St. Paul daily globe., 1896-01-03
Are you a town clerk? ?o

ar Are you . town clerk?" s.,s
Are you the sheriff. =
mo, SIR: I am the teacher. Isgovern the
ehifdren; they rule their mothers,s who dfc4
tate to their husbands. that manage the af1
fairs Of the district. So am the lord over
all. See?'' -
The influence Of the country school t,..ner
Is not limited by the walls of her school
district, and very frequen4'-- even beyond its
boundaries. And years & n she has left
the .!1i district and quit teaen.ng. her influence
Teaching, with its underlying principles
is, OF course. the same in all classes Of
schools, but let US turn our attention mo-
teacher. Nearly all of us have some ac-
quaintance with the conditions under which
s she labors. Many of our districts are settled
by people having come from nearly all quar-
ters of the globe. They have brought with
them ideas derived from the education, hab-
rs and customs of most remote countries
everything else with the things and surround-
ings under which they were brought up and
IN many instances they arrive at the conclu-
sion that the new country ought TO he differ
ent from what it is Even people coming
from Spair and Russia honestly think that
compared with the schools of their old coun-
which they uphold and patronize only to
the extent and because the law demands it
Of them. The children in such new neigh
borhoods speak various languages hut HftJe
or no English outside of the school room.
Public sentiment and morals differ widely.
and what seems perfectly proper, yes, al
most a duty, to sumo of the school patrons,
is almost shocking to others.
:. In consequence of such winds blowing from
all directions the thermometer measuring the
temperature OF harmony and unanimity some
times very suddenly drops below zero
Under such conditions the teacher APPLIES
for the school. She is engaged for five
months at $50 month, and gets free of
charge all the which she may induce to
come through the small windows where in
the place OF glass. a visitor sometimes finds
stratum of dust and sometimes a boy
coat CT piece of a set of charts recently
bought from some smooth-tongued agent ar
the remarkably low price for which she would
gladly. work a whole month. She is given
to understand that she receives big salary.
more than she can earn anywhere else, and
larger than the district is really able to
pay, and that she must, if she gets it, eongrat-
uiate herself on having secured boarding
place only mile and half from the school
house at price which will still leave her
two-thirds of her wages; that she can easily
build her own fire sweep the school house,
clean the grounds and outhouses, and that
she must watch the children of the other
folks and keep. them in good order.
She opens the school with pupils whose
number is determined by the conditions of
the weather and the cornfelds and from
the report of whom the others form their
opinion of the teacher and her work. For the
first few weeks she may have some pupils
and she may have none. During school hours
she arranges her classes, she gives out and
hears lessons. she teaches new things, and
drills what has been taught before, she CON-
mands and commands, she helps one and all.
and is kept busy until her feet threaten to
join the strikers and her head is in a whirl
She closes her school at p m to begin her
work. Subduing herself, she goes to house
where her most unruly boy lives and speaks
to his affectionate mother of her fine children.
At another home, she captures her own ar
tistic taste and calls the dwarfish plants very
beautiful flowers. She stays to tea, and
praises even distasteful bread as the most de-
Hcious she has ever eaten.
Sacrificing all her own comforts, her time