The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-12-29
Penalty ON
Motherhood
Is Removed
BY JULIA ELANSHARD
NEA Service Writer

NEW YORK, Dec. 29.-Married
women who work just have received
great encouragement from Barnard
college.
This liberal institution has an
nounced a policy of granting ma
ternity leaves to it's faculty mem
bers, thereby not only indicating
the woman who holds a job-though
married-but granting her the right
to have a family without fear of
losing her foothold in her profession
by so doing.
A half year with full pay or full
year with half pay is what Barnard
college now gives any woman mem
Der Of the administrative or teach
ng staff, on trustee appointment for
Ill time, who is expecting a child.
Married Teachers Unwanted
Many married teachers throughout
America this winter face losing
Cheir positions because of their
communities belief that only single
teachers should be hired and that
no married woman who has a hus-
band to support her should take a
job while others need one.
According to a survey of public
school superintendents made re-
Gently by The Woman's Journal"
there is this winter "a rather dis
quoting number Of opinions to the
effect that due to the business de-
preston the communities of most
Of. the superintendents who we're
interviewed would like to see mar
ried women teachers staying at
home taking care of their husbands
and children and leaving public
education to unmarried women"
Rochester, N. Y, is one commun-
ity listed as being very careful
about hiring as teachers any
married women whose husbands
have jobs. Cleveland is listed as
one city which hires no married
women as beginning teachers.
Plan Not Entirely New
Barnards maternity leave policy
is not an experiment, according
Acting Dean George Walker Null
Inns. During the last six years Bar
nard has granted four women fac
ulty members who were expecting
children a leave of absence.
A special committee Of trustees
had made a thorough study of the
matter during this period and the
new policy is the result.
Alice Duer Miller author, who is
a member Of the Barnard board Of
trustees, expressed herself as feel
ing that this decision makes it
seem "as if one era in academic
thought had definitely closed and
a saner one opened"
She stressed the early prejudiceS
against women as students and
women as teachers and the only too
recent prejudice against any teach
er marrying while on the job, and
the feeling in certain communi. s
that child bearing is a "disgraceful
illness"
Viewpoints Altered
Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer, who
remembers when even college pro-
fessors avoided the word child
Lcaring and spoke of it as bad
health" said of the Barnard de-
cisiOn
lone years absence on half pay,
or six months absence on full pay
for women on the faculty of Bar
nard college who expect to bear a
child! How delightfully."- clear and
straightforward! What an engag-
ing absence of all furtiveness or alb
Surd circumlocution
I'm the year 1881 the trustees of
Barnard college-consisting Of both
men and women-succeeded, I am
glad say, in discussing the pros and
cons of this delicate problem with
out undue embarrassment"
Mrs. Ogden Reid, chairman of the
trustees, said:
Il am very proud that Barnard
should have taken the lead among
women's colleges in granting leave
of absence with pay to woman mem
bers of its teaching and administra-
tive stats, and believe it marks a
significant step not only in the work
of women, but more especially in the
Y,rOcpSeec Of education "