Any
attempt to lower the wall for the sake of the teachers within was
regarded as giving an opportunity to the politicians without, and
they were often openly accused, with a show of truth, of being in
league with each other. Whenever the Dunne members of the Board
attempted to secure more liberty for the teachers, we were warned
by tales of former difficulties with the politicians, and it seemed
impossible that the struggle so long the focus of attention should
recede into the dullness of the achieved and allow the energy of
the Board to be free for new effort.
The whole situation between the superintendent supported by a
majority of the Board and the Teachers' Federation had become an
epitome of the struggle between efficiency and democracy; on one
side a well-intentioned expression of the bureaucracy necessary in
a large system but which under pressure had become unnecessarily
self-assertive, and on the other side a fairly militant demand for
self-government made in the name of freedom. Both sides inevitably
exaggerated the difficulties of the situation, and both felt that
they were standing by important principles.
I certainly played a most inglorious part in this unnecessary
conflict; I was chairman of the School Management Committee
during one year when a majority of the members seemed to me
exasperatingly conservative, and during another year when they
were frustratingly radical, and I was of course highly
unsatisfactory to both.
Pages:
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347