Alas! her class is extinct. I think the cold disapproval shown by the professional teacher has frozen her out. Or is it that the haughty children resent intrusion? Or that the comprehensive, critical glance, which even Standard I. would cast at her dress when she entered the room, made it impossible for her to continue her visits without “making a toilette” for every visit? These are mysteries hidden from the male eye.
With the passing of the Act of 1902 came the Passing of the manager, male and female. Now there is a committee; there is a correspondent; there is a caretaker; but the greatest of these is the caretaker.
And with the other change came the passing of Form IX. as an amateur work. Part of it is done by the teachers, part by the local authority; the managers are free from it, and the inspector sees it no more.
If I thought any manager of the many who befriended me would read what I write, I would bid him farewell; and for his consolation I would refer him to the opening sentences of Dr. Johnson’s Preface to his Dictionary:
“It is the fate of those who toil ... to be rather driven by the fear of evil than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward.”
FOOTNOTES:
[20] ‘Moithered’ equivalent to ‘harassed’ or ‘embarrassed,’ but much easier to spell. In Norfolk it is ‘mĩthered’.
[21] In the ’nineties annual inspections in a given month, with formal notice to the managers sent at least ten days in advance, were discontinued, and ‘visits without notice,’ paid at any time of the year, were substituted. The result was, that the managers did not know of our presence in their schools, and, unless we sent for them, we saw no one.
CHAPTER XVI
SCHOOL BOARDS
“Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks.”
Richard II.