The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1945-11-30

We have seen another record of the Mis-
sissippi Education Association delivered re-
Gently at its regional meeting at Gulfport,
showing how the schools have suffered dur
ing the war by losing their best personnel
to better paying laboring work and other
war jobs. We do not imply by any means
that there are no good people left in the
schools, and indeed these efficient school
folks are the very ones who publiciZe these
conditions and who are most distressed by
the situation. The school people nave point
ed out to us that a great percentage of people
hired as teachers In recent years were really
not fit for the work, and how hard it is to
get adequate people to replace those who are
going into shipyards, factories and offices.
One hears occasionally that teachers
are always lobbying for more money and
that is often said with some cYnicism
in the capital during a legislative session.
That is as cynical as complaining that a
starving man keeps asking for food. The
teachers usually have one of the weakest
Hobbies" in this or any other state. be
cause they are relatively poor folk and
they dont have the funds to maintain a
real lobby. We say II is a short-sighted
public servant who would like to scratch
the teachers off with a minimum appro-
priation and then pass on to pork-barrei
politics.
Mississippi right now has a publ csurplus
well over twenty million dollars. The first
calls on that money are county public hos
pitfalls and greatly increased appropriations
for the schools. One thing we do not need
right now is an expensive and unnecessary
four year medical college in Jackson. We
recently reprinted an editorial from the
Richmond (Virginia) Times-Dispatch point
ing out that the state of West Virginia has
saved millions by sending its students to the
Virginia medical school, under a contract
basis, to be educated. What we need are
more young modern doctors returning to
our counties to practice, and the way to get
them is to build more small hospitals
throughout the state to give them the ia
cllities to practice with. For the present we
can make contractural arrangements with
the Louisiana and Tennessee medical schools
for their training. 1t is what they do, and
where they practice after they get good train
ing, which is most important right now to
Mississippi. ''aaff 9ef.
A four-year medical college is a political
luxury right now and one big expensive
plum for Jackson at tn eexpense of the rest
Of the state. We read in the papers that
Rep. Walter Sillers, a delta legislator, and a
powerful one, declares that the medical
school proposal has little chance. We are
glad of this. Sillers being from the agricul-
tural delta, favors a program of farm-to-
marke roads. The state needs these too. But
far more it needs a revitalized schools sys-
tenn and an extension of county medical fa-
%cilities. Roads are third upon the list in the
order of necessity.
And what we, the voters, can do about
this is to keep behind our representatives to
give the state what it needs. 1t is the educa-
ton of children and their whole future that
is involved. 1t is not just a question of rails
ing the pay of a few teachers, but of lifting
the whole system of public education to a
higher plane.