When the National Insurance Act of 1912 came into force, there were 85,000 elementary teachers to whom its clauses applied, and who therefore found it advisable to join an approved society.  For this purpose the Teachers’ Provident Society of the National Union of Teachers was re-organised as an approved society under the Act.  In addition to providing protection for its members, the National Union of Teachers, by means of its Benevolent and Orphan Fund, helps those, who, through ill-health or other causes are in need of assistance.  It also maintains two orphanages—­one for boys in London, and one for girls in Sheffield.

At the present time there is a strong probability of a dearth of qualified teachers for elementary schools in the near future.  There are several factors which have been influential in bringing about this state of affairs—­one is, the uncertainty of employment, even after a long and comparatively costly training.  This defect will be remedied only when a rational method of regulating the supply of teachers is established, so that each candidate may be certain that, if she qualifies, she will be guaranteed employment.

Many desirable persons are debarred from entering the teaching profession, because the rate of remuneration is low, considering the responsibility of the work; and this drawback is still further emphasised by the very inadequate pension which is offered at the close of the teacher’s career.  This difficulty can be overcome only when the main burden of the cost of education is removed from local taxation and placed on the national exchequer.

Another factor which tends to make the teaching profession unattractive, is the very strenuous life which it entails under modern conditions.  Again, so far as women are concerned, there is not complete security of tenure, though apart from the regulation that obtains under some local authorities, requiring women to resign on marriage, teachers in elementary schools, owing to the efforts of their various organisations, possess far greater security of tenure than teachers in any other branch of the profession.  Another point in favour of the teachers in elementary schools, is their freedom from the burden of extraneous duties, and from the nightmare of external examinations.

When schools can be more generously staffed, so that, for example, the number of assistant teachers exceeds the number of classes to be taught, a good deal will have been done to relieve the strain under which teachers are at present working.

Finally, when education authorities and the public generally, become sufficiently enlightened to realise that it is uneconomical to dismiss a teacher when she marries i.e., when by her experience she is most capable of preparing her pupils for life—­then women will be encouraged to enter the teaching profession, and to realise that they must equip themselves as well as possible for what is to be their life-work.