CORRESPONDENCE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1890, 23 April 1892, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

"WHA SAE BASE AS BE A SLAVE."

{To tke Editor )

Sir, — Thanking you for your former courtesy, allow me to say iv refutation of reports that have reached me, that Mr Allen neither directly or indirectly could have known anything of my former letter until he read it in the columns of the local papers. It was what it represented to be— ray opinion— and I will now venture to say, after reading his many, straightforward utterances, an oninion that will be indorsed by nine-tenths of the free intelligences of Bruce. The district for well nigh forty years has maintained a character for independence of thought and action according to its own conscience and I huve no doubt will do so still. Freedom of thought, untrammelled exercise of conscience, and individual right of judgment at the polling booth should resent all attempts to force blockvoting in an elector Jte, from whatever quarter it may come, whether from Church, State, or party.— l am, &c,

John L. Gillies.

Dunedin, 19th April.

THE APPOINTMENT OF TEACHERS.

{To the Editor ) SIR, — Some little time ago when referring to the number of applicants there always is for vacancies on the teaching staff of our public schools, you said it would soon come to be a question of the survival of the fittest Surely, Sir, you cannot know what's taking place in our educational world. Why it is only the other day I heard of a committee that selected a teacher with a very indifferent certificate out of a large batch of highly qualified applicants. That doesn't look much like the survival of the fittest; rather does it not point to the survival of the unfitfcest ? No, no, Sir. Don't go trying to frighten young teachers in that w^y ; for, depend upon it, as long as the present system of selecting teachers is in force, the most indifferent and not the most accomplished teachers arc as likely as not to be selected. It is surprising, Sir, the use that some men who get on school committees make of their position, and the manner they sink their independence and abuse their trust. — I am, etc.,

Disgusted.

Tuapeka, 20th April.