| |
At this time in 1916, North Dakota was experiencing a
severe teacher shortage. To address the problem, voters had just approved
a constitutional amendment to create Dickinson Normal School, which would
offer a two-year program to train more elementary and secondary school
teachers. Leading up the election, the Bismarck Daily Tribune published
an article that colorfully illustrated why the need for teachers was so
great. This is how it read:
“The life of the average North Dakota school ma'am is only four years.
School teaching, for instructors of the fair sex is one of the most hazardous
occupations listed in the state. School teaching for the ladies, especially
the young and winsome ones, is especially fatal west of the Missouri.
If they're young and good-looking, an infectious malady known as matrimonitis
is bound to get 'em, sooner or later, usually sooner. To date no preventative
measures have proven satisfactory...
“Of course, as the world’s greatest advertiser of coffee says,
‘There’s a reason.’ There’s several of ‘em, in
fact. First and foremost, the average young woman who leaves her home
in Indiana, or Iowa, or wherever it may be, and comes to North Dakota
to teach the young [broncho] how to shoot, is of an adventurous disposition.
Adventurous young women are most liable to matrimony.
“Secondly, wages paid North Dakota schoolma’ams, an average
of $54.92 per month for 8_ months out of the year, isn’t the most
attractive stipend on earth.
“Thirdly, the average young woman who teaches a rural school must
travel from one to three miles to secure half-way suitable accommodations,
and when she gets there she probably shares her room with little Maggie
and Bonnie Belle, and her reception room is the general family ‘parlor,’
and her study the dining room and kitchen, after the dishes have been
cleared away.
“And probably the food is better calculated to put pep into a railsplitter
(sic) than a splitter of infinitives, and all in all, after four and half
years of it, she’s ready for most anything, and most anything usually
bobs up in the shape of a clean-faced, good-looking young homesteader
or rancher who has a nice little house and a bank-account all his own...
“At present, about one teacher in fifteen has normal school training.
The normal schools now in operation are doing little more than to take
care of the vacancies created by the dropping out of experienced teachers.
Every fourth year practically the entire teaching force of the state,
whichmeans a body of between 7,000 and 8,000, must be replaced. There
is a demand, the board of regents believes, for more normal schools and
for more teachers with normal school training.
“Then, there is a demand for teaching and living conditions, and
something better than day-laborer wages, which will keep the instructors
on the job... In many communities the best families do not care to open
their homes to the teacher. She is forced to find accommodations where
she can. Often they are not as good as she has been accustomed to...Occasionally,
she finds that she is expected to ‘pitch in and help with the work,’
or to ‘look after the young’uns’ during her spare moments.
“[The teacher] has little society and small means of entertaining
a beau, should she be fortunate to find a suitable one. And she knows
there is little use in applying for another school, for conditions vary
only slightly in rural school districts everywhere. So she turns her attention
to stenography, or accepts the first eligible who pops the question.”
Again, that was a 1916 article from the Bismarck Tribune explaining why
it was of such importance Dickinson Normal School be opened – young
teachers succumbing to matrimonitis
.Sources:
North Dakota School Ma’am’s Occupation is Mighty Hazardous.
Bismarck Daily Tribune. 19 Oct 1916, p. 4.
Historical Sketch. Dickinson State University. http://www.dickinsonstate.com/Catalog_02/university.htm
This text and audio may not be copied without securing
prior permission from North Dakota Public Radio.
|
