The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-05-18
THE EmrnoYnENr OF TEAcHERs.

gentlemen composing the boards of trustees
to consider the method heretofore pursued
in the employment of teachers and see IT
that method cannot be improved upon.
Many are of opinion that it can; and the
reasons they adduce appear to give very fair
support to their views when they maintain
that the old plan might be changed for the
better both in reference to its bearings upon
the school district, Or uponthe interests Of the
public, as well as its bearings upon the private
individuals principally affected by it, that is,
policy at present in vogue, at the close of
winter term and the beginning of the long
vacation, no engagements of old teachers
or selections of new ones are made. The
matter is allowed to remain undecided-to
rest IN doubt and uncertainty, until towards
the close of the summer vacation when, from
such material as may then present itself, a
corps of teachers is selected for the ensuing
term. Now this plan is neither conducive to
the welfare of the district, nor is it treating
the teachers employed during the previous
term, and who would like to continue in their
respective situations, with the consideration
their faithful service entities them to. First,
with regard to the district. There is no
scarcity OF teachers. Scores of replies are
sure to come pouring in, at any season OF the
year, in response to an advertisement stating
that a vacancy in the corps is to be filled.
There is thus always ample latitude of choices
we will admit, and if teachers were all of a
llI,ifnrrn ry,da of rnnrit fbn eaInpttpn pf SIIit
able instructors for our district schools, or for
the subordinate departments of our graded
schools might be postponed without any par
ticular harm, as far as the district is concerned
until the day preceding the opening of the
winter term. Blu this uniformity of excel
lence is no more to be observed among teach
ers than among those following other voca-
tiOns. There are teachers and teachers
good, bad and Indifferent. With this diver
sity, then, the plan best calculated to secure
the first mentioned class, to the exclusion of
the remaining two, would surely be the best,
as affecting the public interests. This plan
would consist rot of a hasty selection at the
eleventh hour, but rather of a arrangement
at the very close of a term of those teachers
whose services had given satisfaction, and
systematic efforts, during vacation, to secure
suitable persons to replace those whose ell
gagements it would be deemed mexpedient
to renew. Under such a system there would
be a basis of certainty to rely upon; while
under the old plan 1t has been no
experience for the trustees to be disappointed
at the last moment by finding that a ~favorite
teacher, whose leengagement had been looked
upon as a matter of course, had grown tired
of waiting in uncertainty and had accepted
employment offered elsewhere, although a
continuance of the old employment, whose
duties had become pleasant through the ties
clustering about it, would greatly have been
preferred, could it only have been assured.
But the teachers laboring faithfully in the
school room are deserving of consideration in
anything affecting their welfare, and from
their point of view the old plan, with its
attendant uncertainty, is in the highest degree
Objectionable. After a long term of service
so irksome, so arduous as that of the teacher
who strives faithfully to perform his Or her
duty to awards the pupils in charge, the person
released from that service is in every way in
need of a restful vacatiOn-of an unburden-
ing of the little corroding cares of the school
room-of repose for nina and body, that a
mental and physical regeneration may ensue
as the best preparation for the labors of the
following term, looked forward to across the
brief span of a summer vacation, all too
short even when fully availed of. But low
is the summer vacation to be enjoyed by
teachers whose future is all uncertainty who
are in a continuous state of anxiety respect.
ing the vital question of the means of earning
their daily bread, an anxiety only relieved at
the last moment; relieved to be replaced by
the mlnd-wearing annOyances of the school
room. Again: success is not achieved by
every well-meaning and worthy person who
embarks in the teachers profession. Even
skilful, competent, carefully trained profess
sional teachers do not invariably give salts
faction in every locality or situation in which
they find employment. In such cases then
where the teacher, though making an honest
effort and doing his best fails to please, is it
fair play is it treating him with the respect
due faithful service to allow him to remain
for months in uncertainty to find only when
too late to secure congenisl employment else
where, that the engagement he had hoped to
have renewed was closed by the selection of
another person?
The above is a presentation, however inn
perfect, of this matter of employing public
school teachers, as it presents itself to the
general public. We trust it will be sufficient
to ensure a change in the indicated direction.