The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1912-02-28
OF INTEREST TO PARENTS
AND TEACHERS

eTS appreciate the IedCHluB lOICt VI
our state?
During the last session of the
Teachers League of the State of
Pennsylvania, recently held in the
Board of Trade rooms in the city OF
Harrisburg, the sentiment most dom
inant was one of vigorous action in
securing men OF integrity for the
next legislature, for which the pri-
maries will be held in June of 1912.
1t is positively recognized that men
OF rank who are ambitious for the
future citizen (now the youth of the
state) to be clear-sighted, clean cut,
moral in tone, logically educated,
sympathetic with the following gen.
Grafton of children will be the only
ones for whom votes will be cast by
those men whose votes will be con-
trolled and that intelligently, by the
band of $500 public school teachers
in this State.
When $500 school teachers band
together, outside of any political
arena, the votes they represent will
mean to the would-be representa-
tives in the next session of the leg
islature that they, the latter, must
be sure there is no smirch on their
willing to sign such ventures as
those $500 school teachers demand.
There are before the public now,
having been placed on file at the last
session of the legislature, two bills
> which this rapidly growing oTganiza-
ton of youth-instructors demand
shall be passed early in the next ses-
sion of the Legislature, as laws of
our state.
The first is a Tenure of Office Bill,
which contains provision for 80
years teaching in this state. The
second the Teachers Auxiliary
Board Bill, provides that when a
teacher is retired, he or she shall
receive each of the twelve months
of the year, one-half salary received
per month during the last three
school years of teaching. The Master
Judges Bill, presented late in the
last session, after the Teachers Aux
iliary Board Bill was slated, gave
besides an increase in their already
splendid salaries, the retirement of
judges on half salary, after such re-
tirement.
If judges, whose duty it is more
often to convict to jail than protect
from such verdict, receive such rec
ognition from the legislature, then
NH0lC - ever y SOOu ICdSOu W DelltNt
that the teachers will receive their
due rights, for it is the duty of the
teacher to so instruct as to keep the
citizens out of jail.
The labor of all professions is
dignified by the individual. When
parents and taxpayers learn that the
Keystone of any state is its public
schools, then those parents and tax
payers will realize the advisability
of electing school boards, possessing
men and women whose knowledge of
the innate as we'll as the acquired
characteristics of teachers, is always
above the average citizens.
Teachers can not be kept in close
sympathy with the usual school child
if the teacher be harassed by the
consciousness OF over-power in finan-
cial affairs at the home. To pro-
duce a happy school give the class
happy teacher. To produce a hap
py teacher make that teachers en-
vironment such that she will show in
her face and in each movement,
nothing but happiness. A salary
that will recompense her for her la
Dor and thought in the school and
for the continual preparation outside
of the school walls, and you have
the millennium right in your own
household, for the rebound comes
home to you, the parents, through
your child.
How many of your parents can re-
call the ejaculation sometime in the
past when Jenny or Jane has return
ed from school, entered the house
and yelled: " Gee I'd rather go to
school to that teacher than eat ice
cream"
Yes, and many times the opposite,
you can recall. The teacher who has
the burden of responsibility at home
to be lifted by a meagre salary,
shows the strain. If those should
be made free from unhappy thoughts
1t is the teaching profession because
the attitude of the instructor is al
most indelibly impressed upon the
pupil as the parents facial features
are duplicated in many cases
through the power Of prenatal in
huence.
1t is a sure thing that when par
ents find that the ideals inculcated
by teachers are for the upward trend
of the future voters and housewives
then the parents themselves will be-
gin to agitate better pay for the mer
and women who take the care of the
child from the mothers arm at sil
and continues the arduous, nerve
racklnS care until the time Tor the
child's departure in the world o
work.
How is it, a woman is permitted t.
assume such care for the paltry sun
of $3.50 per year, as in some case
in our grand old Commonwealth?
Think of twelve months, and $2SC
is the stipend! Divide $3.50 by /.
and the pitiful amount of $23.33 i
that teachers pay for the most i'm
portant work in the world! witt
that, she must live, pay rent o
board eat, dress, appropriate to tn
station in the public eye, be churcl
attendant, that costs money, believ
me. Too, she must sometimes, may
be often secure the offices of a ply
sician or dentist And with 1t al
she is expected to buy the best schoo
news she may find in magazine form
If the care and work that such