THE POISON CONSPIRACY AND EDUCATION.
THE trial of the persons who plotted to murder Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Henderson was astonishing in many of its features, but in no respect has it astonished people more than in its disclosures as to the moral code of the young women who were school teachers. We print elsewhere a letter drawing attention to this subject, and we imagine that our correspond- ent's horror is characteristic of all who followed the trial. The language used in the Wheeldon family was of the most obscene and blasphemous kind. " Is this sort of language common among female school teachers ? " asked the Judge. The answer of Winnie Mason (Mrs. Wheeldon's married daughter) was that she did not know many teachers, but she added about those she did. know : " We talk to each other like that at times." The young woman who made this confession (and no doubt brought thereby an entirely unjust accusation against her fellow-teachers) had charge of fifty-two boys between the ages of ten and twelve. She taught them Scripture every morning, and had the " moral control and guidance " of the class. She said that when she heard the boys use any bad language she corrected them—with how much effect, if anything about her true character had been divined by the natural penetrative faculty of boys, may easily be imagined. It is a remarkable fact that any teacher of the type of this young woman should have been employed by an Education Authority. It will be said that her character could not have been discovered by those who employed her, but it is per- missible to think that, unless her habits underwent a sudden and recent transformation, it would have been possible to find out more about her by careful inquiries. One can hardly imagine such a person being employed in any school where both controllers and the parents of the boys combined to assure themselves that the influence of the teachers was sound and wholesome.
The trial necessarily and fortunately directs attention to the whole question of elementary education, about which much is being said and much will still have to be said. In the reorganization of life after the war it will be essential that our educational system shall be improved. We are not among those who pretend that the influence of the elementary schools has been bad, and we are under no temptation to join in the chorus of malediction which an extreme and painful revelation provokes from some minds. On the contrary, the general influence of the elementary schools must have been good, for if we look to our splendid Armies in the field we see the products of the system. We see courage that has never been exceeded and perhaps never matched • we see consideration for others, self-sacrifice, orderliness, andpatience. The teachers who have trained these men have earned the undying gratitude of the nation. We believe that as a class elementary-school teachers are both conscientious and industrious, and they are fully entitled to point to the results of their teaching in evidence. At the same time the whole system has grave defects, and if deplorable failures were more common and more visible than they are it would not be surprising. The time is fast approaching when it will be imperative to re-create the elementary system on a new foundation. In the recon- struction after the war this will be one of the most important aims of statesmanship. It is satisfactory to know that the way is already being indicated to a people perfectly ready to attend to his suggestions by the President of the Board. of Education, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher. Speaking to the Oxford Association for the Improvement of National Education last Saturday, he said that there was a general desire that public education, organized and systematic, should take a larger part in the life of the nation, but no satisfactory progress could be expected unless the Board of Education were able to enlist a great body of teachers from all quarters, and especially from the Universities.
In a single concrete instance Mr. Fisher has gone to the heart of the trouble; for if public education is to rely more upon the Universities, it follows that it must become suffi- ciently attractive to the Universities as a profession. In a word, thtV.whole standard of teaching must be raised, and it cannot be raised if the pay of teachers is not also raised. Mr. Fisher spoke of the services which women teachers had ren- dered upon local bodies, and notably on various War Com- mittees ; but being a man of prudence and judgment, he did not imagine that women who had been at the Universities would necessarily put their training to its highest national uses in becoming elementary-school teachers. At the same time he hoped that there would be in the elementary schools in future a considerable infusion of University women. We agree ; but it is among the men even more than among the women teachers that we hope for great changes. A woman may leave the classroom for other work ; she may marry; she does not characteristically regard her work as a permanent engagement. With a man it is generally otherwise. In Lecoming a teacher he enters upon a life-occupation. And what kind of life-occupation is it ? We do not hesitate to say that, in proportion to the influence it exerts on the well-being and industrial competence of the nation, it receives far less honour, respect, and consideration than any occupation a man can possibly undertake. This must be changed. If it be not changed, we certainly shall not improve our public education.
Imagine the situation in an urban rural parish, where the school teacher by common consent holds a position of less account than that of the clergyman or the doctor, or than any idler who happens to have chosen that place to live in. The occupation of the teacher relates him to no particular class. He may have worked his way upwards with vast credit to him- eslf, and have detached himself intellectually from one class without being joined to another. He often lives in a certain isolation, and may be thrown back upon himself for support and consolation—a fruitless and uneconomic habit. There are instances (our readers may be able to think of such) of a slack country parson who is quite indifferent to his parish neverthe- less enjoying a considerable social esteem by virtue of his posi- tion, while the schoolmaster, who is doing his duty laboriously and manfully in training year by year hundreds of children to grow up useful citizens, enjoys no such esteem. The clergy- man may even treat the schoolmaster with an unmistakable condescension. This system is utterly wrong. No one could possibly perform more important public work than a school- master. It cannot be wondered at if isolation sometimes tends to create in him a kind of intellectual self-sufficiency, perhaps some defiant arrogance, or possibly again traces of morbidity which are highly undesirable. The evil effects of intellectual isolation are, we think, however, more often observable in women teachers than in men.
It will be said that social consideration cannot be obtained by compulsion for any one. He who earns it may enjoy it. That is partly true ; but there is a sure road and a short one to the desirable end, and that is to raise the pay of teachers. if the pay be raised, men from the great University system, which is now spread all over England, will be attracted. The social consideration will follow everywhere, and will become, as it were, part of the emoluments of an honourable office. Further, teachers must have security. Compare their profession with that of the Army, the Navy, or the Civil Service. In each of these Services a man is always .a State-employed servant till he chooses to resign. If temporarily he is out of work, he receives a proportion of his pay. He remains a servant of the State all the time, and enjoys recognition of his position as such. How different is the case of the school teacher 1 He has no security. He has no right of appeal, worthy of the name, to a supreme headquarters. He may be worried, or arbitrarily treated, or hectored by a Local Authority. If he loses his job, he passes out into the desert of unemployment and no pay. He must Took about, or advertise, for another post. The State guarantees him nothing. It only exacts from him proofs of his qualifications as a teacher. The public teaching profession must be placed on the same basis as the great Services. This is essential. When a man is admitted to the Teaching Service he must know that the State will place him. He must be sure of a minimum rate of pay, and he must look forward to a pension. Finally, apart from and beyond these elements of security, the teaching profession must be a ladder. There must be high prizes for the man who has the Lrains, the will, and the character to climb to the top. At I resent the occupation offers no pleasing prospects to the properly ambitious man. Nothing can conceivably be more important to the nation than the careful training of the young. Yet those who have been responsible for this work hitherto have not received, or even been offered, the honour their office deserves.
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