Teachers in North Carolina are to be paid, on an average, more this year than they have been getting and so also in other States, but we wonder how the people can expect the teaching profession to hold up so long as the attraction in oter fields is so alluring, chiefly as to salary paid.
It will be possible for some teachers in North Carolina this year to command a salary of $133 per month, which is in the neighborhood of $1100 annually, figured on a nine-months' basis. This is far less than women can make in the business pursuits. As department clerks in Washington, they have been easily commanding $1,300 a year and we know of many young laides in Charlotte who came directly from high school who are getting $2,000 per year and more as stenographers.
While teachers, of course, understand that by custom they are not expected to regard their profession as a money-maker, the issue of making a living must essentially be faced by these young women who are looking for a life vocation. They must be adequately, if not extravagantly paid, in order to hold them as the school house.
We may well reach that conclusion now while it is time to hold on to so many of the capable and well qualified school teachers and at a moment, too, when the business world continues to offer inducements to young college graduates to accept work. We can either prepare to pay them good salaries or we must make up our minds to have inferior classes of teachers. One or the other is inevitable.
From the Charlotte News, May 1, 1921
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