Greenwood daily commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1919-1926, 1920-03-23
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WASHINGTON
NEWS LETTER
By The Washington Star
Copyright 1920.
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WASHINGTON, March 22-"They
are killing off the heifers and grind
ing their seed corn" This alarming
announcement in these days when the
problem of supplying the world with
food has laid heavy upon the United
States, is used to emphasize the dan
gerous situation with regard to the
public school system Of this counttY
unless the enticing of school teachers
and potential school teachers issp
more lucrative employment is stopped.
The only way to do this is by giving
them decent pay in the schools.
There is such a famine of teachers
that 1929 schools have had to be
closed. It is so impossible to get good
teachers that in 900 school teach
ers who are "below standard" have
had to be employed. The scarcity of
teachers is increasing because more
and more of the best teachers are lea
wing the jobs at which they cannot
get decent living and going into 9TH
er lines of work at greatly higher sal
aries. This menacing condition will
grow worse because the normal and
other teacher-training schools are get
ting only 80 to so per cent of the
number of pupils they did before the
war-and so there are few teacher
recruits coming along. The federal
~ 70 +h,+
there will be 1000 fewer trained
teachers from the normal schools this
year than couple of years ago.
Because they realize that the public
school system of this country is not
only necessary to educate the mothers
and statesmen of the future, but is
the best safeguard against the spirit
of bolshevism and the swarming in
of immigrants from the impoverished
and revolution-ridden countries of Eu-
rope, members Of Congress and the
educational officials Of the Nation and
states are greatly concerned.
There is only one way, they say,
in which the boarding up many thous-
ands more schools can be averted,
and that is by making it financially
possible for the teaching talent Of the
country to continue their sacred pro-
fession, as the best guarantee Of the
perpetuity of American institutions
and ideals.
Teachers today are getting only
one-fourth the wages that hod-car-
riers get" points out Representative
Simeon D. Fess of Ohio, chairman of
the House committee on education,
who is preparing a speech to impress
the need for prompt and effective ac-
ton upon Congress. Representative
Fess has devoted his entire life to the
profession of teaching and before COM
ing to Congress was for five years en-
gagged in university extension work
in the University of Chicago and then
for 10 years was president of Antioch
college.
The teacher must 1ive-and eat-365
days in the year. An annual salary OF
$3.50 gives $2.O6 day for living ex-
penses,-not living wage for ditch
digger or anyone else. Yet, the U. 5
Commissioner of Education after 9
careful canvas finds that in 1918 the
average salary of all elementary ans
secondary teachers was S635,-in Wis.
consin it was only $421. The average
of 26,721 high school teachers in Il
states and the District of Columbls
was $1,031, and for 141,1s9 elemen
tarv teachers in the same states it wa
s6O6. In the rural schools some whit
men got only 1886 for the whole year.
work and white women got $327
These are only casual examples, bu