Year: 1861

compensation or Female Teachers


1t is generally conceded that the COM
pensation of female teachers is not COM
mensurate to the amount of labor reuuir-
ed of them; that while in many instan-
ces mental capacities equivalent to those
of men are demanded, the pay even for
the same duties is by no means equal ;
and yet, while considering all this, it is
much easier to point out the wrong than
to provide the remedy. The doctrine of
compensation is not regulated by intrin-
sic values, but by the universal law of de-
mand and supply. An overburdened mar
ket must, of necessity be one of depres-
sion; and the market for human labor is
not exempt from the same conditions.


Even the pay of Male teachers, es-
pecially in times of mercantile depres-
sion, is not unfrequently affected by an
active competitor; young lawyers with
out clients, doctors without patients, en-
gineers on suspended lines of unfnish-
ed railroads, with the thousand students,
theological, medical. legal, and scientific,
who must do something to aid them in
their peCuniary embarrassments, and
help themselves around sharp angle IN
the rugged road they have chosen, come
in competition with the professional
| teacher, and cut down his wages. School
committees do not often enough inquire
whether or not the applicant is profes-
sional instructor predicating his success
in life upon his merits in that direction,
but rather who can be obtained to do the
work for the least money.


If this is the case with men amid all
the countless varieties of employment to
which they are permitted to resort, how
much more potent must be the depres-
sing influences upon the narrow channels
of female labor Preach as we may
about the dignity of labor, and the impor.
tance of domestic employment, even mod
erately educated American women will
not submit to the drudgery and contume-
ly of domestic service. As a consequence
the ignorant, and too often vicious serv-
ant, is brought into disastrous conflict
with our children in the most dangerous
and impressible period OF their lives j;
while the elder sister, or the maiden aunt
withdraws herself from her own appro-
pirate sphere, to pick up livelihood in
one to which she may be wretchedly ad-
apted: She will declare in all serious
ness, when free from restraint, that she
hates ol-teaching more than poison;
and that she 'had as lieve be In Jail as a
schoolroOm any time;' but then what is
she to do for a living if she does not
teach There is nothing else for her
to turn her hand to unless it is to go into
domestic service, and sooner than do that
she would starve Hence the rank of
female teachers is filled to repletion with
incompetent members, depressing COM
pensation even of the better class to the
minimum limit, and affecting disastrously
all the substrata of our educational sys-
tenn.


One of the most painful duties impos-
ed upon our Boards of Education is the
selection of teachers from the throng of
applicants pressing their claims for ap-
pointment often even with tears. With
in the writer's own knowledge, during
the present fall, for four vacancies in the
public schools of a city there were over
80 candidates who filed papers of applica-
ton. Nor Is this by any meanssolitary in
stance. The same state of things exists
everywhere throughout the States, and
under such circumstances, resolving that
"female teachers do hot receive sufficient
compensation, will accomplish about as
much in remedying the evil, as the 9th
resolution of the New York Democrat
ic State Convention will aid in putting
down rebellion


We must draw off the surplus labor in
other and appropriate channels. Wo-
man must consent to ill the place of
clerk, saleswoman, copyist, proof read
er, telegraph operator, or any other oc-
cupation that is honorable, and fit them
selves for it. She must not stop 10 In
quire whether or not any woman has ev.
er filled the place before. but whether
she is competent to fill it herself; and if
so. step boldly into the position; for she
who opens a new field for female en-
ployment, is deserving queenly crown
When a diminution of the supply of fe-
male teachers to the actual wants of the
bommunity is effected by detailing the
surplus to other equally respectable en-
ployments, then. and not before, will our
female friends in the profession receive
the adequate Compensation.-.NeIU Yorh