A great effort is being made so to organise the
profession of Teaching that competent teachers, like competent medical men, shall in future be distinguishable by a diploma. A Bill introduced by Dr. Lyon Playfair, Sir John Lubbock, Mr. A. Mills, and Lord Francis Hervey, proposes to create a Register of the teachers in intermediate schools, on which all teachers employed in intermediate schools at the date of the passing of the Bill may claim to be enrolled. For the future, however, a new teacher in an intermediate school is not to obtain his or her place on the Register without gaining a degree, or some other certificate of com- petence, and teachers not on the register are to lose all legal claim for the recovery of arrears of pay. The Bill is, to say the least, premature. For some time to come at least, such a measure would probably exclude almost as many competent as incompetent persons from the teaching profession, and danger- ously limit the competition of able but irregularly-educated teachers. A time may, perhaps, come when such a Bill would be safe. At present, we are sure that both in relation to the male and female teachers of the country, it would be very mischievous.
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