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y' . ? Mi* The Press and Banner t&' *>/ ABBEVILLE, S. C. The Press and Banner Company p PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY R?^ :: BS?k Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Telephone No. 10. f _____________________ |&r: Entered as second-class mail matter at post office in Abbeville, S. C. tI Terra* of Subscription: One year $2.00 , Six months 1.00 Three months .50 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1920. SCHOOL TEACHERS AND SALARIES. Commenting on the fact that teachers in the j State of Kansas have refused to organize into j unions, and to affiliate with the American Federation of Labor "on the ground that their duties to parents, to pupils and to the public are inconsistent with coercive action by strikes", and on their re- j fusal_to surrender their individual freedom of ac- ' tion in instances where the obedience to strike orders might conflict with their conscientious convictions concerning their duties as good citizens, Col. (George Harvey, in Harvey's Weekly, contributes the following io the discussion of the proper pay for teachers: "All of which is highly commendable as a principle .It should have its rev|ard in full public appreciation. That appreciation should take a more substantial form than mere verbal eulogies. It should take the form of payment for services ren| dered in generous proportion to the value of those services. And what service is more valuable to the country, more vital to the enduring welfare of the American people, than the proper education of our American children? Surely the men and women on . whom falls this grave responsibility and who, in the instances cited, have shown so patriotic an appreciation of those responsibilities, are entitled to such payment for their services as will enable them to live as well as those in the country's industrial mechanism. x "Surely, if -there is any group of workers whose pay should permit them to live with some approach to comfort and personal dignity in these days of severe stress, the teachers on whom rests the responsibility for the right mental guidance and direction of the oncoming generations are foremost." g|. Continuing, XUol. Harvey says: |||S "These tea'chers' salaries are such as washerwo-. men, janitors, and teamsters would scorn. A bricklayer, whose craft demands an obviously low order of skill and intelligence, may earn nearly as much in a week as a teacher is paid in a month. The avB erage school teacher, says the Chicago trade survey Bfe . report, /is, under a twenty-five year handicap on the h| basis of lifetime earnings. The average teacher R|.' will have to live to be 70 before her total earnings v are as much as a plumber can make by the time he HgL is 40. Blacksmiths, shoe-store clerks, soda-fountain clerks, under present wage scales, will have earned as much at 40 years of age as a school Elk teacher would at 52." fThe result of it all as summed up in the Weekly via this: 1 ''In many cases their pay is so low that they simply cannot live on it. For such as these, the matter resolves into the plain question of giving up teaching or dragging out an existence of half- i starved squalor. So, it is not surprising to learn that many hundreds of teachers are answering this k&w question by throwing up their work. In the last three years, according to ? recent survey of Chicago trade conditions, 40 per cent, of the teachers I have abandoned the profession solely on account of RS^ the impossibility of living decently on the salaries paid." t [ Again: "But living lives of half-starved pauper Eism is also at variance with their ideas of self-re- j spect. So they resign and take to occupations by which they can make enough to live on in the way they should live. They recognize their duties to the public, but they do not recognize starving to death as among those duties." A great deal of this may be taken home to themselves by the people in this community. We have raw, paid teachers and school men and women, generally, so little for their services in the past, that when we come to think of paying them a wage equal to that j&pf paid other people trained in their professions and Kr callings, we are shocked. Only recently in Abbeville we had a talk with a representative citizen. He is in favor of good schools. He would not have Abbeville have poorer schools than the neighboring cities of like size. He I prefers that we have better schools than most towns, But the idea of paying the Superintendent f f>Y ' of the Schools here as much as three thousand or thirty-five hundred dollars appealed to him on nrst consideration as something in the nature of confiscation. And so it would to us, had we not given the matter more consideration, and had we not ' n j .Li?i itnll via+ olwove foQpVi fnr Iiearnea tnai, tcawxicis wm uui. amujo , nothing, and that there are other avenues for earning a living open to them, and many of them * j are taking these ways. We may take for comparison the engineers on the Seaboard Air Line Railway. They serve an apprenticeship but after a few years of experience t.yf* v I they come into their own as engineers, and when they dc they earn from two hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars per month. Do the men who head the school systems in the state serve a shorter apprenticeship? They invest four years in a college education, which the engineer may have done, but ' most of which is entirely useless to him in his calling; they spend years of preparation as inferior ' teachers in country schools and in the schools of I email inwns! t.hev must attend all kinds of train ing schools to keep up with modern thought and modern methods; and then only after, mayberten years of such work are they enabled to take their places as heads of the school systems in larger towns. Why should they not be paid as other trained men? Is there any real reason why the I head of the schools in Abbeville should not receive I as much pay as the head of the trainmen in Abbeville, the head of the Cotton Mill, or its superintendent? Certainly he invests as much in his preparation, and as certainly the work which he does is as important to the individuals whom he serves and as important to the public. Again the sales-ladies, book-keepers, stenographers and other trained workers among the ladies in Abbeville make from seventy-five to one hundred and twenty-five dollars per month. They need a high school education to take these places, and they need experience and training too, but they need | not invest in an education the sum necessary to be ! invested by the school teachers of the land, nor do they spend any more time in getting the necessary training in order to reap the best rewards from their calling. The truth of the whole thing is that we have underpaid our teachers and preachers so long that it has grown to be a habit with us, and we take it as something of an insult for a teacher or preacher to demand enough to make the year's ends meet. We have grown to look upon them as working in a kind of involuntary servitude, where they must work and work on, but never complain. The fact that other callings are opening to those who have heretofore earned a livelihood by teaching will serve, as it should, to teach the patrons of the schools and school authorities generally that, while nobody should get panicky and be disposed to waste money j in the school business of the community any more i x 1* ? - ~ +Virt fflortliflrc mnc+ hp man ui any umci uu^uico^, mt ^ ??.>? ? paid reasonable wages or there will be none but teachers of mediocre ability. ! I \ FOR SELF BETTERMENT. 1 A movement has been started by Supt. Fulp of j the city schools and County Supt. Evans'to resurI rect the Abbeville County Teachers' Association. We are heartily in favor of the organization of any I i body of teachers in any county, provided they organize for self-betterment from a mental standpoint and not from a financial one. We are assured by the above-named gentlemen that such an organization is the intention of the Abbeville county teachers. We do not believe that any body of teachers j should so degrade their profession as to colloborate j with labor unions either in spirit or in fact. The j low salaries paid teachers generally, is not in every case, by any means, the fault of the boards of trustees, nor of the taxpayers themselves. There are probably as many, maybe more, impostors in the teaching, profesison than in any other profession in the country. "Iron sharpeneth iron," and | if the teachers desire to organize for purposes of improvement by comparing methods, listening to words of wisdom from eminent educators, or by any other legitimate means, we are for it. On the other hand if they organize for purely mercenary [f reasons, we are 'agin it', and 'agin it' strong. E E NEW MAN ON GREENVILLE STREET. ' G I i Col. C. E. Williamson and his accomplished wife , will be welcomed back to Greenville Street. They made their home with us for a season.but now they come for keeps. They belong here, hence they g come. | A good many people living on other streets are wondering how Colonel Williamson accomplished the feat of being enabled to take up his resi- [| dence on this fashionable thoroughfare so early in life. They recall that he came here from the coun- ?5 i E try beyond Donalds only a few years ago, and it is i ' B o orrnn-f rr?omr a moffor r*"f omflTPmPTlt. tVlflf". he ! has progressed so far in so short a time. | | The matter is easily explained, however. In the first place when he came here he joined the Baptist Church, and that gave him a good start, because in E Abbeville the Baptists do things. In the next place he was smart enough to marry a fine woman who has a good deal more sense than he has, and to this he" owes most of his prosperity. ! G I g 11 THE OPINION OF OTHERS. i E - ! E > ? ? ??'??# g : E The Best of the Bonhams. | [? 1 MilleHce L. Bonham. the best of the j p Bonhams we know, has ventured the suggestion in ' the Anderson Daily Mail that the Brushy Creek Annexation Movement "is being engineered by somebody who has an axe to grind, and that it has not been seriously considered by the conservative ele- | ment of the people of Brushy Creek who have most at stake;" and then he adds, with a good deal of d fire in his voice: "Anderson does not want to give up Brushy Creek and won't do it without a fight to | [j the finish." That means a great deal more than jj it seems when the fact is noted that General Bonham was born in Edegfield and lived in Abbeville.? Spartanburg Journal. WANTS ! ! P? FOR SALE?1919 Ford, Run six * months, equipped shock obscvbers, good condition. H. 0. WATSON, Mt. Carmel, S. C. Phone 13-215 _ l-21-6t pd. I jjilAO FOR SALE:?One pair good mules, one new Mitchell wagon, one new Chevrolet car. J. B. GREEN, S. rT*l 1 Main St. l-28-3t. | IllirSCl FOR SALE?One 1917 Ford Roadster, Red Seal Continental W/'ll L Motor, self starter, (if you are \\ lH iDQ man enough to start it yourself). . Bumper on either end. W. S. _ 5HERARD, Box 222, Abbeville, S. C. trl& SfitifS l-21-3t pd. otuo LOST:?Between Abbeville and Greenwood, one rim and tire for Buick Six Car. Return to ?. L KNOX, Abbeville, S; C., and re- ^Allf nAI ceive reward. 1-23-lt. UvUlllvl Engraved Cards and lnvltaIon?? The Press and Banner Co. ______ Soldiers, Sailors OF ABBEVILLI Monday Nigh You are requested to meet in the Coi ty, Abbeville, S. C., at 8 o'clock to oi ? ^ ?i i m ? Every Soldier, Sailor and Marine THE AMERICAN service from April 6th, 1917, to Nov membership of this organization. Each and every one of you are at so we may have as large attendance a much to our Homes, County and Stat CARROLL SWE Acting Cha irgjgfaasejajijsEjsjaja^ejajaafaejajsjaigaiaB^^ ] Hats and i i i i fWe point wil and satisfacti( new Spring J HATS and You too will ate the fine qu tractive shac becoming sty] Soft Hats fi i j i r kj _ ~ $) i/i P Jno. B. StetS' j.vjX:J < lij J an(j Crofut & Derbies with flexible brim and sell mean comfort and style. Caps in the new shapes and weave Soft Hats, $2.00 to $10.00. Derbies, $6.50. Caps, $1.00 to $3.00. J Parker & I JOTICE 1 . rv i uin uay \ ay January 29th the last gin day of if ' r^Sr! on. '-i m ah r? 11 UHIU11 Vll tU. r| 41 . ffci . 1 and Marines 'rM lCOUNTY I " :'M t Feb. 2nd | 1 urt House of Abbeville Counrganize the Abbeville Post of , who served in any branch of LEGION . 11th, 1918, is entitled to A i ' iked to advertise this meeting s possible, this means too I e to neglect it any longer. TENBURG, i irman. ! m I Caps I | I ' ! t I th pride * Dn to our ^ appreci- 1 on Co., & ^ Knapp. ^ ? conforming bands, which 1 s in plain and novel patterns. | I Reese I n 1 HS/SfBJ5JBjEiSI3@?EE@jSf5JEI5)ElEfSI5JEE)9B0Z5?SlSIBlHIS.rE1r^