Year: 1873

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lFrom the Ohio Educational Monthly


Teaching as a Profession.


One of the first steps necessary to
advance teaching to its true position
as profession, is its legal recogni
ton. When a person is admitted tc
the practice of law or medicine, the
admission is for life, and he is free to
practice his profession wherever he
can find employment. But teaching
has no such professional standing.
On the contrary, the law closes the
doors of the schools of the country
against teachers at stated periods, and
requires their qualifications to be re-
determined by examination. In the
New England States, all teachers ap-
plying for schools are examined by a
town committee. If ex-President
Woolsey, of Yale, or ex-President
Hopkins, of Williams, should apply
for q district school in this State, he
would be obliged to show his fitness,
unless treated exceptionally, by bound
ing New York, and defining q com
mon fraction! In most of the States
county superintendents or examiners
are placed at the doors of the schools
as sentinels, to guard them against
incompetent and unworthy teachers.
It is made their duty to examine
teachers and to issue to those found
competent, certificates, valid for a
limited period-one to two years.
Thus the great majority of the teach
ers of the country are put through
the examining mill as often as once a
year.


1t is evident that these facts give
teaching no legal standing as a pro
fession. The position is held by too
limited and uncertain a tenure. I'm
til the law gives a class of persons the
unquestionable right to fill the teach
er's Office, teaching is not profession
in any true sense of the term.


The prevailing system of examin-
ing teachers is based on two facts
1. Three-fourths of the teachers OF
the country are in the business tenn
porarily, and intend to leave it at the
first favorable opportunity. 1t would
be worse than a farce to give such
persons the standing and dignity OF
professional teachers. 2. The quail
fcations of the great majority OF
teachers are too limited and made
quate to permit them to hold the right
to teach by a life tenure. Nor can
this difficulty be obviated by rigidly
excluding those who are unqualified.
This would leave the majority of school
districts without teachers. The schools
must be supplied with the best avail
able ability and experience. This re-
quires careful examination of the ap-
plicants and the selection of the most
competent. The limitation of the GER
tifcates granted affords an opportu-
nifty to make better selection, and it
also stimulates those thus limited in
their right to teach, to improve their
qualifications. Moreover, every sys-
TEN must guard against the negh-
gence and incompetency Of those who
administer it. Many examiners dis
charge their duties in very indiffer
ent manner. The limited certificate
enables their successors to correct
their mistakes.


These and other considerations
make it necessary to subject untried
and inexperienced teachers to frequent
examinations. This is necessary to
protect the schools and also to force
the unqualified to increase their at
tainments. The more searching these
examinations are made the better
But is it not both desirable and pos
sible to recognize those teachers
whose attainments, experience, and
success entitle them to a permanent
admission into the profession .?


There is neither necessity nor just
ice in requiring teachers who have
passed with credit two or three crit
cal examinations, and taught success
fully for several years, to go before
an examining board or committee
every twelve-month or twice twelve
or whenever they cross town
or county line. What is needed is a
system of examination wise enough to
separate this class of teachers from the
inexperienced, temporary, and un-
qualified, and give them the expressed
authority of the State to teach any
where within its borders. There are
more than thousand teachers in Ohio
who ought to be thus honored.-
Many of these teachers intend to make
teaching a ife-work, and have pre-
pared themselves for it. They are
the life and the honor of the schools,
and should be rewarded with the
standing of professional teachers.


Nor would it be difficult to devise
such an examining system. We pre-
sented the outlines of q feasible plan
in our issue for March, 1871. Pro-
fessional certificates, valid for Life,