[HPforGrownups] Re: Master of This School

[Kathryn Cawte]

No: HPFGUIDX 111770

sherry
> In the United States public school system it is customary to call the
> teachers Mr. or Mrs., not Master.  There is a Principal who is the
> head of the school.  In private schools there is a headmaster.  He is
> still called Mr., very seldom called Headmaster although some do.  My
> son goes to a private Military Academy with a Headmaster.
>

Even in the UK you wouldn't have referred to the teacher as Master, it's an
archaic synonym for teacher (probably bases on their qualifications as
mentioned by someone else) not a term like Mr. or Mrs. The staff would be
referred to as the masters rather than the teachers (I'm talking about 40 or
so years ago for when it was in common usage - I know my father would have
used the terms like this so it was definitely still around in the 50s - I
suspect it's still rather more common at the older and more exclusive public
schools). When addressing the teachers you wouldn't use master or mistress
(unless referring to them in the third person 'please sir, the Chemistry
master wanted me to give you this message' etc, but even then you'd probably
refer to them by name, possibly as Professor whatever - although on a side
note I don't think Professor is an academic qualification, certainly today
you can't pass a degree course of any kind to become a professor, in the
university world Professor means you hold a chair of some kind at a
university), you would call them sir (or I assume ma'am, but the period I am
talking about female teachers would have been much rarer in this kind of
school - mainly because this would be the same kind of school where the
teachers would mostly have a Masters from a university and women just didn't
do that much).

I realise I seem to have become addicted to putting things in parenthesis -
I apologise if it's confusing.

K