No Room for Compromise SIR,—Mr Middleton's letter (October 21) suggests
that he is satisfied to judge by the label without bothering about the contents; and he seems to imply :hat Roxburgh of Stowe was complacent in his views about appointing staff. I cannot understand his view if he has read Lord Annan's Roxburgh of Stowe. He also says I 'believe untrained teachers are better.' I never said this in my letter, which merely recorded two events which happened and were relevant.
If I were now a headmaster again and were making an appointment I should simply try to find out what could about the applicants, and the ones who had got a teacher's certificate would have a slight advan- tage if the principal of the training college happened to be one who took the trouble to know his pupils personally or see that some of his staff did. Refer- ences are of primary importance compared to testi- monials, and it is at best difficult to estimate the chance that someone, whether certificated or not,
who has never held a school teaching job, could be- come a good teacher in time. I do not think that a teacher can learn how to do his job as surely as an analytical chemist can. A training college where the staff get to know the students well as persons may be a much bigger help in that way than by what it can do to enable them to get certificates. I wonder if Mr Middleton thinks of teaching as a kind of organic chemistry for which you have only got to be a well-trained technician.
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