The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1920-01-17

motives because they hire urging that
only the payment of ihigher salaries
can avert disaster. Bht the only way
to prevent the lowering of our educa-
tional standards is by 1.-THE payment of
higher salaries.
The public school il the strongest
weapon we possess against the enc
mics of our liberty. IThe temper of
that weapon will NATURALLY depend up
on the character of our teachers. These
teachers have always been disgrace
fully underpaid. Splendid women have
devoted their lives to this work, not for
the compensation 10y received, but
because-ef-th Mother instinct
within them. The point has now been
reached where they can go no further.
In the face of an advancing cost of liv-
ing they cannot subsist on their a
salaries. Either we must pay them bet
ter or W ill lose them to business, in
which they are daily becoming a more
important factor.
Americans might as well face the
fact plainly. That means replacing the
competent with the incompetent. It
means that, at the moment when west
ern democracy is confronted by the
most serious menac in its existence
the menace of eastern autocracy-we
are ready to entrust the guidance of
our future citizens to untried hands.
We must not overlook the fact that
the teachers still in the profession now
hold a strategic position which would
enable them, if they chose, to force
school authorities next year, or the
year after at the latest, to a what
ever salaries they might demand in
order to keep the schools open in the
more progressive communities. They
are not taking advantage of their DO
sition. They are not demanding.
On the contrary, they are paying out
of their own pockets the entire cost of
a state wide educational campaign to
induce the people to guard against the
very crisis which they, instead, might
turn to their own advantage.
They are laying before the public
the facts of a situation which is grow
ing daily more serious-that $4,000
teachers in this country quit teaching
last year to take up occupations pay
Ing much higher salaries that all over
the country schools are either closing
for lack of teachers or authorities are
entrusting the education of the chill
dren to unframed, immature minds;
that the small and rapidly diminishing
attendance at our normal schools
means the oncoming supply of compe-
tent teachers will be inadequate to
meet the school needs of the mex few
years.
They are giving their time, their eff
forts and their money to a movement
intended to bring hundreds of thou
sands, as highly trained as themselves,
into competition with themselves In
the educational labor market. And
they are suggesting salary schedules
based, not upon their W desires or
their own worth, but upon the urgent
need to attract young men and women
of the Highest class to the teaching
profession.
But the danger which the teachers
there are trying to avert is not con-
fined to that state. 1t is nation wide.
The schools In the other states are
threatened in The same way and, in
many instances, much more seriously.
There can be no question as to the
facts. Because Of the low salaries
paid and the expense n years of
study required in preparation for 1t,
teaching has ceased to be n profession
which attracts our young men and wo-
men. 1t no longer even holds many
who earnestly try to make 1t their life
profession, but who. along with those
dependent on them, must live and live
respectfully.