114 THE SCHOOL 



Up to forty years ago the conception was widely prevalent through- 

 out the United States that any one who knew enough to keep ahead 

 of his pupils in their lessons was sufficiently well instructed to be 

 appointed a teacher. The natural result of this generally accepted 

 view was the appointing of teachers by citizen committees who were 

 too often swayed by prejudice, favor, or political and religious con- 

 siderations. As a higher conception of the school and its functions 

 and of the teacher and his duties has gained ground, we are slowly, 

 but surely, realizing the necessity of a method of appointment and 

 promotion that will relieve the teacher from humiliation and the 

 schools from the incubus of political management. Two plans have 

 been somewhat widely tried: appointment by a single expert, super- 

 visor, or superintendent, and appointment as the result of competitive 

 examination. Appointment by a superintendent has been known to 

 lead to the displacement of an honest and fearless official and the 

 substitution of one who is subservient to political control, and is not 

 likely to be extended. Appointment by competitive examination, 

 on the other hand, while it may not always attract the right persons 

 to the right places, is slowly, but surely, gaining ground. It has 

 raised the standard of scholarship and professional equipment among 

 teachers. As a general rule it selects the best from among a mass 

 of applicants for a given position; and it preserves the self-respect 

 of the individual teacher, because it frees him from the necessity of 

 begging or cringing for a position and enables him to feel that he 

 obtains appointment or promotion solely upon his own merits. As 

 communities awake to the necessity of delivering their schools from 

 the abhorrent influences of political and ecclesiastical patronage, we 

 may look to see a more rapid spread of this method of appointing and 

 promoting teachers. 



Attention has recently been attracted by the report of the Mosely 

 Commission to what has been called the feminization of American 

 schools, because the great majority of public school teachers are 

 women. It was an economic reason, in the first instance, the fact 

 that women work for smaller wages than men, that led to the 

 present preponderance of the feminine element in the teaching force. 

 It is more than doubtful, however, whether American schools and 

 American education have deteriorated in consequence. It is quite 

 certain that the refined woman of to-day who has been thoroughly 

 trained is a much better teacher than the coarse, ignorant, pedantic 

 schoolmaster of fifty years ago, who excited no feeling but con- 

 tempt, hatred, or terror in the breasts of his pupils. We all believe 

 in the salutary influence of the masculine mind in teaching, par- 

 ticularly in the case of older pupils, but we also believe that the 

 influence of a strong woman is better than that of a weak man; and 

 that a woman teacher of ability who is devoting her life to educational 



