have been greatly interested in reading the corre- spondence on
the above subject in your last two issues, and as an elementary teacher in a London school I feel I must reply to your correspondent of March 19th in the same profession. In many points I entirely agree with her, but Consider_ that she has not sufficiently weighed the advan- tages of eleinentary teaching, as a profession. (1) As to salaries.-280 a year is certainly not enough to enjoy life upon, though it may pay for existence—and here I might remark that not every one begins at even that—but if you coMpare this with the £1, or even 1,08., a week earned by lady typewriters, then it seems to me the elementary teacher has the advantage. Also it must be taken into consideration that salaries increase as time goes on, and that a general improvement may be hoped for in the near future. (2). As to time.—I think from seven to eight hours a day fairly repre- sents the time occupied by the work and its preparation, but I consider that all corrections could be done in school-time, unless, the teacher herself happens to be especially weak or slow in some particular subject. But compare this time with the hours that a hospital nurse is on duty, and again I think the elementary teacher comes off the better. (3) As to the work itself.—There is not the least doubt that the work is hard, and requires -endless patience and perseverance ; but surely its many compensations outweigh all this. No one who -has tried the work can fail to realise the wide field that is, opened for home-mission work. The very ignorance of the children is all the greater incentive for effort towards their enlightenment. (4) My experience, on the whole, points to anything but lack of appreciation on the part of the parents ; but as most of the children at the school I am in pay a penny a week, that may perhaps partly account for it.—I am, Sir, &c., N. M. BERRY
(for three years a student at the Cheltenham Ladies. College).
[To TIM EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR-")
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