Emily Curtis Fisher Wants Salaries of Teachers Raised-This Day In Norwood History-March 13, 1911

Miss Fisher of the Norwood School Board Explains Why She Thinks They Are Too Low.

The board this year asks for an appropriation of $52,250, an increase of $2300 over the previous year, and the board admits that $2000 of this Is for teachers’ salaries.

Miss Emily Curtis Fisher, In an open letter, gives some Interesting figures of her estimation of a teacher’s expenses. Miss Fisher was formerly a teacher, has been a member of the school board for some years. is a Past president of the Norwood Women’s club and the present chairman of Its civics department, besides being an officer of the State Federation of Women’s clubs and a lecturer on educational matters. Following are some extracts from Miss Fisher’s letter:

“The requirements placed upon a teacher in our town by the community are not few. In order to approach this standard, our teachers must expend an equivalent and usually more than the following estimate.

“Weekly living-Table hoard $4.S0. Room rent $2. Laundry 75 cents, two fresh blouses, 45 cents, supplementary food 25 cents, total $7.95 or for school year $318.

“Yearly outlay One raincoat at $6, one pair high rubbers 75 cents, one pair rubber slips 50 cents, one umbrella $3, subscriptions for local suppers $2, entertainments, etc. $16, sustaining club supplles for schoolroom $10. Total $39.25

“To stand well In the estimation of the state board of education, of the superintendent. and to meet one’s own impulse to study professionally, a teacher must subscribe to pedagogical magazines, take courses of special outlook in subjects, read professional books that can hardly be obtained except by purchase. There are also expenses for travel required to attend institutes and conferences.

“This total expenditure is for the mere outfit and for 10 months of the year only. Within this budget no item Is made of the remaining 12 weeks’ living, of the necessary traveling expenses, of the required conventional dressing for varying occasions a. no stipend has been suggested for the personal amusement or for the assistance of the younger brother or sister or needy family member, or even the slim savings for the necessary fund for the future.

“As a result of the continued disregard to public sentiment of the teacher’s profession, smaller and smaller salaries have bean paid until the annual reports of the commissioner show that masculine teachers are rapidly becoming extinct, sad that women are seeking more lucrative positions, so that speedily our children must be taught by inferiors. How can our teachers, with a salary of $550 or $600 or $700 even, give us of her best, with this problem of stress ever present to solve?”.

(Boston Globe