THE TEACHING PROFESSION
SIR,—In my letter to you of September 3rd I dealt chiefly with the effect that the egregious advertisement I quoted might have on the recruitment of nurses. I am glad that Mr. Derrick Bass deals more particularly with its bearing on teachers in the national schools, but I would point out its effect is even more injurious to the teachers than he suggests. I submit as axiomatic the proposition that the status of a calling must bear some relation to the measure of preparation required to pursue it. The McNair Report on the Training of Teachers, which enjoyed a wider acceptance than any similar report in my long educa- tional experience, stressed the importance that the education of the teacher should be comparable with the education required for the doctor or lawyer if the teaching profession is to maintain its status of equality with the great professions of law and medicine. For the minimal qualification of a registered medical practitioner a course of study is required of at least five years, tested by a series of three searching examinations which few surmount in less than six years.
I would ask, very seriously, how can teaching .niaintain its poSition as a profession "comparable with law and medicine" if a person achieves qualification as a teacher with the farcical preparation (?) which, as described by the advertisement, " qualifies " a person to teach in the
national schools ? Is it surprising, Sir, in these circumstances, that the independent schools have now waiting-lists for admission from all classes of the community longer than in any previous phase of their history ?-
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