Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/72

68 Taking it altogether the fine women who as a whole make up our teaching force exert a healthful influence over their boys and are successful disciplinarians.

The woman is quite as apt as the man to establish that connection between her mind and the child's which is the foundation of instruction.

Even a woman's knowledge is apt to be sufficient, at least for the high school. But it is possible that these virtues exist only at a low rate of wages and take wings at an equal high rate. It is one of the characteristics of arguments springing from the traditional view of women that quite opposite assertions are made to fit the same theory. Thus women are better than men and they haven't so pronounced a moral sense; they have no time for professions, and they waste time in frivolity; they are thrifty, and they are extravagant; they are physically weak, and do the physical work of the household; in the case of women teachers, they drive men out of the profession of teaching, and they can not compete with men; and again: they are not worth so much because they leave teaching to marry, and they are not worth so much because they do not marry. Perhaps it would be safest to adopt the high and equal rate of salaries even if it leaves man, as the superior teacher, victor in the field, since in education we are concerned with the best results obtainable. We sincerely trust and believe, however, that even at an equal high rate of pay it will be realized that men and women are needed in the schools as in the home. Woman is as much a factor in human life as man, and her interpretation of life and knowledge is just as necessary for a complete view. If there is no difference between the masculine and the feminine viewpoint surely there is no reason for discrimination. But the very possibility of a difference of conception is of immense potential value educationally, and forbids a lessening in value because of sex. Surely if we need the feeling for and interpretation of the "Arma virumque cano," the destructive elethe feeling for and interpretation of the

of the constructive element of civilization by representation through fostering womankind, especially as arms are beginning to lose some of their prestige. But as long as we regard education as a thing to be provided, in large measure to be sure, but at as low an expense as possible, we shall encourage the cheap labor of women teachers and the proportion of men and women will not be normal. As soon as we realize that education is an investment whose returns are to be measured in quality and diversity of knowledge and of character, we shall be glad to invest capital in that enterprise, though for intangible and indirect returns, and we shall recognize that woman's share in the product is as important as man's.