The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-25
About the Worst English on
Record in the Law for
Teachers.
PUZZLES IN EVERY SECTION
The Law Won't Work, Nobody Un-
derstands 1t and the Teachers
Are Distracted.

pension act threatens to drive the Supreme
Court to drink if it ever gets before tha
body. Apart from its relation to the
interests of the public school teachers O
the State this law in nine sections is O.
interest because it is a shining example o.
what State Legislature can do in the way
of butchering the Queens English and ir
building out of words obscurities, incon
sistencies, stupidities and fool mandates
laws of the land which cannot be under
stood, and which could not be made tc
work if anybody could make out how they
were intended to work
And this, too, is a law for school-teach-
ers. They framed law themselves which
was presented to the Legislature. The
English was better than the legal pro-
visions, the legislators thought. When il
escaped from the lawmakers it was a fine
looking specimen of a law for a free people
with low percentage of illlteracy, but the
Governor signed it. Now the teachers are
wondering in a disguised way what the
law does mean anyway.
Briefly the law provides that teacher
who has taught for a generation may re-
tire on a pension if she can get one. 1t
was intended to provide fund from which
real pensions might come. After all sorts
of public sources were laid aside it was de-
cided by the Legislature that the teachers
might furnish one themselves if they
wanted one, and the law justities the sus-
plcion that 1t was intended that the teach
ers should pay over l per cent of their
monthly salaries for that purpose. The
teachers would not object TO that if the
law would work.
One provision of the law is that teachers
now employed must sign document by
which they assume the burdens and bene-
hts of the law if they want a future pen
sion, but another section of the law has
caused the widespread opinion that by
putting their names on that paper they
forfeit their rights to their tenure of office
guaranteed by the law construed by the
Supreme Court in the Kennedy and Fair
child cases.
Most of the leading teachers have ad-
vlSed against signing the document pre-
scribed by the act. Ali concede that,
while the law is not satisfactory now, it is
so much gained, and will be amended two
years hence. One faction favors signing
and taking chances, and about sixty of the
900 teachers of the City have done so.
a short time ago meeting of teachers
started the scheme of organizing a new
pension society, the members of which
would contribute monthly 1 per cent of
their salaries, TO be deposited in a savings
bank and turned over to the official fund
In two years, if the law is satisfactorily
amended then. An agreement to this eff
feet has been circulated and has received a
good many signatures.
week or so ago somebody started
around among the schools an agreement
that those signingit would " sign the bill"
as 1t Is termed, when 500 teachers here had
agreed to do so. The other day the prin-
clpal of one school passed the agreement
on to another school tor circulation there.
1t then had 269 signatures, many teachers
having signed it in tit OF sudden reck-
lessness. The principal sent it by small
boy who had been good and the small
OF this particular scheme are making des-
perate efforts to find out who signed the
agreement and to get them to sign over
again, but most OF these teachers have
changed their minds since and concluded
not to sign after all.
Section l of the law makes the Super
intendent of Schools, the Treasurer and tie
chairman OF the Board OF Supervisors of
each county the schooltcachers' retire
ment fund commissioners, and it is their
power and duty to administer the pension
fund, designate beneficiaries, etc.
Section is one OF the sticklers. 1t
says:
Whenever any teacher entitled to the bene-
fits OF this act has taught in the public schools
OF this State for period of twenty years, and
shall become incapacitated from performing
the duties OF teacher, such teacher shall, at
ms or her request, and may in the discretion
OF the Board of School Trustees without such
request, be retired as teacher and shall there
after receive an annuity out of said fluid of S45
per month.
Twenty-Five years service gives pen
sion OF $50 a month. The teachers fear
that they may place themselves in the
power OF the Board of Education to retire
them ''at their discretion for incapacity
Lawyers who have given opinions on this
section are divided as to whether the
lncapacity is condition of retirement
that would have TO be established, as now,
by an open and impartial trial.
Section is long one and purports to
provide somewhat imposing machinery
for taking care of the fund, and prescribes
books, reports and various clerical duties
Tor Commissioners, Boards of Education,
Auditors and Treasurers, but it is so
weird thing when its puzzle is sought to
be untangled that Auditor Broderick,
Treasurer Widber and others concerned
have IN despair given up trying to figure
out any way by which the necessary / per
cent OF teachers salary could legally be
withheld If the teacher insisted that it
should be done, or that the Treasurer
could legally get the real money into his
vaults.
Section 6 beggars description and some
other things This gem is as follows:
ITO provide fund for the payments provided
Education in each municipality shall certify
monthly to the Treasurer of such municipality
and the Board of Trustees in every school
district outside OF such municipalities shall
certify and pay over in like manner to the
County Treasurer of each county. and / per
cent OF the amount Que each teacher as salary
Tor the previous month; and all moneys de-
rived from any other source shall be paid
TO the County Treasurer to the credit of such
fund. Such board shall also receive and place
10 the credit of said fund all moneys received
from donations, legacies, gifts, requests or
otherwise.
Some things here can be guessed at, but
some cannot. What shall the secretary
certify monthly" Possibly the 1 per
cent. What shall the Trustees "certifv and
pay over" in like manner, and in what
like manner" The Trustees do not gen.
orally handle the salaries, so that must be
something else. This section all at once
deals with all municipalities, such as
Alameda, which are nowhere else given
anything to do with the law, and who
could not have anything to do with it
under this law. Then the s"rrustees," who
could not get the money unless they stole
it, are to "certify and pay over" to the
County Treasurer of leach" county in the
State, which would be big job The "and
1 per cent? looks bad, but it reads that
way in the statutes of California. Several
lawyers have puzzled over the clause land
Ill i IL.