Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1908-01-03

strengthen the teaching force by SUB
| stitution, as we'll as by elimination.
| While reducing the number of posi-
| tons to fill will accomplish the first
result a marked increase in teach
ers' salaries viii accomplish the sec
| ond result. In these two ways the
| services of, poorly prepared teachers
| may be largely dispensed with The
| proposition that marked increase in
| teachers salaries will give us more and
| better teachers is so self-evident that
| 1t needs not that argument be pro-
| duced in it's support. Capable men and
| women have for years been turning
| from the teachers vocation to more
remunerative employment in other
| fields. Not only 50, the higher scale
| for teachers in the far western states
| has within a comparatively short time
drawn hither hundreds upon hundreds
/ of teachers whose worth was first
demonstrated in the schools of Iowa.
| Our school authorities have in gen.
eral been tardy and grudging in the
matter of advancing teachers wages,
| and the educational loss to the state
has in consequence been most serious.
| Happily, the trend is now upward
1907, $3S1.926 more than In 1906, and
| there is every indication that the SAL
airy increase for 1903 over that of 1907
| will be even greater. Another hopeful
| sign of the times is that school boards
quite generally are Offering higher
| wages to teachers who hold high grade
certificates than to those who hold low
grade certificates.
With an advance in teachers wages
from year to year as marked as we
have had for the past two years. the
battle for adequate salaries for teach
ers will be we'll nigh won within the
next five years.
|. But there is another factor in the
teacher problem of much greater i'm
portance than either Of the two l have
mentioned. | refer to the extent and
quality of teacher training. The
agencies in this training are chiefly
the academies and private normal
schools, the State Normal school. the
high schools and the colleges. We do
not often think of the high schools
as training schools for teachers, yet
more young men and young women
pass at once from the high schools
schools as teachers than from all the
academies and normal schools and coll
leges and universities of the state
| combined.
OF the two thousand applicants in
the last regular teachers examination,
but twentyfour We're college or nor
NAL school graduates, while eight hun
dred and eighty-fiye We're high school
graduates. More than one-half of the
entire number of applicants had re-
ceived less scholastic training than
that offered in four-year high school,
while nine out of every hundred never
attended a school above a grammar
grade.
If our teachers are to be so largely
trained in the public high schools, 1t
is pertinent to inquire as to the quail
ity of the training offered in these
schools.
Now in our secondary schools there
is little of uniformity in courses or in
methods or in qualifications of instruc-
tors, or in the number Of hours work
assigned per week for instructor or
students. This applies not only to the
high schools, but to all other second
airy schools as we'll. So far as the pri-
waite normalcs and academies are con-
cerned, each must remain as at pres
ent, law unto itself. Many of these
schools are doing excellent work, as
evidenced by the good preparation
shown by their graduates. They must
compete with institutions of their own
class and with the high schools, and
this will insure reasonable degree Of
efficiency, for only the fit can sur
vive.
1t is not of these schools that wish
to speak, but rather Of the public high
schools, which are becoming more and
more important as training schools for
village and country teachers. Inciden-
tally the Strengthening of the high
schools will stimulate the other sec
ondary schools and spur them to great
err endeavor
The Improvement of the high
schools, then, has direct bearing on
the teacher problem. The more thor
ough the instruction, the better the
methods; the stronger in all respects
the work; the better prepared will be
the teachers who go out at once from
these schools to be the instructors of
country youth.
When we consider that our high
schools have developed along indie
pendent lines, each course of study re-
| flecting the individual views of super
intendent, principal or school board.
and in consequence frequently modified
and often unwisely expanded. it is
surprising that we have even the sem
blance of uniformity; but we have,
Notwithstanding, scores of strong high
schools in Iowa. But I need not tell
this audience that we have very many
others with courses far too heavy for
the Institutional force, and the evil
augmented because of the meager
scholastic attachments of the instruc-
| tors With such conditions, it is no
| wonder than superficiality and sham
are everywhere apparent. There is
with us virtually no standard of quail
ifications required of high school
teachers, since one who can secure. no
other than third grade certificate
may legally contract to teach in any
high school in the state. In my opin-
ion the legislature should name date
from two to five years in the future,
beyond which no one might enter a
high school as a teacher who had not
attained to at least f1ve-year state
certificate of the first grade.
There should also be some effective
state supervision over high schools
that would place limit on the number
Of hours of classroom work both OF
instructor and student, and that would