The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-09-22
FOR FEMININE READERS
OPPORTUNITIES FOR TEACHING
OPEN TO COLLEGE GIRLS.
Life Insurance m Calling suited to
Baby-Various suggestions
New York Sun.

New York Sun.
There are altogether too many Of them.
in the first place." said the teachers agen-
cy man in reply to a question as TO the
present demand for college-bred women as
school teachers, land they all want places
that are not TO be had rather n chances
10 teach. They won't take good grammar
school places. but want a high school place.
1.-THE college girl is full of wrong notions
about the school-teacher market when she
comes out from her academic halls. She
has heard of a girl who once secured a
place TO teach in a high school for $1,000 in
her first year and she thinks there are a
lot of such places waiting to be snapped up.
Now, as a matter of stern fact, L can get
all the college-bred girls L want, and plenty
more that 1 wouldn't nave anyway for IS a
week: and $40 to start with is good pay.
AS for a salary of $500 a year, that is I'M
common luck. How far these figures are
removed from the college girls dream OF
$1,000 is obvious.
Some of the best and brightest girls who
were graduated from college last year are
now teaching in high schools for $500 a
year, and are glad even for the coming
year TO keep their places in the small towns
where they are employed. Life in these
towns is very often pleasant and the girls
can obtain board for a moderate figure,
certainly for a third less than in a con-
genial private family in the city, so that
they are not so much to be pitied as the
smallness of their salary might seem to in
dictate.
Really, you know your college girl is
foolish about what she wants to do. To
teach classics and classical history to six
teen-year-old boys she considers a fine and
ennobling career, while to teach English
grammar and American history to fifteen
y%ear-old boys she regards as wholly un-
worthy of her intellectual culture. L pity
from the bottom of my heart those girls
who are looking for places to teach Greek
and L~atin-imposing tongues which, though
so long dead, have never yet been decently
buried.
Just about twice too many girls anyhow
are going TO college and trying to use their
education in teaching high schools. That
girl who was talking to me as you came in,
can write a respectable English letter. but
she is in search of a place as instructor in
English literature. So far she has been en-
gagged in grammar school work, and by her
own account has been fairly successful at
II. Now, however, she wants to leave the
thing she has been learning how To do ever
since she left college and get a place to do
what she will never in this world be able
TO do properly. Is it any wonder that men
like Stanley Hall say college-going for girls
is q calamity?
UNLESS a girls father can amply afford
IL and there is no need for the young wom-
an, when graduated, to get out into the
world and use her education for her bread
and water, she would far better not go to
college at all. 1t is utter folly for so many
girls to be pinching themselves and their
families for the sake of a college education.
THE Barnard girl thinks she's as good
as anybody, but the Radcliffe girl thinks
she's better than anybody. These girls have
no sense OF values in the economic world.
They are not properly related TO life. They
haven't the slightest appreciation of the
relative Importance of a college graduate
and a chance TO get a well-paying place TO
work.
Here's an Illustration. 1 happened to
know of a very good opportunity for a Rad
cliffe girl. Rather oddly, the superintendent
who had a place to Ali wanted a Radcliffe
girl, and so l sent for one, then a senior,
about whom L knew something. l told her
in my note that it might be for her advan-
tage TO come and talk TO me about a mat
ter of business l had in hand, and what do
you suppose she answered? Well. the reply
was atrociously put together in the first
place, but that is not strange, for scarcely
any college-bred girls know how TO write a
respectable English note, but the burden of
her answer was that she was so busy with
her examinations and class-day arrange
ments that she couldn't come to see me
then or, indeed, for another fortnight.
THE best special work now available for
college-bred teachers is commercial courses
in high schools, but few are fitted for it.
And there are many more calls proportion
ately for science than for modern lam
guages Then comes the demand for cap
able teachers in English. but these. as l
have said, are exceedingly hard to find
among recent graduates. Another excellent
line is open to the girl who can supervise
both music and drawing. For either alone
there are many more people than places,
but for the educated girl who can combine
these two subjects the chances are very
good.
For the young woman who possesses a
college degree, a Normal school training, a
speciality. and some common sense. the
prospects are indeed unusually good this
year. In the department of history, mathe-
MATES and natural science trained teachers
are in demand. The demand for really good
teachers of French is also good. BY this L
do not mean the girl who, after finishing