Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1893-01-05

SCHOOL TEACHING.
a Calling in Which Girls Find Pleasant
aud Profitable Employment.

ponderance OF women's interference in
our public schools"
The French educational commission
to the centennial exhibition at Phila-
dclphia, in its report on primary cduca-
ton in the United States, attributed
the condition of affairs which the
writer in the Arena deplores, to the eff
feet of the war with the south. THE
superiority of the female element
of the teaching body over the male in
point of NUMBER" says the report,
dates from the war of secession, the
original cause being the voluntary en-
rollment of all the young men who
were teaching, as soldiers"
A very little investigation suflices to
show that the cause assigned by the
French commission offers by no means
an adequate explanation of this feature
of tho public school question. The
majority of teachers were young
women as far back as 1874. Between
1913 and 1850 the proportion of female
teachers in Massachusetts, rose from
sixty to seventy per cent of the whole
number. This increase was doubtless
owing in n large measure to the in
1luence of Horace Mann who was at
that time secretary of the first state
board of education In Massachusetts,
and who was most determined advo-
cate for the employment of female teach
crs. The war had the effect of still
bn,. tl,a
in the schools, 5000 teachers having en-
listed from Ohio alone; but the war can
not be regarded as the original cause
of the withdrawal of men from the
teaching service.
The employment of large numbers OF
women was made possible in the first
place by the fundamental idea of the
American educational system.
In European countries the state con-
cerncd itself mainly, in times past, with
higher educational institutions, which
were frequented by students from the
upper classes of society. IT was not
until the horrors of the French revolu-
ton revealed the dangers looking in the
social depths that the idea of the edu-
cation of the masses began to take prac-
teal shape in Europe. Primary educa-
ton has been gratutous in France only
since 1881.
The New England settlers recognized
from the first that it was the duty of
the state to provide the means for Sc
curing intelligent citizenship Twen-
ty-two years after the landing of the
Pilgrim Fathers their representatives
cnioined the local authorities to keep
watchful eye on their brothers and
neighbors, and above all things to see
that there be no family in which so
barbarous a state OF things exist as
that the head thereof do not endeavor
to impart sufficient instruction to his
children and to his servants to enable
them to read fuently the English Ian
guage, and to acquire a knowledge of
the penal laws under apenalty of TWEEN
ty shillings for such neglect"
New England held fast to the idea of
elementary instruction for all the peo-
pie as the basis of the American public
school system. As tie nation developed
the : existence of a great system of
schools which might be taught By per-
sons of comparatively small mental
attachments, opened the way for the
employment of women as teachers,
Long before there was any gen
eral movement for the higher education
of women they constituted a majority
of the teachers in the primary
and grammar schools. The fact
that they received much less
compensation for the same service than
men was an argument for employing
them which could not but have much
weight in communities which were di-
rectly taxed for the maintenance of the
schools,
School teaching was the first outlet
for American girls beyond the old con-
dition of absolute dependence, and
naturally they proved docilc in regard
to salaries as they afterwards proved
tcachable when the ideas of the new
education" began to penetrate to
America. Young men had the whole
new world before them where from to
choose.
Room teaching in strictly graded
schools was too monotonous an occupa-
ton for the young American to whom
so many more stirring ways of gaining
livelihood were open, and this depart
ment of school work was rapidly aban-
doned to the other sex.
But If the low educational standard
was the opening wedge for the employ
ment of women, they owe their present
standing largely to qualities which
mark theirp peculiar fitness for education-
al work. twenty-five years ago, says
an account of the Indiana schools pub
lished in the centennial year, ''the Hoo
ser schoolmaster was man. lie was Sc
lected quite as much for his physical
prowess as for his intellectual attain
ments If he was able TO read, write
and cipher and to whip the largest boys,
he was considered we'll qualified for his
work"
1t was gradually discovered that
women could not only teach well the
requisite subjects but that they were
generally able to secure order by gentlel
means than those generally employed
by men. In this they were doubtless
aided by the high respect in which theii
sex was held in the community Silje
strom, Swede, who inspected the
American schools in 1913, noted that
"the spirit of freedom which reigns il
America gives even to women there 9
superior degree u independence and de
cision, and greater power of action
and the respect, bordering on subnis
siveness, with which she is treated by
the other sex imparts to her character
loftiness, might almost say pride
which can not but strike every stranger
and which renders it easy for her in hel
capacity of school-mistress to command
the necessary Difference"
As to salaries, the discrimination OF
the ground of sex are bound to disap
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