The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-12-27
MARRIED WOMEN As TEACHERS.

"No married women should be given posi-
lions as teachers" has been said often,
but recently an Eastern college president
expressed the opinion that all women
teachers should be married, and should be
mothers. That is, the potentialities or
motherhood, supposed to be inherent in all
womankind. should have been developed
by experience before she is fitted TO take
charge of the children of others.
If an analytical study of the characters
Of the mothers whom one knows should re-
suit in showing the majority of them to
be wise, patient, broadminded and charlta-
BILE towards the failings of the children;
should show them to be just, impartial.
firm and consistent in their dealings with
them, one might be brought to belief
in the efficiency of motherhood Tin itselD
as training-school for teachers. But the
truth is that most motherhood shows it
self, II tested, to be of the instructive, I'M
reasoning, elemental type which is, in it.
self, no more training for teaching than
is the animal motherhood of the jungle.
All teachers know that mothers who can
take an impartial, unprejudiced view or
conditions or occurrences with which their
own children are connected are very rare.
The nature-:mplanted instinct, perhaps the
most deeply rooted impulse given by nature,
is to stand for the child against the world.
There is nothing, indeed, which SO Sc
riously handicaps. the relations of mother
and teacher as this elemental, animal in
stinct, taking the forms it does Of prejudice
against anyone coming clothed with au-
thority between the former and her child.
While this primal type of motherhood
not only does not fit it's exponent for teach
ing. but actually units her for it, it should
receive from teachers a patient, consider
ate recognition that it does not often get.
George Eliot says that many people fail
to agree because they do not get on each
others mental track. but it is really more
essential often that people should get into
emotional than mental accord.
This primal type of mother is by nature
suspicious Of the teacher as a person to
whom the law gives certain rights over her
child. The first step toward disarming
this suspicion must be taken by convincing
the mother that the teacher is actuated by
a spirit Of universal motherliness, and that
all that she does is meant for the child S
best interests. This step successfully taken
the rest is not so difficult.
"She is no mother who is mother only OF
! her own" The woman who has the po-
tentialities of the only real motherhood
whether these potentialities have been made
| realities or not; whether she is mother
in the flesh, young woman with life's ex-
| periences yet before her, or unmarried
woman advanced in years with a mother
heart"-has the best equipment for the call
/ ing of teacher possible from the divine and
spiritual standpoint.
| No other equipment can compensate fol-
| this If it be lacking. No amount of expe-
rience in maternity can make the right kind
of mothers-or teachers-of some women
no lack of such experience can deprive
others of the exquisite atmosphere of moth
erliness which is a benediction and an In
spiration to all who come within its infiu-
ence, and which makes them mothers by
divine appointment to all children who need
them whether in or out of the school
| room