Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-10-25

I
first restriction will prevent some from
working their way through school by
| teaching. To them have only to say
| that school appropriations are made
for the benefit of school children, they
| should not be regarded as scholarship
! grants. DIRECTORS 10 the second will
urge that the requirement is so high
as to make it difficult for some schools
to get teachers. 1t win not. 1t will
merely make it less easy for imposi-
ton to be placed on children by per-
sons who are called teachers.
State Can Afford Good Teaching.
1t may and probably will make it
necessary to pay higher salaries in
some schools, but that does not appeal
to me as an objection since / am all
together certain that we have not in
the entire State a single town that can
not under present conditions OF State
aid, afford to give it's, children a de-
cent grade OF teaching skill. and to
pay therefor decent wage
Maine Behind Other States.
If these requirements still appear too
high let me say that our neighhoring
province of New Brunswick not more
wealthy than we surely, does not al
low any person to teach in a public
school unless he has had partial
course in the normal school and Do one
can secure a permanent certificate I'M
less he has finished a professional
course. The plain and unpleasant
truth is that nowhere ON the North
American continent north of Mexico
are the requirements for entrance to
teaching more lax than they are in
Maine.
Though other reasons may easily be
found | place the demand for these
proper restrictions on one chief claim
and that is the right of Maine child
rem to a guarantee of reasonable
standard of teaching efficiency.
Right to Decent School Buildings.
A second right of Maine children is
that the schools they attend shall be
SO constructed and equipped that they
will offer no ground for criticism on
the score of health or moral conditions.
The State has already deereed by law
that children must attend school.
So great responsibility as the COM
pelling of children to assemble in a
common meeting place must at once
be followed by guaranteeing that the
children who are thus compelled to
meet shall find in the physical eondi-
.tions they will encounter no menace to
health or morals that public oversight
or attention can avoid.
Good Conditions Not Universal.
Again / have to say that the great
majority of Maine children attend
school in proper places and under pro-
ar conditions Rt1f in Wa
admit that not few communities toll
crate physical conditions in and around
their school buildings that fall far
short of reasonable standards. Unsat-
isfactory physical conditions are not
confined to small schools. They are
found in villages and in cities.
Should Be Minimum Standards Fixed.
The rights of children require that
there be fixed some minimum standard
with respect to heating, lighting and
sanitation below when no school
building may go. 1t is mistake -
assume that the correction of defects
of this kind is enormously expensive
1t may be, however, exceedingly costly
to allow them to go uncorrected.
School Equipment.
This attention to the material needs
should include not only school build
ings, but should extend also to school
equipment. Very many schools are
trying to do their work with only the
most meagre equipment. In some
schools / have lately visited found an
absolute lack of maps. dictionaries,
reference books and other NECESSARY
appliances. IS it, ask, giving the pu
pills of these schools a square DEAF to
ask of them the same quality of school
work that is secured of more favored
children who have readily available
these helps to their PROCESS? Among
the rights of Name children, all
Maine children. wherever they may
live, is the right to a decent school
building with a reasonable standard as
regards heating, lighting, ventilation,
sanitation and equipment The majori-
ty of the towns supply these things
The State should see that the minori-
ty find a way to provide them. assist
ing them to do so, if necessary.
Training for Citizenship.
So much for certain material needs,
Let me refer now to right of Maine
children as affecting the course OF
study; and my third proposition is
that child has right to the heritage
of his citizenship Everyone assents to
the proposition that chief aim of the
public school is to develop the right
kind of citizenship. In pursuit of this
iGea we have paid much attention,
and to good effect, to national history.
| We have paid none too much, but
! have we not overlooked the fact that
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