New-York tribune., 1920-01-25
Not Pay Alone


to take our young men and women
back into the work Of teaching?
Several years ago the professor at
d Middle Western university. whose
Office was to visit and help sup
ply teachers for the high schools
throughout the state. said that he
could not get the young men hs
wanted for high school teachers be-
cause they all preferred to GO into
business. Often they did not get as
much money to start with in these
other lines, but the work was more
interesting and there was greater
future in it. 1t was practically i'm
possible to get young men he
thought would make good teachers
to take up teaching.
The war taught young women
these things that the young men had
concluded about teaching number
If years ago. The business world
held places for them that were mora
interesting and offered greater fu-
lures than teaching had. In many
cases the salaries did not make the
difference.
Social work has become the COL
lege women's profession. The large
number of graduates of women's
colleges who work now 90 into So
cial or welfare work of some kind
where they would have become
teachers four .or five years ago.
In the business world the de-
mand is for the college women, and
many of them become secretaries or
managers Of departments. The
women with only secondary school
education now prefer to go to bus-
ness college where they used to 60
to the Normal
"School teaching, when it is right
ly done, is the hardest kind Of
work." said one former kindergar-
ten school teacher the other day. She
is now working as stenographer
and makes in the year what she used
TO receive in nine months.
81 would rather teach little chill
dren than do any other kind Of work
| know off, she continued, "but |
simply cannot do it. It takes an
unusual amount of strength and
energy to manage thirty or forty
small persons all Of different person
ality and needs. To teach with en-
thusiasim teacher ought to have
leisure to keep up normal life out
side the classroom. The hours are
not so bad in the schoolroom, Il
they were all. But there is outside
work and the continuous nervous
strain of managing so many growing
persons. 1t is practically impossible
for a teacher to keep from getting
into rut. She has to if she is 60
ing to hold out under the work. And
then when she fitted herself into this
rut, that is the very thing that
makes her unfit to teach, in my
opinion.
Another thing that is hard:
teacher is expected to keep UP STUDY
and development in educational
training outside. All the money
most teachers have goes to taking
expensive courses in education.
''The teacher who doesn't grow
is a failure. but it takes super
human strength to go on teaching
and keep from becoming a machine
To fill The requirements woman
would have to be a super-woman.
Another point often made py
school teachers who have gone in'o
business is that in the schools they
have not the same chance OF
future. The feminine angle on tnls
is varied. BY the future, some Oh
them mean a chance to advance
On the other hand, there are thoSo
among the young women who may
mean that the teaching profession
had become the old maids lie a''
that the acquaintance with you'.s
men which is part of business hio
has something to do with the future
The social position of teachers
was for many years a boost Tor 'h'
profession. But this prestige seems
TO have died. There are other ii"e'
in which women can work and keep
their social position nowadays a'lo
most of all, the business woF'd -
more interesting and offers more eN.
citement, one of the demands Oh
young women to-day.
SO the matter of teachers salaries
is not the only persuasion necessary
to take the teachers back into '"'
schoolrooms AS Miss Taft SAYS
the profession must be made ~
tractive" in all ways.