THE TEACHERS' CONFERENCE. T HERE is a note of broad educational
philosophy, as well as very considerable effectiveness of ex- pression, in the presidential address delivered by Mr. J. C. Addiscott at the Conference of the National Union of Teachers at Swansea on Monday, by which attention is both arrested and deserved. It is evident that Mr. Addiscott has thought very seriously upon the problems presented by our system of elementary education, and it is reasonable to assume that he has done so in the light of very extensive acquaintance with its present conditions, and with the views and sentiments of many of its ablest and most efficient exponents. The fact that he is the President for the year of the Teachers' Conference is of itself sufficient evidence that he possesses the confidence of the general body of those who elected him to that important office, and that when he assumes to speak on their behalf he is making no empty claim. When there- fore he addresses words of earnest warning and appeal to the public at large, and the working classes in particular, with regard to the shortcomings and dangers of our primary school system, it is only seemly that those words should be seriously listened to. According as the members of the body to which, and for which, Mr. Addiscott spoke on Monday are qualified to discharge their duty well, and have a fair chance of doing so, or otherwise, the working classes of England will grow up in future years solidly equipped for the battle of life, and competent to fulfil their civic responsibilities, or will be found unin- telligent and unadaptable in their daily occupations, where intelligence and adaptability are of ever-growing industrial importance, superficial in their views of public affairs, and destitute of high aspirations. Now, have the elementary school teachers a fair chance of doing their duty well to the whole body of children for whom the elementary schools exist ? Mr. Addiscott makes out a very strong case for a negative reply to that question. In the first place, the amount of irregularity in attendance throughout the school age is really appalling. While upon the rolls of elementary schools there are 5,326,000 children, the average attendance is only 4,346,000. In other words, about one child in five, a million in all, is always away from school. What would the head-master or a form-master of any of our great public schools feel if he were obliged to acquiesce in the absence of one in five of his boys from all classes on every day in the week ? Would he not be disposed to decline all responsibility for the results of a system so fatal to that continuity of touch between master and pupil which is of the essence of real education ? But the case of the elementary school teacher is much harder. For while, if a fifth of the boys at Eton, Winchester, or Rugby were able to absent themselves from their scholastic duties every day, they would merely be enjoying themselves under the same conditions and in the same atmosphere as those regularly prevailing in the school, the truants from primary schools are to a very large extent subjected to precisely those influences, in the streets and sometimes in the homes, which it is one of the chief aims of their teachers to neutralise. In a word, this habitual truancy is both a crippling reduction of educational forces and a powerful reinforcement of the enemy.
But that is far from being the only disadvantage from which the elementary school teacher suffers in respect of the attendance of his pupils. Just when he is laboriously getting his educational foundation laid with some approach to solidity in the minds of his young charges, andcherishing the hope of building upon it something really serviceable, if not ornamental, for which the progression of standards, carried to its normal limit under the Code issued in pursuance of the Education Acts, affords reason- able scope, he finds that under the liberties conferred by local authorities many of his most hopeful pupils are about to be withdrawn from his influence in part or altogether. In the Government Code there are seven standards, but its promulgation from year to year is practically only the utterance of a pious opinion. For Mr. Addiscott pointed out that "only 5 per cent, of the School Boards in the country made the qualification for exemption from school even so high as Standard VI,; and more than 50 per cent. considered they had entirely done with the child when it reached Standard V., and allowed it half-time at Standard III." No doubt this is a free country, and the virtues of liberty, local as well as national, are great. But it is worth knowing and ponder- ing over that the President of the Teachers' Conference appears to be of opinion that the net result of the exercise of this local liberty in regard to the qualifications for school exemption, and of the lax administration of the law in regard to attendance during the undoubted school period, is that 66 per cent. of the children who ought to be in elementary schools are "cut off from even an elementary education." That is a really terrible state- ment from a man in such a position, but it is a statement which, on such figures as he cites, it is not easy to refute. Whether it constitutes a vrimii facie case for legislative action bringing the practice of all School Boards up to the ideal of the Education Department, we do not say. But we do feel very strongly that Mr. Addiscott's reading of the results of the chaotic action of local authorities in educational matters ought to be brought home to the working classes by whom those authorities are elected, and by whose supposed wishes they are no doubt very largely guided. If they are willing, for a few shillings a week, to wreck the prospects of their children by with- drawing them entirely from school at the earliest oppor- tunity, or by putting them on half-time, a system which Mr. Addiscott passionately denounces as "an unholy and unclean thing," it may or may not be the duty of the State to interfere. But their responsibility, when they themselves and the elder members of their families are in good employment, is grave indeed, and it ought to be brought home to them by every possible means.
We had intended to dwell upon the emphasis with which, in connection with the question of what we have called a fair chance to teachers, Mr. Addiscott condemns the multiplicity of subjects on which they are obliged to dissipate their energies. The point is a very serious one educationally, and Mr. Addiscott illustrated it in a fashion well calculated to make the ordinary cultivated person thank his stars that he is not an elementary teacher. But what we are principally concerned for at the moment is to impress upon all whom our words may reach the import- ance of a more sympathetic interest on the part of liberally educated persons in the work of elementary teachers and in the teachers themselves. It is often com- plained that the Trade - Unionist spirit is rife among elementary teachers. But why, if the fact is so, should it be a ground of complaint ? Simply because the occupation of elementary teacher is not a handicraft, and does not lend itself, with advantage in regard to the general results, to those methods of com- bination and organisation which, when well managed, are in many respects advantageous in connection with handicrafts. It is essentially a liberal profession, and it ought to be recognised as such, and to enjoy corresponding social consideration. If elementary teachers are inclined, as is not seldom the case, to look at educa- tional questions more or less exclusively from the point of view of their class, the fact, in our opinion, is in no small measure attributable to their social isolation. They are conscious of being members of a calling which demands- from them large views, high aims, and, above all, an absence of the mechanical element in methods of work. Their difficulties and fatigues are of the mind and soul rather than of the body. The society with which it would' refresh them to be in touch is that whose interests are intellectual and msthetic. But of such society they see, we believe, very little, and the deprivation cannot tail to be narrowing, and sometimes embittering. Such a grievance, if we call it so, cannot be redressed in a hurry, but much more might be done than is even attempted by cultivated professional and business men, and by women of culture, to make life easier and pleasanter for those who are toiling for little pay and with little prestige to strengthen the foundations of the State. And to any who want information as to the true meaning and the heavy burden of the responsibilities of elementary teachers, we would cordially commend a perusal of Mr. Addiscott's speech.
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