The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-07-12

The movement among educators and
teachers for the improvement of the condi-
ton OF what are known as the grade teach
ers in our public school system is most
commendable. From the standpoint Of the
general public no factor in common-schoo
education is so important as the grade
teacher. Beginning with the child when he
first leaves the influence of the home and
goes TO what is TO him an unknown and
untried world. the public school. the grade
teacher takes hold OF his life with a power
and with a possible influence that is almost
unmeasured. The child first becomes ac-
q~uainted with the larger social life which
contact with others in the public schools
forces upon him. in this new atmosphere
which is untried by the newcomer into the
school life turks much that is possibly evil
and dwells much which is marvelously
good.
The grade teacher becomes at this period
in a chiid's life a guide in a new realm. She
does not simply train the child in the rudi-
ments OF a common-schoo education, but
she leads him In new attitudes of it's life
AAo Pc h4otCo oAo III HIS
Of influence from the outside. Going with
the child from this starting point of it's
school life up through the various stages
TO the fourteenth or fifteenth year, the
grade teacher. more than any other human
influence, more than the pastor and the
Sunday-school teacher, determines the
trend of character, so far as it can be de-
termined by outside influence. Often she
undoes the misfortunes of inherited tend
encies. often she overcomes the active
tendency toward that which is less than
good. She determines not only the activity
Of his brain. but perhaps more effectually
and more fully establishes the activity Of
his conscience.
The feature Of the grade teachers rela-
ton to her pupils which entities her most
fully TO the esteem of the public and to the
highest reward of efficiency is this often
unconscious but effective influence in de-
termining the impulses of childhood and
youth, and through them determining the
successes and the achievements of later
life. The grade teacher, in more ways than
one. affects the culture. the refir ement, the
integrity. the high purpose, as well as the
educational development of the generation
with which she deals. Pure education,
technically administered, will not save the
race from downfall nor preserve its best
characteristics. Education combined with
refined instincts, cultivation of the ethical
side of the child-nature, and united with a
trained conscience, becomes effective for
the best results In child life. These inlu-
ences will extend with more or less force
through the periods of later school training
and overlap the years when duty and labor
divide the attention of maturing man.
In view of this intimate relationship of
the grade teacher with all sides of the
child's life. often doing for the neglected
what the parent fails to do, generally re-
inforcing all efforts of the parent for the
better direction of the child, leading the
youthful mind to a new measure of the
world about it. teaching it the facts of ex.
~istence, and helping it to assimilate those
facts in its expanding nature, the grade
teacher is entitled to a consideration by the
public which should find it's expression in
liberal reward, in lightened burdens, in
higher respect and more frequent express
sion of 1t, and in demand by the public that
the conditions which surround her work
should be the best possible to provide.