HEADMASTER S DUTIES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 221, 18 September 1934, Page 6

HEADMASTER S DUTIES

CHARACTER-BUILDING IMPORTANCE OF CLASS-ROOM. DUNEDIN, Sept. 17. The duties of a headmaster, and the qualities needed for thedr performance, were discussed by Mr. R. G. C. McNab, the new headmaster of the John McGlashan College, on the occasion of a welcome extended to him by the board of governors and the parents of the pupils of the college, last week. The question of his conception of the duties of a headmaster, said Mr. McNab, was one that his hearers had a right to ask. and it was his duty to | answer it There had recently been conducted in England a controversy that was something to the point, when young headmasters, who were university dons, not professional schoolmasters, were appointed to Eton. Harrow, and Uppingham. This did not please everyone. One controversialist, the Rev. Adam Fox, Fellow of Magdalen College. Oxford, has declared that the headmaster of a public school should have three qualities, business capacity, social ease, even to the point of agility, and a flair for making an impression on the public. He mentioned also other desirable, but not indispensable. qualities; that he should be a good teacher, a good speaker, a goodlooking man, or good with the boys. Importance of Scholarship. “There is more than a touch of worldliness about these prescriptions, and I hope that they were not dn the minds of those who appointed me,” continued Mr. McNab. “It seems to me that the position is very different, especially when one regards Naw Zealand headmasters of acknowledged greatness, like J. W. Tibbs, of Auckland Grammar School, or J. P. Firth, of Wellington College. 1 believe that, these men regarded their schools more as places of learning than is the fashion. to-day. They had a reverence for scholarship, a determination to display its intangible rewards and a determination to display its intangible rewards and a determination to make their boys work.

Building Character. “Balance has sometimes been lost by Jetting it appear that characterbuilding is better achieved by organised athleticism and by other out-of-school activities. True, such influences are powerful, but character-building is most successful when it is least talked about, and it is done imperceptibly. 1 believe that to produce good habits of thought, speech, and conduct is the chief work of a headmaster, and it was the great achievement of men like Mr. Tibbs and Mr. Firth, as it was in England of Percival and Th ring, but most was done in the class-r00m.,” Emphasis on Class-room Work. The work of the class-room was then outlined by Mr. McNab. It was designed, he said, to inculcate a regard for truth and a respect for facts, to exercise the memory, to develop powers of reasoning, to encourage initiative, and to cultivate powers of expression. In the class-room, the master’s best qualities, his patience, kindness, mental and moral superiority, were called into play; it was there the boys came into closest relation with the master in his true capacity of leader, controller and instructor. All methods of training must receive consideration, the class-room, the playing field, and others; but the greatest of these was the class-room. Conduct of McGlashan. “I will try also to see that MeGlashan goes about its affairs quiet!v, without fuss or undue publicity,” said Mr. McNab “At appropriate times, no doubt, our doings will be reported by the press. No one desires a return to monastic conditions, but in some ways they were preferable to the by no means rare, modern circumstances, in which newspaper attention is unwarrantably directed upon schools. I have ' no intention of being one of that type i of English headmaster described by a wise old man. George Saintsbury. He | speaks of “the modern busybody who runs about to congresses and talks, and who sometimes merely administers and does not teach at all.’ I hope that we shall be left quietly to go about our work, and that we shall do it thoroughly and well, without fear or favour, and with confidence that our manners are making men. Marks of Good Headmaster.

“From my own observation of three good headmasters in whose service I have been lucky enough to work, 1 should say that the headmaster should perform the most trivial duty cheerfully; he should have complete selfcontrol* he should be inspired by tradition, but not wedded to it; sympathetic to new ideas, but quick to detect the crank; fair to masters and to boys; firm, yet forbearing, with parents; coneious that his is a work of creation in the most precious materials. “In all humility may I say that 1 accept those ideals as my own and 1 prav that from this religious founda tnon there will emerge young men tolerant. but firmly grounded in Christiar conduct with that sense of freedom anc individual responsibility which has been a principle of the church, which founded their school."