of the public. But is teaching a safe and easy life? Many interesting facts are contained in the last annual report of the secretary of New York City's Retirement Fund. During the year ending January 1, 1910, 127 teachers were placed on retirement. Of this number 26 per cent were retired because they were suffering from a complete nervous breakdown, 12 per cent because they were afflicted with a serious heart trouble, and only 14 per cent of the entire number were retired on account of having passed the age or service limit. In other words, 86 per cent of that number were granted pensions because they had contracted or were suffereing from a more or less complete physical disability. Think of calling a profession a safe and easy life when 80. per cent of the total number found eligible for retirement in any one year were suffering from serious chronic troubles induced by the exacting nature of their daily work.

Some people hold that instead of pensions teachers should be paid a sufficient salary to enable them to make their own provisions for the future. It is claimed that teachers should be obliged to practice the same virtues of economy and prudence required of any other class of laborers. This is a plausible view, but it will not work out in practice. It would be impossible on any wages the public might be induced to pay to raise teachers' wages to a point where they could meet the demands of their position and at the same time, by thrift and economy, lay up a sufficient sum to provide for them in old age. It must be remembered that salaries are paid by taxation, and that there is a limit to taxing power. Indeed by present methods we have trouble to induce tax-payers and boards of education to pay teachers a sufficient salary to enable them to live in a manner befitting their position, to say nothing of permitting them to lay up a fund for the future.

If a teacher at the age of twenty-five should desire to purchase a deferred life annuity of $300, the annuity to commence at fifty-one years of age, any reputable life insurance company would require the payment for twenty years of an annual premium of approximately $125, or if the teacher should care to make the payments extend over a longer period and have the annuity commence at fifty-six years of age, it would require thirty annual payments of $87.63. On the other hand, if a

teacher did not wish to pay for a deferred annuity by annual premiums, but preferred, at sixty years of age, to purchase from a life insurance company, a life annuity of $300, it would require an investment of about $3639. It would be practically impossible for any person employed as a grade or rural teacher in the public schools of this state, to make provision for the payment of an annual premium sufficient to purchase an annuity of $300, or to save by the time she reached sixty years of age, a sum sufficient to purchase such an annuity out of the salaries that are likely to be paid to the teachers in our public schools. The future of teachers can not be safe-guarded by any increase of salaries that the public could likely be induced to pay.

The problem of what shall be done for the superannuated teacher presses strongly for solution. School boards are unwilling to retire, without pay, persons that have devoted years of faithful service to the interests of the schools, even though they may have reached and .passed the point of greatest usefulness. In some cities the number of such persons retained in the schools is a serious detriment to the advancement and improvement of the educational system. Public sentiment will not permit of retiring persons that through a series of years have given their best efforts to the schools unless they may have means for their support. The lives of such teachers are too intimately intertwined with the lives of too many citizens of the communities to permit of any heartless action being taken against them. If there were some way by which persons that had reached a certain age could be retired on a sum that would assist in enabling them to live in a manner befitting their former life and custom, the problem of keeping the standard of the school to its maximum efficiency would be simplified. It would also be economy to replace teachers that have exceeded their day of greatest usefulness and have received a maximum salary by younger persons who enter the service at or near a minimum salary. The difference between the salary of the entering teacher and the out-going one will, I believe, offset in a very large measure the contribution the state may be called upon to make for maintaining its share of a teachers' retirement fund.

The movement in Wisconsin for pensions for teachers had its origin two years ago. A bill was

introduced in the legislature, and largely by the work and devotion of one person it received favorable consideration at the hands of both branches of the legislature. It was defeated, however, in the third house. A new bill has been drafted and will be introduced at the coming session of the legislature. The friends of the measure hope that this time it may be successful. The bill will provide for the retirement of teachers after twentyfive years or more of service with an annuity of $12.50 for each year of service. The measure will provide that all teachers entering service after a certain date shall contribute 1 per cent of their salary, but not more than $15 in any one year for the first ten years of service, and 2 per cent, but not more than $30 for the next fifteen years. Teachers now teaching in the schools will not be compelled to contribute to this fund, unless they wish to take advantage of the provisions of the law. In other words, it will be optional with the persons now teaching whether or not they will care to become beneficiaries of the act. If such persons desire they will be permitted, within a certain specified time, to enroll as eligible by paying into the retirement fund 1 per cent and 2 per cent of salaries previously earned. The law will also carry a provision that will enable the board of trustees to retire, after eighteen years of service, any person who has become disabled. The state will be asked to contribute 10 cents for each person of school age. This fund will be deducted from the seven-tenths mill tax before its distribution, in the same manner as the 10 cents per capita tax is now retained for library purposes. I doubt if there is any other way by which so small a sum retained from the distribution of this fund could be made to do so much good.

What would be the effect on the teaching force of the state if the Wisconsin legislature should pass a law granting an annuity to every person that has taught successfully in the public schools for twenty-five years? Such a law would instantly change the outlook upon life of 15,000 teachIt would remove the nightmare of a penniless future that is ever present in the minds of teachers and like the ghost of Banquo will not down. It would bring hope and peace to the heart of many a teacher for whom the future today seems to hold no promise. It would permit teachers that are broken in spirt and health to retire

ers.

cheered by the thought that their services have been appreciated by a grateful public. It would do more than any other one agency to place the calling of the teacher on a plane with the other professions and make teaching attractive to strong men and women. And what would be the effect on the schools of the state. It would attact to the service of the schools some of the strongest men and women that are being graduated by our normal schools, colleges and universities. It would tend to hold in public school work the strong, vigorous, alert men and women teachers that are now seriously considering the question of life teaching because they know no matter how successful they may be in the work it will be impossible for them to do more than to provide for theimmediate necessities of themselves and their families. It would enable school boards to remove

from the service of the school, men and women that by reason of the infirmities of age or loss of nervous power are unable to successfully perform the exacting work daily demanded of them. And, finally, in my opionion, a pension law for teachers would go far toward the solution of the problem of how to make our schools places where our children can grow up amid cheerful surroundings into strong and vigorous, cultured men and women possessed of high ideals and true American. character.

HAVE YOU?

Children, have you seen the budding?
Of the trees in valleys low?
Have you watched it creeping, creeping
Up the mountains, soft and slow?
Weaving there a plush-like mantle,
Brownish, grayish, reddish, green,
Changing, changing, daily, hourly
Till it shines in emerald sheen?
Have you watched the shades so varied,
From the graceful, little white birch,
Faint and tender, to the balsam's
Evergreen so dark and rich?
Have you seen the quaint mosaics,
Gracing all the mountain sides,
Where they mingling, interwining,
Sway like softest mid-air tides?

Selected.

BRUCE'S AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL AND THIS JOURNAL FOR $1.60.

No school board member or administrative school officer should be without Bruce's American School Board Journal-it's the only one in the country. Send us $1.60 and get it with the Wisconsin Journal of Education for one year, new or renewal, to same or separate addresses. Cash with order.

THE PARKER EDUCATIONAL CO.,

Madison, Wis.

EARLY last year the writer's attention was di

rected towards the problem of attendance at the University, Colleges, and Normals of this State and the present article is a small part of the result of an investigation along this line. It is possible at some future time the entire subject may be treated more at length and in detail. Four of the tables are here given with brief comment upon the same.

The schools considered were: the University Graduate School, Department of Liberal Arts, Law School, Engineering School, Agricultural Department, Beloit, Carroll, Lawrence, Milton, Milwaukee Downer, and Ripon Colleges, and Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Platteville, River Falls, Stevens Point, Superior, and Whitewater Normals. The figures given are based upon the year books published by the several schools for that year.

During that year 7839 students were enrolled in the fourteen institutions studied of which number 1227 were from outside of the state and 6612 from Wisconsin. One interesting fact is that 5765 were from the high school towns and only 847 from towns below that standard.

In Table I is shown the County, the number of students it furnishes, and the inhabitants per student. That is the product of the figures in the two right hand columns will equal the population of the county.

As we might expect Dane leads and Vilas brings up the rear; or, to put it another way, Vilas County requires eighteen times more inhabitants to send any one student than does Dane. Or, a young person stands eighteen chances of going to college in Dane County to one in Vilas. The average through the state is 337 inhabitants to each college student and it is interesting to note that Sauk and Florence counties approximate this average. The county center of Sauk is less than 40 miles from its nearest institution, the University; while Florence is 200 miles from Madison and about 110 miles from both Lawrence College and Stevens Point Normal. Again Dodge County, counted to be one of the finest in the state ranking fourth in assessed value, and seventeenth in density of population in Wisconsin, is thirty-seventh in the above table. Character of the soil, nationality of inhabitants, number of moderate sized towns, location relative to schools, etc., undoubtedly play their part in this matter, but it is the opinion of the writer that the character of the school men and women of the county enters more into this result than all other factors put together. To make the schools from the kindergarten to the university all they should be we need nothing quite as badly as real men and women. Wisconsin that year sent 6612 to the higher schools considered; if the state had lived up to the average set by Dane county, this number would have risen to 22047, or, if it had fallen to the level of conditions in Vilas county, only 1229 would have come.

433046THONOS1

7

2

This equals one student for each 250 people. In Table II those towns having colleges and normals located in them show to an unduly high advantage, but, throwing these aside, Fond du Lac leads the towns of the state above 12,000 inhabitants by a comfortable margin; having one student for each 194 of population. Kenosha is the lowest with a ratio of 1 to 738. Fond du Lac would seem from this to be about four times as desirous of an education as is Kenosha. It is only fair to the latter town to say that undoubtedly some of her young people go to Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois, only 40 miles distant.

In determining how much influence geographical location had upon attendance Table III was made. The left hand column shows the average number of miles travelled by students outside of the local town, and the right hand column the average distance travelled by all students, localand foreign.

Platteville Normal.

River Falls Normal. Stevens Point Normal. Superior Normal. Whitewater Normal.

The most interesting table, that showing each town sending out one or more students to any one of these schools, is far too long for insertion here. Six hundred and twenty-eight towns find a place in this table and it is interesting to note that less than ten of the high school towns are missing. The writer believes from this list that it can be proven beyond any doubt that long tenure of office of a good Superintendent and Principal conduces to the quality of the system's output, as shown by a desire to go farther along educational lines. Towns like Janesville, Kilborn, Lancaster, New Richmond, Portage, River Falls, Sheboygan, and Wausau, that have recognized good school men and kept them a term of years seem to show this. And Fond du Lac, mentioned earlier in this article, had for years a capable woman at the head of her high school. This town sends away 68 to college and 21 to normals. The reverse of this also is evident when it is seen that towns shifting their school heads every few years are low in the scale of college representation.

Bill-What's the matter with the teacher?

Bob-Oh, some of the boys sent her nice valentines, and some sent comic ones, and she's trying to see which is switch.