=Elementary _versus_ Secondary Schools.=--Hitherto elementary schools
have not commended themselves as a field of work for the class
of women who now form the staff of girls’ secondary schools. The
salaries offered outside London have not been high enough to tempt
them; holidays are short in comparison with High Schools (six weeks
in the year instead of thirteen); and, lastly, the conditions as to
training hitherto exacted have been practically prohibitive. Women
who have already received an expensive education are not inclined to
spend two or three years more in a denominational training college.
The relaxation of rules in favour of women who have passed certain
recognised examinations, and the opening of day training classes
in connection with recognised colleges, such as Owen’s College,
Manchester, and several of the local University Colleges, may do much
to open the elementary schools to a more cultured class of women. Such
women would soon obtain the headship of a school, and would then, under
a liberal Board, find a good field for the exercise of talent and
organising power. I fear, however, that the shortness of holidays may
still prove a serious obstacle.
=Domestic Subjects.=--Meanwhile a new field of work is being opened
by the inclusion of domestic subjects in the school course. A teacher
of cookery in elementary schools can earn from £80 to £100 a year in
a fairly agreeable manner, and private and visiting teachers often
earn more. Dressmaking and laundry work are also in great demand,
particularly in evening continuation schools; and if to these subjects
is added a knowledge of sick-nursing and elementary hygiene, the
combination forms an admirable stock-in-trade for a teacher. In some
towns School Boards are training their own teachers, probably with more
haste than thoroughness, to fill the posts for which such a sudden
demand has arisen. Instruction in domestic subjects is also being
carried on under the auspices of the County Councils, for there are few
among their number that have not devoted a share of the funds available
under the Technical Instruction Act, and in towns by the power of
levying a penny rate, to the furtherance of technical education, in
which domestic instruction for girls is almost always included. Thus,
throughout the length and breadth of the land, teachers of these
subjects are eagerly sought; and cookery schools, embryo technical
schools for women, and voluntary agencies, such as the National Health
Society, are busily employed in training teachers and sending them out
to different districts. The Liverpool School of Cookery is particularly
active in this direction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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