Journal of the Nelson and Marlborough Historical Societies, Volume 1, Issue 2, November 1982
The Teachers
The Teachers
The high degree of involvement of members of the community in the running of the schools must have posed problems for the teachers who were, with very few exceptions, untrained for their work. They came from diverse walks of life, had no common background and could have no intimate understanding of such professional standards as had been evolved at this stage of the development of the teaching profession. They would have found it difficult to withstand pressure from their local committees. The first inspector of schools under the Central Board of Education, writing in December 1856. pointed out the weaknesses of the Society's system that lay behind the indifferent performance of its schools – "a rate of payment (for teachers) below the common rate of labourers' wages, imperfect and insufficient school accommodation and almost total want of books and educational apparatus." Such were the conditions under which the Society's teachers laboured. The most able of the teachers moved out into other occupations. Robinson, the first headmaster of the Society's Bridge Street School, resigned after only a very few years and in 1848 declined a salary of 52 pounds per annum which the Society offered in order to induce him to return to the headmastership. This was the highest salary offered by the Society. In that year Constantine Dillon was offering field labourers three shillings and sixpence a day.
The Society did encourage teachers to hold meetings to discuss their problems such as the irregular attendance of pupils. An effort was made to establish a teachers' provident fund and at one stage some young persons were recruited as pupil teachers. On at least two occasions the Society approached the British and Foreign School Society in England through Sir George Grey or Wm. Fox with a view to engaging one of its trained teachers, but without success. The Society failed to retain the services of local teachers page 23with possibly two exceptions. Jabez. Packer started teaching in the Bridge Street School in 1847 and was still teaching at Hope in 1856. Wm. Moote, the first schoolmaster, after teaching in the Wesleyan school, became the Society's teacher at Waimea West and was still there in 1856. Moore was the only teacher that is known to have had a background of previous teaching experience and even he is known to have had serious problems of discipline in Waimea West.