Gilpin observer., 1908-02-06

suit with them regarding it. They make
all sorts of promises, and to put beyond
question their sincerity in what they
say, the children are called in and put
through the pleasant ordeal that comes
from being roundly scolded, or as it
sometimes happens, the children are
hneyed into apparent paradise by some
pledge of reward which never material
ICES. The whole proceeding is farcical
display of parental authority. The chill
dren may appear very meek while under
it's spell, but they know well that their
parents real attitude is varnished-up
affair. If parents of this type were at
liberty to speak out with sincerity what
the under current of their thoughts
hold for expression, it would be about
as follows: Those teachers who depart
so far from their regular duties of
teaching, as to look up delinquents and
periodic absentees would do better all
around work, if they would keep the
ideas which inspired said departure,
more closely within the narrow confines
of the four walls of the school room.
The motives which cause parents to
hide behind such pretentious attitudes
is not hard to see. If they can make it
appear that they are in accord with the
belief that children should go to school
regularly, they think that they will send
the teacher on his way much imbued
with the idea that the children will soon
be at school. Some persons might ques
ton that parents would stoop to this
low form of deception. Make second
or third visit to the homes of such par
ents, and as it dawns on them, that the
teacher has fathomed the depths of their
cunning, he will be told in no unmistak-
able terms, just what their attitude is
on the question of sending children to
school as they should be sent. 1t is dur
ing this currying down which teachers
are fortunate if they miss, that it leaks
out from such parents, that they ques-
ton the right of the teacher to concern
himself about matters so remote from
his obligated work, and yet so close to
what they think themselves well able to
manage free from outside interference.
If it is true that parents are correct
in thinking that teachers who look up
delinquents and periodic absentees ex-
ceed their high sense of duty in serving
the school, then it becomes apparent,
that if teachers are compelled to abide
by the parents version of it, that the
teachers sphere for usefulness is put
one step further within the field of mar
rowness. Such limitation of the teach
er's sphere for serving the school is
based entirely on the unfounded belief,
that teachers have no interest in the
school and the children who attend it,
beyond giving to it, just enough to hold
the job, and at the same time not put
the school board in doubts about their
earning the salaries paid them. This
idea of the teachers stock of interest
in the school being small asset, in the
minds of many parents, is no phantom
with them. They actually believe it. 1t
would be folly to deny, that in the teach
ing profession, there are teachers who
are unscrupulous and parasites to the
profession. But if we take as an index
of our teachers efficiency, and their
disposed bent to do the right thing. the
fact, that they, as a body of workers,
are less under the critical eye of in
spectors than any other set of workers
who serve the public, we must come to
the conclusion, that it is because they
are giving to the public satisfying re-
suits. If it is not so, if this reasoning
is not correct, then it is reproach on
the feeling of educators, that progress
in educational methods and plans for
supervising teachers, in keeping pace
with the same phases of progress in the
various other vocations in which men
and women enlist their time and labor.