The secondary teacher thus spends from three to five years in academic and professional training; and in accordance with current economic ideas should receive a salary proportionate to the outlay involved. The scheme of salaries approved by the Assistant Mistresses' Association in January 1912 suggests £120 as the initial minimum salary (non-residential) for a mistress with degree and training, rising in ten years to £220 in ordinary cases, to £250 where "positions of special responsibility" are occupied. £100 to £180 is suggested for non-graduates. "These salaries are higher than those provided by the Girls' Public Day School Trust, and other governing bodies outside the London County Council. In most cases £120 to £130 a year may be taken as a fair average for an assistant mistress."[5] Headmistresses' salaries vary from £200 to, at least in one exceptional case, £1,500. They often depend in part on capitation fees. The Headmistresses' Association considers that the minimum should be £300. In secondary schools as in other grades of educational work the salaries of women are lower than those of men, as may be illustrated by the London County Council scale of salaries. Men: Assistants . . £150-£300 (or £350) Heads . . £400-£600 (or £800) Women: Assistants . . £120-£220 (or £250) Heads . . £300-£450 (or £600) The difference between the salaries of heads and assistants is in many cases greater than is desirable. Things being as they are, it is well that there should be some prizes to attract ability into the profession. On the other hand, a woman, whose best work is that of an assistant, should not be tempted to give it up for the salary of a headmistress. The assistant has the opportunity for closer and more personal touch with her girls, being intimately responsible for a smaller number; she has also better opportunities for working out the teaching of her subject and improving its technique. Education would gain if more of the ablest teachers, specially successful in one or other of these directions, were left in a position to continue this work, instead of feeling obliged to substitute for it the perhaps uncongenial task of organisation on a large scale, and that contact with visitors, organisers, inspectors, committees, and the public, which occupies the time of the heads of schools. The truth of this is, I am told, better appreciated in Germany than in this country. Since local authorities took over the work, secondary teachers have gained considerably both as regards salaries and tenure. They are now, as a rule, better paid than elementary teachers, which was not always the case before 1902.