Rural School Leaflet 1279 



A MESSAGE TO NEW YORK STATE TEACHERS 



A. R. Brubacher 



(President of the New York State Teachers' Association) 



The State Teachers' Association has set itself the high task of pro- 

 moting the professional and physical welfare of the more than 40,000 

 teachers of New York State. To this end it invites the support and 

 cooperation of all persons interested in education, both laymen and 

 teachers. 



The teacher's physical welfare depends upon hours of daily work, rest 

 periods, length and frequency of vacations, sabbatical years for rest or 

 study, evenness in methods of supervision, correct lighting, heating and 

 ventilating of schoolrooms, and such other matters of sanitation as dust- 

 less crayon, effective cleaning of floor and black-boards, individual towels, 

 drinking cups, and medical inspection that will guarantee against con- 

 tagion and infection in her room. These are matters that are receiving 

 increasingly respectful attention in all parts of our country and in Europe. 

 There is even some uniformity of practice in many cases. Vacations are 

 fairly uniform in length and season ; the school day of five hours is general ; 

 medical inspection promises to become universal in the near future; and 

 schoolroom sanitation now guarantees uniformly high standards in new 

 school construction. We may, therefore, address ourselves to the task 

 with high hopes so far as the physical welfare of teachers is concerned. 



We cannot entertain equally high hopes regarding the professional 

 welfare of the teaching body. Here we have to combat great inertia and 

 some apparently inherent obstacles to progress. 



The teacher has an average professional career of less than five years. 

 This makes the profession extremely unstable. Change of professional 

 standards can be quickly accomplished, but its permanence cannot be 

 readily guaranteed. The short professional career makes it very difficult 

 to establish any ethical standards because those members of our profes- 

 sion who remain two or three years only, never acquire any professional 

 pride. The stability of character, breadth of view, mental maturity, and 

 intellectual sobriety of the veteran practitioner give dignity and worth 

 to any profession. Among teachers a very small percentage remain long 

 enough to become veterans; a large majority leave below thirty-five. 



We are therefore justified in making even more strenuous efforts to 

 establish a code of professional ethics that the young teacher may early 

 come into the heritage of right standards and correct and clean practice. 

 The State Teachers' Association is now at work through committees to 

 work out our professional salvation along the following lines: 



