Sta,-That the headships of Catholic schools should go to "the very best of Catholic teachers" (a phrase of Mr. W. D. Farrell's letter of May 28) is obviously desirable, but recent correspondence in your columns has shown that Catholic teachers cannot take it for granted that the best man (or woman) always wins. To find the best must involve selection from a number. If one person is nominated, and more or less privately appointed, by school managers (with merely the show of assessing the claims of other candidates to satisfy formality), how can Catholic teachers ever he sure of fair dealing?
Let us consider a possible situation, akin to the one cited by Mr. J. J. Bateman last week. A community of nuns pays the required portion of the cost of building a voluntary aided school, and thereby obtains the right to appoint its Foundation Managers. These in turn appoint the bead teacher of the nuns' own choosing. The Parish Priest, in such cases, is usually only a manager, out of courtesy, and not the Correspondent. (And it is only fair to say that the nun appointed is sometimes, herself not very happy about her promotion, but observes her vow of obedience.) Is not this a "restrictive practice" that reduces fair and open competition to vanishing point?
Mr. Farrell, a stalwart of Catholic teachers' associations, might explain why no word of protest from any such organisation as a body has yet been forthcoming in your columns, although members like himself know such injustices regularly occur.
R. I. W. Gentry 44 Flanders Road, W.4.