The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1872-04-27
Our Educational Outlook.

The cause of general education will re-
ceive powerful impetus when the super
iority of educated men is recognized and
appreciated. What inducement can we
hold out for boys to educate themselves,
when many kinds OF artisans are better
paid than professional men, The head
cock in the Parker House, in Boston, has
a salary of s., 600 per year, while President
Eliot, of Harvard College, has only $4,000
The salaries of the educators of our land
will not average 5000 per year, while any
good mechanic can earn as much or more.
An illustration or two will show us why
this is so. Deborah Simpkins, because she
thinks herself above helping her mother
skim milk and wash dishes in the summer,
and can spell, read, write, and "cipher a
little, inflicts herself upon twenty-five EN-
bryo men and women as their instructor,
when she is no more fitted for the work
than she is for flying to the moon, and the
trustees take her because "she will come
for three dollars per week and board to
hum-'mazin cheap In the same way
her brother Hezekiah, because he is either
too weak or too lazy to cut cord-wood, as
his brothers do, persuades some school
committee to quarter him in their school
house for the winter months. If mind only
had one-thousaldth part the explosive
power of steam, how many school-houses
would be blown to atoms under the man
agement of such bunglers No profession
could sustain itself against such COMPETE
ton.
What would become of lawyers or doc
tors if any greenhorn could try his hand at
4 case whenever he wished? Teaching
will become a profession only when educa-
tors are obliged to prepare themselves for
their work, and no lady then need blush to
be known as "sehool-marm." The nor
NAL schools established in most of the
States are helping to make teaching pro-
fession, but there is much more to be done
which is entirely beyond their control. The
character and requirements of those who
are in profession make the standing of
that profession.
In Prussia none except graduates. of their
colleges and the government normal schools
are allowed to teach even in the common
schools, and their teachers are among the
most universally respected in the land. AS
a natural result, their instructors, even in
the primary schools, are men and women
Of education and refinement. II in this
country the number Of authorized public
training schools was doubled or tripled,
and a law was provided that after five
years no one could teach without a certiti-
cate from one of them, the profession
would soon be freed from that large class
who teach only for term, because they
are too lazy to work at other employments.
1t would soon be filled with those who
would be earnest in their work, and have
at least inclination enough for it to be at
the expense of acquiring the necessary
qualifications.
A well-known educator forcibly says:
Ignorance is the parent Of vice, the oppo-
nent of progress, the bane Of the Republic,
a destroying element in society, the pre-
cursor of death and decay. Has society no
power to protect itselfo Has the Republic
no right to live? Shall she continue to
nurse in her bosom the viper which will
one day sting her to death? If these ques-
tons are not answered by the representa-
tives of the people-answered by the enact
ment of wise and inst laws providing for
the education of all the children of the ma
tion-the future historian will answer for
US, when he portrays the downfall of a
once mighty nation, which forgot its orig
in, derided its destiny, sold its birthright,
and ended its career in shame and dis
grace. "-Scri6ner's for Nay.