The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-04-17
Letter to The Editor
4 Rssresr.de ssep |. Edse.tion.

u~a --~F -" Editor The Advertiser:
 Alabama has made wonderful pro- sress on educational lines in the past Iew years. But there has been one will inture the cause of education in the State for years to come.
 The last Legislature decreed that ey- cry recipient of First Grade certifi- cate after having taught for six years should receive a life certificate. Now If the law had read that every high school graduate who had also taken a First Grade certificate should have this privilege, as a temporary expedI- ent Tor the present necessity, this might have been admissible. But 1t is certainly not we'll to stamp with the teaehers for fife, young people, who may know nothing of English history or English literature, of American litera- ture; nothing of the history and liter ature out of which, these nave grown those of Greece aud Rome: who may not have learned the simplest facts about the air they breathe or the wa ter they drink, who in fact do not know what chemistry means.
 Many other subjects could be named of which persons of portion of the requirements of the flu. ture professional teachers for life or Alabama. Botany, geology, mythology the literature of the English Bible ac-
 
 sides his own, vocal music, drawing are also subjects with which :. these teachers for life" may be wholly un- acquainted.
 Is as lazy as he dares to be?" But no matter who said this, it is true. A few earnest, conscientious recipients or fns asss she oys w ba the majority will rest satisfied with the attainments required by the State. They need to have in view some denn- ite object to be attained by their ia- bors. A list of not less than twenty four subjects should have been made out by a competent committee, ana any First Grade teacher should have been allowed to make application each year for examination in one. or at most two, of these branches. Vocal music ana drawing should have been necessarily two of the studies selected by the can didate. After each successful exami- nation an additional seal should have been placed on the certificate. Eight seals should have raised the re- fspeSs spsnt tS for the e gradsd snd eartcaas this effect should have been, given to him. This plan would have been such an incentive to study that all the young busiiy engaged in their leisure hours in the pursuit of some study which would have broadened and deepened their whole current of thought ana pTSVSnIGO LHS 6ldS hdlAoA OA results from going year after year over the same round or Work.
 It was bad enough to have sucn teachers as the recipients of Third ana Second Grade certificates in the state; for a Third Grade certificate at best represents only the amount or knoWl-. edge of a child in the Sixth Grade oL a public school; the requirements or the Second Grade certificate cover only the work of the Seventh Grade; Tnat is the majority of the school children of Alabama are entrusted to the care of teachers whose requirements are not higher than those of the average public school pupil of 1S or 14 years or age. In fact many of these teachers are not up to the standard of chil- dren of cnis age in good graded schools. for the children have nad wears of careful previous preparation, while the Third and Second Grade teacher has often crammed just enough knowledge to pass the examination: However, their certificates are valid for only a short term. and there IS in their case always the hope that they will either leave the profession or rise fo A higher grade. But now Tn the case of the First Grade teachers, there is little hope of their rising higner' since they have no incentive to do tnis. The reouirements for a First Grade teacher are not higher than those TOT inc Second Grade for good high scnool, Vet these are to represent the hignest grade of teachers that Alabama stamps Sith the seal of approval.
 "''" Julia S. Tutwiler.