, 1923-09-26
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
BY Carrier
An Aid to Education

An Aid to Education
Everyone who has come safely through the
educational mill and has gone out into he world
to apply the things he learned to the pracueai
business of life, can look back over the list OF
teachers who directed his lessons and ruled over
his deportment as he progressed, and can de-
termine for himself whether he made greater
strides under an attractive teacher or a PLAIN
one. If he goes far enough back he VIII recall
very few of the former kind. The further back
you 90 the palmer they were. 1t was only Oh
recent years that the school teacher began 10
nav attention to prevailing styles and her per
sonal appearance. Some one among tnem nav
ing discovered that brains, beauty and the latest
modes formed q valuable asset i'll school teach
ing that was ignored by her predecessors who
believed that severe plainness IN all that Went
with the female of the species, was the only Ut
arcompaniment to brains. The old time school
teacher looked upon education of the young as
a serious matter. She was a severe taskmls-
tress. 1t was a crime to waste time, and an
indifferent lesson usually meant some form OF
punishment. If individuality was developed
it was the force of the scholar, himself that did
it. The teacher had only one yard stick ana
one hickory switch for all. They were both
applied with severity. On the whole, under
the old system, 1t was rather a slave driving
business. You survived or persisted. Most
everybody survived, for ways were found to
make them survive. Many men and women
recall those old school days with horror and
rebellion
But scattered along through that school day
experience may be recalled the bright spots, the
compensation for the dull and drab extraction OF
cube root of the past, the times when the board
of education perpetrated sacrilege by sending
to your particular school a teacher with some
beauty and charm, one who "friZzled" her hair
and wore a ruche at the neck of her dress which
was cut chin high, possibly a bit of bright rib
bon or trimming to relieve the sombreness OF
her general attire. She would have what was
N-ANun IN fhaf lau m fpl IA NpnG Iffnr
emit from the others and at once became popular
with the scholars. They were not only willing,
but anxious to please her. Rivalry for her IA
vor was rampant, and many a tough lesson was
mastered for no other purpose than to appear
well in that school teachers eyes. 1t was not
love of learning but love for the school teacher
that furnished the incentive. Children had an
eye for beauty and were willing to try for cul-
ture, If they could have it about them. Parents
of the old school, set in their ways, with refer
ence TO any such innovation as style and beauty
along with culture, did not hold out long. They
capitulated, for the way to the parental heart
was through the boy or girl who was doing well
at school.
And thus was created, IN this simple fashion,
a radical change in the type of school teachers.
The demand ever since has been for attractive
ones. The plain ones then, and the plain ones
now, never knew what a difference could be
made by the cultivation of attractiveness in
dress, manners. face, hands and feet. They never
realized until they had tried it, what an influ-
ence it had upon their charges. How much
more readily a child learned and how much more
industriously he applied himself when he is lead
by n pretty leader than when driven by a plain
and severe one.
There is a true incident in this state where
the pretty school teacher was put to the test.
Under a regime that had held for n dozen years
the school board in question was controlled by
a majority of Methodists. The qualification
and about the only one for a school teacher in
that town was to be affiliated with the Meth
odist church. That machine was one day
smashed to the extent that the control of the
board rested in the president who had the decid-
ing vote in a tied board. The list of teachers
that year was made up with reference to their
personal beauty and not their religious affilia-
tion. 1t is true, that there never was such an
assemblage of pulchritude in the state of Wyo-
ming and at the same time never a more sue
.cessful school year in that town. Since then
school teachers restful to the eye have been the
rule in that community. And il proved again
that brains and beauty in combination brought
better results in education than any other sys-
ten previously tried.
Nowadays there are no plain school teachers.
They are, all of them, up to the moment. They
follow the latest things in clothes and hair cuts,
are fully as accomplished if not more IN, than
the society girl of the period, there is nothing
foolish about them, and if they do not talk shop
or carry the signs of pedagogy about them, they
are no less devoted to their profession, than the
school teacher of other days, who never forgot
for n moment nor permitted anybody else to for,
get her occupation.
For scenery, for ability, for diplomacy, for