The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1906-04-19
TEACHERS SALARIES.
Interesting Article Published in Last
Weeks Grand Forks Times.

interesting Article Published In Last
Weeks Grand Forks Times.
Teachers are not paid as much as
their work is worth if they are teach
ers worthy of the name.
AS a rule, the man or woman who
engages in teaching and who remains
in it beyond the stepping stone period
is unqualified for any other work.
They develop from their teaching
habit of dealing only in small things
until they are incapable of grasping
the larger ones. ....@.
They force their minds back to the
level of that of the child in order that
he may comprehend the ideas sought
to be instilled, until the mind be-
comes largely a storehouse of juvenile
reasoning. This, of course, applies
only to those engaged in elementary
work.
This idea was once expressed in a
state gathering of teachers by a then
leader of educational thought in the
country, and was greeted with storm
of protests because it was considered
a reflection upon the intellectual
ability of the teachers.
On the contrary, however, it indi-
Gates the very highest qualification
for the work, and is never formed in
that class of brain butchers who take
the money of the taxpayers for work
in which they are grossly incompetent,
and in which they have no interest.
It is the same characteristic that
causes the man who sells silks to be-
come lopsided Intellectually on that
one subject, or the lawyer to often be
a masterful fool on every subject ex-
cept the law. 1t is the stamp of per-
lection in and devotion to a chosen
calling.
The same amount of energy and
the same careful devotion to duty in
any other calling would bring a
greater financial reward than can be
hoped for in the teaching profession.
In any other calling age and expert
ence would be an asset in favor of
the possessor until the age when the
activities of life are on the wane at
least. Not so with the teacher. He
must expect nothing in the line of
promotion in the elementary schools
after he has passed the forty year
limit, and from that time his work
must be gradually on the decline until
he is RELOCATED to the scrap pile of
energy. That this condition is artifi-
cial and entirely unjustified does not
change the merits of the case.
At this period in life he has not been
able from his salary to lay by much if
any store for the future, and his
qualifications as teacher have rem
dered him unfit for the duties of the
other callings in which the opposition
have been trained by years of expert
ence.
The result is that the great majority
simply stay in the profession for the
purpose of making. a living while pre-
pairing for something else, cheating
the pupils who come under their. in
struction and lowering the standard
of the profession while doing so.
Would it not be far better to pay
teachers with the right zeal for their
work and with unalloyed devotion to
duty, wages which would give them a
competency which would enable them
to retire from the active duties of the
profession when by reason of age and
the diminishing vigor of the mind,
they are unable to keep pace with the
demands made upon them, than that
they should blast the intellectual
future of even one child because of
lack of preparation or proper interest?
Would not the teachers, once re-
lieved from the anxiety and uncer-
tainty of the means of support in the
dull gray autumn of life, find more
time for devotion to duty and for prep
aration for the work?
AAS AeoJ AAe8A oOOAAS OAAy ul1C wages
of a month thinks them large. But
he forgets that there are several
months of idleness every year, and
that the expenses of the conscientious
teacher is much more than those of
people in the general walks of life.
Another great drawback for the
teacher is that he seldom becomes a
fixture in any one place.
There is nothing upon which par
ents are so sensitive as the delegated
management of their children. The
teacher may be absolutely right in his
actions, yet the parent never sees it
so. Consequently at the end of the
year a protest is made and the
teacher is not reappointed.
The exacting duties of the work of
the schoolroom, the erratic minds that