Maryville Republican. (Maryville, Tenn.) 187?-1877, 1877-09-15
EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
d. p. HURLEY, EDITOR.
Price of Tuition.

Education costs something. IN
deed, everything Of value which is
the product of human labor, is more
or less costly. Education is in the
same category with other valuable
things. He who undertakes to edu-
cate his children must expect to have
a serious bill to pay. 1t is injudicious
weakness or pernicious folly to incul-
cate the contrary. The advocate of
education, who tries to persuade the
people into the establishment and
maintenance of a good school, under
the assurance that the cost will be q
mere trife, misleads the community
most hurtfully, and thereby damages
the cause lie would promote. The
teacher who undertakes to conduct a
school ON business principles, cannot
be permanently successful if his rates
OF tuition are too low to yield him
adequate remuneration. The farmer
cannot prosper when he sells his farm
commodities for less than the cost of
production. If it. cost him eighty
cents to produce bushel of wheat,
and he can sell il for only fifty, he
must, on the plainest principles of
productive economy, abandon the
production of wheat. The same
principle applies to the teacher.
If the people of Maryville will pay
only fifty cents for wheat, when, in
every other market, it is worth a
dollar, then, according to the con-
trolling laws of trade, wheat will
flow to the better market, and the
people of Maryville must do without
wheat. If Knoxville will pay but
five cents for bacon, while, in sur
rounding markets, it is worth ten,
then, Knoxville must content herself
to live without bacon.
The same principle applies to
schools. If community cannot, or
will not pay the market price of good
teaching, can they reasonably expect
to have good teachers and good
schools? If they can, or will pay
only the price of poor teaching,
should they complain or feel surprise
when they are forced to put up with
poor teaching, with all its sad conse>
quences
A short time ago we referred, some
what in a general way, to the prices
of tuition in schools of the same
grade with the Female Institute at
this place. Our readers the friends
of home education, who honestly and
earnestly desire permanent first
class school-will doubtless feel in
terested in more particular state-
ment of the same matter, especially
as it falls directly in the line of the
present thought.
In the College Record for 1877,
the price of boarding and tuition per
annum is given for sixteen Female
Seminaries, Colleges and Institutes,
in this State. The average is $257.
Only two as low as 5000. In the
State of North Carolina, nine are re-
ported; the average price per pupil
is $3.50. In Kentucky, eighteen are
reported, the average tuition and
boarding being 1907. In Georgia,
twenty are reported, the average
being $265. In Virginia, fifteen are
reported, at an average of S273.
Thus, we have given the price of
tuition in all the Female Institutions
reported in our own State, in one
directly east, two north and one south
of tall adjacent to it, Only three
in the entire number charge SO little
as $500. The total average is $275.
In the Institute here, it is only
Sis!
This is suggestive, as well as a
bold and striking comparison. The
cost of tuition, &c, in the Institute
here is much less than half the aver>
age in any one or all the States mens
toned above. Surely this ought to
awaken inquiry. Is this bold con-
trast of rates due to difference of
latitude? The statistics in the
premises negative any such concluN
sion. Is it due to want of means !?
For various reasons, we should think
not. Is it not rather owing to an
erroneous public opinion on the SUBJ
iect-an abnormal state of the popu>
lar mind, engendered under peculiar
circumstances, and by peculiar agen>
cies ?
What inferences are we authorized
to draw from the foregoing facts ?
Rather, to what conclusions are we
inevitably driven? We forbear,
however, to state inferences, and
leave our intelligent readers to pom
der the premises, form their own
conclusions, aud adopt that line Of
action which their sound judgment
approves. We venture to suggest,
however, that q good Female School