The times and democrat. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1881-current, 1908-09-15
OUR SCHOOLS.
80
Bcggarly Salaries forTeachers. Th
PAPER NO. 2.
BY PROF. WILLIAM II. HAND.

keeper, of carpenter, and q school
teacher have market value. The
market value of these services is
based upon what the employer feels
that the employed is worth to the
business. What value have the peo-
pie of South Carolina put upon the
services OF white school teacher?
Last year the State paid an average
salary OF S267, a year, or $45.S7 a
month for little less than six school
months in the year. This salary is
lower even by the month than the
wages Of an experienced dry goods
salesman, or competent stenogra-
pher. BY the year, the salary of the
teacher does not compare with that
of the unskilled carpenter, or
plasterer, or bricklayer. Almost
every town of 1000 people in the
State pays, by the month, higher wag-
es to its policemen than to its women
school teachers. Men teachers are
paid little better, but beggarly
salaries have run almost all the men
out of the schoolroom.
"As will be seen by the various
figures I have given, either men or
women working in the cotton mills
and exercising less patience are
readily making more money than the
average public school teacher. -
August Kohn, in The Cotton Mills
of S. C.
Is it reasonable to expect the SER
vices of competent men at $50 and
$40 a month, and competent women
at S35 and $40 a month, for few
months in the year? The answer in
wolves a very simple question in
economics. 1t has cost either per-
son from four to six years in time,
and from $500 to $500 in money,
to prepare himself to teach. And II
either is fitted to teach, his prepara-
ton fits him for something decidedly
better pecuniarily. If neither IT, TT
ted to make more than S267 Il year
IN some other. vocation, he is on the
high way to penury.
Why do our people pay no more
for teaching? Is it due to poverty!
There was a time when that explain
ton could have been given, but not
So now. We have on every hand too
many evidences of plenty and even
luxury to accept any such excuses
now. The real explanation Is hard to
admit. These salaries represent the
Valuation our people place upon edu-
cation. "By their fruits ye snail
know them. Our people rate the
education Of their children when
they employ teachers, somewhat as
they rate their land when they visit
the tax lister. Our people are well
able to pay better salaries, and they
will nav better alaries only after
they have come to appreciate the
value of better teachers and better
schools. Many of the praises OF good
schools are mere lip-service.
Incompetent Teachers. To dis
discuss this feature Of our schools IS
very distasteful. but it must be done,
and done fearlessly. Every Well-in-
formed person knows that our
schools are burdened with host OF
teachers, persons httea
neither by nature nor by training.
Such teachers waste the money OF the
children. ruin the children themselV-
es. and discredit teaching itself. They
know nothing about what to teach'
and even less about how to teach.
lime and again I have sat in scnooi-
rooms watching the blind blunder-
inss of teachers plodding through
rrcitations without ever getting hold
Of a teaching fact or O. teaching prln-
ciple, until my very heart ached IN
sympathy for the children who had
TO endure it all Yet have gone out
from just such scenes to be told with
in three hours by some patron that
in that school they had a fine teach
o.. The travesty OF such teaching IS
bad enough, but when the patrons
are pleased with it, it becomes pathe-
TIC. can put my finger on the nam
ps of dozens Of white school teachers
who could not to-day pass an en-
animation in the eighth grade IN the
Columbia city schools. Yet to these
are entrusted the edu-
cation OF children, and the people are
sariied. and are paying to them the
money.
know teachers by name who go
to their schooirooms day after day
without having studied a single les
son they are supposed to teach. Some
Of them do not own single book
that they are attempting to teach.
How can such teacher succeed!
If he has in him nothing OF the STU
dent, how can he expect TO inspire a
pupil with the zeal OF the student?
To such teacher the name OF Spen-
Ger and Arnold and Mann are but
brass and tinllling cymbals.
Some teachers and some patrons
bank largely on the teachers eXpcr-
icnce. Experience is an excellent
thing when coupled with other
qualifications. but when divorced
from them, experience is to teach
ing precisely what ii is to the practice
of me(licine-it kills as often as 1t