Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-03-09

vt was at a recent hearing IN New Jer-
sey on bill providing a minimum
A salary of a thousand dollars year
for public school teachers in that State,
that a farmer-member of one of the county
education boards stoutly objected to what
he considered the giddy extravaganza of the
proposal. Thereupon the author OF the Dill
asked:
Glow much is your districts annual ap-
preparation for schools?"
cit is thirty thousand dollars the board
member replied with an impressive shake
of his beard.
"How many children has your district"
six hundred"
"WeI, that's only fifty dollars year for
each child. You spend that much on a good
hog, don't your"
Yes answered the Director, but can
sell the hog.
When enough Americans duly realize that
there are goods more precious than those
which can be bought and sold, and values
higher than those reckoned in dollars and
cents, then will the problem Of school funds
be blithely solved and the children of men
be given as fair an accounting as the
progeny of prize winning swine. The New
Jersey brother was uncommonly frank, and
perhaps uncommonly cynical. But do not
his views, after all, dominate in our actual
treatment of education and kindred causes
as compared with economic interests? If
our hearts be really where our treasure is,
must not confess to being great deal
more concerned about things than about
people and the vast issues which human
lives embody?
Deplorable as it. is that so many teachers
are underpaid and so many children under
schooled. it is still more deplorable that so
many citizens are Understanding these
needs and neglects. Happily there are
signs of an awakening AS in New Jersey,
60 in ma Sfofo IL
being shown educational interests all the
way from the kindergarten to the university.
In Georgia we take heart from the number
of counties that have adopted local school
tax in recent years, that being the one
feasible and equitable plan of increasing
the common school fund.- and also from the
fact that Constitutional amendment max
ing this plan Statewide and obligatory has
been proposed by the Legislature and is
practically certain to be approved at the
polls we are encouraged; moreover, by
the deepening interest in higher institutions
OF learning. Men and women of means are
coming to give more and more generously
TO colleges and universities, both by present
donations and by requests. Let us not lose
slght OF these happy omens, nor forget that
our school facilities, taken by and large are
much better than they were a generation
ago.
But at the same time let us frankly face
the immense needs which lie neglected and
the crowding opportunities which 90 un-
taken. We have merely broken ground in
our duty to education. The great sowjn q
and cultivating are yet to be done and the
goodliest harvests yet to be reaped. More
schools more teachers endowments larger
by many millions, and heartier relationships
between the life of the school and the life
OF the people-these are the vital wants of
the south and of all America Moreover.
s Wnen :, these wants are duly supplied, we
est years of the past will seem absurdIy
lean. For the source of prosperity is not
IN the rat OF hogs as our New Jersey friend
imagined but in skillful hands and fertile
MINDS and understanding hearts