On the other hand, let
the settlement be a generous one, and the return will be a hundredfold
in added efficiency, a higher sense of duty, and an increased personal
interest on the part of the teacher in the class of which he has charge.
In close connection with the question of salaries are those of pensions
and security of tenure. The pensions of the Primary teachers, inadequate
though they be, would be looked upon as a provision of the most
munificent kind by the poor men and women who enter service under the
Intermediate system. The Primary teachers, moreover, can fall back upon
subsidiary occupations if they find that their salaries are insufficient
for their maintenance. They can run a little farm or keep a shop or do
other remunerative work, but the assistants in Secondary Schools are
debarred from these methods of supplementing their exiguous wage. Those
terrible words might, without any extravagance, be inscribed for them
over the doors of their schools: "All hope abandon ye who enter here."
Something must be done. A starvation wage, with an adequate pension to
follow, might be tolerable, a decent wage, without any pension, might be
borne, but starvation at both ends is a disgrace to the Treasury while
it lasts and one of the things which should be taken in hand without any
further delay.
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