The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1920-06-24
EDUCATIONAL.


word to the already oyerworked sub
iect of teachers salaries, but when the
conference of school boards recently
held failed to touch the common weak
ness in teachers schedules it makes one
feel like continuing the discussion. In
this state we have never paid salaries
on the basis of preparation for posi-
tions but rather on the type of school
in which service is rendered. The high
school graduate who enters a state
normal school and takes the high school
course is paid from ten to twenty dol
lars per month more than she would be
had she taken the course given for a
primary grade teacher. If she tax es
the rural school course she is still
worse off Since we pay teachers
largely on the type of school in which
they teach, it is foolish for anyone to
prepare to teach or work in any type
below the high school In addition to
to teach in a high school. The high
school teachers feel this and are in
clined to associate together while the
grade teachers make another group,
and the rural still another group. Par
ents are conscious of this caste system
and advise their daughters to do the
high school or city grade work, not so
much for the extra money, although
that is a factor, but for the added re-
spect the public will give them. So long
as we pay teachers more for one class
of service, and give them social advan-
tages in one preferred type of school
for the same training and native abil-
ity, the shortage will exist in the poor
ly paid and less desirable places.
At the present time there is only one
class of schools in which there is a
real shortage. This is the rural school.
All other schools may experience a
shortage in quality, but they will never
be left without teachers so long as the
rural schools have any. Every man en-
gagged in rural or elementary school
work is sacrificing much in material
and social way; a sacrifice he would
not be called upon to make were he
working in any phase of secondary
education. | often wonder who is to
blame for teachers migrating from
country to city and in the city to the
places of so-called first rank. People
processing to be friends of education
are making matters worse by paying
larger salaries for secondary school
work.
We need our able teachers to start
the children right in grade ones We
need them with the 90 per cent who
never reach the high school. The first
real sign of our sincerity in this belief
would be to pay them more We all
agree that the first years are the inn
pressionable ones-the important ones,
and then we procemed to offer greater
inducements for teachers to engage in
secondary work.
Another place where we need real
scholarship and teaching ability is in
the teacher training institutions-par-
ticularly the county training schools. If
these schools are not teachcred with a
stronger faculty than are the secondary
schools of the county we cannot expect
| parents to place their sons and daugh-
| ters in them. What right-minded par
ent will place his child in poorer
school than she has just finished? What
parent will send his child to prepare
for teaching knowing that when grad
| uated she will receive low pay and be
rated socially by the wages she re-
ceiyes, 1t is as rule only those who
are obliged to do so who will urge OF
even consent to their children taking
positions in these training schools II
the county training schools are to
prosper, boards of education must first
/ of all select a faculty second to none
in that county in both scholarship and
in successful experience in secondary
as well as primary schools. These
places cannot be successfully filled by
merely choosing old friends. They can
not be filed, in my estimation with
people not holding a college degree.
The first place to have the choicest
teachers is where the teachers are be.
ing trained and the second place in
which they are needed is with the little
people. Let us pay the salaries fol
these positions and the teachers will
prepare to deserve them.
A. A. THOMPSON.
The Fourth of July falling on Sun.
day this wear makes the following