Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-16
A MOOTED QUESTION
Should Public School Teach
ers Get Married?
ARGUMENTS BOTH w AVS
ONE WOMAN'S VIEWS ON THE So
CALLED HE HEN"
ARGUMENTS BOTH WAYS
Many Believe That Pedagogue Who
Marries Should Quit Teaching
School for Good.
Written FOR The Star.

Written for The Star.
This article is a discussion, pro and con,
by means of interviews with schoolma' ans
themselves, of an ever-timely question, and
one that crops up In every community soon
or or later Both sides are presented tos the
reader just as they were given to the in
terviewer. so If you don't find your own
views, or anything like them, set forth by
the first schoolma am or two. keep on read
ing: you'll come to your side of the ques-
tion before the last paragraph is reached.
81 have known hundreds might say
thousards-of school teachers, but l could
check off on the fingers of both hands those
among them who were fitted to become
good wives and mothers. The young man
who rnarries schooIma am writes himself
down an ass l know of several marriages
which are unhappy simply because the wife
fobnerly taught school and still has the
schoolma ans ways Of thinking. Teach
ing school absolutely units Il woman for
domestic duties, or, indeed for anything
else"
That IS what a veteran superintendent
OF schools of New York town promul-
gated just before the closing of last years
school term During the summer months
the question aroused by this sweeping state
meut-"Should the Schoolma am Marry
has been discussed with much heat and at
great length in school teachers journals
and at gatherings of school teachers of va
rous sorts. And now, with school once
more under way. additional fuel has been
added TO the scusson-alrcady here and
there throughout the country schoolma ans
have left. or are preparing to leave, the
school room to become blush!ng brides, and
parents OF school children as we'll as teach
ers are asking Should the schoolma' am
marry
Eut as the schoolma am is the person
most interested. let her speak for herself
she is fully capable of doing so.
One Girls Opinion.
That superintendent was quite right, but
he didn't put the case strongly enough"
said young woman of twenty-five. who
is employed in New York, Although l have
only been teaching for three years. my ex-
perieuce has been unusually wide: for l
am a substitute. | go from school 10 school
for q few weeks at time TO take the place
Of teachers who are sick. In this way |
come into contact with all sorts and con-
uitions OF schoolmu ans which the average
teacher, Who is tied down TO one school,
cannot 90.
Il suppose ! shouldn't say ANYTHING
against my own class. but to tell YOU the
truth they're the worst set of dried -up
frumps In the world. They are old maids
before they are thirty. 1t just comes
natural to be an old maid after you have
taught school Tor a few years. l begin to
feel the tendency creeping over me al
ready. and once in a while / have to break
ont and do something that shocks the
others. just to remind myself that I'm
still human
Theoretically. / don't think the school
maam ought to marry. She will lecture
her husband If he were her pupil and
for her children-weL. they will be in
school all the time. If | were to teach
much longer l know that ia never be
III for anything else. I'd be just n horrid
old mummy. like the rest OF them. But
Ill soon be out of II, thank goodness"
How. is that2'
"Woll, you see. I'm going to be married In
two months time" She confessed, with
a blush. Perhaps l shouldn't, but I'm
not mummficd yet
But" she FASTENED on. 'ft's also my
belief that the male teachers-the he hens
as we always call them-are no more fit
ted for the welded state than are we
schoolma' ans, taking us by and large.
Why, when think OF II, really do believe
that they are even less fitted for married
life than we poor women. People saw that
teaching school makes lots of the school
ma ANS too masculine, but N.Y. how feni-
nine IL makes lots of the men, Why thew
acquire all the mean and petty tricks of
women and display them in a much meaner
and pettier form.
A Horrible Example
II know a poor little woman who mar
ried 'he-hen.' He leads her a perfectly
miserable life with his finlcky ways. and.
like many 'he-hens,' he's a mass of con-
ceit Most men have q good opinion OF
themselves, and women like it, but this
man is simply incapable of believing that
anything can be properly done unless he
has finger in the pie. That's his school