Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1897-02-04

| W see tnd6 none out LnOSe VINO nave
received this special preparation are
employed within its borders. This
would turn the schools of the State
over to the Normal Schools and create
monopoly as corrupting as any other
in the land.
The st-Dispdtch assumes that pri-
vate institutions have not the facili-
ties-the Libraries and apparatus to
properly equip its teachers. To test
this it seems to US would be very sim
pie matter. Let the State establish
standard as high as it deems it advisa-
BILE to place it, and then require every
| teacher within its borders to come to
that standard, taking nothing for
granted. Place the graduate of Am
berst, Harvard, Chillicothe, Cape Cir
| ardeau, Stansberry and the pupil of
the country school side by side, and
| license the one to teach that knows his
business. This is precisely the test
that our State Normals seek to avoid.
Their professors will tell you, if you
have their confidence, that such a
course would be very injurious to their
| institutions. That if their graduates
are to come into competition with the
graduates of private institutions they
might as well close up. The truth is
that the Normal schools of this State
are frauds. They are being conducted
for what their Professors and other in
terested parties are able to get out of
them. Their chief business is to draw
blood from the tax payer. Like the
horse leech their cry is continually
''more," s'more." and any enterprise
or institution that interferes with their
power of suction they attack, with all
their might and by any means that
they think likely to destroy it.
The Post Dispatch quotes the State
Superintendent as declaring the pri-
vate schools have not shown them
selves equal to the task of supplying
teachers for the schools of the State.
Who is the State Superintendent, any
way? What man outside of the town
ship in which he lived knew him prior
to the accident of 1894? Where are
the graduates that the State Normals
have ground out since their hands
were first placed in the pockets of the
taxpayers of this State? Why are
they not found filling our school rooms?
Has their course of study so exhausted
their vitality that they have pinned and
died? The fact is that the young men
who have secured Normal diplomas
have found that they were not greatly
advantaged thereby. Those that have
had no especial talent for teaching
have gone into other avocations and
the vast expenditure of money by the
State has resulted only in good to the
| barnacles it has created and which a
continued expenditure will continue to
foster.
Heretofore the Post Dispatch has had
an eagle eye for the lobby. Its scent
has been acute. 1t could smell a job
afar off. Has it's vision become
blurred? Is it suffering from catarrah
so that its olfactories refuse to perform
their proper functions? Is there no
Normal School lobby? Are there no
Professors at the legislature this year,
either in person or by attorney, howl
ing for a larger share of the public
carcass? Was the Normal Professor
not sufficiently in evidence two years
ago to warrant the suspicion that he
had some little personal interest in
money legislation
There is no reason why the State
should do a losing business. The vast
sums of money that have been expend-
ed upon these Normal Schools have
enabled them to be self-supporting if
they are ever to become so. Turn
them over to private individuals and
let them sink or swim according as
they deserve.
To say that private schools have not
shown themselves able to supply the |
demand for teachers is neither fair
nor sensible. How could the POSt-DiS-
patch succeed if the State should es-
tablish daily in st. Louis and put |
the pocket-book of the taxpayer back
of it? Would it be just to that paper to
say that it had shown itself incapable |
of supplying the public with the news,
when the type, the salaries of its Off
Gals, the buildings in which to carry |
on Business, the office furniture, press
es, and all other necessaries to the
running of a newspaper, were furn-
ished to its opponent out of the State
treasury, from money, part of which it
had paid in in taxes. The voice of the |
Post Dispatch would be lifted up against |
this state of affairs. All the air would |
resound with it's clamor against such |
an iniquity. Then, if the State should |
give certain advantages to advertisers
n o.