The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-05-21
NEED OF TEACHERS
Great Shortage Predicted in
Crop of PedagOgues.
Already Superintendent Fair
child Hears the Wall.
WAGES ARE TOO LOW.
Men Can Make More Working
as Farm Hands.
State Department Regrets Con-
6S%sn,
WAGES ARE TOO LOW.
State Department Regrets Con-
ditiOns But Can't Help.

UAOAUuS Dut YAH HOIps
A great shortage of school teachers
in Kansas is predicted for the coming
school year by State superintendent
E. t. Fairchild.
Already applications for school
teachers are beginning to come in for
next September. A letter received by
Mr.. Fairchild today from Garden City,
Finney county, states that after the
county exhausts all its resources for
furnishing teachers for its own schools,
it will still be about 8 teachers short.
If a similar shortage exists in other
western Kansas counties. 1t means that
over 1000 teachers Will be needed in
Kansas before the opening of the fall
term.
School teachers are quitting work
in Kansas because they can make more
money in almost any other occupation
than they can teaching. The average
pay of the teachers of Kansas is about
$45 per month. With seven months
school this means 1915 a year. Out
of this the teacher must pay for board,
for attending institutes, for books and
educational literature. A good husky
farm hand earns SIS or $50 per
month, or $3.50 per year, and has no
board nor books to pay for.
This condition is making IL almost
| impossible to secure men teachers. me
| Kansas schools are becoming eftemln-
ate. In the past ten years the SIat1S-
| tics of the state superintendent OF
education show that the number OF
men teachers in Kansas has decreased
| Sc per cent.
One of the prominent educators of
| the state says in a letter to the state
| superintendent: 81 am of the opinion
| that the teaching force in our county
| is not so strong as it was ten or twelve
years ago." He goes on to state that
| n county
have been required to study for two
years to get a teachers certificate,
went to work as a clerk instead at $25
| per month. At the end of three years
| he was getting $50 a month, or $500
| a year. There are only two teaching
| jobs in that county which pay more
than $500 per year
The result of this condition is that
examining boards in the various coun-
ties are obliged to pass almost every
applicant for teachers certificate.
An applicant must be very poor in
deed who can not get a certificate to
teach. This is the reason that the eff
ficiency of the teaching force of Kan
sas is decrea sing.
One of the most prominent county
superintend ents in the Sixth congress
sionaI district in letter to State Su-
perintendent Fafrchi1d, says:
1--WE as superintendent in the west
ern part of the state have been COM
pelled to shut our eyes and grade pa
shut our eyes again and hike the
grades that we have already given; and
after all this is done, we would still
be short of teachers. If every one that
applied for a certificate in county
last wear had been given a license to
teach there would still have been
shortage had not the leftoVers from
other counties been called in. Do you
wonder that our teaching force is
weak?
this county this year, over 80 were
not in these school last year. From
these conditions it is plain to me that
wages must be raised to compete with
wages in other avocations of life.
Wages have advanced materially. but
not in proportion to wages in other
walks of life. We ought to be paying
$50 and $50 instead of $40 and $50.
But here is another trouble: most or
our districts are paying all that 20
mills will raise, and some are paying
more mad running in debt. The legis-
lature should provide for a state and
county tax for the support of the
schools, and see that the weaker
schools get the lions share of it..
State Superintendent Fairchild, who
is TRYING to raise the standard of the
Kansas teachers cert1f1cate, by re-
curing more work and h1gher grace
of scholarship on the part of teachers,
finds his work blocked by the fact that
there are not enough applicants for
certificates to make it possible for the
examining boards 10 De particular VINO
thew accept They must find teachers,
and consequently they must take
whoever they can find
Superintendent Fafrchild says: Il
regret that the number of men en-
gagged in the teaching business is so
rapidly decreasing. If it continues. it,
will be only a short time until our
schools will be entirely effeminated.
There will be no men teachers left. II
certainly appreciate the splendid work
of the loyal conscientious women who
teach in our schools. but I think that
we should have both men and women
teachers. A pupil can not be fully
rounded in his common education un-
less he encounters both men and wom-
en- teachers. It is just the same as
the development of the child in the
home The child should have the in
fIuence of both father and mother.
1.-The shortage of teachers is one of
the serious problems which confronts
the public school of Kansas. Unless
inducements can be offered which will
keep people in the teaching profession,
it will seriously affect the efficiency of
the Kansas public schools"
Red Flags Barred in Chicago.
W Chief of PnlfOa