Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-10-24
Finding Fault with Teachers.

lied people, are addicted to one pas
time-that of finding fault with the
teachers of their children.
It seems to be utterly impossible for
parents to help it. They enjoy it.
They practice it continually, and every
| body expects them to do so.
Teachers themselves do not look for
anything else. They charge it in the
general account to profit and loss, and
do not lose any flesh on account of it,
except when they iare very new to the
business. In fact, no thin-skinned per-
son ever ought to choose the vocation
of teacher. One needs to have his Gu
ticle calloused.
You go to school, perhaps, and fit
yourself for teacher. Almost all the
young girl sc meet nowadays, who
are in the schools, are fitting to be
teachers, and sometimes, in thinking it
over by ourselves, we wonder where all
the children are to come from whom
they are to teach.
You come out of school with toler-
able good knowledge of the ologies;
can tell what zone Terra del Fuego lies
in, and can bound Europe, and pe-paps
draw map of Italy, bearing in mind
the while that it is shaped like boot.
You can ask for bread and butter in
French, and can say thank you in the
same language, and you know the
meaning of sic transit gl0ria mundi, and
of EXCELSIOR, and of E pluriJus unum.
You are armed with diploma tied to-
gether with blue ribbon (the cheapest
kind of blue ribbon we have observed
is generally used), and perhaps your
name went into the local paper at the
tail end of valedictory poem delivered
before the admiring tOwns.people
where your school-where you gradu-
ated-was situated.
These ought to be credentials enough.
SO you make up your mind you will
take school in the country. Begin
ners generally take schools in the coun-
try, partly because it is easier to obtain
them, and partly because they fancy
that country schools are not so bad to
teach. And the last notion is one of
the most erroneous you can indulge
and we know it from experience.
Very likely your school is in a
sparsely settled neighborhood. The
school-house will be set down in a
piece of swamp land, or else perched
on hill so stony that not even a rag
weed or mullen stalk can grow thare
by way of ornament.
Country districts always build their
school-houses on pieces of land which
are good for nothing else. Land in 1le
country is plenty, but it is not worth
while to waste it by using the best Of
it as sites for school-houses Of course
not Children can study just as well
in one place as another. Don't mt &C
any difference to item. And as foT
trees, good gracious what good will
trees do anybody who is getting q
geography lesson, or ciphering in the
rule of three say the old folks, en-
tirely ignorant OF the fact that the rule
of three Is myth, which the modern
arithmeticians leave out, or call by
some other name.
The school-house is put as near the
center Of the district as possible, and
by thus locating it, very likely the
and if you do not board round" you
will have half mile to walk after your
dinner of beef and potatoes, and rye
bread.
The school house, if it be in New
England, will be painted red. If 1t be
west, it will be some shade Of yellow;
if it be south, there will be no paint at
all, and perhaps no school.house either.
Red, with white trimmings. Do you
know why? Red is the most economi-
cal color. It is cheap, in the first place,
and stands we'll, the knowing ones tell
us; and if there is anything abominable,
and blot on the fairest landscape, it is
building of any kind painted red.
When you get there you will see that
the clapboards have strayed off som e
where, or o good many of them, and
what remains are covered with cabalist-
ic initials, cut out in trying a new
jack, knife or scratched with the point
of nail.
How eager the children will be to see
the new schoolmarm The entire force
in the district will be out the first day !;
no matter how they may play the truant
afterward, they will all be there on that
first day.
They will take your measure in the
first ten minutes. They will appraise
| youA uiCoo aAu JouA OAooSAS ouu JOuI
rings and the lace around your neck,
and they will decide as to whether your
hair curls naturally, or is put up on
hair-pins, and they know very soon if
you or they are to be boss (pardon the
word) and they are not slow to act
upon the knowledge.
By the time you have kept school a
week everybody in the district has said
their say Of you. Opinions differ. You
have scolded at Mrs. As children,
and pulled their ears, and stood them
out in the floor. No parent is willing
to have her darling's ears pulled. She
cannot speak well of the person who
does it. She says you are cruel, saw
age woman, and no more fit to have
control over children than she wolf !
And you shook poor little Bonnie and
left marks on Thaddy's ears that staid
all night and made Sarah Jane stand
out in the floor for half an hour, for all
those great big Jackson boys to laugh
at The idea And she'll speak to
the committee, or her name isn't A!
! And she'll see If things can't be differ