Perth Amboy evening news., 1905-12-30
TEACHERS TO
REFORM FUND
Make Retirement Fund Stable
Care for Defective Children and
Secure Tenure of Office.

lldllcIS, ycSlSI udy, IulOuSH tHS plulO
Teachers Association, in convention
in this city, began a campaign for
vast reforms in the public school
system within it's own borders, as
we'll as to set an example for friends
of higher education in every other
proposed changes, which include
tenure of Office and retirement fund
legislation, more provision for the
care of the weak and defective child,
and plans to detect and prevent the
spread of infectious diseases among
pupils, will be drafted by the legis-
lative committee of the association
and presented to the 1906 legislature
for amendment to the school law.
In Governor Stokes the teachers
believe they have a champion whose
friendship and assistance will make
which they have been working for
years. Warm tribute for his earnest
interest in educational progress was
paid Governor Stokes yesterday.
The convention, which has been by
far the most important in the history
of the State Teachers Association,
not only as to what it has accompan-
led, but in that it has demonstrated
the Importance, strength and infiu-
ence of the organization itself, closed
today at noon. An important feature
of the report is the announced de-
4 M fnaf lion tn 10 a Hcttsnnu G0hf
for a tenure of Office bill. New Jersey
is the pioneer state in this movement
to place the teachers on a civil serv-
ice basis. Such a law will make a
teachers position safe against the
Wills and whims of a school board
and will prevent the removal and the
blasting of professional reputation
unless just cause for the action shall
be proven.
The committee has named a com
mission with power to frame a bill to
be known as the teachers retirement
fund bill, looking to the establish
ment of the fund upon a stable basis.
Fund Here to Stay.
The action of the convention in
unanimously adopting this report
demonstrated that the teachers re-
tirement fund has come to stay. En-
emies of the fund have declared that
1t has no right to a place on the pro-
gram at the annual session of the
teachers association, and went so far
as to threaten to secede If it came up
for discussion. Miss Allen, in her
report on the retirement fund, re-
joices in the progress that has been
made, and asks for a continuous
campaign to forward the pensioning
movement.
The association demanded that
adequate attention be given officially
to the physical condition of pupils in
schools where there is no system of
medical inspection, as provided by
law, and that those in such schools
should know how to make and should
make examinations of pupils for at
least these physical defects: Defec-
tive eyes, defective hearing, adenoid
growths, i%ncipient chorea and the
first symptoms of communicable dis
eases.
Work of the juvenile court and
probation officers has formed an i'm
portant branch of the subjects con
sidered by the association this year,
and while there is appreciation of the
work already done, the convention
urges greater efforts and more effec-
tive measures to reach and train for
good and useful citizenship truants
and other juvenile delinquents. So
well satisfied with Atlantic City and
the entertainment received here were
the members of the association that
this city was selected for the 1906
convention.
The commission appointed to draft
the retirement fund bill comprises
the president of the State Teachers
Association, the chairman of the State
Teachers Association committee on
legislation, one member appointed by
the state board of education or the
president thereof. Superintendent
Addison Pierson of Newark, William
e. Chandler of Paterson, William M.
Swingle of Orange, Ebenezer Mackey
of Trenton, Henry M. Maxson of
Plainfield, James e. Bryan of Cam
den, John e. Enright of Freehold, H.
So