New Iberia enterprise. (New Iberia, La.) 1885-1902, 1901-08-10

~ SySlcIu VI SCHOOLS is never an y
better than the ideals or plans OF
its superintendent. In the ma
jOrity of cases the schools are no,
so good as the superintendent plans
Water rises no higher than the foun,
tain head. The schools are the
water, the superintendent the foun-
tain head.
In the business world the salary
that is offered generally determines
the value of the man employed.
Superintendents, like everybody
else, are worth what they are paid.
There are thousand-d dollar men,
two thonsanddollar men, three
thousand dollar men. In Georgia
we have some three hundred dol
lar superintendent; they are worth
every cent they are paid-and no
more.
In counties where the total school
revenue for forty or fifty teachers
is only about six thousand dollars,
where the schools run only one
hundred days, where the teachers
are paid only about one dollar a
day, three dollars day is really
very good pay for the superintend-
ent. All he has to do is to ride
around and visit the schools, see
how many are present, and hear
a class or two in reading and SPELL
ing. The board of education loves
to elect the teachers and select
the textbooks, kind man comes
in once year to hold the institute,
and the superintendent is we'll paid
for what he does, or rather what
he is allowed to do, between bust
ness hours or between crops.
Such man is supposed to do
very well for country people
country children and country teach
ers; but for villages, towns, and
cities one must be more of teach
er, more of superintendent, more
of a man, and get more pay.
The distinction is unjust, dan
gerous, and ruinous to our rural
interests. A country school should
be as good as city school. A
country teacher should be as good
as city teacher. A country sup
erintendent should be as expert as
a city superintendent. A three
hundred dollar man in country or
city will have three hundred dollar
schools.
The remedy is to organize every
thing in county under one man,
and let him have charge Of the
work in the city, the villages, and
the rural districts. The county can
then afford to employ good man,
who will carry his city expertness
into the back woods schools. The
country teachers will have to be as
good as the city teachers. The
same pay, the same school term,
the same course Of study will be
given to both.
This should stem the tide Of ru-
raj life flowing into the cities
for the sake of school advantages.
It should introduce into rural
schools improved methods of teach
ing, industrial work, music, art,
sewing, cooking, nature study,
botany, all of which will lift the
country child up to the level of
beautiful, interesting, and happy
life, which he is far from knowing
now.
l mean to illustrate, not boast. l
saw the country children of Rich
mond county were starving for
reading matter, after we had given
them thirst through the power
10 read. ! asked one hundred
families in Augusta to give me the
illustrated magazines they cast
aside every month. The response
was liberal. The magazine move
ment began, a month or two be-
hind, but still fresh enough for
hose who had nothing. There be-
gan flow of magazines, through
he teachers, who came every month
Tor their pay, into the hands Of
he larger children and iuto the
homes, until now thousand maga-
lines q year are thus distributed
lmong people who did not read
my before.
The library movement is well
lnder way. Every school of suf-
icient size will have a library of
hirty volumes years supply.
These libraries are numbered from
me to fifty, and are interchange
lble, and there are but few dnpli-
'ates. Sometimes they are, named
rom the gentleman whose $40 sup
'lied it, as the "Jones Library,
The Parker Library" When a
chool has read one literary an ex-
h = no 10 40 Had fOr op1 90 thcr,