Education monologue — The light: An educational pageant

Impossible! I tell you the beginning of such a state of affairs exists in this land to-day. The danger is even now at your doors. When the penurious, short-sighted policy of the public drives the cultured, trained, and efficient teacher from the classroom, her place is taken by the ignorant, the untrained, or the inefficient. There are scores of thousands of untrained, inefficient teachers in American schools, teaching American children to-day; and, unless the public speedily awakes to the danger, and pays the price for competent service, such teachers will predominate in the schools of to-morrow. Unless measures are promptly taken to secure for every child in America a seat in a healthful schoolroom, and books and materials for his education, the public schools of the land will surely sink to the level of the classroom I have just shown you. Are you willing to trust the government of this country to citizens so trained?