Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1904-04-25
THE NEEDY scHooLMA'AM.

Our present laws against the mar
riage of school-teachers,- l am too
sweeping against the marriage of
women schoOl-teachers, on pain of Of
fetal decapitation, are historically
amusing. We shall laugh at them. a
few years hence, as we now laugh at
the sumptuary laws of the past. For
instance, the worthy Zaleucus. $50 B.
c., ordained that no woman should
appear in the street attended by more
than one maidservant,- she
were drunk" Edward III, of England.
strove to keep his subjects down to a
menu of two courses only; and our
own more recent forefathers in New
England prohibited such personal
decorations as they chose to consider
too expensive for common citizens.
Why should not a school-teacher
have husband, if she chooses? The
married state does not detract from
the ability of an educator. Indeed,
as all teaching originated in mother
hood. and as that experience is under
stood to have widening and ennobl-
ing influence, it is hard to see why
school children should be debarred
from the advantageous society of the
married teacher with her calm happi-
ness, or of the mother-teacher, with
her new depths of love.
Are any instances given of a fall
ing off in efficiency in teachers after
marriage? Is ii claimed that a hap
by wife can not give as much attention
TO her work as a hopeful damsel or a
resigned spinster?
Not at all!
The contention is that the teacher
who marries has got another job. and
should give up her former position to
one who needs il more than she does
1t has Leen wisely and conclusively
answered that the married woman
who elects to continue her school work
or because she continues to need the
salary. So the upholders of spinster
schColma ANS are caught on either
horn of the dilemma,-if the married
teacher wants to teach because of
especial interest in the work, she has
a right to ii on the ground of fitness;
if she wants to teach because she
needs the money" she has right to
il on grounds of necessity. The es-
sential error in the whole discussion
lies in our common misuse of the term
need" which implies that the schools
of our country are maintained at great
public expense for the purpose of pro-
viding food and clothing to a number
Of single women. A school is an in
for the education of children,
and all its processes and standards
are to be judged and measured as they
conduce to that end.
If woman is a good schcol-teacher,
though married to a millionaire
we have as much need of her services
as we should have if her husband
should die and take his fortune with
him, or if she should be dependent on
her salary for bread.
What the woman does with her
money is no concern of the school
board. Whether she 'needs" it or not
is no business of theirs.
The child needs the good teacher,
aad that is the only question of need"
which belongs to this subject.
II is the business of the school sys-
TEN TO select, develop, and secure
the best possible teachers; not TO
constitute itself an arbitrary court
to condemn our children to an endless
succession of inexperienced girl
teachers, who only do the work for
pay, and drop it as soon as they get
a better situation.
The public school is not young wo.
mans financial aid society, nor an old
ladies home.-Charlctte Perkins Gill
man, in Success"