PUBLIC-SCHOOL TEACHER IN A DEMOCRACY 419 



of teaching is rare. The very scarcity of teachers in all parts of the 

 country indicates that the competition can not be sharp. It is but 

 natural that timid persons, or those doubtful of their powers, should 

 drift into teaching as into a safe harbor. Having once become settled 

 as teachers they tend to grow content and inert. 



Almost the sole suggestion now offered for the improvement of the 

 great body of citizens who teach is to increase the pay. The belief 

 seems to be that a better class, of men especially, would enter the pro- 

 fession. To a certain extent the result expected would take place, 

 but it is very doubtful if remuneration for teaching ever could or 

 should be so great as to draw able young men from pursuits whose 

 chief human interest is that they are profitable. There will, in all 

 probability, always be professions in which more money can be obtained 

 than by teaching. When educational systems undertake to compete 

 with the corporations, for example, the educational systems must lose 

 both the contest and the moral standing they should hope to win. The 

 great danger is that higher salaries may add to the inefficient workers 

 who are already in the work for the money, and thus tend to perpetuate 

 a low ideal of service. 



The idealist would have a gigantic task before him if he should 

 undertake to substitute directly for the ideal of money the ideal of un- 

 selfish public service. The " practical " man would admit that " pub- 

 lic service " has a pleasant sound, but " human nature " demands 

 pay for its work. This is sadly true, even while men's thoughts dwell 

 upon the high purpose of education. They remember the pay, while 

 their souls should thrill with the mighty music of a great idea. 

 True education develops power through knowledge, disseminates 

 truth, instills self-reliance into the minds of the young, teaches 

 the common rights of men, breaks the bonds of unreasoned au- 

 thority and frees the mind of the future citizens of the republic; 

 it gives them strength to withstand adversity, and leads them to love 

 the beautiful, and to discriminate in all things that bear upon the daily 

 joy of living. The practical thing to do is to put aside the fear that 

 " human nature " is going to stand in the way of the best that can 

 come to the race. The inevitable process of evolution will take care of 

 that, and give us a new and finer human nature. Then the question 

 will arise how to put the true, ideal education into practise, and how 

 to obtain the workers to carry out the purpose. 



Among the thousands of " settlement " and other kinds of social 

 workers in the cities of this country there is a sympathetic interest 

 and a point of view which if enlisted in public education would be 

 productive of enormous good. Through the medium of the established 

 and natural relation of teacher and pupil, the human purpose of the 

 social worker now so fraught with discouragement and barren in results 



