Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-12-08
A NOBLE PROFESSION.
Bessie Bramble Talks About Our
Public School Teachers and
TAKES ISSUE WITH DR.. McCOSH.
How Political Machine Methods Interfere
With Education.
GIVING THE pAH-AMERICAEs A SHOCK.

WRITTEN FOB THE DISPATCHs1
There are some professions whose daily
work tends to do good, to spread happiness
or promote morality, and the teacher has the
qualification of knowing that in his daily
employment he is increasing the intelli-
gence, and thereby augmenting the felicity
Of those who are under his instructions"
This sounds like one of the nice moral
essays heard at the Teachers Institutes, and
mostly delivered by the brethren who pro-
pose to teach until they can be admitted to
the bar, or 60 into politics, or the pulpit, or
some more lucrative business. Other
learned and garrulous men who, as general
thing, are crammed with conceit and classics
are always-as they assert-profoundly i'm
pressed with the dignity and elevation of
the teachers profession.
They always claim for it power for good,
not even second to that of the pulpit, and a
respect for it inferior to none in the world.
They Rlorify it as q calling of greatest
honor and supremest Importance, and mob
lest achievement. But, as is frequently
noted, notwithstanding all of this high
praise-Dot to call it cant-most of
them get out Of it at the earliest possible
moment. DR.. McCosh however, whose
words have been quoted. stuck to the busi-
ness, and won fame and name and fortune,
and now that he has retired from the more
laborious duties of the teachers work, he
takes pleasure in the thought that he has
pupils in almost every part of the world
that are doing credit to his teaching,
and exercising an influence for good as a
result of his WORK.
1t may be that, if teachers were better
paid, those who are eminently qualified and
gifted for such business would be glad to
avail themselves Of the opportunity to follow
out their natural bent, and give their best
energies to pursuit as congenial to them
selves and improving to others. But the
fact is that men mainly take to teaching
school in these days because it is good
stepping-stone to something else. It is a
pursuit which, for them, requires-as the
average director views it-no experience
whatever A man, green from a country
college, or fresh from the bogs. who can
secure good political Endorsement can,
without question or protest. be elected to
the position of principal in the public
schools at high salary, though
HE MAY KNOW NOTHING
of the work and have neither natural abil-
ity to impart instruction nor faculty of man
agement to make a school a success. Mer-
chants engaged in trade know the value of
experience. They insist upon that as essen
tial in engaging their assistants. A woman
cannot get place to sell ribbons and laces
and tapes unless she has had experience"
Green hands are looked upon by business
men as q nuisance. They will not employ
such unless compelled by stress of necessity.
In all lines of employment almost competent
hands are demanded, and the valued and
trusted assistants are those who know it all
by having climbed from the bottom.
But this business rule is oftentimes re-
versed by the sapient, or rather sap-headed,
school directors They have no scruples
about experience when it comes to the point
of electing callow college man, who may
have perhaps some indications of a mus
tache, over women in the line of succession,
who know more about the details and dis
cipline of school than he can master tn
ten years. A case to point moral comes to
mind where a competent principal, whose
administration had been distinguished BY
success for years, was recently dropped" to
make place for book agent, this injustice
being done merely at whim of the directors,
or rather on the score Of politics and per-
sonal favor.
Such cases are not uncommon, and they
show that DR.. McCosb is not we'll posted as
to the public schools, when he makes the
assertion that 'no doubt the teacher has not
the same opportunities of earning money
that merchants and lawyers and bankers
have" But to counterbalance this, she is
in more independent position than many
others, and is not liable to the reverses, cul-
minating, it may be, in poverty or bank
ruptcy, to which members of other higher
positions are exposed" The knowledge of
DR.. McCosh, as to teachers, is evidently
confined to colleges and universities, where
the professors are promoted, or pensioned,
or die, but are never dropped" When he
offers as a compensation for the absence of
chances for the teacher to make money, that
he is in a more independent position than
many others, he shows that he knows moth
ing of the toady1ng, and trucking. and SUBJ
serViency that are needed to secure the favor
of Board of directors
RUN BY POLITICS,
rather than by any consideration of the
good of the school, and the efficiency of the
teacher. When he talks of the teachers not
being subject to reverses, as are those in
other pursuits, he did not consider such in
stitutions as the Lawrence Bank where the
little savings of some teachers were deposited
for the rainy day of which they are in con-
slant jeopardy owing to the unreliability of
politics, and the trickeries of those in politi-
cal authority.
DR.. McCosh, by his own account, taught
school for 81 years, and like most teachers
who have an enthusiasm and taste for the
business, he found his highest enjoy
ment in teaching and in seeing the good
result of his labors in his pupils, but were
he principal or teacher in some of the
public schools he would find that his main
work would be to ''stand in'' with the ward
board SO as to insure his yearly reelection.
Enthusiasm. capacity, taste, and aptitude
for the business are not important points as
to teaching in these days. The teacher who
has none of these qualities will draw the
same salary as if he were in full possession
not only of these, but of the tabled virtues
of the gods. The inexperienced young man
at the top will be given twice the pay of the |
able and efficient woman who has risen from |
the ranks and is distinguished for eminent |
service.
1t cannot be denied that teaching holds |
out to men engaging in it such inducements |
as are offered to tyros in no other occupation |
or profession. A lawyer knows that he must |
climb rugged road, and that not until he |
has made reputation can he expect to reap |
large profits. The doctor knows he has to
acquire skill and reach eminence before he |
can hope for fame and lat fees. But the |
conceited collegian who has luck, aud who
desires a chance to make good living |
while he gets ready for something else, goes |
to teaching and gets as much salary as If he
had been in the profession for 20 years. |
Such do not go into the work for the love of
it, but for the cash and convenience, until
their plans are ripe, and their way is made
clear for something they more highly es-
TEEN, and more ardently desire than the |
great work DIR. McCosh so lauds and mag
ni6es in his essay on the trials and triumphs
of the teacher.
SHOCKING THE PAN-AMERICANs.