Elementary Teacher most Important.
The Elementary school is left to the lowest and the worst class of teacher, because good scholars will not abase themselves to it. The first grounding should be undertaken by the best teacher, and his reward should be the greatest, because his work demands most energy and most judgment, and competent men could easily be induced to enter these lower ranks if they found that sufficient reward were offered. It is natural enough for ignorant people to make little of the early training, when they see how little consideration is paid to it, but men of judgment know how important the foundation is, not only as regards the matter that is taught, but the manner of handling the child’s intelligence, which is of great moment. But to say something concerning the teacher’s reward, which is the encouragement to good teaching, what is the sense in increasing the salary as the child grows in learning? Is it to cause the master to take greater pains, and bring his pupil better forward in view of the promise of what is to come? Nay, surely that cannot be. Present payment would be a greater inducement to bring pupils forward than the hope in promise, for in view of the variety and inconstancy of parents’ minds, what assurance is there that the child will continue with the same master? That he who took great pains for little gain should receive more for less trouble? Besides, if the reward were good he would hasten to gain more through the supply of new scholars, who would be attracted by the report of his diligent and successful work. As things are, the master who gets the pupils later reaps the benefit of the elementary teacher’s labour, because the child makes more show with him. Why should this be so? It is the foundation well and soundly laid that makes all the upper building secure and lasting. I can only give counsel, but if the decision lay with me the first pains well taken should in truth be most liberally recompensed, and the emolument should diminish, as less pains are needed in going up through the school course. By this method no master would have reason to complain that the pupils who come to him have not been sufficiently grounded in the elementary subjects, which is a constant source of trouble at present both to teachers and scholars. Indeed too often we Grammar School masters can hardly make any progress, can scarcely even tell how to place the raw boys in any particular form with any hope of steady advance, so rotten is the groundwork of their preparation. If the higher master has to repair this weakness, after the boy comes under his charge, he certainly deserves triple salary, both for his own making and for mending what the elementary teacher either marred through ignorance, or failed to make through undue haste, which, in my opinion, is the commonest and worst kind of marring. As for the salaries of the masters that succeed the elementary, I hold that the increasing numbers that they can undertake will make up for the larger amount to be given to the elementary teacher, however much that may be. For the first master can deal only with a few, the next with more, and so on, ascending as the scholars grow in reason and discretion. To deal with the unequal advancement of children, it were good that they were promoted in numbers together, and that they were admitted into the schools only at four periods in the year, so that they might be properly classified, and not hurled hand over head into one form without discrimination, as is now too often the case. There should be a definite plan of promotion agreed upon among the teachers, so that one can say, “This child I have taught, and such and such can he do,” and the other knoweth what the child should have been taught, and what he may be supposed to know. The elementary teacher, then, should be competent for his task, and when he is, he should be sufficiently well provided for by the parents. Adequate reward would make very able men incline to take it up, and though the supply may as yet be insufficient, enough could soon be trained if inducement were offered.