Page:The Education and Employment of Women.djvu/10

10 The first of these objects will be materially advanced—

1st—By the establishment of places for a higher education than schools can offer, such as the projected College for women. Mr. Bryce, in his interesting "Report on Schools in Lancashire," says, "The teachers cannot be greatly blamed for this" (i.e. inefficient teaching), "since it is the result of the inadequate provision now made in this country for the instruction of women. Conceive what schoolmasters would be, if there were in England no Universities, or any foundation schools either of the higher or the lower grade, and if the private schools, by which alone education would then be supplied, were to lose the reﬂex inﬂuence and the stimulating rivalry of these public institutions. This is exactly what the state of the teachers of girls is now."

2ndly—By the accordance of University certificates to women, provided always that these University certificates to women possess intrinsic value, declare a due amount of knowledge and of capacity to teach, and are given "with scrupulous care to none but deserving persons."

Governesses would, I hope, not be the only women who would avail themselves of these privileges. Everything is good which tends to break down the line of social demarcation which still, to a great extent, separates governesses from other ladies, as once it separated school-masters from other gentlemen; and it is greatly to be desired that women with a real talent for teaching, whatever their social position, should actually teach for a few years, and raise the profession of governesses, as the profession of schoolmasters has been raised, by an infusion of disinterested zeal and the energy of a voluntary choice.

Any effort in the cause of governesses is important, not only as it affects individuals at this moment engaged in the profession, but still more in its bearing upon the future of all English girls and women, through the prospect which it holds