This demand of Mrs. Edgell that she be allowed to continue in her profession though a mother is, of course, only a symptom of the world-wide movement of women into the gainful occupations of life. It reveals how acute has grown the feeling on this subject among some of the women teachers of New York. Heretofore any married woman teacher who wanted leave of absence to bear a child carefully concealed the nature of her illness from the Board of Education. At length, one woman stood out and asked that, as a matter of right, her position be kept open for her while she brought a new life into the world. Instantly scores of her colleagues came to her defense. Women lawyers passed resolutions in sympathy with her and physicians publicly approved her stand. The case of Mrs. Edgell is not the first time that the New York Board of Education has expressed its opinion with regard to married women teachers. Until 1904 a by-law of the board provided that the marriage of a woman teacher should automatically cause her instant dismissal without further action. But the Court of Appeals decided in 1903 that a teacher could not be dismissed for marrying and the by-law was changed. Since then the board has apparently not been altogether friendly toward the married women in its employ. During the discussion that has attended the Edgell case it has been repeatedly asserted by principals and teachers that there are hundreds of women in the schools who have kept their marriages secret because of the well-known policy of the board to make it almost impossible for married women to secure promotion or increase in salary. A physician who is a member of the school board and a member of the board of superintendents are authorities for the sweeping statement, that if this ruling is adhered to the board of education is quite likely to be responsible for 300 cases of deliberate abortion among the public school teachers of New York every year. When the board, by its vote of twenty-eight to nine, shut off discussion because “too much has been published about this affair already,” it did what was destined to provoke hotter and longer discussion than ever. But underlying that there is a very general feeling that this subject presents many phases which should be given profound consideration, not a snap verdict. Would the distraction of a baby interfere with class room work, or the absence of the mother and teacher handicap her own children; or would having children of her own add something to a woman’s educative powers? What effect would the widespread continuance of married women in the schools have on men’s salaries? What is there in the practice and experience of other cities to help New York in deciding so big a question as the interaction of motherhood and teaching?