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Salaries of teachers compared with those of other civil employees-Continued.

EMPLOYEES IN POSTAL TELEGRAPH SERVICE.

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It is interesting to compare the salaries of French teachers tabulated above with the following average salaries of teachers in the United States and in England.

Average annual salaries of teachers in the United States for 1900.

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a The figures for the two Southern divisions do not adequately represent the professional incomes of teachers in the Southern States, as in some of these States it is a common practice for the patrons of a school to contribute to increase the salary of the teacher received from public funds, or to engage him to conduct his school as a private school after the public term has expired.

Average annual salaries of certificated teachers in England for 1899.

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The facts presented in the above tables show conclusively the inadequacy of the teachers' salaries and their inferiority to those of other employees of the Government. The letters accompanying the tabulated details impart to them a personal and, at times, pathetic interest. Their general character is shown by the following citations from two letters included in the number selected out of the collection by M. Buisson to be submitted before the Chamber of Deputies. A teacher in the Department of Eure (northern France) concludes his statement as follows: For myself I have no longer cause for complaint. There are now two of us earning and, thanks to the good health of both, we are hopeful. But can I forget the condition in which I lived for many years? * I had been forced to

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contract a debt of 500 francs (of which 200 were for doctor and medicines), although I worked from sixteen to eighteen hours daily. I could not afford to join one of the mutual aid associations. If I had sought a better position, this would have necessitated moving-an expense which was beyond me.

I conclude (1) that it is impossible for a young man from 20 to 25 years of age to make both ends meet with 900 francs ($180) a year; (2) It is impossible for a married man from 25 to 30 years of age to live on 1,000 ($200) a year; (3) It is very difficult for a man 35 years of age, the father of a family, to support his wife and children on 1,200 francs ($240) a year.

A second teacher contrasts the condition of persons in his calling with that of other civil employees, as follows:

In 1899 one of my pupils in the continuation class presented himself, in July, at the examination for a teacher's diploma (brevet); he failed in the second part of the examination; fortunately, he gained admission to a normal school, and in October tried again for the diploma, but failed in orthography. He was at the time 18 years of age and of average intelligence. In November he passed the examination for admission to the postal service and in the following May received an appointment in Paris. He passed two months in learning telegraphy at a salary of 50 francs a month, after which he was promoted to the position of a traveling substitute clerk. He wrote to his parents that he was receiving 120 francs a month and should need no further assistance. The first of October following his position was still further improved, as he was made full traveling clerk. Taking advantage of Easter holiday he paid a visit to his family and friends. In talking with me he said (I use almost his own words), "I am glad indeed that I failed to get the brevet. I am traveling clerk; the journeys are wearisome, but we have plenty of time to rest. I receive 180 francs ($36) a month with transportation. I can provide for myself without help from my relatives."

He met his old comrades and talked freely with them, and as a result two pupils whom I was preparing for the normal school have changed their minds. They are going into the postal service.

Second example:

In the village is a family of 4 children, 3 sons and a daughter, whose father is a miner. Thanks to the continuation class, the two elder sons became teachers, after an excellent training in the normal school and the possession of the higher diploma (brevet supérieur). The youngest son presented himself at the same time for admission to the postal service and to the normal school. He was accepted for both and chose the postal service. He is inferior to his brothers, naturally, as he has not had the normal school course; however, he has a better career. It is easy to see why. He passed his term of military service in Africa, and was able to provide for himself without calling for aid from his people. He secured an appointment in the postal service of Algiers and reached a salary relatively large. His father said to me one day, "The youngest is the one who has succeeded best: he gets the most money; he lives most at his ease." "Yes." I replied. "but he cost you a great deal while he was awaiting his appointment (surnumérariat).” "You are mistaken," rejoined the father, "he cost me less during that time than the others while they were in the normal school.' These examples are conclusive and show why the normal schools are no longer filled.

The writer continues:

The condition of the directors in some exceptional schools is very satisfactory, but the great body of the teachers can not possibly live on the salary allowed. If a man marries a woman who is also engaged in the work, the double salary

may suffice for their necessities, otherwise the prospect is hopeless indeed. I speak from experience. For six years-from my twenty-third to my twenty-ninth yearI was principal of a school of two classes in the chief town of the canton. Near me lived à road surveyor of my own age, who had failed in the examination for the brevet, but who earned 2,100 francs a year; a receiver of taxes, whose inferiority was well known, but who reached a salary of 3,000 francs, and other functionaries who esteemed me because of my superior knowledge, but who pitied me for my position.

Among my assistants there was one, a married man, having one child 3 years old, who had obtained both the superior diploma and the certificate of pedagogic capacity; at 31 years of age he was receiving only 1,000 francs ($200); a second, also a married man with an infant child, possessed the superior diploma and qualified for the certificate of capacity which constitutes one a full teacher, and receives the same sum; a third assistant, also in receipt of 1,000 francs, has a wife who is a teacher, and their combined salaries enable them to live more comfortably.

The above citations bear out the impressions expressed by M. Buisson in his review of the whole correspondence:

In these letters [he says] there is much to encourage and console those who have had faith in secular education and lay teachers. The tone is dignified even when complaint is uttered. They express confidence in the force of public opinion and the firm conviction that the Republic will do what is necessary and do it quickly. This manner of setting forth the truth and claiming what is morally due is vastly superior at once to that resignation which was formerly regarded as the chief virtue of the poor and to that violent language in which the discontented so often indulge. To-day our teachers indulge neither resignation nor revolt. They are as far from gloomy, paralyzing hopelessness as from the angry passion which gives one over to rancor and hate. They know their rights, and they maintain them. They explain their situation freely, but they do not forget what the school work of the third Republic signifies. They simply show that it is necessary to complete it, to guarantee it against every disaster, and that after millions have been expended on the schools it must be possible to expend a few hundred thousand in order that the teacher should be materially what everyone knows he ought to be.

The letters frequently include propositions of law for the remedy of the evils described. None of these have been considered here, as they are of interest chiefly to the officials whose business it is to draft a bill. The inquiry so ably conducted has created a profound impression. Even in the public press the situation disclosed is discussed as a "national peril." As already indicated, it has resulted in immediate efforts at temporary relief, pending legislation which will radically improve the financial status of teachers.

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CHAPTER XVI.

EDUCATION OF THE WILL.

CLOSING LECTURE OF THE COURSE IN PEDAGOGY DELIVERED AT THE SORBONNE JUNE 22, 1899, BY F. BUISSON, PROFESSOR AT THE SORBONNE.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It is not customary to write a closing lecture, and I only decided to prepare the present one in response to a request made by some of you who wished, as they told me, to preserve a kind of memento of the principal ideas which we have been considering in the present course, and of the pedagogical instruction which can be derived from them. I will endeavor to afford you some satisfaction in this respect without attempting to disguise from myself that such a summary as I am compelled to give will be necessarily abrupt and dry. All that gives animation to instruction will have disappeared, and only the skeleton will remain.

The course for this school year (1898-99) was devoted to the education of the will.

What is the will? This was our first question, and I do not venture to flatter myself that we found a final answer to it, even from the special point of view of education. At any rate we endeavored to get rid of two widely diffused errors.

I.

In the first place, we labored to combat an abuse of the old psychological terminology, which makes the will a "faculty" in the narrow and rigid sense to which the word is confined by the school of Cousin. "The fundamental and gross error," as M. Hannequin a boldly says, “which has produced a conception of the doctrine of the mental faculties most radically contrary to the spirit of science, and which is the most serious obstacle to the development of psychology," is that instead of applying to that doctrine the method of induction which connects one fact to another, all research is dispensed with by referring all facts directly to an assumed cause which is itself found to be only a word. How do we explain a phenomenon in any of the sciences of observation? By demonstrating experimentally that it always follows certain other phenomena and varies with them. "The cause of the tone of a tuning fork is the motion of its branches and the vibratory motion which it communicates to the air. The cause of the radiance of hot bodies, i. e., of the phenomena of light, is the undulations of the ether. The cause of the explosion of powder is its chemical energy, i. e., the molecular movements of its chemical constituents, which become movements of translation under the influence of the spark. The cause of the circulation of the blood is found in the contractions of the heart and arteries, these contractions being themselves conditioned by the decompositions and undulations of the nervous matter. Everywhere the cause of a phenomenon is found in the phenomena which precede it, never in occult forces such as the sonorific force, the caloric, explosive, or circulatory force, or the light force." On the other hand, in psychology, as we learned it at college, there was a yielding to the ancient temptation to explain everything by some word which in reality explains nothing. The same answer which was a Introduction à l'Étude de la Psychologie, pages 108 et 112. ED 1902-46

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