Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1886-02-05
NOT A FEASIBLE PLAN.

II r EAOlD L LhNs
A bill is now before tie General Assem-
bly, which contains the following provls-
| ions-1. The State is to make an annual
annual appropriation of Sis coo; 2. Each
of the ten congressional districts is emit
tied to send 80 girls selected by the
county Superintendent to any "private
female, male, or mixed school, institute or
college, established for teaching higher
grade of education in that congressional
district" that will teach each girl for $50
per annum, and that such thirty girls may
fancy to attend. In consideration OF this,
the girls are to bind themselves to teach IN
the public schools for two years.
1t would be difficult to imagine more
prepusterous bill than this. If it is really
intended to forward the cause of educa-
ton In the State, and not mere nett
catch 81 500 for each congressional dis
trict. In the first place there is no prlvaf'
school, Institute, or college IN VlrgiEia
where girls are taught to be teachers
There are many admirable female school"
an d colleges, most of them in Staunton
where girls are fitted to learn teach
Jag. Their minds are stocked with learn
ing of desirable character, but there IS
no department of any of these institutions
that We know of where teaching is taught
Indeed it would not compensate them l.,
even under this bill, to employ teacher
to instruct in that speciality. We presume
that the bill is based strictly on the inex-
plicable ignorance that obtains as well,
al ong the educated as the unlettered, that
erson who is educated can also teach.
The appropriations made for years to the
male Universities, for free education to
young men on the condition they will
Teach for certain length Of time in re-
turn, must not be taken as precedent.
They were mere subsidies to makeshift
until the true Normal system could be
introduced. They did not furnish the
State with teachers, but with we'll educat-
ed young men, who for the most part have
perfunctorily tried to learn teaching by
practicing on the raw material furnished
them from the farms and sometimes from
towns. This State has not gotten its
money back from these investments in
the Young men and never will. The
youngsters had an honest ambition to get
out of the school house and into the broad
and busy world as soon as possible, and
pretty generally spent their spare time in
sion, rather than in pei fecting themselves
for teachers. The exceptions to this have
been young men who had the gift OF
teaching, just as men have the gift for
preaching. or law. or journalism -profes
sions that find their success in operating
on the human midland In such the
State got back far more than she invested
or, indeed, than money Isl an equivalent
for.
Virginia is too far advanced on the edu-
cational road now, to tolerate such tinker
ing as the bill we have mentioned propo-
ses The Person who is to teach the
young in this State in the future, will wear
petticoats. She is already, from whatever
reason. erowding her masculine competi-
tor out of the field. The last report show
ed that while the number of her sex tie ach-
ing in the public schools increased 10 per
cent. her male competitors fell off nine
per cent. We must take care of her and
make her teacher in equipment as she
already is in spirit. No half way meas
ures must be awarded her. She must go
from the female seminary, college or inst-
tute. to the Normal, and not to the former
to learn teaching Let the $751; 900 indicated
in this bill be spent in establishing three
Normals in Piedmont. the Valley and the
Southwest at SIS, 900 each. At them girls
Will be made teachers, and nowhere else In
Virginia is there any preparation to make
them such.