Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/642

622 kindergarten, or to some form of work connected with the lower grades of schools."

"But," said the teacher, "I do not feel ready for those other lines of work. My teaching has always been in high schools, and this is what I can do best."

"We do not doubt," was the reply, "that you can do better teaching in high schools than most of those who apply. Nevertheless, we have to cater to the demand."

"But there are a great many normal-school graduates in the high schools, to my certain knowledge."

"Oh, yes; the normal-school graduates who are in that work do not lose their positions. But women's colleges are in the mind of the public now, and an application for a high-school teacher usually specifies that one of their graduates is wanted."

Without pausing to suggest that the conceded fact that the normal-school graduates retain their high-school positions argued something regarding their ability to fill them, the teacher continued: "I should think the training and experience that I have had ought certainly to count for as much as the college course."

"Yes. It is really worth much more; but it is the name that is chiefly desired. School men are not satisfied with knowing that a teacher has had a collegiate training. They want the full college degree. The other day we recommended a young lady who has just graduated fromCollege, ranking second in her class. The superintendent, after making a note of the fact, remarked, ‘How finely that will sound in my report to the school board and in the advertisements of the school!’”

We are conscious of no acerbity or envious cravings on account of the academic degrees and honors of the universities. We appreciate that a real value attaches to such marks of recognized attainment when honestly bestowed, and held with no exaggerated sense of their importance. So also the titles of nobility, heraldic insignia, and military decorations of the Old World are of value, unless they have become divorced from the sentiments which gave them birth.

But, as self-respecting Americans, we do not wish to feel ourselves dependent upon such factitious means for success in life. Nor do we feel so. We call to mind that the greatest American of this half century was "graduated" from school life after a few months' study in a backwoods school. When he came to the highest position of responsibility ever held by a citizen of the United States, it was said by a distinguished college president, "Lincoln may have good sense, but he will need some one to write his messages for him." Yet the two great classic prose utterances of the war period are Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and his Gettysburg address.