Civic improvement; Urban women; Women in public life
Discriminations between the sexes in the teaching profession still
extend in many directions. Politics plays an all too important part in
advancements; remuneration is in general unequal; and celibacy is
sometimes enforced upon women alone. Where women are allowed to retain
their positions upon marriage, the birth of a child is occasionally made
the excuse for dismissal. Such an explanation is not often frankly made,
but in New York, at least, it has been a very thinly veiled excuse, the
issue has been fought out on the real grounds and the women have won.
Of course it will not be claimed that women all agree as to the best
policy in these and kindred administration matters. Women members of
school boards do not always stand as a unit in their attitude toward
equal pay for equal work or toward the question of mother-teachers.
Women are not like-minded any more than men are like-minded, but they
are acquiring positive views very rapidly on all these matters. They are
not only holding decided opinions on questions of school administration,
but they are seeking more and more a voice in that administration on the
inside.
Without going further into the many phased history of the contest of
women for a voice in educational administration as well as mute service
under it, we may now consider the various lines of women’s interest in
school improvement and try to illustrate, by example at least, a portion
of the plans which they are supporting in various parts of the country,
and their methods of approach to the educational problem.
EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS
The kindergarten idea appealed from the beginning to women and private
experimentation along that line was one of their most successful
endeavors. Boards of education have in instance after instance been
persuaded to incorporate into the public school system the plan of
kindergartens demonstrated to be practical and of social utility by
women in their private capacities. Annie Laws, in the _Kindergarten
Review_, states that she “can trace the social spirit of the
kindergartner as an important factor in stimulating, and in some cases,
even initiating, many of the social movements of today, among them
playgrounds, social centers, vacation schools, public libraries,
mothers’ clubs and school and home gardens.” The New York Kindergarten
Association of today, like many others, is composed of men and women but
largely supported by the latter, financially, as well as by active
service.
Household Arts—cooking and sewing—were first made subjects of
instruction in the public schools about 1876, in Massachusetts, through
the work of Miss Emily Huntington.
From cooking and sewing have developed the whole domestic science
education of today. Women have been supporters of this movement from the
beginning and the Federation of Clubs early took an aggressive position
in favor of such addition to the school curricula.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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