Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1895-07-04

/ sistant, Miss Della Ovit2.
,Janitor, first ward Thomas Lutey.
JanitreSs. fourth ward Mrs. Il.
Gundry.
The teachers for the public schools
of Mineral Point have been selected
for the coming year. The Democrat
believes that the members of the
Board of Education acted according
to their best Judgment in the selection
and assignment of these teachers, who
make up strong corps of educators.
The school census just completed show
the number of persons of school age
in Mineral Point to be over 100; and
it is perhaps safe to say that the aver
age school attendance during the COM
ing year will reach $50. There are Is
teachers, and this would be an average
of 50 pupils to each teacher The
task of the teacher is anything but an
easy one. 4 writer well and truly
says:
Among the solitary workers in this
world who have nothing but their own
sense of duty to stimulate them, there
are few who have a harder lot than the
teachers in our public schools. They
enter the service, especially women, in
the years of girlhood or opening
womanhood, when the heart is fresh
and the instincts are keen and out
reaching, and they are in position to
constantly give of their best to the
boys and girls under their charge. To
large extent the women in these
schools are persons of the highest or
der of ability. Their moral sympa-
thies are quick; their instinct for the
ideal is fresh and keen; and they feel
intensely the responsibility of their
position. Standing face to face day
after day with fifty or sixty or seventy
pupils, as the case may be, and giving
out Of their best to these young per.
sons while receiving but little in re-
turn, the strain of week after week, i,
month after month, and year after
year, is something enormous upon the
nervous, mental and spiritual forces Of
their nature. The successful teachers
usually represent the highest moral
| forces of womanhoOd and while they
are giving out from their lives forces
in the instruction Of the young. they
are largely taking the places Of father
and mother in educating these chill
dren. Secular as their work may seem
it is often moral problem that takes
the place of an intellectual one. Char
acter is in process of formation, and
the teacher is the appointed person to
settle the question of the right and
wrong which will make an indelible
impression upon young minds. Then,
while these teachers stand alone in
their work, they are not alone in the
distribution Of their salaries. They
are usually women ia moderate cir.
cumstances who have a brother or
sister, or father mother, more or less
dependent upon them, and whatever
they can save from their incomes goes
to help others in the race of life."
In no better way can the people of
Mineral Point prove themselves to be
in touch with the progressive spirit of
the age than by continuing to extend
encouragement and loyal support to
their schools and teachers. The teach.
ers represent, and should represent, an
uplifting intellectual and moral force.
The age demands that they stand for
what is true and noble In life. En-
couragement of teachers should take
the place of fault finding. If parents
would secure for their children the
benefits and blessings intended for
them through popular education.