Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/128

121 1. The incompetent school teachers.

2. The defective school equipment.

3. The repressive school discipline.

Instead of twenty, the ideal number of children in the elementary grades, the large cities of the country show an average of from thirty to forty scholars per teacher. A girl of twenty, graduating from a normal school in June, is not competent in September to take charge of forty pupils and make their work interesting and beneficial, especially when she is handicapped by the inability of the foreign children to understand English. In spite of the patency of this fact, thousands of girls are being yearly hurried through the normal schools, and given charge of large classes of children while they are but children themselves. It does not follow, however, that the girl is at fault. Meager appropriations for educational purposes necessitate large classes and small salaries. Society cannot hope to have the cake and eat it. Competent teachers can be secured only by providing reasonable salaries.

With classes averaging forty small