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Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Supervise Teachers, Says T.T. Murphy of Pender County, Aug. 6, 1919

From The University of North Carolina News-Letter, Chapel Hill, N.C., Aug. 6, 1919

A Ringing Call

Superintendent T.T. Murphy of Pender County has sent out the following ringing call to the school committeemen in North Carolina.

“Several of the counties of the state have had the opportunity this year of getting a woman for all her time while the schools were in session to stay in the field and help to direct the teaching in every school, and seed that it was done right. If for any reason the teacher was not doing the work as it should be, it would be a part of her duty to teach the school as it should be taught to that the teacher in charge could get some better suggestions about her work and impart it to the children in such a way that they would understand what they were doing.

The Way to Save Money

“We are planning to spend 45,000 on teachers’ salaries this fall in the county with no supervision at all. Is this fair to the children? Is it fair to the taxpayers? Would you spend $45,000 in your line of business without having some one to supervise the way it was spent? There is not one County Superintendent in 50 in North Carolina who is a Supervisor. I mean by that, a man that visits the school, sees exactly what is going on in the school and stays at the school long enough to help reorganize if necessary, and see that the work is done in some systematic way that will mean results to the children.

“You do not want to waste any of your money around the farm, and I do not believe you want any of your school money wasted, but judging by the different teachers you employ in your school every year, I take it for granted that you or the patrons were satisfied with the progress of their children. Is it fair to the children who sit in the school six hours every day to say: Oh well! we shall get another teacher next year, when possibly you or the good mother in the home knows that their time is about one-half thrown away, the way the school is going on. You do not discharge every workman you hire if you find out he is not making good, but you try to show him what you want done and how you want it done, and if after this he persists in making a bad job you do the next best thing. Why not do this school work in a more business like way and see that neither the money nor the time of the children is wasted.

Why Do It?

“But some one says, why pay one-half of the salary of a woman to look after this work when we are already paying the present county Superintendent to do nothing? Now, there you are again. This is the argument that is put up to the Board of Education, and if it represents your sentiment, it certainly seems to me that it is time for somebody to get busy telling the Board of Education that this kind of talk must stop. You can not very well expect a Board of Education in any county to be enthusiastic about getting some help to supervise the schools in the face of this argument which is said to be exactly what the people are thinking and saying.

An Illustrative Case

“If an honest confession is good for the soul, I have stated that I am not the supervisor, and I do not see how any county superintendent can be a good supervisor in a county the size of ours and try to do all the routine work, visit 80 odd schools during the year and write something like 15 and 20 letters per day when our nearby county of Columbus is paying a woman $1,200 per year to do the clerical work alone. Columbus is also paying a man $1,500 per year, furnishing him with a Ford Machine and paying all the repairs, to enforce the compulsory attendance law and fill the office of Superintendent of Welfare.

“In order that the present County Superintendent of schools would not have to take a tonic for his appetite for lack of exercise this new office has been tendered him. Do you think that one man in Pender can do as much as three people do in Columbus?

“Realizing that the county was not extra wealthy, and never will be, as long as parents make slaves and servants of their children rather than men and women, I offered to do this extra work, or try to do it, for my expenses, if the Board of Education would take what money they would pay on this work and use it to employ a Supervisor on trial for one year. I have not pressed the matter with the Board. They understand better than I do what is not best for the county.

“If the people in Pender county do not see anything in the proposition, if some of them have their fighting blood up and are ready to kill this proposition like killing snakes, of course the work could and would not amount to much even though the schools might be temporarily benefited.

A Comparison

“Booker Washington said that the white people could beat the negro at almost any proposition in a competitive class, but the white man could not beat the negro singing negro songs. But my friends, the negro has beat us to it. Did you know that you, through your school taxes, have been paying one-half of the negro supervisor’s salary in this county for the past two years? Ask any of the county officials if they think this colored woman is worth what she is paid. Personally I am unwilling for the negro children to have better supervision than the white children; however, I do not know how you feel about the proposition.”

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