The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-08-31
SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE.
Scholarsfiips for Men Teachers.

the educational or the
last legislature. This Legislature at
it's first session in 1903 established in
the South Carolina College forty one
normal scholarships, and at its next
session doubled the number of these
scholarships, making two from each
county. This was to provide a new class,
but as not all the holdovers will return,
there will doubtless be as many as SIX
ty new scholarships awarded this sum-
mer, one in every county and two to a
county in many instances. Any per-
son interested should write to President
BENJAMIN sloan or Prof. Patterson
Wardlaw, Columbia, S. Z.
Each of these scholarships pays $40
in money toward living expenses, and
exempts the holder from a fee of SIS,
which is exacted of other students, and
also exempts from the tuition fee of $40,
which, however, is RENTED to any stu
dent who makes proof of inability to
paw it. 1t admits a man entirely free
and pays about half of his board.
This munifcence Of the State is design
ed primarily. to provide better teachers
for the country, schools but incidental
ly it aids poor but worthy young men
to obtain a College education and tit
themselves for higher things in life.
In order that the scholarships shall go
to this class of young men and not be
gobbled up by young fellows who could
get to college without the scholarships,
the awards are not made solely with
reference to the marks made on the ex-
animation, and men nineteen years OF
age and over are given the preference.
This gives an opportunity to the coun-
try young man, whose technical prepa-
ration may be far less than that of the
tifteen-year-old graduate of a town gra.
ded school, but whose maturity and
earnestness are a guaranty that when
given an opportunity to study in COL
lege he will pull through and make a
man of himself. Preference is still fur
Their given to young men who have
taught school. 1t is often the case that
a young man in the country, although
with poor preparation, attempts to
teach the neighborhood school. For
his own sake and for the sake of the
schools he ought to be given a better
education before he becomes settled in
q life of inferior work. Hence the spe-
cial effort of theauthoritIes of the South
Carolina College is to induce young
men teachers who are i'll prepared for
their work to stop now and 60 to col
lege while they can. The scholarship
men last year were of the average age
of % 1-3 years, and the oldest was 80.
It is hoped that such young men, hav-
ing already developed some taste for
teaching, and going to college with a
dennite purpose, will adhere to teach
ing as their profession. If the bene-
ficiaries of these scholarships were diff
ferently selected, a larger proportion OF
them would do as college men so often
do. turn their backs on the country
forever and become professional mel
in towns and cities. But where they
have previously committed themselves
to public school work, and then stop
and 90 to college with the ideal of fit
ting themselves for better work III
that line, there is strong probability
that for the most part they will return
to country schoolteaching- a result
which will richly repay the State for
its liberal policy in providing for their
training as teachers.
Each year better saleries are being
paid in the country schools, and for
several years there have been in sever
al counties country schools which COL
lege-bred men of high reputation are
proud to teach. The simplicity, free
dom and beauty of country life, and
the growing advantages, with tele-
phones, mail deliveries. and libraries,
have peculiar charms for the scholar
and the thinker. The present indica-
tions are.that within this decade coun-
try schoolteaching in South Carolina
80 long held in disrepute-will be rec
onized as a choice profession. Already
six to nine hundred dollars a year, with
little expense for living, is not an infre-
quent salary. Professor Wardlaw's
men readily find desirable places, and
the demand for such men increases
each year.
The course of STUDY is specially de-
signed to improve the public schools;
Last year it included, basides the usual
subjects, special instruction in peda-
gogics, physics, nature study, and
drawing, and the course for next year
has been enlarged and improved and
will include sight singing. The stu
dents had the benefit of observation
and practice under a critic teacher, and
next year will practice teaching in the
Columbia public schools, having. the
benefit of the supervision and criticisms
of Columbia's best teachers.
The better to impress the school spl-
rit and arouse the young men to asense
ST the dignity and magnitude of their
profession, there will be a series of lee
lures by leading school superintendent
aud principals. Thus this body OF
young teachers combine thiory and
practice intheir studies, and every two
or three weeks will be stimulated by a
special message from some notable edu'
Gator fresh from daily contact with the
practical problems of the schoolroom.
It is thus that the College is seeking
to execute the wise plan of Legislature
for improving the common schools Of
the State and raising the standard Of
citizenship. Assembling within her
walls and at she seat of State govern
annually eighty-two young men teach
ers from the forty-one counties of the
State, inspiring and broadening them
by contact with students from all Sec
tious of the State and all spores. of life,
strengthening their State pride and
their unity of spirit with the best tradi-
tons of the State, the South Carolina
College will teach them how to study
and how to live, and how to teach, and
will leave upon them her mark as men
and gentlemen.