St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1890-09-20
Married ~. SiGele.

A spirited contest Is going on In Ciucin~
natl over the proposal of one of the par
ties to 1t that it is not god policy to en-
ploy married women to teach in the pub
schools There may be good grounds for
making the invidious distinction, but the
members of the school board who have
taken it upon themselves to define and
give reason for the faith that is in them
las they suppose) have not so far been able
to give any.
MT Jacob Conway, one of them, when
being questioned by reporter, could only
say, In rude and helpless sort of way
There are 300 unmarried graduates in
this city who can't get positions as teach
ers: Isn't that argument enoughT Pos
slbly 1t might be conclusive argument
were the public schools of Cincinnati or
any other place established for the ole
purpose of giving unmarried girl gradu-
ates" pleasant employment without refer
ence to their physical and mental uualii-
cations MIR. A J. Boeckman, another edu
catlonal lumlnary of phosphorescent
brlillancy, Is more brutal in his defense
than his &C League, Jacob When asked
"Why are you against them-married
women he replied Because they've
40 business there Suppose you had a
~iO' Fchlo yoo utE 10 tOdcU school
No, of course you wouldn't. She couldn't
do it and do right by her family"
1t will be seen that this director does
not seem to recognize that he owes any
duty to the schools. Their interests are
sunk in Boeckman's anxiety to di. charge
his public duties in conservation of the
aonjugal rights, pre- JUDGES, and sentiments
If himself and thu reporter, who, it ap-
pears, had no wife. Experience, ability,
talent and superior tact and Judgment all
go fer nothing when weighed against
what "you would or "would not want a
wife to do. A married woman who is fit
TO teach school is as well qualified to Judge
Of what is right and wrong toward her
own family as any person who is stranger
70 Ii. School directors have to do with
the manner in which teachers discharge
their public and official duties They are
not employed as censors of the family cir
Gle, with the affairs Of which they have
nothing TO do except as relates to their
pwD, III case they have one.
1t is piece of impertinence on the part
of these shallow directors TO inquire into
he dome tic relations of those who offer
heir services as teachers, beyond ascer-
aiming that they are of good moral char
acter.
There is no objection to young girl
graduates, who are selected f. teachers
and retained strictly on their merits The
school directors have no right to take pub
&c money to sustain their own conceptions
of ethics or minister to their private emo
tons in favor of this class or that. When
superior woman is denied place in tie
school room merely because she is married.
and it is given to an inferior one because
she is not, palpable fraud is perpetrated
against the system.
Some OF the most successful teachers In
this city, who have been in the service
during the past twenty or twenty five
years. are married women. 1t need not be
necessary to show that they are, as class,
superior to unmarried women to assert
their right to employment, or the public
need for them. This is not contended
But experience has something to do with
it, and We naturally look for that in tht
mature woman rather than in the young
girl. There may be good possibilities in
the latter, but the school system should
not suffer too much in the work of bring
ing them out. to become teachers and
fnally marry, when, according to the
Boeck mans, they should be immediately
turned out to make way for beginner,
mere tyro, whom it might take Whole
season to test, and whose faults, if any,
would be perceptible TO parents long be-
tore the directors would see them, or al
any rate admit them
Our school system has sotfrred from
mere theorists of tae stripe OF these Gin
cinnati directors. Here we have had di,
rectors whose idea of their public duty was |
to find place for the teacher perhaps
relatively, and not teacher for the place !
A man of this stripe who had niece or
daughter to look after, or political friend |
who had, would he sure to ask any I'M
married reporter, Would You want YOU
wife to teach SCHOOL, and force an en-
phatic negative out of the victim by the
fe r. else, of an explosion. Yet great
public questions canros be permanently
and satisfactorily settled in this way
There sre cases in which it is jast as we'll
to ask wha' the poor wife, bound to an in
valid or unthrifty husband, would have,
or what the public service required The
feelings IN such cases are not all on one
side, and that the wrong one, as Boeckman
evidently takes 1t for granted.-New o.
leans Citu Item.