Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-05-28
What the South O1Oes Her
School and College Teachers
- HE average annual salary Of scht

average duuudl SdldIy VI SCuOO1
teachers in the United States, urban
and rural districts together, is
six hundred and thirty-five dollars.
For city schools the average is eight
hundred and ffty-four dollars; for
country schools, four hundred and seventy
nine; and for high schools, one thousand
and ninety-nine.
If these averages were maintained in a
majority of the States, America still would
be open to the criticism of paying her school
teachers absurdly less than she does her
business and industrial workers. But in
twenty-seven States the average for teachers
in general is much below the nationa. mean
of six hundred and thirty-five dollars; in
Georgia, according to statistics of 1918, the
latest available, it is three hundred and
sixty-six dollars. Moreover, this general aver
age is much above the average for rural
teachers. In six States rural teachers receive
less than three hundred dollars a year; in
eight States, less than four hundred dollars;
and in the United States as whole, less
than four hundred and seventy-nine dol
lars Further, we have it upon the authority
of the Federal Bureau Of Education, from
whose recent reports these figures are TAX
en-, that in 1918,
There were tens Of thousands of
teachers in the rural schools whose SAL
aries for the year were less than the
States and counties in which they
taught allowed for feeding prisoners in
the county jails-and there are many
thousands of such in these schools in
this year of 1920-21."
It is not in rural schools alone, however,
nor only in elementary systems, that teach
ers' salaries sink lamentably below the i'm
portance of their realm of labor. "1l only
twenty-five States,'' runs the official report,
sis the average salary of high school teach
ers much one thousand dollars. 0918
statistics.) In only eight was it as much as
twelve hundred dollars; and only in the
District of Columbia, in which there no
rural high schools, was it as much as fiji
teen hundred dollars In weighing these
figures Id comparing them with the aver
age wage of mechanical skill or of business
efficiency, it should be borne in mind that
high school teachers are supposed to have
had four years or lore of college work
after graduation from standard high school
of four years, and are further supposed to
be men and women of such character and
personality as will enable them to control,
inspire, and guide boys and girls effective
1y through the golden but dangerous period
of adolescence and youth"
In colleges and universities, where ex-
quired of teachers, the situation is relative
ly no better. President Lowell of Harvard,
+. has observed that members of his faculty
receive less remuneration than ,uneducated
trainmen, apropos of which he pungently
asks would you prefer to mind the train
train the mind?"
This at Harvard, with it's endowment or
forty-three millions! What, then, of our
Southern colleges and universities, the rich
est of which cannot hold candle to such re-
sources? Is it to be wondered that teachers
of rare gifts and distinguished scholarship
hav ebeen drawn, scores and hundreds of
them, from the South to Northern institu-
lions sufficiently endowed to double, treble.
and quadruple the salaries offered them
here? To the glory of Southern educators, be
it said, the majority of them choose, like
the immortal Lee himself, to serve their
homeland at a sacrifice rather than reap
honors and emoluments elsewhere.'At Emory
University today there are singu,arly able
scholars and teachers who have declined Of
fers of more than twice their present sal
aries; and like instances there doubtless are
at Agnes Scott, Oglethorpe. the Tech, and
many another Southern school.
But noble as the spirit of these teachers
is, the conditions that make their sacrifices
needful are glaringy discreditable. Truly
has it been said, 1.-THE cheapest thing in the
wrold is a good teacher, at any reasonable
price" When we fail to provide fair COM
whether in grammar, schools, or high
schools or in colleges and universities, we
fail in justice, in wisdom, in patriotism, in
all that is abidingly worth while. Better
salaries for teachers there must be if our
endeavor in education, which of all move
ments, social economic or political, rises SUI
premely important, is to achieve due results
This requires in the case of the commo
schools. particularly hose of rura' districts
a keener readiness on the part of citizens
to tax themselves that thei children may
be taught and the community better served
In the case of colleges and universities. il
requires increased endowments and, to thai
end. full-sinewed support of such splendid
undertakings as the present campaign Of
Southern Methodism to add thirty-three mil
lion dollars to the resources of Southern
education.
Thirty-three millions! A modest sum in
deed for the Methodist colleges and univer
stiles of the entire South when the single
State of Massa vhusetts has college endow
mnets exceeding eighty-millions