Women Workers in Seven Professions: A Survey of Their Economic Conditions and Prospects
General
Women Workers in Seven Professions: A Survey of Their Economic Conditions and Prospects
Vocational guidance; Women -- Employment -- Great Britain
socialist administrator and legislator must see that their side of the
work leaves full room for individuality.
In the following section it is obviously impossible adequately to
consider all branches of the teaching profession, and it has therefore
been thought the wisest course to select the leading varieties of work
in which women teachers are engaged and to treat them in some detail.
The writers of the various articles express their own points of view,
gained by practical first-hand experience of the work they describe.
Allowance must, perhaps, in some cases be made for personal
enthusiasm, or for the depression that arises from thwarted efforts
and unfulfilled ideals. At any rate no attempt has been made to
co-ordinate the papers or to give them any particular tendency. As
a result, certain deductions may be made with some confidence. Women
teachers of experience are convinced of the manifold attractions of
their profession, and at the same time are alive to its disadvantages
as well as to its possibilities. Alike in University, secondary
school, and elementary school there is the joy of service, and the
power to train,
"To riper growth the mind and will.
"And what delights can equal those
That stir the spirit's inner deeps,
When one that loves, but knows not, reaps
A truth from one that loves and knows?"
Of all teachers, perhaps she who elects to work in an elementary
school is in this respect most fortunate and most rich in
opportunities, since, to many of her children, she is the one bright
spot in their lives, the one person who endeavours to understand and
to stimulate them to the effort which all normal children enjoy. For
her, too, particularly if her work lies in a poor district, there
is the opportunity, if she care to take it, for all kinds of social
interests. There will, of course, be much to sadden her in such
experiences, but at least they will add a sense of reality to her
teaching which will keep her in close touch with life. She will find
that there are compensations for hard work and red-tape regulations,
even for low remuneration and slowness of promotion. Nor must it
be forgotten that, inadequate as is her salary, it contrasts not
unfavourably with that of other occupations for women, _e.g._
clerkships and the Civil Service, in which the work is in itself less
attractive. As compared with the assistant mistress in a secondary
school, her lot is not altogether unenviable. If she has shorter
holidays, larger classes, and at the worst, but by no means
inevitably, a lower stipend, these facts must be counterbalanced by
remembering that she has comparatively few corrections, much less
homework, and no pressure of external examining bodies, that her
tenure is far less insecure, and that her training and education
have been to a very large extent borne by the State or by local
authorities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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