TEACHERS' DEMONSTRATION

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 14140, 10 June 1920, Page 6

TEACHERS' DEMONSTRATION

A NEW PRECENDENT. 'The teachers in New Zealand are not alone among members of their calling in their dissatisfaction with the conditions of their lot. Teachers, in London yronld no doubt lie glad enough to change places with them, if one may judge on that point by the manner in which they have recently been demonstrating their impatience at the methods of the educational authorities. They have indeed established something like a new precedent- in pedagogic tactics, if the phrase be permissible. A number of them literally made chaos a few weeks ago of a meeting at Kiugsway Hall, which was. to have been addressed by Mr Fisher, the Minister of Education. Sir Cyril Cobb (chairman of ■the Education Committee of the London County Council, was to have presided at a gathering of local education authorities, school managers, and teachers, who had been invited to hear the Minister speak on elementary education. They nia-do such a hostile deimonstration against. Sir Cyril Cobb that after listening for a while to a monotonous chant of “We don't want Cobb” Mr Fisher quietly and sadly took his departure unintrodiieed. When the chairman in his turn beat a retreat there was a. chorus of “My teachers” and “Oh wicked teachers!” Evtm the Bishop of Loudon failed to secure a respectful hearing. One among the demonstrators assured the meeting that they had come to protest against the chair being taken by Sir Cyril Cobb who had spoken about “bis tcaciers,” and said that he knew they would not strike. “He. does not know what they will do yet,” .declared the spoakej'., lo the accompaniment of the che.evj of his companions, adding, “Most of us here h&ve been at the way, and if he wants War we will go to war again,” Later, Lord Burnham Sir Robert Blair, and others talked in London the usual cheap platitudes about the demonstrators, not representing the bulk of the teachers, much to the amusement of the teachers, who are solid in their" support of the demonstrators,.