Teaching Has Always Been Demanding Job

School is winding down. Teachers feel stressed. The students are restless. End-of-the-year crazies have taken over! Teachers, take heart. Read the following “1872 Instructions To The Teachers” and appreciate how much tougher your jobs would have been a century ago. The source of the instructions are credited to the San Diego County Historical Association.

1) Teachers will fill lamps, clean chimneys and trim wicks each day.

2) Each teacher will bring a scuttle of coal and a bucket of water for the day’s use.

3) Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs for the individual tastes of children.

4) Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.

5) After ten hours in the school the teacher should spend the remaining time reading the Bible and other good books.

6) Women teachers who marry or engage in other unseemly conduct will be dismissed.

7) Every teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reasons to suspect his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty.

8) The teacher who performs his labors faithfully without fault for five years will be given an increase of 25 cents a week in his pay - providing the Board of Education approves.

Web site: The Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization has a home page on the World Wide Web. The page includes such features as a list of frequently asked questions about breast cancer and guidelines for mammography. The address is http://www.y-me.org.

Congrats: Women Helping Women raised $196,000 at its luncheon last month. Cicely Tyson was the speaker. The money will be distributed to 14 programs that help women and children in Spokane.

Word picture: Lillian Hellman was a playwright and author. She was tough and outspoken. There is a haunting black and white picture of her taken in 1976 by photographer Bill King. It’s in the book “Taking Pictures” and in the book Joan Rivers describes the photo this way:

“Hellman didn’t go quietly into the sunset. This woman you’re looking at is not going anywhere quietly. She confirms the right way to be as a woman and also the tragedy of being a smart woman, because there’s tremendous loneliness in the picture. She’s hugging herself with one hand and the other hand is trying to be nonchalant. But I think Hellman walked into the photo session and said, ‘You’ve got 10 minutes. Let’s go. You’re not going to do anything with this face.”’

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing