Complaints such as those of Caldwell and Carter, men who hoped to work some educational reform, probably exaggerated the case; but if they did, they only reflected a stereotype of the teacher that had fixed itself in the mind of the country. A vicious circle had been drawn. American communities had found it hard to find, train, or pay for good teachers. They settled for what they could get, and what they got was a high proportion of misfits and incompetents. They tended to conclude that teaching was a trade which attracted rascals, and, having so concluded, they were reluctant to pay the
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