legislature, and see what they will do about it. We cannot expect the
state to act until it understands. We can hardly expect the public to
understand until the teachers in every community of the state tell the
people about it.
What School Retirement Is

School retirement is not to be confused with old-age retirement
assistance, which is based on wholly different principles. The govern-
ment of Kansas as a government would donate nothing to teacher
retirement. But the employing school system in Kansas, which hap-
pens to be a publicly owned enterprise, would cooperate in providing
old-age annuities for its own employees, the school people. Today the
state itself is the only large-scale employer operating within the state,
which does not already do this.

The theory that old-age retirement is the concern of only a few
aged and feeble job holders was always hopelessly inadequate, and
is now obsolete in America. Instead the established principle is that
throughout the working life of each and every employee, the employer
and the employee shall contribute 50-50 through pay roll taxes, to
build up an annuity for the old age of the employee. Hence: excepting
for the temporary young teachers who do not plan to continue long at
any kind of work for wages, school retirement is of concern to all
teachers: to those aged 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70; to those in large
cities and in small towns and in rural districts, on the same terms.

New Principles of Retirement

America is rapidly abandoning the antiquated practices of provid-
ing retirement annuities only for those lucky workers who are still on
the job at retirement age, and of putting all the employer responsi-
bility on the last employer only. Instead every employer and every
pay check or pay warrant contributes its share throughout the earning
years. Retirement rights are not to be cancelled or cashed-in or lost
in any way either because of chance of occupation, or lack of a job
when retirement age arrives. Retirement rights are for all, and are
based upon service records. When pay checks cease, these rights oper-
ate like deferred annuities, with paid-up values in proportion, and
when retirement age arrives these become active annuities. Cashing
in is neither required nor ordinarily permitted. One major purpose of
a modern retirement system is to insure that the employee shall not
become a public charge in his or her old age. Cashing in would defeat
this major purpose.

The question of the financial need of the retiring worker is ruled
out in the modern, business type of retirement system. The retiring
postal employee or railroad worker is not asked what other resources
he has; for that matter, farm assistance has been given freely to
well-to-do and to rich men, without regard to their riches.

The day of retirement for selected types of employees only, is over.
Modern school retirement includes all school employees, janitors,
school nurses, stenographers, clerks, bus drivers, as well as certified
teachers and administrators. There is some tendency to include in-
structors and other employees of the state colleges, and also public
library workers in order to cover the public educational system com-
pletely in one logical, harmonious program.

School retirement is no longer a remote thing existing in the large
cities and industrialized states far from Kansas. It has been adopted
by our neighboring prairie states of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas,