The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1869-11-30
Women's Pay and Women's Work.

men fair days wages for a fair days
work We count il rather contcmpti-
BILE TO send female clerks from Wash
ington to New York to straighten out
the public accounts, and yet to pay
them less than the men whose hard
knots they unravel. We view it as that
celebrated boxing master, the Game
Chicken, viewed the conduct Of Mr..
Toots in refusing TO carry off Florence
by main force "It's mean, you know.
That's what it is! It's mean.'
The trouble is that this is not the
whole of the question of wages. Grant
that all labor should be paid according
to it's merit Grant that in the lighter
kinds of labor, where no great strength
or skill is required, ws.nen work as we'll
as men, perhaps better, because of their
greater conscientiousness and fidelity.
Still the difficulty remains, that their
sex thus limits them to a smaller range
of employment. They cannot furnish
the strength for rougher work And for
work requiring skill, the trouble is that
women, as a class. do not learn it thor
oughly enough to command the highest
wages The reason they do not learn it
thoroughly is because the prime of their
lives is, or ought to be, given to home
duties No doubt there are myriad ex-
ceptions. But no woman expects to be
an exception, and therefore women do
not, as men do, train them selves for
some life work and become skilled la
borers individuals doubtless do, but
they find to their cost that tue scale OF
wages is adapted to the habitual condi
tion of tie whole class In Virginia
Penny's invaluable "Cyelopadia of the
Employments Of Women Of America"
we find employer after employer point
ing out this as the chief drawback on
the compensation Of women. "Nine
out Of ten get married as soon as they
are fairly initiated in work" s'They are
very apt to marry just as they become
sklIful enough to be reliable" One
china dealer in New York "thinks it
best to get homely girls, rather advan-
ced in age, to attend store, because the
young and handsome ones will get mar
ried." All agree that women are lost
to business pursuits by marriage, while
men become more attentive to business
when they have family to support.
Hence the supply Of unframed women is
always being renewed, as class they
are in the position Of apprentices, and
earn apprentices wages.
We see the same result in the one
profession in which women predomi
nate, that Of teaching. No one doubts
tha: women are by nature peculiarly fit-
ted for training the young; and for this
reasons and because their labor is cheap
er, they are very extensively employed.
But these teachers are usually very
young girls, ,imper:ectly educated or else
they are widows, the prime of whose
life has been otherwise spent. The
School Committees all complain that
their ablest teachers are soon trans
ferred to homes of their own. Did any
body ever know o country clergyman
whose wife had not taught school? The
parsonage gains, but the schoolhOuse
loses, and the whole profession loses.
1t is the universal opinion of foreign OBJ
servers that one great reason why our
schools are inferior to those of Germa-
ny is from the far lower grade of cul-
ture among the teachers, who are mex
perienced girls, instead of university
trained men. The American prefer
encc of women as teachers" says Mat
thew Arnold, in his report on European
education, "gets no sanction from the
practice of the Continent. Competent
foreign observers who have studied the
American schools report that, as a gen.
eral rule, though something is to be
learned from them as to providing and
maintaining schools, lit tie or nothing is
to be learned from them as TO teach
ing" The reason is that, with women,
teaching is temporary pursuit, and
that, nevertheless, the American school
room is becoming so monopolized by
their cheaper labor that the ablest men
are generally tempted to other fields.
All this we say with infinite regret and
with desire for light. Beyond the cru
city Of employers, the unjust preju,lices
of society, and the brutality of Phil adel-
phia medical students, there are obsta-
cles in the very organization Of woman
to her earning the highest wages. The
ballot can only affect other obstacles,
not these particular ones. The ballot
does not equalize the pay Of men,
though it may help to equalize it. The
wages of the talloress are not so far be-
low the tailor's as are the tailor's below
the lawyers. And yet lawyer and tai
lor both have the ballot, and in this
city, at least, the tailor has the upper
hand. Bat the difference Of wages be-
tween the sex which works for wages
continuously and inevitably, and that
which works exceptionally and occa
sionally, is one which voting alone can.
not mend.
But one thing, at least, women can
effect. They can train their, daughters
to do thoroughly whatever their hands
find to do. So strongly does this habit
of superficiality attach to the work of
that even the leaders of emanci-
patton hardly get beyond it. 1t is but
a few days since we heard two persons
prominent in the woman's suffrage
movement admit with regret that there
IS not yet woman in the country who
is fitted to preside over difficult con-
vention. And this, not for want Of dig
nifty nor of presence. nor of tact, but
simply because not q woman has as vet
,aken the pains to master those simple
rules of parliamentary law which are to
be found in any small text book on the
subject These rules are to a public
meeting what military drill is to an