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London County Council recently rescinded its former resolution requiring the resignation of women teachers when they married. The Director of Education in one rural area in England told me that probably one-third of the women teachers in the service of his authority were married, and gave as the reason for their employment the difficulty that is experienced in inducing single women to accept appointments in country schools, especially sole-charge schools. In San Francisco married women are freely employed as teachers. ORGANIZING INSPECTORS OR TEACHERS IN^SPECIAL SUBJECTS. Almost without exception education authorities abroad employ specialists to visit the primary schools and to direct the work of the teachers in such subjects as handicrafts, art, physical education, and music. The following are typical instances of the extent to which these specialists are employed : — Liverpool, with 138,909 pupils, has —1 inspectress of senior departments ; 1 inspectress and 1 assistant inspectress of infant departments ; 1 inspector and 1 inspectress of physical education ; 1 inspector of boys' handicrafts ; 1 inspectress of domestic subjects. Leeds, with 67,107 pupils, has —organizing teachers for music, art, and physical education. Notts County, with 53,999 pupils, has —2 agricultural organizers ; 1 horticultural organizer ; 1 mining organizer ; 1 superintendent of needlework ; 2 superintendents of domestic subjects ; 1 superintendent of physical education. East Suffolk has—organizing teachers in agriculture, dairy science, horticulture (3), manual instruction, domestic subjects, physical education (2 men and 3 women). Vancouver has —organizers in art, music, physical education, and housecraft. In New Zealand, with about 192,000 pupils, we have —22 agricultural instructors employed by the Education Boards, 8 physical instructors in the training colleges. These visit as many schools as possible within easy distance of the colleges. The manual-training centres (woodwork and cookery) are inspected by the primary and the technical school inspectors. I am strongly of the opinion that we should— (a) Appoint at least one inspectress of domestic subjects as soon as possible. We had one till 1931, when the financial stringency brought about the termination of her appointment. (b) Appoint one or two women to supervise the work of the infant departments in the larger schools. (c) Increase the number of physical instructors. Till 1932 we had ten men and seven women. (d) Appoint organizers in music, art, and handicrafts. SCHOOL LIBRARIES. Compared with children in the schools of England and Scotland, our pupils are inadequately supplied with reading-books for class use or for library purposes. Until it became necessary, for financial considerations, to cease payment of the small grant that was made for the purchase of reading and library books for primary pupils, our class and school libraries received small additions annually, but since 1932 very few books have been added, and these only by means of money raised locally. The life of such books is a short one, and replacements are necessary after comparatively brief periods of use. In England the grants made by the local education authorities for books, apparatus, and consumable material are sufficient to enable the teachers to provide adequately stocked class and school libraries. The London County Council prepares a list of approved books, a copy of each book being available for inspection at the teachers' library at County Hall, and teachers order what they require. In addition to a collection of books in each school, there is a collection of over two million readingbooks from which sets are loaned to schools for a period in order that the pupils may have a plentiful supply of general reading matter. The scheme is administered by voluntary local committees of teachers. The schools are divided into areas, and each area has its own catalogue. The local committee arranged for the reallocation of books amongst the schools in the area of each exchange once a year. In some towns the city libraries provide for the needs of the schools—e.g., in Leeds last year fiftyfive schools took classes to the city's libraries for silent reading and study. The libraries there issue quarterly a magazine called The Chimney Corner, with the object of guiding the children in the selection of books for their private reading. The 1935 annual report of the Education Committee states that the children of Leeds borrow approximately three-quarters of a million books annually. Leeds has just over 67,000 children. In Nottingham City the total issue of books to juvenile readers from the libraries and through the schools libraries scheme administered by the libraries was 296.000 in 1931. Nottingham has about 40,000 children between 5 and 14 years of age. In Edinburgh the City Council has gone further, and in some of the most recently built schools has established a library in the school itself. During school-hours it is an integral part of the school, but out of school-hours forms part of the public library service carried on independently of the school. At one intermediate school the room used as the library is stocked by the public library and staffed by one of its officers, who is there to guide the reading of the pupils as well as to issue books. This school has 1,200 or 1,300 pupils 12 to 15 years of age, and in 1933-34 over 27,000 books were issued to them. At a secondary school where the same system exists nearly 15,000 books were issued. At one of the new schools in which a branch of the city library has been established 38,000 books were issued in six months in 1934, 17,000 being to children. In Edinburgh there are also among the schools twenty-two general school libraries and 120 class-room libraries. A country school three miles and a half from Edinburgh receives twice a year a box of fifty books from the city library. '
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