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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 41. The Negro School - 2. Education in American Thought and Life
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Chapter 41. The Negro School 885
groups of people. In any case, these dissimilarities In educational facilities
for whites in different regions are important for the Negro problem, A
differential treatment of Negroes as a group has been less spectacular and
has seemed less indefensible with this as a setting.
There Is no doubt that a change of American attitudes in this respect Is
under way and that an increasing stress is placed upon the desirability of
raising the educational level in the sub-standard regions to greater equality.
This change—which is part of a much more general tendency of the Ameri-
can Creed to include ideals of greater economic equalization®—has taken
form in the proposals for greater federal aid to education. The Negroes’
chance of getting more equality in education is bound up with this move-
ment.**
Considering the importance attached to education In America, it Is sur-
prising that the teacher has not been awarded a higher status in American
society. Learning has never given much prestige, and until recently the
teacher has been held on a relatively low economic level without much
security of tenure, in most places. And even today he is, relatively speaking,
not well paid, and his tenure is not secure, particularly in the South.
Teachers in America have not even been allowed to have as much power
over the government of their own schools as they have in comparable
countries. Their status as employees is stressed. This applies to all teachers,
though In different degrees. The teachers in grade schools, mostly women,
are socially and economically placed at a disadvantage compared with other
professionals with the same amount of preparation. The professors at
colleges and universities are generally accorded middle class status, defi-
nitely below that of a successful businessman.
The Negro community is, in this respect, more similar to northern
European societies. The teacher generally has a symbolic prestige from the
importance of his calling. Because of the scarcity of business opportunities
and of successful businessmen in the Negro community, the teacher is also
more free from competition for prestige. It should be recalled, however,
that the great personal dependency of the teacher, particularly in the rural
South, and her low income tend to deflate her position in the Negro com-
munity.
Another peculiarity of America, which is not unconnected with the
relatively low prestige of the teachers and of learning, is a common tendency
to look upon education as something produced by the school and finished by
graduation. The ordinary American does not conceive- of education as a
process which continues through adult life and is dependent upon the indi-
vidual’s own exertion. To few Americans does it seem to be an important
goal in life continuously to improve their education. Few schools pn any
* See Chapter 9, Sections 3 and 4.
**
gee Chapter Section
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