The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1921-09-30
Some Thoughts on Education.

when the educational division of the
club was organized. The educational
division will have one member on
the board of directors. The division
will look into public and private ed
ucation and do such things as will in
crease the instruction forces of the
city and county in efficiency and use
fulness.
The meeting was interesting in
the persons composing il; Lawyers
were there, and so were doctors. Two
lawyers and one doctor made
speeches. Business men were there,
as were newspaper men. Several
ministers of the gospel were present.
Teachers from the normal, city and
county schools were among the
guests. The superintendent of the
county schools, who is also president
of the National Educational Associa-
ton, made speech.
The public school system is one
thing that the American people
boast of, probably boast of more than
any one thing. There is opportunity
for public education in every county
in the United States. In some coun-
ties the opportunities are ample, in
others they are meager.
In some counties we have high
schools, with corps of teachers, with
laboratories and with Libraries. In
other counties we still have only the
one-room house-on the bread prai-
RE, in Nebraska or far Kansas, in
the forest of oaks of the CGrolinas or
in the pines of the lower Mississippi
Valley.
Every county in the United States
needs more money for educational
purposes. Every school official thinks
more money is needed. Every SUI
perintendent is asking for larger
budget next year, and next year and
the next
At the meeting Friday night the
salaries of teachers were discussed.
The story is told of a supervisor of
schools who had under his jurisdic-
ton between $1,000 and 10000 pu-
pills and his salary had just been
raised to $4,000 year.
We have heard the stories of how
teachers are more poorly paid than
house servants and street sweepers.
They tell us that locomotive en-
gineers, bricklayers and machinists
sometimes earn more money than
college presidents-more money than
the professors of Latin and chemis-
try. This we hear at all educational
meetings with a demand for more
buildings, bigger buildings, more nor
mails and bigger normals, more teach
ers and better priced teachers.
Often we have attended an entire
session of these educational meetings
WITHOUT A WORD BEING SAID
ABOUT THE CHILD. Friday night
the teachers who talked and the 9TH
,ers who talked devoted themselves
more to the development Of the ma
chine of education itself, more to the
welfare of those who had the ma
chine in charge than they did to the
pupil.
Education, if it is to be free or
comparatively free, must be compare
lively free all through. If the teach
er and the school manager look upon
the accumulation of wealth as their
objective they should get into an
Other line of work.
You cannot measure the value of
education in dollars and cents. You
cannot measure the value of the
teachers in the amount of salary
they get. A cup of cold water in it.
self is worth little, but the man who
crosses over with a stretcher under
fire, picks up wounded soldier and
empties the contents of canteen in
to his parched throat does service
for that man that all the gold we
have could not pay. The teacher
who sets to work the germ of high
ser thought and nobler desire in the
mind of the boy or girl cannot meas
ure in money the value of the serv-
ice. The teacher who neglects to
touch the better impulses of the boy
or girl and permits the material and
evil inclination to develop has done
wrong that could not be compen-
stated for in money.
Somewhere the teacher stands be- |
tween those who give all they have |
and all they hope to have for the
benefit of their fellow beings, who
toll daily for the sake of those who
suffer and sorrow and expect no hui
man reward and those who insist
that the laborcr is worthy of his hire
and that the hire must be computed
in dollars, dimes and nickles. Money