The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1920-11-19
\ PREC ARIOUS CONDITION

y PREC tRIOUS CONDITION
Our educational institutions stand
forth the guiding star for the gerera-
ton which is to follow in the wake CT
one of the most ]precarious eras in
the history of the world. Upon our
schooIs-the teachers in our schools
and especially those in the rural dis
tricts is being brought to bear the
responsibility for the future Of the
United States.
From a metropolitan viewpoint, the
standard of attainment set by the
schools Of the United States, remains
without superior. Vet, despite argu-
ments 10 the contrary, the rural edu-
cational institutions in America are at
present in something indeed worse
than a regrettable condition. And,
this statement means much more when
it is understood that more than fifty
per cent Of the school attending pop
ulation Of the nation lives in the
rural districts.
We have advanced in leaps and
bounds along lines Of industry, COM
merce, and society, while the rural
schools Of the country remain ex-
actly where they We're twenty years
ago, if not ever worse, for the handi-
cap there is much greater. Statistics
will show that more than one half Of
the teachers in charge Of the destin-
les of ~ coming generation are
mere children; at least one hundred
thousand Of them sixteen, seventeen
and eighteen years Of age. Then added
to this, reports show that there is at
present q shortage Of about one hun
bred thousand competent teachers.
No teacher under twenty can be
justly considered competent to head
a school. Teachers under this age are
incompetent. They are immature in
judgment. They cannot be efficient,
and their ineXperience in the things
Of life that count with the future Of
our children, marks them as wholly
incapable of the responsibility their
work involves.
There is a very small percentage OF
the rural school teachers who are COM
potent. They never become experience
ed because their interest in hat pro-
f~ession is limited. They are teaches
most of them, for a period of but
from n to three years. 1t is not
their chosen life's work. The fact is
That most of them are young girls
just leaving high school to teach for
a couple OF years merely as a film
from the time t1Sv graduate until the
time hat they either set into some
more profitable calling, or until they
get married.
In other words, school teaching as
a profession has become degenerated.
The standard thereof has lowered be-
u of the poor remuneration there
for. Most of these young men and
young women who are making a pre-
tense at teaching in the rural schools
are doing SO just merely because they
have been issued emergency ~certif-
Gates subsequent to a shortage of eX.
perienced teaching material. There
are more than one million children at.
tending rural schools today under
teachers who have had no more than
an eighth grade school education.
1t was surprising indeed to note
that the recent war test showed one
fourth of our young men unable to
write an intelligent letter or to get
the sense Of a newspaper. Statistics
show that the greater percentage of
these came from the rural districts.
The schools of the nations are the
guide posts of the future. An cdu-
Gated competent people are those who
viii always see that the interests of
humanity and the nation are protected.
Our radical element in America to-
day comprises majorly a class of un-
educated people whose inability to
read and properly understand, makes
them easy victims to the wolves of
cheap notoriety and easy graft. The
avaricious beast of syndicalism has,
during the past few years, made most
rapid strides in rural communities
using propaganda which to an educat-
ed man, falls not only grossly i'm
practical, but absolutely in opposition
to the principles of Americanism.
Our coming generation will be no
better than the present standard of
III schools. The Americanism of the
future will be only as Great as the
education of the young folks of today
shall guarantee. And the standard of
u schools today co-ordinates exact
ly with the standard of the teaching
profession.
The teaching profession, we aver,