The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-05-11
A Right of Women.

We are glad to see that the vote by
which Senator Emerson's bill in the
New York Legislature authorizing
women to hold school offices was de-
feated, was reconsidered in the Senate,
and the bill passed. The discussion was
gallant, rhetorical, and discursive, as
debates upon such subjects generally
are. But the facts which Senator Emer-
son and others cited were conclusive as
to the practical success of the measure.
The great argument against every such
proposition is that it is an innovation.
But the great truth of every step of hu-
man progress is that it is an innovation.
To give people one disease to prevent
taking another was a mOnstTOus folly,
if ignorance were to be needed. But
the first care of the wise aud tender
mother for her newborn infant is that
it shall be vaccinated. That women,
whose "sphere" is home, etc., who
should be, as Miss Martineau says that
Dickens required them to be, pretty,
well dressed, and well hammered, should
take part in managing school affairs,
seems to those who hold this view much
as if it should be proposed that men
wear petticoats. 1t is, however, not al
together unreasonable to suppose that
the sex which furnishes the great null
titude of teachers in the schools might,
without shocking any decency or pro-
priety, have voice in the management
of schools. And when to this innocent
assumption is added the fact that in
several States they do have voice, to
the acknowledged advantage of the
schools and of the community the
argument is conclusive.
In Illinois, Massachusetts, and Iowa
| the system of the cooperation of wom-
en- in the management Of schools has
been in operation for several years, and
successfully. In Illinois in 1873 there
were ten women elected to be county
uperinteudents of schools. In the
same year five were elected in Iowa.
Mr.. Emerson says that his attention
was called to the subject by correspond
ence with one of these Illinois superin-
| tendents, lone of the most efficient
school officers in the West" The
| United States Commissioner of Educa-
ton speaks of these new officers with
great commendation. In Massachu-
setts, ten years ago, a rural town elected
a woman upon the school committee.
The earth continued, nevertheless, to
IevOlve upon its axis, aud there are now
women upon the school boards of sew
enty-five towns in the State. Even in
Boston two or three were elected. The
school board refused to give a certificate
of election. The question was carried
to the courts, and the legislature an
swered it by passing a law making
women eligible. If taking part in the
care of schools "unsexes" women, they
are unseXed in Massachusetts by au-
thority of the Great and General Court.
Forty or fifty years ago the city of Bos-
ton was thought to have tempted Prov
idence by establishing high school for
girls.
The bill now goes to the Assembly,
where we hope it will not fail to pass.
If it be denounced as an experiment, the
reply is that it is an experiment which
has been tried and which has succeeded.
There is no great interest more common
to all parents than the welfare of the
schools. In rural districts there are no
meetings more important or more fully
attended than the school meetings.
There is no institution in the manage
ment of which maternal knowledge is
more indispensable than in the school.
We have yet to hear one valid or even
plausible argument against the PROPOSE
ton of Senator Emerson.-HdTpeT s
WeeELV.