Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/1040

 through the efforts of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, a matron in the woman's ward of the State prison.

Women are employed as clerks in various county offices. They can not serve as notaries public.

Under the ruling of the courts, a woman can not practice law. No other profession or occupation is legally forbidden to women.

For the higher education the women of Virginia must go outside of their State. The State Superintendent of Free Schools and the Secretary of the State Board of Education both express great regret at this fact, and the hope that all institutions of learning will soon be opened to them. Secretary Frank P. Brent says:

We have as yet no women acting as school superintendents or members of school boards, but I feel sure the Constitutional Convention will make women eligible to one or both of these positions.

Last year I had the honor to decide that in matters pertaining to the educational affairs of this State, the wife may be regarded as the head of the family, although the husband is living; and this decision has just been reaffirmed by the United States Court of Appeals.

Women are admitted to several of the smaller colleges. The Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, and the Woman's College at Lynchburgh, both under the same presidency, rank well among institutions for women only. Miss Celestia C. Parrish is vice-president. Hampton Institute, for negroes and Indians, is co-educational.

The public schools make no distinction of sex.. There are 2,909 men and 5,927 women teachers. The average monthly salary of the men is $32.09; of the women, $26.39.