HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1950-01-06, Page 6,t.
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SIX
20th Century Half Over?
All a Question of Time
•
proper •Bostonians of Beacon Hill
or the -Back Day in proclaiming
that a century is "a period of a
hundred years" — that the first
century comprised the years "A.D.
1 to 100, fnolusive," and that the
19th century ran. from "A.D. 1801,
to 1900, inclusive."
That would bring the end of the
19th century at midnight, Dec. 31,
1900 -and the 'beginning of . the
20th century immediately there=
after on Jan. 1, 1901.
From a strictly arithmetical
point of view, only 49 years have
elapsed this far in the current 20th
century—with still another year
to go. .
A great deal may happen during
the next 12 months which histor-
ians will fail of recording as they.
now endeavor to round out the'
first half of the ZOth century.
It was back in the January, 1900
issue of the Review of Reviews
that its learned editor, Dr. Albert
Shaw, settled the question for his
readers 1,
Just as editors are settling the
controversy today.
Proceeding with an air of unas-
saitable authority, an air which
Mark Sullivan in r "Our Trott s" de-
scribes as seeming to say: "Of
course, you understand, Pan not
arguing with you: I'm merely tell-
ing'you
A half -minute's clewthinking
is enough to remove a1 confusion.
With, December 31 w mplete the
year 1949—that is to say, we rqund
out 99 of the 199 years that are
necessary to complete a full cen-
tury. is
"We must give the 19th century
the 365 days that belong to its
100th and final year, before we be-
gin the year 1 of the 20th century.
"The. mathematical faculty works
more keenly in monetary affairs
than elsewhere." Dr. Shaw contin-
ued, "and one of the people .who
have proposed to allow 99. years to
go for a century would' suppose
that a $1.900 debt had been fully
tihet by a tender of $1,899."
Commenting on Dr.. Shaw's pro-
r:ounceuaent. Mark Sullivan, accept-
ing it as "having mathematical
soundness." goes on to say:
"January 1, 1900, appals to the
uman imagination, seems to the
By Everett M. Smith in The
Christian 'Science Monitor)
Eaerybody — (most everybody;
attar is, by way of qualification) is
tieing it.
.Added and abetted oft every
ride., by special .half -century. or
3md-century editions, reviews and
a
Ye:Capitulations — magazines, news-
papers, and historians are busily
assessing the -"first "first 50 years" of
this twentieth century.
Matter- of fact, according to gen
eral authority—and Pedantic Bos-
tod—.they've, jumped the gun by a
year.
As the New Year looms and one
looks back 50 .years, one finds that
it was in 1899 that 'controversy be-
e fast and furious as to whe-
ther t• 1900 would begin ,the
20th century, or would be the last
year of the 19th century.
Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and.
almand:ce are as precise as the
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- Telephone 41 .Seaforth
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1. etTRON EXPOSITOR •
C.P.A. ORDERS HUGE JET. PLANES
... ..1.. , .vn.,, a[+blit. .. S..v, ....n
•
eye, and sounds -to the ear more
like the beginning of a century
than doe's J'an. 1, 1901."
So, apparently, today's editors
feel that Jan. 1. 1950, eeen1s "to
the eye, and sounds to the ear':
more like the end of a bygone half
century or the beginning of a new
half century than wouldt Jan: 1,
1951.
Theretere, the arra of reviews
and the Wave of nostalgia they
produce. -
One is carried back 49 years—
if you please, not 50—to those gol-
den years before the two great
world wars.
To the first chug -chugging, "get-
out-and-get-under"
getout-and-get-under" horselbss car-
riages.
To the Gibson girls. To Presi-
dent McKinley's New Tear's re-
ception in the White House. To the
half million immigrants a year. To
the St: Louie 'Fair. to the -phono-
graph. And the electric light. And
the telephone. Not forgetting New
Year's dinners for 75 cents.
To those "good old days" of eggs
at 221, cents a dozen. roast beef,
at 8_ cents a pound, and men's suits
to, order at the tailor's for $15.
And to openings for stenogra-
phers and typists at $7 a week—
and $20 jobs for the•bosses.
Times have changed in the last
half century (minus a year).
And itai time n.ow't° say: Happy'
New Year:
i9
Of more than 2.375,000 Canadians
who paid' income taxes in 1947, on-
ly 27.500 had an incce'ne over $10,-
000 a year.
Least year the federal govern-
meeit's purchases of butter abroad
and buying of the domestic sur-
plus potato crop cost Canada's
ta.xpa.ye-s more than $2,500,000.
Highest Cash Prices for
DEAD STOCK /
Horses, $2.50 ea.
Cattle, $2.50 ea.
,Hogg, .50 per cwt.
According to Size and
Condition
Call Collect
SEAFORTH 15
DARLING & COMPANY
Of CANADA, LIMITED
Canadian' Pacific Air Lines have ordered two 504-mile-a•n-hour
deHawiland; Comet jet-propelled air liners, pictured above, for ser-
vice 'from Vancouver to Tokyo and Hong Kong. The Jet planes,
first'to be ordered by a North American alr Zine; thiel be delivered
in 1952, it is announced by G. W. G. McConaphie, president of C.P.A.
Powered by four deHavilanct Ghost jet engines, the plane creases ' at
an altitude of 40.000 feet, almost eight miles, and will be able to,
carry 48 pasisengers from Vancouvef to Tokyo,,4,700 miles, in ten
.hours, with two stops for refuelling.•
a
The Thankless
(Continued from Page 2)
$3,000 and over a year.
In 1,946-47, when the average
Canadian Wage scale was about 70
per ,cult above the 1939 level, the
salaries of teachers—already well
•below the norm eafned -by all male
workers over ten years. oh- age—
had shown an average increase of
only 38 per cent. Nor was this
relatively paltry increase uniform
or in accordance with merit and
training. In city schools it was
orhy two per cent, and generally
theleast increase went to those
teachers with superior training.
Holders of post -graduate degrees
were increased on the provincial
median by only six per cent, and
the median of proviticial salaries
to holders of any kind of. a uni-
versity degree was $1,668 i, year.
It is' difficult for any of us to
grasp the true significance of those
ffrgures. What they Mean . is this:
the teachers of Canada, • economic-:
ally speaking, have sunk to the
bottom of the population. In gen-
eral they are. paid 1P'ss than un-
skilled workers in industry. In
some communities their wages are
low,ar than- those- o; semi -literate
odd -job men. In the words of the
report.. "salaries are • sucte that, in
general, an ambitious man commits
his family to a. Weer genteel por•
erty if he embraces teaching as a
life -work." •
Worse than the mere fact of
hardship—worse because it cor-
rodes the spirit—is thenecessity
which compels the poverty of
teachers to be "genteel." It is the
coldest. most bitter, most humiliat-
ing kind of poverty known to man.
The 'teacher not only'- pays far
more for his original traiging than
an industrial worker: be must' Iso
—because of the nature of is
.work associate with "gent 1"
people, live in a "genteel" rn gh
borbood and dress in a•"ge teel"
fashion. He would lose Ilion -job 'if
he tried to save on•his-budget by
going to class in 'overalls. If he
has children, his life becomes a
threadbare war of survival. filled
with petty humiliations which
gnaw at his self-confidence, because
association with. his intellectual
equals means that he must assoce
ate with men far better off than
himself He is condemned for life
5
Effective
Monday, January 9th
Temporary Curtailment of
Passenger Train Services AccoUnt
foal Shortage
Due to serious depletion of coal reserves of the
railway because of , work stoppages and shortened
working hours in United States mines, Canadian
National announces temporrary4eductior s in certain
passenger train services, effective January 9th.
- Tor infor><nation„ enquire at your nearest Canadian
Nathrnal "Railways Ticket Ofice or see yoni local ,.
A int.
to the humiliation of never being
able to ,return in kind the hospi-
tality of his friends.
A common belief held by the
public is that tekchers are recom-
pensed for their low'incomes by a
greater degree of security than•the
business man or the industrial
worker enjoys. In many countries
this is the case, but ,it is not true
in mostl parts of Canada.
At the present time, minimum
pensions in three provinces. are, on-
ly $240. $360 find $365 a year, while
maximum pensions are no more
than 60 per cent to 65. -per cent of
the pittance which had- previously
constituted an annual salary.,- In
some provinces teachers have .so
little security of tenure that yearly
contracts are still in use. In many
communities. especially in small
jtwns and villages' it is assumed
that. teachers -will undertake a
great variety of extra work for
nothing.- such as teaching in Sun-
day schools, supervising sports,
dramatics and dribs tor the young.
It is also the practice of many
smalls towns to exact from the
teachers a standard of behavior
more puritanical than that demand-
ed- from anyone else. There are
places where a male teacher. would
be fired if it were known that he
drank a glass of beer, and a female
teacher would be run out of the
profession if she smoked sigarettes
at a bridge party.
These are only a portion of 'the
bare facts which underline rhe in
security, `the humiliations. an the
economic hardships which teachers
i . Canada•must endure. There •t:"e
ninny other aspects of the prrh-
lem. Is 'our educational system
democratic? Dot;,all of our chil-
dren 'have 'an equal chance?
At the present 'moment in Crn-
ada a„child who grows up in a few
of our larger cities—'and not ail of
them -by any means—has a chance
of i.ttending a fairly good school.
One who grows up in a „village or
a small town,pra.ctically never has
such a chance, while in many dis-
tricts thele are simply no schools
at all. It is idle; therefore, to pre-
tend that we are a truly democra-
tic nation when there is no equal-
ity of opportunity in our schools.'
Take another aspect of the prob-
lem, Are our teachers, on the whole
competent to teach the young- of a'
nation with great future responsi-
bilities? Considering how deeply we
are in debt to (he teachers of Cat)-
ad,a and how little we ha'''e do'1e to
discharge that debt. it seems a
gratuitous insult to accuse the
profession as a whole of incom-
petence. Yet such a charge must
be made, not. against the good
tea.ehet's; certainly not against in-
dividuals, but against ourselves for
permitting a situation to develop in
which low standards are inevitable.
We would regard it as unthink-
able to permit a nian to practice
medicine unless he was qualified
to do so. and the minimum quiJi-
fication we require of a doctor is
that he possess a degree from a
reputable medical School. But no
such inhibition prevents us from
letting untrained ,people into the
teaching rrofessi6'n. At the pre -
Sent .time only 15 per cent of our
entire teaching personnel in the
public , schools of Canada have
completed as much as three to fc,ur
years of university training, while
approximately 60 per cent ha"e
never, been to college at all.
We are an efficient country
most respects. Our industrialists
spare no expense to guarantee
that the mechanical equipment of
their factories is supervised and
managed with the . maximum of
expert skill. Yet we have no -hesi-
tation in turning aver the educa-
tion of our children to unqualified
persons, many of whom enter
teaching only as -a stop -gap while
waiting for something better to
turn up. It is a truism that a good
teacher can so inspire a child that
the whole course of the child's life
is changed. It is also a truism
that a bad to cher Can infect his
Mills with a' hatred of learning,
cat, stifle their imaginations ' and
gi►'e • them such faulty habits of
µ'ark that they will never have. a
chance. of gaining even •material
• Por 'OW whole ;si.tuatton.•--for. the
slfior 'of itaaeltlti'g jperSrinit4i,'Or
tIO:'bitudisbits orf ,<the -te oltetts 4hem
,tease, 'for leiv,ataniiarci Within the'
'priefeetio t -.-there le a single. con -
Crete remedy,. We.mtist care en-
8`tgh to phy.enough, k.,simpte allot
tit' 'arithmetic khovh. clearly that
lil3ut�l vve consent to Pay our 'teach
'bit—the aversge, at least thte`e
i " + iycy ''4,fr'ein uoiv ,itis
i1 ,:„.
t,
will never have a satisfatetory sys-
tem of publio edue tion In Canada.
If this statement 'seems unreas-
Enable, recollect .certain key facts
reported by the Canadian E ues-
tion Atiaociation. Both laymen and
experienced teachersagree that
the nfain reason why standards
within the profession are low is
that' most of the teachers are in
sufficiently educated. These .two
groups also agree, in: the main,
that all teachers should have cols
liege degrees. And yet at the Pre-
sent moment the average salary
we pay a college graduate teaching
in -Canada is only 51,668 a year:
How many college graduates can
be expected to choose teaching as
a life -work at that price? ' .
Suppose we multiply that sum by
three and get a- salary of approxi-
mately $4,500. • Assuming that the
average age of a teacher lies some
where betwee i thirty-five and .forty,
a salary of $4,500 is—in comparison.
with salary acalee in •business and
other .professions 'the bare •
mdm with which we can expect an,
able college graduate to be sates.
fled as he enters middle life with
a growing Minify. To be sure, this
figure has already been appro&ohed-
as a standard in a few Canadian
cities, but those cities contain 'only
•a -portion of our teaching 'popula-
tion,
population, and those cities also add their
high salaries to the absurd lieivs of,
other towns to give us the aver-
age of 11,668.
It is my conviction that if the
Canadian public would use this fig:
ure as a touchstone—$4,500 'as the
minimum wage • for an .experienced
teacher with a college degree by
the time he reaches mid-c,areer,
with. the prospect of stilt further
raises as the teacher becomes head
of a department or undertakes
more administrative work — the
whole problem of popular education
in Canada would save itself with-
in tea years.
At the present moment there are
thousands of able young men and
women who would like to take up
teaching, -but they 'cannot bring
themselves to enter a profession
which condemns them to poverty,
humiliation and low standards.
Able people' who wantto teach are
not in search of wealth.' `They are
not looking for an easy job. ,They
are not, -as one man called them in
a letter to the investigators of the
Educa'titln Association;" "the more
mediocre men, those who lack cop-
fidence in. themselves, (who> are
afraid to compete for life's best
rewards." - Those .mho choose to
enter the teaching professiori are,
almost universally, people who are
fond of c'hild'ren, who believe them-
selves ,able to do the work well
a.ad are convinced that the -teach-
ing of young children is one of the
'important professions in -the
world.'- But they are also individu-
als%with full lives of heir own to
lead; if they were not they would
be less valuable, .s teachers. While
prepared to sa
are not prepared
thing. They .wax
books, to tra.ve
rifice much, they
'to sacrifice every -
t to be able to buy
j within reason, to
undertake .furl er study. to play a
full part in social and community
life and to raise a family with some
degree of security and well-being.'
Many such persons enter ethe
teaching prdfession today, but in
Canada most of them leave it af-
ter a few years' service has con-
vinced them that Stephen Leacock'
made an understa•temegnt when he,
called teaching "the most thankless
and .underpaid profession in the
world." Conclusions to be drawn
from such facts are inescapable. To
entice good people to enter the pro-
fession, and furthermore to keep
them there, we must spend at least
three times as much on teachers'
salaries. as we do today. If we
wanted to. we would. '
It is at Nis point that'the'trag-
edy of thee teacher's situation in
relation to society as a whole mos
clearly reveals itself. Teachers, as
a'group, are unpopular. If anyone
doubts this statement, I recommend
that" he studyecarefully• with an
ear for overtones, some of the an-
swers lo •questionnaires submitted
by the Education Association to .re-
presentative members of the gen-
eral public. Though probably none
of those who made the answers
knew it. the reason for the unpopu-
larity of teachers lies deep in our
subconscious. �^
Thr'ee groups of human beings
combine to form any educational.
system: the children, the teachers
and the parents. On. the surface,
all three groups appear to writ in
harmony toward a common goal.
Under the surface lie natural anti-
pathies so profound that few of us
are aware of them. Furthermore, in
any relationship of three, ane must
inevitably be esteemed less in the
eyes of the other two and so le
this ,relationship of three it is
against the teacher that these hu-
manl alltiDetihies _are, _concentrated.
- Most children desire to be taught.
As they grow into adolescence. am-
bition is born, and combining with
fear of what may happen to them
if they grow up in total ignorance,
spurs them on. But under this con-
scious level their nature rebels, to
greater or. less degree according to
the individual concerned, against
the forced restraint of learning dif-
ficult subjecti9 Regardless of what
some modern theorists claim, Plato
was right when- he remarked that
there -is no royal road to geometry.
gathematics, the basic structure of
languages, even carpentry and
Cooking cannot be mastered with-
out hard work -and discip'llhe, and
ft is a per-niciotis• falsehood, for any
teacher ,to tell either pupil or par-
ents ,that they can 'be.
In spite of 'a child's desire to be
taught,- it .is unnatural for him 1
discipline hiss—own,• •mutt#• to the
mastery of.,,a: u'llfebt and his ,be-
havior to' the needs of . l group.; In
hisconscious mind: be malls •maide
to realize- that these rflse1 lines are
necessary, but not a.ii tie n.eceti-
city 3n tit's *aria :can ;Prevent his
lilt ootiseleus Mind froll• .r'ebellin'g
€Igalnst'tifelif �fi4,the vvht ew•tdtiip,
dhgn tenet to adril1 e.their tea&iers,
and "stotcle are gratefiti to them h5
long as they live. This does• 'n -t;
MI6 the fact that hi the lives - f
every one 01 tie the teacher . has
alveye stood at tette title tot li
0rli,t�x�74yt,'0k+i O,1
'.;d
rt
S
76,
JANITART,,Op X90,.%
Thar trite teacher �gecupiea tb4sloause oi.' thwa.`Iitefl aua itions,,
symbo c position. in -the. subconr yen 31eeti.11se of aubeonseiout( :sem
Seious oP-so many_ of OR in one eentuiJ against authority,, rut Pitt
part of: -1043 tragedy, The parent (Continued em ''age 7)
has 'first :beau the kahild, ales), so.
when. authority,—in the person of .
the 'teaehor—comes begging with tr7 �L+
full justice for sympathy and for SURGE . MILKERS'
proper a es, it is inevitable
that 'his *At Mould • arouse no fav-
orable emotional response pa the
pant of 'the public.
This lack or sympathy in the re-
lationship ,.''between parents 'and
teachers ie 'only part of the stub-
conscious • conflict between. theme.
While most 'parents). would •do ev-
erything' in their power .to insure
that their own,children receive the
best possible education, while. most
of them ate friendly to teachers
when they. meet face to face; no
one who has ever 'taught sehool
can be' ignorant of ethe degree to
which parents •resent teatiters as •a
group. - They regent them for pie
most human reasons—because they
are • so enormously, dependent on
,them, Teachers are earetalkers of
their children. Teachers, give their
alfildren what they themselves can-
not or will not give -them --a train-
ing in, the rudiments of learning
and the capacity to take their place
naturally in a larger social group
than the family. If parents . have
any ambitions at all for their child
they. are largely dependent upon
that child's teachers to fulfill Mkt.
Anyone 'familiar with labor dis-
putes knows that, the 3'esentment
felt by the general public against
any, group of, striking workers is
in exaot proportion to the degree
to which the public is dependent
on the striking group. A natien-
wide strike of coal miners causes
more anger in the prods than a
nation-wide strike of longshore-
men, particularly if it takes place
in the whiter. Has anyone given
sufficient serious. eonsid,eration to
the effect of a nation-wide strike
of public schoolteachers? It would
cause hysteria. It would disrupt
every home in the country, not be -
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