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<br /> for a principal for the High School, offering a salary of twelve
<br /> hundred dollars, the largest amount we had ever paid. We know those towns are often a preparatory ground for some who
<br /> had over forty applicants. The committee spent three full become our teachers, and pay probably less than we do, but we
<br /> weeks in trying to fill the vacancy, hardly pretending to attend must compare our salaries with those paid in towns adjacent
<br /> to any other business. We became discouraged, disheartened, �` and near to us on the other side, for we are not satisfied unless
<br /> disgusted, with the material we had to select from. .There our schools are quite qs good, and we cannot compete with
<br /> was not a man of the whole forty either of us dared to appoint. them unless we offer equal inducements., We pay our lady
<br /> We rejected them all, jumped the traditional limit of twelve teachers from two hundred and eighty to four hundred dollars
<br /> hundred dollars,and have reaped the profits of the investment. per annum. The cost of board is from four to seven dollars
<br /> Later we needed a principal for the Hancock Grammar per week, and frequently outside assistance has to be resorted
<br /> School. We found a man who accepted the position on a small to to meet the expenses of living. We are enabled to retain
<br /> salary and who promised well, but one day's work exhausted from term to term only those teachers who can board with
<br /> him. We travelled many miles in the attempt to make an ap- friends at a small price.
<br /> pointment in a quiet way, found many competent teachers, but In Woburn,the salaries of female teachers of the same grades
<br /> no one would accept the position for the salary offered. Ad- range from $350 to $700.
<br /> vertising, we ;had a dozen applicants. We appointed the one In Watertown and Waltham, from $500 to $800.
<br /> who appeared the best, and without discussing his success we In Arlington, from $550 to $800.
<br /> will only say he left us at the end of the term for a larger salary In Somerville, Cambridge, Charlestown, and Boston, from
<br /> elsewhere, and we were obliged to make another appointment. f600 to1,000.
<br /> x, A few hundred dollars would have enabled us to fill the va- And in the latter city hundreds of teachers are employed on
<br /> s cancy at once without risk; and the loss to the school on ac- salaries of $800, whom we would not appoint to our mixed
<br /> count of the frequent change of teachers-cannot be covered by schools.
<br /> as many thousands; indeed, the injury cannot be estimated in But,'it is asked,do we not stand the fifth town in the State
<br /> dollars and cents, it is incalculable ! as to the amount of money appropriated for the education of
<br /> Again, a vacancy occurred in the Franklin School during,the each pupil in town? Unfortunately, we did so stand in the
<br /> g called to a more lucrative position in tables in the last report of the Board of Education, and that year, the teacher bein
<br /> fact heralded in the newspapers, and discussed in town,we fear the High School at Hingham. We obtained the best teacher
<br /> we could for the.salar paying even more than ever before to has done considerable injury. We will venture to explain that
<br /> y, p y g remarkable position, and to cull some other facts from the same
<br /> a new teacher'. She remained a few weeks, became unreliable
<br /> tables. That table is based on the number of scholars in each in view of matrimony, and left us. We made especial effort to
<br /> obtain,a teacher from our own or adjoining towns,.but there town., Unfortunately again, we have in Lexington a small
<br /> number of children, and by some unaccountable error last year were few applicants,none of experience, and on examination
<br /> all were rejected, until at last we appointed the present in- the assessors returned one hundred and four less scholars than
<br /> eumbent. we actually had in our schools; and the year before, when the
<br /> The difficulty has become a very serious matter, and many tables were prepared, they returned thirty less than last year;
<br /> times we have felt that it would be better to let a school remain so that if the estimate had been made on the correct number
<br /> closed than to appoint a teacher from the material offered. It of pupils, small even then, we should have fallen'to below
<br /> is not that we require more of teachers than other towns, but twenty in the scale.
<br /> other towns•pay larger salaries:. . We do not wish to be referred
<br /> But this basis of comparison is of no value, for it would cost
<br /> to towns north of us for a disproval of our statements. We. us little more if we had twice the number of pupils in our
<br /> schools that we now have.
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