The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-04-16
Life Certificates for Teachers Meas
ure Passed by the Legislature
and Signed by the
Governor.
FAVORED BY TEACHERS
It 10 Long Step Forward In the
Movement That is to Make School
Teaching a Real
Profession.

Governor Carroll has signed the
Cowles- Ritter bill, which makes for
life certificates for teachers who have
oeen engaged in teaching for five
consecutive years and who pass the
required examination. Keokuk teach
ers who have been prominent in the
tight for this bill feel grateful to
Messrs. Cowles and Ritter and to all
the friends who made the passage of
the bill possible. 1t is long step in
the right direction 1t is movement
toward the point where teaching will
cease to be merely an occupation and
Will become learned profession and
perhaps the chief of them all. The
law passed both houses last Monday
afternoon and takes effect July /.
Commenting upon the new bill,
the Davenport Democrat says
This happy incident closes long
struggle for recognition by the state
of the professional character of the
teachers calling. So far as Daven-
port is concerned, activity began when
the uniform county certificate law was
proposed. This measure took from the
county superintendent, aware of local
| needs and, the personal qualifications
of the applicants for certification. the
power OF granting and renewing GER
tificates. 1t was opposed by the Dav-
export teachers to the best Of their
ability, but became a law. An agita-
ton, and those who delight TO hobnob
tiles has been constantly maintained,
and the sentiment aroused has made
the enactment of the Cowles-Ritter
bill possible. 1t has finally come to
/ be seen that teaching conditions
which include the constant danger of
certificate confiscation are unbear-
( able and also any such condition has
been made possible by the subsection
of the teacher through political de-
fenselessness and the ignoble annoy
ances in the unreasoning rule of
those who supervise and who should
be the best friends of those whom
they have oppressed without sympa-
thy.
The opposition to the Cowles.Rit-
ter bill came from those who are in
terested in maintaining present con-
ditions. from the men who maintain
summer schools where frightened
/ teachers can study for examination
in branches which they may rot
teach to retain certificate and posi-
ton and those who delight to hobnob
with them. The legislative committee
of the Iowa State Teachers associa.
ton opposed the teachers bill in
resolutions written by the man who
carries on the summer school at Drake
university This same committee.
made up largely of college men. scat
tered literature over the state con-
demning the Cowles-Ritter bill. and
by inference the teachers who dared
to ask the legislature for relief. 1t is
curious circumstance Of the cam
paign that one of the members of the
legislative committee is this week
lecturer before the teachers institute
in this city, taking his pay in the
dollars contributed by the teachers
whose freedom he has opposed by his
signature TO literature sent broadcast
over Iowa
The legislature has done most
pobly in giving the college interest of
the state warning to keep their hands
off the schools and the people. If
this hint is not regarded further light
may be turned on. incidentally those
who manage the Iowa State Teach
ers' association might notice that
constant endeavor to keep the teach
ers who teach in subsection is likely
to become offensive to the teachers of
the state and their friends
There has been no lowering of
standards by the passage of the
Cowles- Ritter bill It is still in the
hands of the state board of educa-
tional examiners to select examination
questions and to fix the gradings I'M
der which certificates are issued. All
that has been done is to give respec-
table standing to those who have won
that recognition by preparation and
worth, a.tested by school room ex-
perience.
II will be necessary for the teach
ers of Iowa to watch the blessings
they have gained through the machin-
atoms OF those who are selfishly in
terested in return to former condi-
tions
Is - ~ .