring a hundredf6ld harvest to the State in trained and disciplined citizens. — N.Z. Schoolmaster.