受限於時空背景，學醫與成為師範生是日治時期進入高等教育殿堂的唯一途徑，是以「教師」與「醫師」便成為社會菁英的重要骨幹，特別是具備「文官」身分的教師，往往深入鄉里，對地方的教育與文化有著極大的影響，現今社會對於教師的殷深期許與正面印象有不少是源於當時的社會氛圍，而教師們也往往以自己的職業為榮，兢兢業業地完成教育使命。關於日治時期教師的先行研究似乎僅聚焦於教育層面的分析與公學校制度面的探究，對於教師本身最切身相關的薪資待遇反而乏人著墨。本文欲在基本的檔案史料中，結合當代文人的傳記式文學作品，呈現當時教師的薪資概況(包含與其他職業所得的比較)，評論其合理性，再用以解釋日治時期普遍存在的教師任教時間過短的社會現象。

Limited by the Japan's colonial policies, being a student of medical school and teacher's school were the “only” way to receive the higher education. In this way, teachers and doctors were considered to be the social elites in Japanese colonial period. Teachers with the status of an official, especially had huge influences, over local education and culture. In such situation, teachers were proud of their career and devoted themselves to education. Those images of teachers in Japanese colonial period leave the expectations and positive images to later society. Current studies seem to merely focus on the analyzing of education stages and researching of the system of common schools. The studies of the wage of teachers are waiting for being researched. With the exploration of basic historical archives and the biography literature in that time, the author indicates the wage of teachers, compares them with other occupations, tries to comment the rationality of the wage, and explains the common society situation that teachers usually dropped this career after a short time.