The Parisian. (Paris, Tenn.) 1907-1962, 1919-05-16


was $55. In another town a miner
who, by the way, was an enemy alien,
drew more than $4,000 last year,
while the salary of the high school
principal in the same town was S765.
We welcome with all our hearts the I
long belated recognition that is be-
ing given to the man who works with
his hands. We believe that this
same workingman will be the first 30
join with us in asking better pay for !
those who teach his children.
No wonder there are fifty thousand
vacancies in the teaching forces OF
the schools. No wonder the ranks
are being filled with weak men and
with immature women who merely
use the profession as a stepping stone
to something better. No wonder
there are thirty thousand teachers
in the United Safes who have had
no schooling beyond the eighth
grammar grade. Small wonder, in
deed, that seven million of our school
children are being trained by teach
ers, mere boys and girls themselves,
who have had no professional train
ing whatever.
When We consider that the 740,-
900 teachers of America are paid an
average salary of $500 a year; when
moreover, we consider the fact that
living costs have advanced 103 per-
cent since the beginning Of the war,
thereby cutting the buying power
of these insignificant salaries in half,
we can easily determine that only
fool or a martyr would choose teach
ing as profession, or would long
remain in it unless these terrible con-
ditions are swiftly remedied.
What a crime is this! What an
indictment! What an objectionable,
sin at the doors of an enlightened
people who now find themselves at
the head and forefront of the de-
mocracies of the world! How can
we better prepare for the great un-
dertakings of reconstruction than by
setting ourselves Immediately to rem
edying this perilous condition. In
these trying and chaotic times when
the world is beset by unrest, by an
archy, by revolution, by the devils
brood of appalling evils that follow
in the train of war, we must make
sure that the foundations of our re-
public are set on a rock that it may
stand against the flood.
) The peace and security of the
world of the future will be in the
safekeeping of the generation now in
our schools. These boys and girls
must weave up the raveled sleeve"
of civilization. Their hands must
minister to the wounds of the nation.
Their minds must meet and solve the
difficult and crucial problems that
viii be their inheritance. Their hearts
must be so imbued with the horrors
of war and with the poverty and an
guish that inevitably follow in its
wake that they in their time will en-
ter upon it only as a last resort in
national self-defense or in support
of some great principle of humani-
ty.
Never has there been a more ur-
gent need for high-minded, great
hearted, splendidly trained, 100 per
cent American instructors to drive
home the vital lessons that these
times hold. Never has the future of
the nation been so clearly committed
into the hands of the teachers And |
yet thousands Of men and women Of
ability who would prefer to teach are
reluctantly leaving their chosen cal
ling, forced by the hard necessities of
their very existence.
The teachers ask no largess at the
hands of fortune. They enter their
profession for service, not riches.
But they invest years and money In
preparation for their life-work and
the knowledge they gain is shared
with others who themselves use it
to their own profit, Teachers, then,
by every right and In all justice ex-
pect return that will permit hem
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