The Abbeville press and banner. (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, January 28, 1920, Image 4
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The Press and Banner
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ABBEVILLE, S. C.
The Press and Banner Company
p PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY
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Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Telephone No. 10.
f _____________________
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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
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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.
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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.
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NEW MAN ON GREENVILLE STREET.
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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
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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.
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THE OPINION OF OTHERS.
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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
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Hats and
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and satisfacti(
new Spring J
HATS and
You too will
ate the fine qu
tractive shac
becoming sty]
Soft Hats fi
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$) 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.
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Parker &
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the last gin day of if
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and Marines
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t Feb. 2nd |
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urt House of Abbeville Counrganize
the Abbeville Post of
, who served in any branch of
LEGION
. 11th, 1918, is entitled to
A
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iked to advertise this meeting
s possible, this means too I
e to neglect it any longer.
TENBURG,
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Dn to our ^
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