The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1872-11-15

The following extract by DIR.
MAYO, entitled the "Schoolmas-
ter" and taken from the National
Teacher, should be read by every
father and mother in the land.
We also commend it to the atten-
ton of all thoughtful teachers:
One of the most vital social
changes wrought by our great
civil war was the rush of the
schoolmistress to the front, and
her capture of the common school.
Large numbers of orr schoolmas-
tiers went off to the war and never
came home; and she furious CON-
petitions of private and public
masculine life are still depicting
the school-room of men. 1t was
discovered that women could do
great deal more and a great deal
better work in the school house
than had been suspected. The
war left multitudes of girls, more
or less educated, dependent upon
their own exertions, eager to do
any literary work, at almost any
price. The conjunction of a pleas
ant surprise in favor OF an under
rated element of humanity and an
opportunity to relieve the body
polite of taxation made just the
state of affairs for a sweeping
A mariooy, tsv,,D-au,on% 1Fn orlor;
fy womanhood and save money at
the same time, is a temptation few
men can resist. It has not been
resisted; and just now the educa-
tional world is pouring itself forth
in resistless flow of mingled
chivalry and economy in favor of
placing our American common
school almost exclusively in the
charge of women. .- q
Especially does q class of mas
culine educators, gifted with the
rare faculty of at once inspiring
and controlling an army of lady
teachers, and apt to differ with
subordinates of their own sex, re-
commend the Punishment of men
from every post, save that of SUI
pervision, in district schools. The
Cincinnati Board of Education,
has just been agitated by q violent
effort to reconstruct" the male
principals out of their present
positions in the district and inter
mediate schools, and leave the
highest work in school houses,
containing from 600 to 200 chill.
dren, of five grades, in the hands
Of the female first assistant; and,
although the project was defeated,
yet the popular sympathies evil
IDENTIFY turned toward the plan,
and the Bohemian educational re-
formers in the newspapers, and the
Solons of the common council,
struck popular chord in their
wholesale abuse and ridicule of the
only English male teachers left in
these great schools as useless or
ornamental officials, hired to play
at department in the midst of a
bevy of hard-wSrked ladies; at a
generous salary. sa.. .H
We believe that, like most of
our American crazes, this excess
siye preference for feminine infiu-
ence in the public school-room
will react into a more sensible
view of the natural division of la
! Dor in the sacred office of instruc-
ton, We are glad to indorse any
wise and enthusiastic thing that
can be said in faver of the super
1ority of women in dealing with
human nature, in certain direc
tons, at any period of life. God
has made womanhood to be the
most profound and winning repre-.
sentative of his love to man in the
eternal life of the soul In the
whole realm where the spirit is to
be lifted out of the limitations Of
materiallstic, prudential, worldly
considerations, and placed in con
tact with ideals OF truth, beauty,
and love; in the sacred sphere Of
the home, and the more spiritual
phases of the religious fife; in
that delicate border land where
Character MOWERS out into man.
ners; also in the whole world of
the minor economies, and minute
adaptations that "make ends meet"
in practical affairs; here, doubt
less, woman is the invaluable in.
structor Of childhood as wen as
manhood. This region has hith.
erto been greatly neglected in
popular education, and the recent
change will pour e food Of vitality
through it. Other things being
equal, q woman in ali such ways
will be the best guide to the child
in school, As she naturally leads
in the family and in society.
There may be q woman, now and
then, who, in addition TO all this,
can do the work for which man Is
especially endowed; but in all
such cases that have fallen under
our observation, she has done 80
either 1T the risk OF impairinq her
own peculiar spiritual functions,
or At . peFiIous expenditure Of
nervous Vitality. = y sss 'sl5s9