River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1886-07-15
BY One Who Doesn't Know Anything About
the Subject.
And Therefore Feels Competent TO Tell
Others All About II.

Der this week, and as this has been
the first opportunity l have ever en-
jOyed of seeing the flower Of the pro-
fessiOn in this state. made it a point
TO attend as many meetings as possible
and listen TO what the teachers had to
say of themselves and for themselves,
aud for their calling. The introduce
ton was "a surprise to me. IL came in
the form of paper by Prof. w. NJ.
Pond, of the Madison High School,
entitled "Some Peculiarities of Our
Business. The entire confession,
for such the paper appeared TO be
rather than an essay, was devoted to
the disparagement of the calling in
which his audience was engaged, and
belittling the attachments of the
teachers themselves.
Mr.. Ponds first proposition was that
the designation of their business as a
profession was purely an assumption.
The three learned professionalism,
medicine and theology each safe
guards thrown about them, fortified
by legal enactment, SO that members
of the profession were themselves
judges of the requirements of those
who sought TO enter, and the consent
of those already i'll was necessary be-
fore novice might assume the func-
ton of pleader, preacher or prac-
titiOner. Until teachers had the same
powers and were fortified by the same
legal enactments, they were in no way
entitled to assume their calling to be
a profession.
don't know that any exception can
be taken TO this proposition; neither
can |, as layman, see that it has any
thing to do with the success or failure
of individual teachers. The statutory
designation of the business of teaching
would only give it name; the require
ments would not be changed an iOta.
The state requires, already, that a
candidate for the position of teacher
should satisfy its representative--gen-
orally the county superintendent
he is master of certain branches. No
teacher is required to know all that
is to be known. Most of them do not
at first. The same rule applies in
law, in medicine, and in theology.
The applicant is often hard pushed to
convince the examiners, in either
branch, that he knows anything. If
he succeeds in this endeavor he gets
into the field and goes to work. About
one in ten is heard of after passing
inside the gate of the profession. =
The other nine fall by the way. Is
the percentage of failures greater
among teachersl l think not. Mr..
Pond said that ''some lack of capacity,
or some fault hidden to its pOssesSor,
had accounted for the quiet dismissal
of many teachers" Has not the same
''lack of capacity sent many an or
dalned preacher out on the road as a
book peddler. and many graduate of
our law schools into even more ignOble
or reprehensible callingsl A moment S
retrospection will answer this ques-
ton with a strong affirmative.
The speaker claimed that the bust
ness of teaching was made more diff
cult as a means of livelihood because
of the competition of the lower order
/ of teachers, who worked for less
wages, and the rivalry of the higher
order, who climbed over, and fOrcibly
expelled one when he was comfortably
fixed in a good position. ! am afraid
''sheepskins" and legal enactments
will never protect Mr.. Pond or any
OF his sympathizers from these two
harrassments of all professions. .
/ Even the station agents on our rail
roads are not free from the same
curse. They have to suffer from the
competition of the tyres, or they have
to give place to the men who can han
die the business; and he either has to
step down among the crowd who are
bidding places down, or climb up into
the parquet and become an usurper
himself. 1t is about the same with
the lawyers, doctors and divines. They
either pass up or are crowded down,
and their certificates don't save them.
These objections to the business of
teaching appear 10 me to be innate in
al professions, and therefore no
greater in the profession of teaching
than in any other. So of the Objec-
ton that it is full of care, laboriOus
and often disheartening. If Mr.. Pond
I knows of a profession less exacting
he is possessed of information which
has not yet become public property.
The lawyers and the doctors have
their days of doubt, and are heart-sick
at the success so long delayed, of fail
ures to win a suit or save patient.
| 1t is a common lot after all.
But the most humiliating confession
which Mr.. Pond made in behalf of
the fraternity for whom, and to whom
he was speaking, was that "the school
\ teacher is not at home in the society
of his equals. He can only talk
school," and knows nothing but the
narrow range of his vocation, and is
glad TO retire, even from his much
needed vacation excursion, TO his
I cloister, and again resume the weary
round of labor. The most surprising
I feature attending this assertion, and
/ in fact of the entire paper, was that
it elected but one protest from all the
I assembled teachers. had the fortune
] to be sitting next to University pro-
1 fesSor, and l submitted the question
! to him, if the speaker was not paint
\ ing a rather distorted picture of the
I profession. and its effect upon its vo-
taries. Great was my surprise when
/ he answered that it was every word
true, Father North, well-known
/ character among the educators of our
state, was the only one to protest