Favouritism in Educational Appointments

Observer, Volume X, Issue 624, 13 December 1890, Page 4

Favouritism in Educational Appointments-

Mr Udy's scheme for the fixing of teachers' salaries according to merit is now a forgotten affair. The members of the Board of Education attended the meeting in full force at which that scheme was scornfully rejected. They have never attended in full force at any meeting since then, although there can hardly be a doubt that their keen interest in other considerations than mere salaries is just as lively as ever it was— that is, it has no other life whatever ; no, and not even a decent pretence to any. # * #

It has been shown that a teacher in the lowest class, which is E, is now, and has been for over ten years, in receipt of a salary of over £320 a year, a • friend " of certain members on the Board of Education ; while another teacher of equal merit is now, and has been for years, not receiving one half that figure. Mr Udy's scheme, if applied, would equalise those salaries ; hence that scheme was rejected with scorn.

Take another case. A teacher in class ois now, and has been for years, receiving a salary of £500 a year ; while another teacher of equal merit is not receiving, one third of that amount — the former being a ' friend,' as I need scarcely add, but the latter a 'no friend.' The application of Mr Udy'B scheme would do away with such a shameless style of apportioning the public funds by a public body of men ; and hence that scheme was denounced by all the orators among that body of public men, with all the oratory at their command, and vehemently rejected. Never before, and never since, was seen such vehemence, so much earnestness, or so much verbosity in the generally humdrum proceedings of the Board of Education, and not without reason.

For consider. £320 a year for one of the numerous ring of ' friends ' is not a small matter, ignorant though that ' friend ' be, and utterly disgraceful though it be as well to bestow upon him out of the public funds such a large grant. Did his ' friends ' on the Board care to bestow money upon him out of their own resources, they would act as friends do act, and their generosity would do them credit ; but to push him into a situation over the beads of more deserving teachers, and to keep him there at a salary of £320, not one penny of which comes out of their own pockets, is at once a disgrace to the hallowed name of friendship, and a piece of gross public injustice on the part of the Board, not to speak of the foul stain it casts upon the name of public secular education.

That salary of £320 should be given — who can deny it ? —to some better deserving teacher, and is it not most dishonest and unjust not to give it to him whose right it is ? And does it make the least difference in the moral wickedness of the matter, that that dishonesty and this injustice are perpetrated under the cover of administering the Education Act? Not the least. To enrich that ' friend,' the members of the Board have to rob another teacher by not giving him his right; and they do this by what is de&cnbed as ' legalised robbery ' — which is the basest and meanest species of robbery, for the robbery is really done, but the due punishment is evaded.

The midnight burglar, or the daylight pick-pocket, is maladroit enough not to rob, in such a safe fashion, under the cover of the Jaw ; and if caught with the stolen valuables or money in his possession is consigned to durance vile ; the petty stealer from a hen-roost if caught with some of the fowls— another person's property, and brought before Dr. Giles, would very likely get three months' sojourn in Mount Eden gaol, and quite right. Yet I very much doubt whether the robbery of a few pounds from a dwelling honse, or the picking of a few pounas from the person, or the stealing of a few fowls from a hen-roost is either morally or materially a greater crime than it is to give £320 a year to a man, to which another person is rightly entitled, even though it be done under or within the cover of the law. But to do such things in the future, and to maintain intact Buch as have already been done, is clearly the reason why Mr Udy's scheme of salaries was rejected by our local so-called Board of Education. # * *

The shamelessness of the rejection of that scheme becomes more manifest when it is recollected that no scheme whatever •was subaiiiutcd in its place. That glaring anomalies existed was not of course denied, for there on the Board's table lay a long list of them ; but to do away with such .anomalies, or to interfere with the Board's freedom of making grams oat of the public funds to • friends,' was tho very Jast thing that the Board would consent to. Mr Cooper said so much. Had there been any desire to acr, fairly or according to the law, then of course Mi Udy's scheme would be readily accepted, «or amended where faulty, but not totally thrown overboard, with vehement Boom and passion.

How the members manage to push their ' friends ' into the lucrative posts, no matter bow Bhamelees a transaction it be to do so^unu how undeserving as teachers the ' friends' be, und to keep out the • no friends ' from euch posts, no matter how deserving as teachers they be, will have my attention, probably, very soon. For the present, I submit to all able editors this problem : Given an educational appoiatintmt carrying a salary of £400 a year, and a number of applicants of varying degrees of merit, how manage to get one of the most inferior applicants, a 'friend,' appojnted thereto ? How a Board of Education* with the interests nf education very much at heart, has repeatedly solved that rather difficult problem will be revealed in due. time, since neither the right of its revelation nor of its reproduction has been reserved.