Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, September, 1878Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, September, 1878
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
fact that they have advantages at school such as their sisters in
England would accept in an ecstasy of gratitude.
About the middle of my first summer I was advised to try one of the
school "agencies" that abound in the larger cities, especially in New
York; and I accordingly registered myself in the best-known and most
widely-recommended office. Perhaps it may be of interest to the reader
unversed in such matters to learn what are the conditions on which an
agent undertakes to introduce an applicant to persons wishing a teacher.
To begin, the teacher fills up a "form of application" by naming his
qualifications and references, and affixing his signature to the
contract between him and the agent, the terms of which are as follows:
"Registration for one year, two dollars in advance; commission, four and
a half per cent. of salary or income for one year only--board, when
included in compensation, to be rated at two hundred dollars for the
school-year. This commission is due as soon as the engagement is made."
In the printed receipt which is handed the applicant there is a curt,
business-like recapitulation of all the conditions, in which occurs the
following memorandum: "I shall give you notice of vacancies as they
occur which, _in my judgment_, seem suited to your wishes and
qualifications." The italics are my own. An admirable loophole of
retreat, truly: "in my judgment"! When a despondent candidate wakes up
morning after morning for months to read in the newspapers over the
signature of his agent such an advertisement as this: "Engagements for
the fall term now being made. Many teachers wanted. Capable persons
should not delay in coming forward,"--it is no doubt consoling to him to
infer that had the "judgment" perceived him to be suited for any of
these presumably numerous vacancies, he would certainly have had the
judgment's dictum to that effect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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