The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-01
NEXT SCHOOL ADVANCE
 MUST BE IN EFFICIENCY
The Problem, Now That Alabama Is Paying Her Limit in Money. is to Secure Expert Super
 vision Which Will Demand Efficiency.

the annual ScnOOl money DC SAPoSbON S~ grow.
 The task of the Legislature, two years from now. when 1t starts out to do something for the schools. will be to establish a higher standard of ef- ficiency through expert supervision or | the sch ools.
 In the present situation, all the more Important has become the auction of efficiency and how best to secure and maintain it. Still more important is | that question as the State enters Into | its new educational stage wherein, the connecting link of planned education al system has been put in by the estab- l lishment of a chain of high schools 1 feeding on the one hand from the com mon schools of the State and feeding into the States colleges on the other. Without efficiency the system Is lated I to failure and without supervision, there will be no efficiency.
 1 Under Criticism.
 It is well enough for us to bear In mind that the schools are already under ] fire from the older men educated in l another genera tion, who declare that 1 the thoroughness of the infrequent schools of other days put to shame the methods of the more numerous schools of today. It is not complete answer | to them to say Old fogey!
 The time comes in Alabama when the 1 teacher of rank can demand and receive l $100 or $125 month for work in the common and high schools With that has come the time when the State should demand that this teacher shall | give $1OO or $125 worth of efficient | service. It will have to be somebody's business to see that that service is glv- | en with efficiency. Without 1t the schools will lose the confidence of the people in the criticism that will fn- evitably follow. More must be given in the future than has been given In the past, because more is demanded. l The school house must be more than a place for the hurried recital of les sons. The teacher must be more than 1 a book holder and a lesson nearer. He, l like the old Puritan who represented l himself as being continually "wresu- ing with the spirit of evil" must be continually struggling with the spirit | of ignorance. It is notenough that he should merely hear lessons and sigh for the lack of industry or capacity of his pupils. He must be a grappler with and a fighter of ignorance. lie must have the spirit to make the fight coupled with the knowledge of how to make 1 it.
 The profession of teaching Is no long CT what 1t was for unnumbered years 1 the-ante-room to the three learned professions Law, Medicine and Divin- 1 ity. Ten years ago, the Alabama teach CT who drew $40 or $50 a month was thought well paid. The teachers of the same rank today will demand and re- ceive double that sum- but if the teacher is alive to his responsibilities he will make his services worth twice as much as those of the teachers of a decade ago. If he does motif he falls | to measure up to the teachers tncreas- ed responsibilities, the time will come possibly not next year, but certainly 1 it will come, when he will be crowded out of his profession.
 Our life-our civilization. is based upon competition. Socialists may dream dreams and see visions, but our life is still a competition, under which all we have. that is worth while. was achieved, and in competition 1t will re- main.
 The Young Mans Part.
 As the young man rises in life, he must at each stage meet and win in a stronger and fercer competition than he had to undergo in the last He starts with the crowd, the mass, which form the base of the pyramid of so- 1 ciety. If he has the proper comple- | ment of energy and talent, he moves l upward from the larger to a smaller 1 crowd, where he finds the struggle | fiercer and his opponents stronger. If he has learnCI his lesson well. the first struggle has trained and equipped l him all the better TOT the narQer nSnL he has to make. In time if he is equipped to win and has the spirit, he moves up to a still smaller body where the antagonists are still more alert, still more intelligent and still stronger.
 But he must fight upwards and ad vance or slip back among the weak. he must be equipped for the struggle. The State has promised to equip its scholar. If the State fails in that promise. 1t is the fault of the agent to whom his training has been entrusted. The State cannot afford to have such agents. It Is the business of the State to see that the agents of its own se- lection and in its own pay is doing the work for which he is paid, in the pro- portion in which he is paid.
 This is not time for "smatterers: the school house is no place for slovenli- ness. The greatest work that the State, under popular government, has und 4r- taken. is its wo:k of education. The greatest blow that could be struck at popular government would be the fall ure of State endowed education.
 Neither Democracy nor education In Alabama will fail. The advantage to higher efficiency and intelligent super vision will be made and those who would selfshly stop it will have to step aside or be run over.
 EHA