1.—13 a.

100

[A. BKSKINE.

in high schools. Under the Bill the male assistants in the high schools are to receive an average salary of £•!'>> a year. Uul-r i-i ■ sagg33bion of the Institute the assistants will receive only £225, but that would bi an improvemiiit on the prop Dial in the Bill. For so;n3 considerable tima it has been felt by the service that the salaries paid in the saoonlary departmants of these public schools are not sufficient to obtain the kind of teacher that will make a success of this system of district high schools. Tne institution of the free-place system is psrhap3 one of the greatest reforms of recent years, and it is in the country districts where this reform should be of the greatest advantage ; but the difficulty is that, the salaries being low, the more experienced teacher will not go into the secondary department of the district high school, and tho3e who have taken positions are anxious to get out and go back to the primary department. The first assistant of a secondary department, say of fiftysix children, has very important duties to perform. He is responsible practically for the working of the whole of that secondary department. The headmaster of the primary school is supposed to give a certain amount of supervision, but he is told that lie must not neglect his primary department for the sake .of the secondary. Therefore the assistants in these secondary departments are engaged in very important and responsible work, and with the small salaries we can only get inexperienced and perhaps ill-equipped junior teachers, who are not giving what the State should receive and what is necessary in order to make the free-place system the success it ought to be in the country. We therefore have to ask the Committee to give the proposal very favourable consideration. There is one other reso.ution that I wish to refer to, at the top of page 8. It was passed by the Institute. In our resolutions we state, " The Institute requests that, in the matter of the introduction of the increased scale of salaries, the teaching service be treated in the same way as is customary with other public servants —that is to say, that the scale be dated back to the beginning of the financial year." Then we have put forward the suggested staffs and salaries for normal schoo.s and training colleges. Ido not intend to go into this matter at all. We have simply been asked by the training-college people to submit this suggestion along with our own resolutions, and we ask the Committee to give it consideration. That completes the remarks I wish to make on the salaries question. In conclusion I should like to say that we feel that in asking for increases of salaries that we are justified by the important work that we are expected to carry out. The whole trend of educational matters is different from what it was a number of years ago. We are expected now to be engaged in producing liighj class citizens, mentally, morally, and physically sound. Great changes have taken place, and we feel that the country is making no mistake if it is lavish with regard to its expenditure in education. Other countries have largely increased their expenditure in this direction. The United States in a few years has increased its expenditure from £4 4s. 2d. to £6 10s. id. per "head. England in a few years doubled its expenditure on education, and we feel that New Zealand will not be making any mistake if it largely increases its expenditure, and I am sure the public will support anything .that is done in that way. 3. The Institute wants the member who represents the primary teachers on the District Council to- be appointed by the District Institute. Supposing that a District Institute did not contain the bulk of the teachers, would you disfranchise the rest of the teachers of that district ? —Certainly not; but the Institutes do contain the bulk of the teachers. 4. Every one of them ?—Not all of them, but the bulk of them. 5. Taking the whole of the Dominion it may be true, but it may not be true that every District Institute contains the bulk of the teachers in the district ? —lt might possibly arise, but at the present time every Institute has a majority of the teachers in its district as members. ■*M 6. That has not been for long the case with every district ? —1 think so, for some years. 7. Is that the case with the Thames Institute ? —That is only a branch Institute. 8. Why should not you give the vote to all the teachers —why give it to the Institute and leave out any teachers ?—Of course, the Teachers' Institute is the representative of the district. If they wish for the vote it is an easy matter for them to join the Institute. 9. You compel them practically to join the Institute ? —We think they ought to. 10. How do you'propose to have the members of Education Boards in urban areas elected on the municipal franchise if there are several Committees \ —That is a question that Mr. Parkinson dealt with. lam only dealing with the question of salaries. 11. You ask that the schedule for separate boys' schools should be made to apply to separate girls' schools and separate infants' schools : is that following out the idea that there should be equal pay for equal work for men and women '. —I think not. We have not of late years discussed that matter at all. 12. What other purposes can you have ( —ln this particular instance it was considered that the women teachers in the girls' schools were doing practically the same work amongst the girls that the men teachers were doing in the boys' schools amongst the boys, and we think it reasonable to ask that the better salaries should be paid to the women teachers in those schools. 13. In other words, you thought it better to ask for equal pay for equal work ?—Of course, in the particular instance it amounts to that. 14. Can you defend it and not ask for it in other cases too if they do equal work ?—We have not been asked to do that. 15. What is your own personal opinion about it ?—My own opinion is that there should be different schedules for men and women. 16. With regard to the disposal of the grades for the whole range of schools, your new proposal is an expansion to some extent or a correction of the other one \— lt is simply putting it more in detail. 17. Do you think that there comes a stage at which a large number of teachers cannot reasonably hope for promotion ?—I think so. There is a stage in the scale to which a certain percentage or a majority of the teachers can reach, but after that there are not places in the higher grades for them to fill.