New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-02-22
LACK OF TEACHERS.
T7centy-one Glasses IN One School
Taught by Upper Grade Children.

That there is a school In New York where TWEEN
ty-one classes are being taught by children from
the upper grades because of the lack OF proper
teachers was one Of the facts brought out by Miss
Grace G. Strachan. district superintendent OF
Brooklyn ut tho Woman's AIunicpa! League yes
terdsy.
Miss Strachan. who is chairman Of the executive
board ~ the marlborough Association of Women
Teachers. which is making so vigorous a fight for
'euual pay for equal work" told the league what
the association wants and how it is trying to
get IT.
1.-The bill FOR whose passage We are laborlns'
said Miss Srqchan. ''Is practically a revision q
the Davis law. It seeks to eliminate the inequaA-
ties In salary between men and women fixed by
that law. TO give example-the Davis law
fixes the minimum at which a woman snail oesln
10 teach in the public schools at 5000. For man
the minimum is $500 The annual increment tor
a woman is s45 for sos.
II have the supervision Of a large number or
schools and I have observed large number or
young teachers. and l have failed to observe that
the man teacher increases in efficiency over 'he
woman teacher 2t6 per cent in the first year On
the contrary. the womans efficiency generally in
crcases more rapidly than the mans. Vet by the
time each has taught thirteen years the man IS
earning just twice as much ms the woman
Now. If any legislator We're to propose bill
making il obligatory on women to work tWeiNe
hours for the same money rs man earns IN SIX
there would be outcry-the thing would be con-
sidered absurd Yet this is exactly what the pres
ent bill does
Continuing Miss strachan said the opposition TO
the bill HAD chiefly grown up I'm the ranks or the
school mcnp which makes us sad There are, she
said. over twelve thousand women teachers IN the
public schools. and only about two thousand men
Later made her hearers laugh with her ac-
count of how one of these two thousand men
teachers, a teacher in an elementary Schoo-sald
he should consider il reelection on his man
hood" IL the women GOT as much as ne dld. NO
body could quite how what he called his man
hood" could receive any considerable inspiration
from tho spectacle Of a great body of his fellow
craftsmen being underpad, and II was suggested
that If his manhood rested on a foundation Ike
that It would he good idea to smash L..
Then the speaker went on TO say that she her-
golf had Just been in Albany, where she had had
crnor the Speaker Of the House and many Assem-
bymen.
cot course. the Governor and Lieutenant Gov
ernor do not commit themselves a matter which
must come before the House and Senate she said.
but there was that in what they saic which makes
bin will he before the Assembly Cities Committee
next Thursday afternoon"
Then the members ~ the league piled her- with
questions rs il true" asked Mrs Richard Aid
rich the president. that they can't get enough
girls 10 teach TO All tn. positions Miss Strachan
the records showed 633 vacancies Il am going 20
verify tho statement this afternoon she addel.
II testify that there s great shortage. Re
Gently I had letter from principal saying he
had four vacancies IN his school To send the
classes home seemed the only course open a
Queens principal told'me he knew OF two hundred
vacancies
CHARLES SpraEue Smith. director Of the People s
Institute also spoke Vital civic Work the Peo-
pies Institute Is Accomplishing