The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-05-19
For the Good of
 The Community

A LABAMA is gradually awakening to the inn
 portance of education. It is high time. The state has borne the stigma of illiteracy for great many years
 The legislature at the winter session raised a re- cess committee with instructions to make survey of educational conditions in the state and to re- port back to the summer session.
 This survey it is understood includes thor ough investigation of the finances, the housing, the health and sanitation and the physical and mental condition of the school children, as we'll as the physical, mental and temperamental quafi- cations of the teachers
 Alabama is poor state, but even so she has been too niggardy in making provision for the education of her children Politics has occupied too important place in the making and manage ment of the school system.
 Teachers salaries, especially in the smaller cities and in the rural communities have been en- tirely inadequate to attract capable instructors. Even in the larger cities, where attention is given to the education of the children, janitors or caretakers of the buildings receive larger salaries
 
 than are paid to the teachers.
 Is there any wonder, then, that the state has been backward in the matter of education?
 Why should janitOr sometimes illiterate, be paid more for his work than the teacher who is entrusted with the education of the child, upon whom largely depends the future usefulness and success of the child?
 The answer is, as rule at least that the ianitor gets his job and his salary because of his vote or the vote of the man or men responsible for his se- lection. Politics. that's all
 There are many problems to be solved in work ing out the new school programme, the least of which is that of salaries. Make the pay attractive and there will be no lack of competent teachers. There is sad deficiency in this respect now Why should person whose intelligence and edu- cation enable him or her to earn several times the small pittance paid them in the schools turn down the greater opportunities?
 School Life, the official organ of the United States bureau of education, in an editorial states that the character of the schools is being lowered just at the time when it ought to be raised to a much higher standard than ever before that teachers now paid much less for their work than mail carriers, policemen, cooks, telegraph messengers and even unskilled laborers
 Tt is not for the sake of the teachers that this policy (of better pay for teachers) is advocated" continues the editorial. Schools are not main taned for the benefit of the teachers If men and women of ability are not willing to teach for the pay offered them, they can quit and do something else for living, as hundreds of thousands of the best do It is for the sake of the schools and the children and the prosperity of the people and the strength and safety of the nation that the policy is advocated"
 "The real difficulty" says Dr. A. E. Winship, editor of the Journal of Education, lis that the public has never believed that good teaching is necessary. The public has never realized that no other necessity in city, county, state or nation is as great as good teaching There is no one in the employ of city, county state quite as vital to the community as those who have in their keeping the welfare of the children. The future of America and all her interests are in the hands of those who have the children in their care'