And let me say in passing: there is no body of men and women in America
more useful to the State, more high-minded, more patriotic, than the army
of public school-teachers--our great soldiery of peace.
They are a body six times the size of our standing army--more than a half-
million in number (547,289)--recruited from the best stock we have and
animated by higher purposes, more unselfish motives than any other half-
million public or private vocationalists of America. The total expenditure
for the common schools is but four and a half times the appropriation for
the standing army, though the number of teachers is six times (which
intimates how little we pay our public school-teachers relatively--
seventy-eight dollars per month to men, fifty-eight dollars to women
teachers). These men and women, who take the place of father, mother,
adviser, and nurse in the new industrial and social order--receive about
one and a quarter cents a day per inhabitant, man, woman, and child--a
little more than two sous per day.
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