Evening star., 1940-02-13
Marriage Is
to
Teaching
Is More Likely to
Improve Outlook
. Toward Life
BY ANGELO PATRI.

Marriage, or spinsterhood, Is no
basis for selection of teachers. A
teacher should be appointed on the
basis of fitness for the work she is
to do, and nothing else. The mar
ried teacher is just as efficient as
the unmarried one when she is
efficient, and she is just as inefficient
as the spinster when she is ineffici-
ent. Marriage makes no difference
in the quality of the teachers mind.
It is likely to improve her attitude
toward life. and toward children
In particular. But it neither makes
nor mars her.
Some women are maternal in their
attitude toward all children and
marriage does not make that atti-
tude, nor does it change it. The
best teacher for handicapped chill
dren that I ever met was q single
woman, but mother to all the help
less suffering ones who came her
way. Marriage might have height
ened that attitude, but doubt it. I
think, 1t was quite perfect as it was.
My point about the whole matter
Is that efficiency for the job is what
decided the validity of an appoint
ment. Married or single, IL the
teacher can teach with quality in
her teaching, the job is hers if she
can get it.
I have found no validity in the
statement so often made that mar
ried women teachers ought to get
out and let their husbands support
them, and give the younger girls
a chance. Married women teach
to earn money and they earn money
because they need it. They work to
support their families and depend
ents, ailing and superannuated. The
married women who teach for the
fun OF 1t do not come my way.
If q choice between two women
Is to be made on the basis of need
we ought to investigate the financial
situation of every candidate and
give the places to the most needy.
That would leave the children out
Of consideration, of course, but they
have been left out by those who bar
a teacher when she is married. This
would give those who had the great
est burden of dependents first place,
regardless Of efficiency. This would
be hard on the children to pass up
the highest qualified ones in favor
Of those in greatest need, but you
cannot think of the children's well
fare in terms of jobs. Don't you
see 1t won't work?
One thing must be seriously con-
sidered. When we bar women
teachers because of marriage and
maternity we deprive ourselves Of
the services Of experienced teachers,
or. we deprive ourselves of the chill
dren who might be born to a group
Of the most intelligent people we
have. That in itself is something
to make us consider a long time
before making marriage and ma
ternity synonymous with resigna-
ton from the service.
The designations Of the married
teachers will not provide places for
all the young teachers on the lists
today. Other ways must be found.
Many school boards could employ
almost double their number of
teachers by reducing the class regis
tiers, by appointing teachers on the
basis of school registration, and by
retiring old and tired and sick
teachers on pensions big enough to
enable them to live decently.
There Is no sense in picking on
the married women teachers. To
carry that idea out you would have
to go down the line, and that in
wolves men teachers as well as wom-
en- in the NEEDY" cases, and that
won't work.