Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-06-22

nalf million in the van, whom We call
teachers. are the arbiters and the
shapers of their destiny. No other
hands are so potential. No other
voices reach so far!
among them are some to whom
teaching is a temporary employment
and not vocation. Soldiers they are
but enlisted merely for one months
or three months campaign and not
for the war. They are men and wom-
en- whose life work is waiting in other
fields and whom their present task,
well performed, aids in their personal
development and in their future sup
port.
From the ranks of such temporary
teachers have come such men as Gro
yer Cleveland and James G.. Blaine
and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and such
women as that gracious lady whom we
hail today as the first lady of the land,
the wife of President Taft.
THE great majority of that resist.
less host of $4,000 souls are volun,
teers. who have accepted permanent
service. The most anticipate no other
post of honor than the teachers desk.
Pecuniary. or political allurements have
not Influenced their deliberate choice.
All such considerations would have
tended to an opposite decision. The
man who becomes teacher knows
that wealth can seldom be his. Large
annual revenue must be derived from
other sources than teaching. Even the
best paid positions in high schools
and colleges are comparatively few.
Such positions are in general obtained
only after weary and expensive years
of struggle and preparation. even
then the remuneration is less than
the income of successful lawyer or
physician or than the salary of many
a minister. The professor. even in
institutions endowed by the munif1-
cence of a Rockefeller or Carnegie.
receives smaller pay than does the
culinary chef in the great metropoli-
tan hotels
'1o the teacher the road of political
preferment is well nigh shut. Teach
ers. as Andrew D. White and David
Jayne Hill and Eben Alexander. have
sometimes represented the United
States at some foreign court Their
rare diplomatic service has been hon
orable to their country and tfrefn-
dom have teachers held high elective
or appointive office. In the federal
senate and house of representatives
there is generally physician or two.
occasionally minister, almost never
a. teacher. The law is the broad ave-
nue. of political opportunity. In the
present congress there are, 80 sena-
tors; 50 are members of the bar. So
too are PIP out of the 391 representa-
tives. The Presidents of the United
States and the state governors show
still larger proportion of the legal
profession. OF the rs presidents all
have been lawyers except five. OF
the six chief magistrates from Ohio,
the later day mother of the Presi-
dents. Hayes. Garfield, Benjamin Har-
rison. Mckinley and Taft, all except
Grant, are lawyers.
wealth. power. fame. are proper
objects of ambition. Their value Is
confessed by every honest man. They
are not indeed in the reach of all.
But the men and women, now teach
ers. are at least as clever an dintelli-
gent as the average of human beings
and might have won their due proper
lIOu VI pOpUldI OlSthiStioH anu ioiiOA
and money Only they would have
been compelled to give up teaching
They did not disdain the objects of
material good. They merely disre-
garded them and passed them by
They aspired to higher things. Like
Melanion in pursuit of ATLANTA. in or
der to win the worthier prize. they
left the apples of gold behind.
But these teachers are not ascetic,
medieval saints who have let go of
| the pleasures of earth so as to get a
tighter grip on the possibilities Of
| Heaven. Even on this earth. before
they die, in their daily work. Tread
ing with noiseless feet the round of
uneventful years. they have had and
are having their abundant reward. In
| the mere luxury of living: in constant
| association with the unspoiled, the un-
| tainted and the young; in tender ap-
preciatjon of efforts made and simple
| services rendered. in the ceasefess
ejfding Of the realities of life; can
conceive of no other earthly occura-
ton that offers so much Of happiness
and joy as falls to the teachers lot.
On the buoyant tide of sympathetic
| hearts he is borne along.
This, however, is considering the
subject on the selfish side. This Is
presenting only the subjective point
Of view. 1t has to do, not with what
one gives and does but rather with
what one receives. 1t is like to count
ing the mighty pay of the laborer
rather than gazing enraptured at the
majestic broad -spanned cathedral that
he builds The consciousness Of at
tempt. and of approach to realization.
is more precise than the consciousness
Of anything received.
"'To read history in nations
eyes. In consequence of the teacher
is the glorious history there. Mo-
where is the influence of the teacher
go far-reachiAg and so Titanic as at
the present day and in the United
States. He is the King in the college
and in the common school. He binds
and unifies the American people.
Through the school he solves the prob
lens and overcomes the dangers Of
indiscriminate immigration. What any
| other or all other agencies would be
powerless to accomplish. he effects.
Because of him no grim spector OF