Salary query degrading

Published November 1, 1998

100 years ago: November 1898

Canadian Churchman reported that it is the custom with some school boards when they advertise for assistant teachers, or even head masters, to request applicants mention the salary which they are willing to receive. Anything more insulting and degrading to the scholastic profession we are unable to conceive. If we want service from another, it is usual to state the terms on which we propose to engage, and this even in regard to menial work. To offer a post to a teacher on terms to be proposed by the candidate is to encourage the applicant to underbid to the uttermost any others who may be seeking the same post. The inevitable result will be the throwing out of the better qualified teachers and the filling of their places with inferior men and women. We suppose that teachers have some organ through which they can make known their views. Two things they can do. They can publish a list of all school boards who seek for teachers in this manner and the candidates can agree among themselves as to the salary which they want and all undertake to ask for same. Such a plan will be best for all in the long run, and at this moment we do not see clearly any other means of escaping from this degradation.

50 years ago: November 1948

Canadian Churchman reported a layman’s comment, “All in all the Lambeth Report is a masterly and brilliant summary of the collective spirit, thought, wisdom and character of its world-wide representatives. The results of their labours may perhaps be disappointing in certain respects to some but when studied in the broadest perspective of world-wide opinions and differences of so many kinds, the great statesmanship, the wisdom, the degree of harmony achieved, the deep conviction, the sincerity, the integrity, the spirit of tolerance and true brotherly instinct throughout are such as to inspire profound gratitude and admiration for the great and inspiring effort towards a better world so generally desired.”

25 years ago: November 1973

Canadian Churchman reported Bishop John Frame (Yukon), “Once, perhaps, we could have spoken of a typically northern way of life, but that is changing. It is doubtful if any two communities are the same – whether or not their population is predominately one race or another. Once we could have spoken of hunting and trapping as the major means of existence for the people of the North, but that is changing – fluctuating with the price of furs, or the availability of other and easier means of earning a living.”

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