Small Schools and Large Schools.

Observer, Volume X, Issue 603, 24 January 1891, Page 7

Small Schools and Large Schools.

The multiplicity of small schools in close proximity scattered in some favoured districts by the Boards of Education was freely commented on by various speakers at the meeting of the Educational Institute. The injury from this to the cause of primary education, apart from the squandering of public money, was deservedly denounced. Our Board must be very thick-skinned if it has not squirmed at finding even its own teachers moved to publicly expose its extravagance and its violation of an important public trust. The scandalous style of administration has often been denounced by the local press, including ourselves ; but it appearß without producing the least effect. On it goes, and will go ; and one of the three members now about retiring is already seeking re-election for the reason, among others, that during the seven years he has been on the Board, its administration has been both ' just and economical !' For our own part we fail to see how it could possibly be more unjust and extravagant. The teachers say, publicly, the same. While our just and economical Board has been multiplying small schools, how has it dealt with the schools of the ' friends ' in or about the town ? An important and suggestive consideration is contained in the question, since the salaries of the headmasters, but of the headmasters only, are affected by the numbers and by nothing else whatever — the larger the numbers the larger their salaries, and vice verm. Just note how the Board has dealt with such schools. It has doubled the Newton East school, doubled the Newton West, added a wing to the Parnell, added another vying to the Eemuera sohool, and so on ; and to keep the numbers up at those and other schools in or about the town, it has appointed a truant officer, at the cost of £150 a year, to hunt up the wanderers or stragglers. The salaries being based in a most absurdly unfair way on the numbers only, the enlarging or doubling of the buildings, and the appointment of a hunter-up of pupils for those, but only of those, headmasters, makes bb nice an arrangement for the said headmasters as it is possible for base minds to conceive. To enrich ' a friend,' then, becomes very easy indeed, no matter how unworthy a teacher such • friend ' be ; all that is to be done is simply to push him into such a position by any means, fair or foul, and to keep out by any means, no matter how foul, and some of the means have been incredibly and unspeakably foul, every other teacher, ' a no friend,' no matter how long in the service, or how' deserving in worth as a teacher. The revelation of some of those foul means will yet startle the ear of the Auckland public or we are mistaken. If £300 or £400 of a salary is not large enough, by just doubling or enlarging the capacity of the building, the ' friend's ' salary goes up at a bound. Yet Mr Upton considers that the numbers, and the numbers only, are a sound basis for fixing salaries. Of course they are, for his and other members' • friends,' after they are smuggled into such positions. The injury resulting to the children in point of health, from herding 700 or 1000 of them together in one school, in our warm climate ; the utter impossibility of anything like attention to individuals, are utterly ignored and lost sight of, in the shameless and disgraceful greed for securing the money for the • friends ' among the teachers. But tha enlarging or doubling of the town and suburban schools, and the consequent enlarging of the headmasters' salaries, furnishes one more proof, in addition to the many already adduced, of the serviceableness to ohe said headmasters of that body called the Board of Education. I How easy to see that their wrath, and the wrath of their puppets on the Board, against Mr Udy's salaryscheme, making merit, not favouritism, the basis, was not without good pecuniary reasons. In oratory, Mr Upton on that occasion outshone himself; so did Mr Carr, and because of their successful stamping of that scheme under foot, and for ever out of Bight, they are very naturally now claiming their re-eleotion for other three years, as a slight recognition of their successful services.

Mb Fbancis has f;he reputation of being the beat teacher in Auckland Grammar School. Nearly all the present members of the Board of Education are, like the secretary, members and officials of the Anglican Church. Mr Alex. Grant, M.A., a candidate for the Boardof Education, says he cannot see the jijßtice of prosecuting a county councillor for supplying a contractor with goods when a member of the Board of Education supplies teachers with impunity. How teachers are driven away in disgust, and places made for • friends ' of the Board members, is eloquently shown by the fact that in Auckland district last year 92 public school teachers left the service and 96 new ones were taken on. 1 Education ' Grant, who is a candidate for the Board, deserves to be elected, if only for his incisive wit. In his circular he refers to the profits made by headmasters out of the sale of ' stationery ' and adds :— ' The highest paid of them are like the Board becoming stationary fossils.' Thb N. S. W. Department of Education has called for returns from assistant teachers as to their rating : ' You are requested to state whether you are a permanent or an assistant ass !' The country teachers in Auckland district are permanent asses for so long suffering injustice. ' What is Truth ?' asked Pilate, and waited not and cared not for an answer. The administration of the Auckland Board of Education has been both ' just and economical during the past seven years,' while Mr J. W, Carr has been a member, he states in his long begging circular for re-election— a statement which is either truth or deliberate falsehood. Now, which is it ? Mr Joseph Greenwood, Chairman of Mount Eoskill School Committee, had an excellent letter in the Herald the other day on the subject of ' Teachers' Salaries in Auckland and Elsewhere.' He shows that in schools under 30 of attendance, the salary paid in Auckland district is £110, while in the South it is £120 to £175 ; for schools under 60, the Auckland rate is £160 a year, against £176 to £205 in the South, and so on. This fully bears out our contention that tbe country teachers in Auckland district are being systematically robbed to benefit the town teachers, who draw large salaries.