The Cordele dispatch. (Cordele, Ga.) 19??-1971, 1919-04-10
PROGRESSIVE SCHOOLS.

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school organization of mossbacks
where the widely published program
is a money.saving, money skimping,
limping sort Of make-shift for which
board members and school heads
have to make excuses and apologies.
The higher salary in the latter is no
attraction for the good teacher, while
the wholesome atmosphere and in.
dividual advantages of working along
shoulder to shoulder with wide awake
instructors cannot be had.
A teacher with the real fire in his
soul lives in an atmosphere full of
thrills for those who come in contact
with him. That same spirit that fires
the souls Of boys and girls, likewise
fires the souls of fellow workers in
school faculties, and so the work of
the real teacher has no end of good.
But the progressive teacher wants to
work where progress marks every
movement in the school system. He
wants to know that advancement is
being made. That's what he is work
ing for, and when it is not there, he
is ready to be gone.
A system with an established repu-
tation for advancement can have its
good teachers with ease, because its
good name brings them. They want
to live in progressive atmosphere,
want to move upward themselves
while they are giving their energies
to the children under their super
vision. 1t takes stamp of progress
% move 4 teacher UP into the greater
channels OF usefulness, because here
and there, wherever education counts
most for the young, there are systems
and institutions calling for only the
best instructors. A teacher with the
soul of teacher likes to move up
into these larger avenues of useful.
ness. His driving, ever enlarging aim
is to climb up higher. If he has not
that aim and impulse, he is no teach
err
1t has now come to a time when
no limping system can have good
teachers. The financial hindrance is
one of the least of considerations
under normal conditions:-'M Men with
the education of the children in their
community hanging properly on their
hearts will find way. They always
do. The local school system with a
reputation for doing things, seldom
needs good teachers. They want to
come in, and there are good ones.
But over the wide country condi.
tions in the common school training
are deplorable. To say we have good
schools as compared with the national
average or the state average is to
hang on to the old limping skeleton
that has been brought out and pa,
raded for twenty years. We ought
to be far above the state and national
average,-so far above that all the
world could see and know. 1t is as
easy to run our schools on that plane
as 1t is to drag along on a money
saving, money Shipping schedule. And
think OF the men and women of the
future we would have to rise and
bless us for it!
Do you think OF the ambitions that
may be lighting the fires of hope in
your boys soul? VIII he ever want
to be somebody? Can he be made to
know that he can climb up into the
greatest usefulness his state and ma.
ton can offer? Are you sure that
the school is going to make him want
to be somebody?
That school can never do it under
God's sun so long as it is not pre.
sided over by those who burn with
the hope of living for that same great.
er usefulness. That school cannot do
it SO long as the pay check goes for
a spool'heeled pair of boots and a
gown that have held the highest and
warmest place in the heart of tho in