The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-12-28


forts, and proved that the Kansas State
Teachers association has within it's
ranks at least two women who can ad-
dress an audience with an ease of which
many men of finished speech might feel
proud,
The feature of the evening was the
address of Mr.. John Macdonald, presi-
dent of the association. His subject
was, ''Twenty-nine Years and After?''
He said:
Twenty-Five Years and After?
''It may be well to say at the outset
that this retrospective view viii be
through no pessimistic telescope, and
that the scripturaI words, Say not
thou, what is the cause that the former
days We're better than these? for thou
dost not inquire wisely concerning
this will we hope, be dominant notes
in the reflections and remarks which are
to follow.
But it surely will be profitable to in
quire and to note what advancement,
if any, We have made during the last
twenty-nine years, and possibly oc-
casionally to ask if we have not at
sundry times and in divers manners
been travelling vigorously around in
circles or even been 1abOriOuSly and fu-
tilely ascending tread mills.
LAS to the thread of this discourse, it
has none, and there will probably be
found in it on analysis a striking re-
misunderstanding small things
with great-tO governors message, a
series of reviews and recommendations
a glancing at strengths, weaknesses and
mistakes, in paragraphs OF sections
which apparently have no logical rela-
ton to each other. AS to lines of
thought, there are many, and 1t may
appear to those of you who may re-
main awake until the end, that these
lines cross each other at right angles,
though we are not without hope that
before a conclusion is reached, some Of
you may discover between or among
these lines and angles a few truths, in
ferenceS and deductions.
mo past of Kansas can be very re-
mote, and twenty-nine years may seem
but a brief span to those of you that
were born in states which were founded
a century or two ago. But in these
days the world moves fast, and twenty
nine years of Kansas is better than a.
cycle of Cathay'-or of Spain. In xix
months or less of 1898, this giant re-
public of ours drove from the western
continent, and well nigh paralyzed the
municipalities and powers of despotism;
forced into new lines the politics Of
other nations; gave new hopes and as
piratiOns to millions of oppressed peO-
pies, and firmly planted, to remain for
evermOre, the stars and stripes upon the
remoLest islands of the Orient.
Early Builders.
en- 1870 the state was only nine years
old, but large for it's age. Much had
| been done since 1861. The pioneers-Mc-
Vicar Mccarthy, Mccartney, Brewer,
DeniSon, Plat and others, had laid amid
war was overshadOwing the land, the
corner stones of our school system. If
they did not build better than they
knew, the built as well as they knew,
and wisely adapted their work to ex-
listing conditionS-Snall towns here and
there, with vast sOIitudes between. OF
the fathers then tonight let US speak
and think with gratitude, for they are
worthy of the reverent affection of
every KanSan. Some of them are in the
land beyond the river but their work
fe5 1aarsa Of
Doctors McVicar and DenisOn, are with
US here now, rejoicing, I doubt not, as
they see in this hall the splendid growth
and vigOr of that association which
they and others brave of heart and
strong in faith organized in Leaven-
worth thirty-f1ve years ago.
Touching on future events Mr.. Mac
Donald continued:
LAS a preliminary to reform, kill off
the politicians, not the statesmen, we
need them; but the politicians of the
Ward-heeling variety. They with their
BOmbastes F'uriOso harangues have
done more than all other agencies COM
bined to retard reforms. They con-
stantly speak Of our magnificent school
system, the finest on the earth. absO-
lutely without a, flaw. The politician,
before the campaign opens, obtains
state superintendent biennial report
sits UP in the silent watches of the
night loading his memory with facts
and figures, then goes forth smelling
the battle from afar, cOnquering and
to conquer. Generously he sounds out
in every hall and at every cross road,
you have heard him roll these figures
off his tongue: Kansas spent last year
for all school purposes 81, 542 445.70!' He
fails to say and is probably ignorant of
the fact that much of this vast expendi-
ture was misappIied and misspent; that
hundreds of the school houses built are
useless, numbering structures of the
ground
Trained Teachers for S32!
"How vociferously we have been cry
ing these many years for trained teach
ers embodying all the virtues, the graces
and the proprieties; incarnations we
want of all the strong qualities in So
crates, Aristotle, Plato, Arnold and
Mark Hopkins and for the services Of
these ideal creatures, so often sketched
in educational meetings and journals,
and elsewhere we offer $32 a month
five months each year, for that, our
state superintendent tells US, is the
average pay of a rural school teacher
in Kansas. Dividing the $3.50 by u, and
that surely is reasonable as well as
arithmetical, we have $1313 1-3 per
MONTH BY this time it must be clear
enough to all who have followed these
remarks, laden as they are with elo-
oueut facts and figures. that before anV