The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1913-03-11
HELP VERMONT TEACHERS.
Appeal Made to Correspondent of Bos-
ton Transcript.

To the Editor of The Transcript:
Among recent Transcript editorials
have been two or three on Vermont
schools and Vermont educational mat
ters Is it generally known that the
average pay of the women teachers OF
Vermont is only ninety-six cents pei
working day throughout the year? The
increase of salary during the past ten
years is twenty-one per cent, while the
estimated increase of the cost of living
is from thirty-tive to forty-tiye per cent.
is it any wonder that the best teach
ers have been leaving Vermont just as
fast as they could get away Why,
statistics show that unedueated women
workers-in factories, stores and hotels
--dressmakers, millners and stenog-
raphers, all receive large incomes; even
the street cleaners of our cities are get
ting better wages than that!
A step forward has been taken re-
Gently, however, in the passing of an
act by the legislature granting a certain
amount of money as pension fund for
teachers, providing that a like sum shall
be raised by the teachers and their
friends, not to exceed $1,000 year. The
governor has signed the bill and it has
now become law The sum of 100000
Us required to meet the demands of the
situation, and the Vermont Teachers
Retirement Fund association has gone
bravely to work at their task. This or
ganization has been working for two
years to get the bill passed and Incl
dentally to raise money for their NEST.
egg They have succeeded in getting
about $4,000 as a nucleus, and are de-
termined to make it $4,000 before Octo-
Der, in order to get like amount from
the state treasury. The state treasurer
1s treasurer of this society and the gov
ernor is the president. Other workers for
1T are Mrs. Theodore n. Wall. Mrs.
Bourke Cochran, Hon. Henry C. Ide Cate
minister to SPAIN, and others equally
well known. Teachers in both large and
small towns of the Green Mountain state
are straining every nerve, getting up
entertainm ents, writing letters, getting
subscriptions and doing everything pos
sible to raise money for this cause.
Many children there are possibly of
this and other states who owe great
debts to some old Vermont teacher. |
Many of us can recall men, and more |
especially women, whose simple, wise, |
unaffected lives, as we'll as their eff
cheney as teachers, were an influence
in our early lives which did much to
shape our ambitions into definite ca
reers of usefulness, in one direction or
another. In other words, thousands of
Nermonters live outside of the Green
Mountain state, who are able and doubt
less willing to help raise this first and
most important $4,000 for the Vermont
teachers pension fund. Let all such put
their hands into their pockets, to speak
fguratively, or reach out for their Z
checkbooks, TO speak more literally, and
send a contribution as large as possible
or as small as may be necessary to this
good cause. At ninety-six cents day,
the women teachers of Vermont cannot
lay by anything for the future; but
they are all working for this cause
Why should not every loyal Vermonter
take a hand and help along this SPLEEN
did causei
There are many who will be glad to
do something; all such may send con-
tributions to Miss Caroline S. Woodruff,
principal of the high school at st. Johns
bury, Vt, or to me at liz Newbury
street.
Helen NJ. Winslow.
Boston, March Q.