Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-01-18
Some Of the Joys and Trials Of
aRural Teacher.
A Picture True to Life Painted by
One Who Knows.
Most County Teachers, However, Get Less
Pay Than She Did.

there abide for the space of week
y,i,hout heing informed by somebody
that / am doing easy work for big pay
I should distrust that town, writes
Miss Sara G. Small in the Boston
Transcript. l should not feel that the
usual Inequalities were being exten1eo
to me- 1t is nearly always a woman
who first observes this formailty.
When the financial side is touched
upon. enter the man. That interests
him. He probably pays poll tax.
Ten dollars a week! Pretty good
pay for five days work; siX-hour days
too. And all you have to do is TO sit
there and hear lessons, and keep the
Youngsters out of mischief. Well, you
get your money easy"
Now, / have long since ceased to ar
que the matter on such occasions IL
facts are stubborn things, there are
fallacies ten times as stubborn. All
have to do is to 'sit and hear lessons
and keep the youngsters out of mis-
chief" Is it? The lines have fallen
unto me in easy places of late, Tor
have only three grades in my ROOM
have had the whole nine, and live to
tell it. Did you ever try to row q boat
in "choppy" sea? That is what l
am doing just now.
Since country schools began trying
to keep up with the pace set by the
thoroughly graded city school, equipped
with special teachers. the progress
made i'm many of them is most apuy
described by the old rhyme Of the alli-
gator who
wouldn't go along. and wouldn't stand
still.
Bat kept bobbng up and down"
First there is the elaborate course OF
study. Language, grammar. litera-
ture. English and American history,
physical and common school geogra-
ply. physiology, music, drawing. that
fearful and wonderful thing known as
nature study, involving everything
from the investigation of earthworms.
muscles and boiled rabbit bones up to
the study of the solar system and the
fixed stars: and incidentally little
reading, writing, spelling and arithme-
tic.
The time allowed for some Of these
researches is twenty minutes, twice
each week Fifteen minutes is al
lowed for daily Rotations from each
class. Keep to the program. Ring
promptly on the clock tick. AT night
your children will probably feel very
much like the little boy who was taken
to see the biograph: Il have to 1cok
Cor what's coming next before I know
what went last" he plaintively re-
marked. But never mind. You must
be modern, or forever resign your
claim to fitness as an exponent of our
great public school system.
When some old-fa shioned mother
writes you, Tommy does not under
stand his arithmetic very well. He
brings his examples home, but his
father and | cannot seem to help him.
He says we don't do them the way
they do down at school," you feel dis
couraged, but you try to stifle your
conscience and your common sense
with the reflection that you were told
at the last teachers meeting that
arithmetic had been made far too
much account of in the past, and that
it is seldom of any practical use after
leaving school
You have just fifteen minutes for
TCmmy's arithmetic class. And while
he is working on it at his desk you are
rushing through another recitation.
Neither can Tommy spend very much
time on it. He, poor youth before
school is out must draw some cross
sections of soaked beans, learn two
stanzas of Shelley's CLOUD" and write
theme" on DEMONSTRATION"
And when you are reading Tommy's
theme. for it must be corrected and
passed back so that he will know Just
what 4 mess he has made of it, you
hn
eleven. for this is Tommy's best work
You stifle a sigh, and feel guilty. Ye
why should anyone be 50 absurd as te
insist that Tommy should spell cor
rectly? He can tell you, without s
moments reflection whether the SOUR
rel chews or chops his food he car
paint beautiful milkweed pods will
watered India ink. and ne can write /,
description of 1.-The Man with tn.
Hoe" or Baby Stuart that would
raralyze the soul of an art critic.
Susie Bates, a seventh-grade girl
told Tommy the other day that hi
milkweed pods looked like squashes
Tommy is in the eighth grade. and H.
does not take kindly to criticism, eves
from his peers. Huh" he grunted
with fine contempt; IF they wa
squashes would they be stickin' up lik
that? They'd be layin' down fiat"
have great hopes of Tommy,
Lately. by way of increasing tn
teachers need of being instant in sea
son and out of season, the scroo
board have voted that no textbool
shall be used by the pupils OF tn
eighth and ninth grades in their stud
of English grammar.
THE principles of grammar are t
be developed by the teacher" Di
you ever hear a model school, teach
er develop a definition in English gram
mar? If You never have, you hav
missed some innocent fun. And Their
is no admission fee, either.
In some way exercises are suppose
to gain in value by being transferre
from some book to the board, an
from the board to the pupil. 1t may b
hard on their eyes, but it gives You tn
experience of putting English gram
mar into the form Of blackbOar
serial. to say nothing of the chalk 30
absorb into your clothes and into YOU