The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-07
For the Good of
 the Community

week attending the annual convention of the Alabama Educational Association rumors gained currency to the effect that some at least of the male teachers were about to engage in political work.
 These rumors eminating from appar- ently authentic sources, had to do with the race of certain candidate for very high office to be filled by the electors of Ala bama this year.
 Several hundred of these teachers, rumor said, upon their return home would undertake, as a sideline to teaching, the organization of certain elements of the population into unions, ostensibly for the purpose of promoting and protecting the interests of this particular class of people, but in reality in interest of certain candi- date.
 School teaching and politics will not mix The public school teacher who de- parts from the duties for which he Is paid by the state should surrender his teaching job and his teachers pay while he is in the performance of work not related to that profession.
 The teacher in the public schools who engages in organization work for candl- date for political office cannot discharge his duties to the state and to the candidate for whom he is working at the same time.
 The state pays it's teachers to teach the children of the state; to educate them; to train them for the duties of citizenship and to prepare them for such vacations as they may elect to take up when their school days are over.
 The state expects, and is entitled, to the best services these teachers can give. It ex- poets, and is entitled, to the undivided time of it's teachers. Teachers are looked upon as models for the boys and girls whom they teach Not only by precept, but by example as we'll it is their duty to point the way to good citizenship, unpre- judiced and unbiased by any personal preferences or predilection for or aginst candidate for political office
 Political science is a proper course to be embraced in school curriculum, and all pupils should be encouraged to study it. But political science and partizan or per- sonal politics are entirely separate and distinct Teaching the one make for bet ter citizens; the other tends to create prejudice; to array class against class, or one set of men against another set. One IS
 
 constructive, the other destructive.
 Public schools are maintained for the education of the children along construc tive lines. In the proper education of the children lies the hope of the state and the nation -
 Teaching school, like the law, or medicine or engineering or any other profession, requires constant study and research to keep abreast of the times to keep in touch with new methods and the advance in that science. The teacher who di- vides his time between teaching school and or ganizing political clubs is cheating the state He is not performing his full duty to his employer, and he should either quit teaching or quit the other work.
 Politics has done more to retard education in Alabama and in other states, too, than any other one thing. How to rid the public schools of poli- tics has engaged the best minds in the profession for years One of the strongest and most effec- tive arguments advanced in support of the pres ent school code adopted by the legislature last September was that if adopted it would take the schools out of politics
 ~ There ought not to be any politics in the schools but with the teachers organizing polltl- cal clubs, this would be an impossibility.