Prices

It is a matter of common knowledge that there has been no recession of prices in the few months which have elapst since December, 1917, and this popular impression is confirmed by Bradstreet's index numbers, which are obtainable for a more recent date than the figures furnished by the govern

70

1913

1914

1915

1916 Years

1917

1918

1919

ment. Bradstreet's figures are based upon ninety-six different commodities, including many kinds of food products, thirteen metals, eleven chemicals and drugs, seven building materials, and numerous other articles. For December, 1917, this authority quoted an index number of 17.5962. On May 1, 1918, it had advanst to 18.9133. This means a price increase of very nearly 7 per cent within a period of five months.

With the continuance of the war, in all probability new higher levels will be recorded. Further increases as rapid as those of 1916 and 1917 are by no means impossible. Even after the termination of the war it is probable that prices will remain high during the subsequent years of readjustment and reconstruction. For an indefinitely long period, perhaps from fifty to one hundred years, the payment of interest and sinking-fund charges on war debts will continue to exert an effect upon the level of world-prices.

There is consequently slight ground, if any, for the expectation that prices may decline as rapidly as they have advanst during the last two years. On the contrary, every circumstance indicates that they will continue to increase indefinitely and remain fixt at a high level for a considerable period thereafter. Teachers and others with fixt incomes must deal with the situation from this point of view, or else prepare to suffer a further reduction of real wages, i.e., purchasing power of salary, in addition to the severe losses already inflicted upon them by the price movements of the last two years.

WIDENING OPPORTUNITIES FOR EMPLOYMENT

Coincident with the rapid increase in wholesale and retail prices in 1916 and 1917 has occurred a tremendous expansion of the demand for the services not only of men but of women as well. Men have volunteered and have been drafted by the hundreds of thousands for our new Army and Navy. Back of those in the fighting line such directly auxiliary industries as shipbuilding, transportation, and the innumerable branches of munitions production have absorbed a large part of the labor force of the country. For the latter purposes, shipbuilding, transportation, and munitions production, the supply of men has not been adequate. At least industries of this character are making vigorous and systematic efforts to enlist women as workers. More recently agriculture has begun to bid, almost frantically, for the services of women.

Upon the teaching profession the effects of higher prices and wider opportunities for employment have been complementary and cumulative. Of course the results are more markt in industrial than in agricultural districts, but they are apparent to a considerable degree the country over. Higher prices prevail generally, even if wider opportunities for employment are more or less localized. Fairly well-defined cases in which teachers have been forst out of the schools by sheer inability to meet the increasing cost of living are of common occurrence. Far more numerous, however, are the cases in which the lure of high wages in industrial undertakings, with the hope of future rapid increases, has led teachers to give up their profession.

As tangible illustrations the following cases may be cited from a city which had a population of 38,537 in 1910, and whi h, as a consequence of its rapid industrial development, particularly along the lines of ship

building and the manufacture of munitions, now claims from 60,000 to 75,000 or more. The city referred to is in the center of the Philadelphia shipbuilding district. An investigation of this district just made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in cooperation with the Shipbuilding Wage Adjustment Board and the Emergency Fleet Corporation shows that expenditures per family for clothing showed an increase in 1917 of 51.33 per cent over 1914; expenditures for furniture and furnishings an increase of 49.84 per cent, for food of 54.41 per cent, for housing of 2.601 per cent, for fuel and light of 21.54 per cent, for miscellaneous purposes of 43.81 per cent. For the whole 512 families studied, expenditures in 1917 showed an increase of 43.81 per cent over those for 1914. It is from a community of this character, with a rapidly increasing population and with industrial wages also rising rapidly, that the following actual cases have been taken. A fifth-grade woman teacher, of ten years' experience, salary $682.50 a year ($65.00 per month, 10 months a year), accepted a clerical position in a shipbuilding establishment at $1144.00 a year ($22.00 per week, 52 weeks a year).

A special teacher of drawing in intermediate grades, at a salary of $682.50 per year ($65.00 per month, 10 months a year), accepted a clerical position, taking charge of pay-rolls, in a shipbuilding establishment at a salary of $900.00 per year ($75.00 per month, 12 months a year). This teacher, a woman of thirty-seven years of age, had taught successfully for fifteen years. Her only preparation for a business career was a brief course which she had once taken in a business school and two summers spent as bookkeeper at a summer hotel. Nevertheless her services were welcomed by the shipbuilding company and an increase was promist beyond her initial salary of $900.00.

A drawing supervisor, woman, of nine years' experience, salary $1050.00 per year ($100.00 per month, 10 months per year), accepted a position with a large chemical concern at a salary of $1250.00 per year, with a further increase of $200.00 per year promist.

A woman teacher in the grades, thirty-four years old, of ten years' experience, salary $577.50 ($55.00 per month, 10 months per year), had taught in a school in the Italian section of the city where she had given most useful service and was greatly beloved by the children and parents. She possest the qualifications not only of a teacher but of a social worker as well. Fond of her profession, she attended summer session in normal school at her own expense for two years to secure a higher certificate. Altho anxious to continue teaching she found it impossible to maintain a standard of living under stress of the higher prices of 1916 and 1917. Very reluctantly she accepted a position in the office of a shipbuilding concern, at a salary of

The small percentage of increase for housing is probably due to the fact that these families have resided in the district studied for some time. As old tenants their rents have not been raised so rapidly as in the case of newcomers. Certainly it is true that rentals of many properties in this city have advanst 50 to 100 per cent

since 1914.

$1040.00 a year. She found readjustment to new duties less difficult than she had anticipated, and she is under no such strain or responsibility in her new work as in the schoolroom of a crowded foreign section of the city.'

In addition to the demands of shipbuilding and munition making, the tea hers of the city referred to above have recently received a blank form, sent out by one of the largest railroad corporations in the country, inquiring into any qualifications they may possess for any form of railroad work and requesting them to register for possible future employment. One interesting question propounded in the inquiry blank is, "If satisfied, will you remain in the service of the company?"

To meet the probable resignation of experienst teachers in this community and in others similarly circumstanst, it was proposed at the superintendents' convention recently held in Atlantic City that girls who have just graduated from high school might be employed, in case they could spend a summer in pedagogical preparation. After meeting the expense thus entailed those able and willing to do so might receive appointments at $45.00 per month, payable 10 months annually. Considering that in this community there is eager competition among a number of large industrial concerns for the services of unskilled women workers at wages of from $15.00 to $18.00 per week, and that girl munition workers of slight experience may easily earn $20.00 per week on a piecework basis, it does not seem likely that there will be any great demand, even by scantily prepared high-school graduates, for teaching positions. In rural communities, doubtless, this kind of teaching material would be more largely available.

In this connection a story recently circulated regarding the attitude of a publishing house engaged largely in the textbook business shows what may be expected in the near future. A representative of this publishing firm, delegated especially to visit college and university professors and ascertain what texts they were producing or could be induced to write, was recently met with the query, "What sort of books does your firm want?" To this the agent of the publishing house replied:

We are not in the slightest doubt as to what kind of textbooks we want for the near future. We want the most elementary treatises that can be written. We want A-B-C books. Books that presuppose a minimum of intelligence on the part of the teachers. Books that will teach themselves. In short, fool-proof books. And we want this kind of textbook because we realize that with present prices and present salaries we are going to have to deal with just that type of teacher for the next ten or fifteen years.

The same problem, from a wholly different angle, is suggested by the story of a high-school girl who was encouraged by her aunt to continue her education in college so as to prepare for teaching. The aunt had been teaching some twenty years and was getting only about $500 a year as a

The cases of individual teachers cited above were supplied by Miss Lillian Dannaker, supervising principal, Chester Schools, Larkin School Building.

In Pennsylvania the minimum state salary for provisional certificate is $45.00.

salary. The young high-school girl replied to her aunt, "Why should I go to college to prepare to be a teacher when I can get right now by working in a mill more than you are making when you have been teaching for twenty years?" The high-school girl might have added that she could get employment the year around in a mill and could get employment for only eight or nine months in school teaching. The superintendent of schools at Benld, Ill., reports that he excuses two or three boys in the grades at three o'clock every day to work on the "second shift" at the mines. They work from 3.30 to 11.30 P.M., make $3 to $5, and attend school also. Mr. Elmer Coatney, a teacher in the Benld Township High School, recently urged a boy who had left school to work at the mine to return to school. He endeavored to convince the boy of the need and value of an education. But the boy replied, "Mr. Coatney, I am making more money without an education than you are making with one." This is the truth, although Mr. Coatney is paid $100 a month, which is more than the average wages of high-school teachers in that locality.

Remember that these districts are doing the best they can under the present legal limitations on the tax rate.

As a result of the increast demand for their services a spirit of unrest, entirely natural under the circumstances, has taken possession of the teaching staff of many cities. There is a widespread inclination to try out the opportunities for industrial employment during the coming summer. Those who find the change advantageous will resign within the time limit fixed in their contracts toward the end of the coming vacation. Not until schools reopen in the fall of this year, therefore, will the full extent of the industrial draft be apparent.

Only a part of those who experiment with industrial employment will abandon the profession of teaching. A comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the two methods of earning a livelihood may throw some light on the probable number of resignations from the teaching staffs of industrial centers. In most business establishments the hours of work are from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., with one hour for lunch. The hours which the teacher is required to spend in the classroom are indeed much shorter, but when one counts in the additional duties performed by a teacher out of hours such as preparing lessons, grading papers, and meeting the innumerable professional demands, direct and indirect,' upon her time-the advantage which she enjoys in this respect is comparatively slight. Moreover, it is generally admitted that the nervous strain and burden of responsibility carried by the industrial worker of corresponding salary are much lighter. Of course the teacher's vacation periods are considerably longer than those which are customary in industry. However, industrial employes are sometimes given full pay for the customary two weeks allowed during the

See "The Teacher's Working Day," Report of the Committee on Teachers' Salaries and Cost of Living, pp. 138-56. Publisht by the National Education Association in 1913.