The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1894-11-24
ELKTON, MD, NOVEMBER "a, 1894.
BETTER PAY FOR WOMEN TEACH
ERS.

ERS.
While we are all ready to concede that
the profession of teacher requires special
aptitude in the individual as well as special
training, and that the instructors in our
public schools should receive salaries COM
mensurate with the importance of their
work. the statistics of the different states
show that no profession is so made
quately rcmunerated.
In the average salary paid to male teach
ers, the State of Pennsylvania stands as low
as twenty eight in the order of States, and
twenty-nine as to the salary paid female
teachers, while in Maryland the salary is
less than 5000 irrespective of sex.
Now, when it is considered that the
work done by this illy-paid class of public
servants requires so large combination of
personal energy. sclf-control and self
reliance. the wonder is not that our public
schools should he better than they are, but
that they are not far worse.
teachers. particularly females, in the city
of Philadelphia. calls public attention gen
orally to the necessity Of better remunera-
ton for these deserving women.
We have never been able to comprehend
why women should not he as well paid
for the same work as a man, either i'll teach
ing or any other avocatiOn.
Yet the rule has become to be almost
universal that a woman shall receive far
less salary as a teacher than man, even
when her qualification is equal to, and in
many cases superior to, his.
The scale of salaries for women is from
- to 20 per cent below that for men in the
same grades of work in all the States.
This inferiority of pay paid to women
generally doubtless grows out of the anti
quated and exploded doctrine of woman's
inferiority naturally to man.
When Martin Luther's wife, Catherine,
was grieving over the death of their little
girl the great reformer said to her: 8 Don't
take on so. wife, this is a hard world for
girls. "
1t may still be hard world for girls in
the general Injustice done women in the
rewards attained by her for the work either
of her hands or her brains, but through the
Christian civilization of our times, her
iuferiority is no longer debatahle ques-
ton.
In every pursuit of life for which her
physical strength adapts her, her equality
with man intellectually is finally and
absolutely conceded,
Every avenue to distinction in life, pro-
fessionally, industrially and socially, is
olen to her
The advance guards of her claims to uni
versal recognition, have in a II elsure broken
down the preiudices by which time and
custom have debarred her even from
political life.
The strong arm of the law has interposed
i'll her behalf and the marital injustices of
former times have been largely wiped out
In the highest realms of art she has
earned proud distinction; in the field of
scientific discovery, in medicine, in litera-
ture, she has taken her place squarely by
the side of man.
In commerce she contests mans suprem-
acy, and "our girls y dispute with our
boys " the road to honor in the counting
rooms of the world.
The universal equality of opportunity
with man is hers, because she has honestly
earned the right to claim it as her own.
Prejudice of sex, iealously begot of COM
patitive pursuits in life, alone remain to
keep alive the leaven of the ancient stigma
tibet hung about the strong-minded woman
Work as industriously as she may, strive
just as assiduously, and succeed quite as
well as her sterner competitor, but earning
as much she cannot receive an equal reward
for her labor.
The fact is one of the anomalies of our
times, the unreasonable contradiction of
the age of reason in which we live.
1t begins in the lowest walks of laborious
daily life where in the sitting atmosphere
of impoverished homes, the relentless task
-necessity-comp the half-starved
woman at her hired sewing machine, to
accept two-thirds the pittance earned by
men.
1t extends through the crowded work.
shop where honest girls struggle with daily