194 



NATURE 



[May 3, 191-7 



THE PAY AND SUPPLY OF TEACHERS. 



TU\i striking facts and figures given in the presi- 

 dential address recently delivered by Mr. 

 T. il. J. Underdown to the National Union of 

 Teachers, and published in Natcke of April 19, show • 

 that the whole fabric of our primary educational sys- 

 tem is seriously threatened with disaster. Unhappily, 

 the secondary and technical schools of the country- 

 are faced with the same danger from precisely the 

 same causes. The systematic underpayment of the 

 teachers and the resultant shortage of the supply 

 must cause grave misgivings to all who have a real 

 conception of the value of a good secondary educa- 

 tion and its necessity, if success is to be achieved in 

 the future in the various branches of commercial and 

 scientific activity. Our national efficiency depends to 

 a large degree upon the quality of our secondary 

 education, and any such education worthy of thi' 

 name will be impossible unless the present conditions 

 of service obtaining in the teaching profession are 

 radically and speedily altered. 



It is characteristic of our national indifference to- 

 wards education that, not merely the man in the 

 street, but apparently also the leading members of 

 scientific and commercial circles, have no knowledge 

 of the utterly insuflicient salaries paid to those upon 

 whom the important duty of training the future 

 jy^eneration falls; or, at best, if they have cognisance, 

 they throw the responsibility upon the local county 

 or borough authority, and wash their hands of the 

 whole business. A sufficient proof of the inability of 

 the local authorities to manage education under pro- 

 sent conditions is eyinc^ed by the figures quoted by 

 Mr. Underdown, and by the fact that the average 

 salary paid to the assistant-masters in the aided and 

 maintained secondary schools of the country, as shown 

 by an inquiry made by the Incorporated Association 

 of Assistant-masters just prior to the outbreak of 

 war, is 175?. los. If the nation expects to continue 

 to get highly trained, competent teachers, necessarily 

 men of culture and education, who have laid out a 

 large amount of ability and close study, to say nothing 

 of money, for 3?. 7s. 6d. per week, the nation is 

 making a huge blunder. Like any other business 

 concern, it will get, in the long run, just what it 

 pays for. Much has been written during the past 

 year concerning the lack of science and scientific 

 training in secondary schools in general, but is it 

 to be expected that a really able and scientific expert 

 . will take up teaching with the above figures before 

 him? The difliculty is accentuated by the ever- 

 Increasing demand for these experts from the 

 various branches of manufacture and industry, and 

 by the migration of teachers generally into more re- 

 munerative and less arduous spheres of work. 



A large number of authorities and schools make 

 no provision for systematic increase, while the follow- 

 ing tables show the inadequacy of the scales that do 

 exist : — 



England Wales 



County County '• Published ' 

 Maxima Councils Boroughs Schools 

 Above 250^. I I 2 



2oil.-2^oL 6 12 5 5 



200I. 7 12 II 2 



Above i8oi. and below 



200L 3 6 2 I 



180Z. and below — 14 26 10 



Notes— (i) Figures for July, 1914. 



(ji) Special cases excepted as being outsiile the r.ange of the 

 ordinary qualified assitant. 



To quote a typical case, the maximum for honours 

 graduates after sixteen years' service is 190Z. Another 



NO. 2479, VOL. 99] 



has i(x)/. as the ultimate reward for ton years' ser- 

 vice. Other " sciilcs " have Gilbertian maxima. Two 

 are as low as 130/., and five are below 150I. 



The actual salaries received will show that our 

 educational experts have been trying to run education 

 upon the principles of lowest tender and cut prices. 

 Some seven or eight university graduates receive less 

 than looi. a year. One Oxford M.A., after fifteen 

 years' service, gets 120I. Only 18 per cent, of the 

 masters receive more than 2ooi. 



The grudging and meagre response to the demands 

 of the teachers for a war allowance affords a glaring 

 insight into educational administration and its reac- 

 tion upon its employees To quote, or, rather, mis- 

 quote, from one of our jnost successful and popular 

 teachers : '"Those who polish the floors and those w'ho 

 survey the roads can be generously treated, but those 

 who polish the brain are asked to wait for more 

 opportune times, or are put off with a dole equal to 

 an office boy's increment of wage — forsooth, because 

 they are so many and the rates must be kept low ! " 

 We note with pleasure and endorse thoroughly 

 t!ie recent statement of the President of the 

 Board of Education that "the calling of second- 

 ary-school masters has yet to be made reason- 

 ably attractive to a really able man. . . . 

 Somehow or other we must attract these men" 

 — and may we add "keep them"? The proposed 

 remedy — an additional grant of 433,900/., of which a 

 part is to be handed over to the authorities and 

 schools, of which a part again is to be allocated to 

 more or less spasmodic increments of salary — will 

 cover only a portion of the recent increase in the cost 

 of living. The sum is admittedly only a beginning, 

 but the situation demands methodical measures even 

 more urgently than it does money. Before it is too 

 late, the country should insist upon the establishment 

 of a regular and national system of payment, if the 

 prospects and status of the profession are to be raised 

 10 such a level that it can fairly compete with the 

 other professions for the best intellects from all classes 

 and spheres of life. 



Experience shows that the majority of the local 

 authorities fail to realise the national unity of 

 education. The average councillor thinks in terms of 

 bricks and mortar, and so long as he regards educa- 

 tion as one of the branches of architecture, so long 

 will the real management remain in the hands of 

 highly paid clerks and secretaries, who, however 

 zealous they may be, work in watertight compart- 

 ments, and have no interest in making education a 

 national concern. Efficiency in education stands or 

 falls with the man who actually teaches, and no 

 amount of expensive inspectorial or administrative 

 officialdom will compensate for the cheeseparing 

 policy of underpaying the teachers. 



Amongst the multiplicity of reforms rightly being 

 advocated at present are included the extension of 

 the school-life and the expansion of the facilities for 

 secondary education. Official figures show that there 

 are only 84,000 pupils between the ages of fourteen 

 and eighteen in England attending grant-earning 

 secondary schools, of which merely 21,000 remain at 

 school to an " age beyond sixteen years — an age of 

 expanding receptive faculties, at which moral training 

 is of inestimable benefit. It has been estimated that 

 an army of 20,000 teachers of the secondary school 

 type will be required, in addition to the 10,000 already 

 available, to staff the secondary schools proper, the 

 junior technical schools, the day continuation schools, 

 and the part-time trade schools of the near future. 

 A great part of this number must have expert scientific 

 knowledge combined with training. Under the ex- 

 isting conditions, the. supply of teachers is quite 



