On the whole, resourcefulness is perhaps the most necessary intellectual quality for the teacher who desires to keep growing. All teachers should keep alive throughout their careers some intellectual interests, whether or not those interests bear directly upon their daily tasks.

A fifth important quality for a teacher to possess is a sense of relative values. A teacher who spends five hundred dollars a year on clothes and five dollars on books lacks this sense in a marked degree. Also the teacher who spends three hours a day at the table and fifteen minutes out of doors is equally wanting in this sense. Likewise among those who lack a sense of relative values is the teacher who, having a salary sufficient for his needs, teaches during the summer vacation; likewise the teacher who spends his entire vacation loafing, or fishing, without opening a book. I might go on to show how all of us fail in some degree to display a sense of relative values in over-magnifying the importance of our own subject, and in discrediting other subjects, in the kind of amusements to which we devote our leisure, in the amount of time we give to the newspaper, to gossip, to worrying over things that our better judgment should tell us are never likely to happen, and in a dozen other particulars; but the teacher most hopelessly wanting in a sense of relative values is the one who takes no exercise, has no amusements, no associates but teachers, does nothing, thinks nothing, reads nothing, talks nothing but "shop." It has often occurred to me that a course in relative values might profitably be introduced into normal schools and colleges, and be required of all students. Perhaps we might then expect to find in the graduates of these institutions a good sense of proportion, ability to see themselves and their work in proper relation, and best of all, a spirit of openmindedness and tolerance which only those who have a well developed sense of the relative worth of things can possess. In a certain city of New York State a vocational school was recently established. While attending a meeting in that city a few weeks ago I met a teacher of Greek in the high school, and asked him what he thought of the vocational school. His answer was what I expected. He denounced the industrial school movement in general as an enemy of culture, refinement, etc., and found fault with this school in particular because it was absorbing funds which should go to the

high school. This man's intolerance for the new type of education was due to a lack of a sense of relative values. He had not grasped the fact that most of the boys and girls who would attend the vocational school would not otherwise go to high school, or, if they should go, they would not be likely to take his courses in Greek. He failed to understand that a vocational school and a high school could exist in the same city without becoming bitter rivals for patronage. The most distressing chapter in the history of American education is that which records the hostility of the Boston schoolmasters to Horace Mann in his efforts to rejuvenate the schools of Massachusetts. They were earnest, God-fearing men. Their intolerance was due simply to a lack of a sense of relative values.

Finally, a quality which teachers cannot possess in too large a degree is optimism. One would naturally expect to find those in daily contact with childhood the most cheerful people in the world. If this were true of all teachers, it would not be necessary to lay emphasis upon optimism as a quality for teachers to cultivate. As I am writing these lines I have in mind a certain teacher with whom I was once associated, a primary teacher at that, who had not the slightest trace of the rising inflection in her nature. She seldom laughed, and never smiled. Her mouth was set hard with years of struggle with what she believed to be the natural depravity of children. To put a child, gushing with joy, under the influence of a teacher like that is like slaying a bird in the midst of its song. It is true that our daily routine is so full of little annoyances that harass the soul that we often fail to feel the constant pulse of joy which ought to be the peculiar reward of a teacher's work. It would be good for every teacher to get far enough away from his work occasionally so that he can see it in its true relations, and understand the large place which it occupies in the symphony of life. It should be a distinct purpose of every teacher to grow old in the service gracefully. The best specific is an abiding faith in childhood-not a foolish, passive faith that shuts its eyes to truth, that folds its hands complacently in the presence of wrong but a faith that is positive, that searches deep into the souls of children to find the divine purpose for which each life was intended. Therein lies the supreme joy of teaching.

Higher Recognition for the Teacher

WALTER E. RANGER, COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS,

T

STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.

HE subject assigned me for discussion at this time implies that there is among teachers a sense of economic and social injustice in the public recognition generally accorded them. If it were only a matter of personal sentiment, it would hardly invite public attention or even professional consideration; but the question involves not only important professional interests, but also the very

efficiency of the teacher's public service.

The subject also suggests an opportunity to respond to personal discontent, a common experience among all classes, by magnifying examples of economic inequality, by rehearsing complaints of social injustice, and by pronouncing philippics against exceptional cases of official tyranny and public wrong. But our question is a professional, not a personal one. Similar conditions, it may be truly said, obtain, more or less, in all vocations. When, however, the dissatisfaction of teachers develops the habit among them of apologizing for being teachers and of warning youth against the teacher's unhappy lot, then may our profession do well to investigate the causes of such discontent and seek a remedy. When educational journals and public speakers decry teaching as a vocation to such an extent as to deter good men and women from choosing it for a profession, in other words, from entering public service, then our question becomes one of public concern. For public education, including but transcending individual or private aims in education, has become, in truth, if not in general recognition, our greatest public interest.

It is not an uncommon human trait to feel that the other man has the better job. It may well be questioned whether there is more discontent, a greater sense of social injustice, or more failures among teachers than among members of other professions. One's answer to the question would depend upon his standards

of right living. In my view, the compensations of the teacher's art and life are not unworthy to be compared with the richest returns from other vocations. Differentials of economic and social rewards in different callings may seem large under a mock supremacy of wealth; but these advantages seem of less account in an evaluation of human character and service in civilization. Because all occupations spring from the common ground of civilization and are various processes or methods by which man makes his life, each offers free opportunities to intelligence, energy and practical sense. In all vocations recognition tends to respond to merit. The laborer is worthy of his hire, and would generally get it if there were industrial freedom. Under this law, within his own profession, one would generally receive what he merits. This law doubtless operates among teachers. But in a highly organized industry or profession there are many checks on the general law. There is doubtless a real cause of complaint against injustice among teachers of different classes and localities. Among different callings due recognition of each tends to correspond to the value of the service it renders to society, but artificial standards may check or direct such general tendency. For this reason it may seem true to many that teaching does not receive the full recognition it deserves. Although the individual teacher may have no personal cause of complaint in the rewards of his service, he may believe that his profession is entitled to higher recognition in consideration of the economic and social value of its service.

In the view of many, teaching has not attained the dignity of a profession. Others regard it as the noblest of professions. True, it lacks the professional etiquette and solidity of some vocations and the unionism and protectionism of others. But, in the development of public education, in the public's confidence in it's schools, in the rise of teachers in power for public service, and in a growing fellowship among teachers, there is at least the promise of a distinct and honored profession.

Teaching was once a subordinate function of another profession. Education was formerly a private affair. Long after the need of universal education was recognized, it was chiefly a duty of home and church. College and academy, closely allied with church, had a class of teachers who received due recognition, but

in part because they wore the robes of another profession. Free public education can hardly be said to be more than a century old. We have not outgrown the traditions of education supported by private means and directed for private ends. We have hardly escaped the narrowness of aristocratic ideas in education. The education of the few still attracts us, and the education of the many seems a lower service. But it is in the latter service-the education of all the public's children-that, I believe, lies the higher recognition and honor of the teacher. So rapidly has our public system of school education assumed a larger and larger function in the life of the state, that public recognition of it as the right arm of the state and of the teacher as an important public officer, has lagged far behind actual accomplishment.

Teaching could hardly receive high public recognition before professional standards were required. The reputation of our calling still suffers from poor teaching in the past, and low professional ideals have not wholly disappeared. But the public hardly realizes the gains of recent years in the large increase of the number of teachers of professional rank and in the advance of standards of professional qualifications.

In Rhode Island, while the standards of teachers' qualifications required in our state system of certification have been gradually rising, the number of professionally trained teachers has been notably increasing. Today more than seventy-five per cent. are in this class. Sixty per cent. of our teachers have been trained in normal or training schools of the first rank. Fifteen per cent. are graduates of colleges and have either taken courses in education or have passed thorough examinations in professional subjects and have given evidence of successful experience. Of the remaining twenty-five per cent., many have taken courses in normal schools, most are graduates of secondary schools, and all but less than thirty have attended such schools. Many of this class are serving a probationary period and to continue teaching, must obtain a higher standard of qualifications. An interesting fact, in this connection, is that in Rhode Island the number of male teachers has increased twenty per cent. in the past five

years.

Another cause of low recognition of teaching has been that so many teachers have taken it up as a temporary employment. Here