424 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



in teaching as far back into the middle ages, certainly to a considerable 

 extent in our colonial period. The proportions now are reversed, 

 women being in the majority instead of men. The work of men was 

 deficient because bachelors can not really know life. Our civilization 

 is based upon the family as a unit and only married persons really 

 know the duties and demands of our social structure. As education is 

 nothing but preparing young people to take their places in the frame- 

 work of life, only those who know what that life is can adequately guide 

 these tender feet. 



We tried to supply what was lacking by introducing woman, and 

 at first her natural tact, her sympathy and her deference to age-long 

 authority made her popular with educational management after the 

 first shock of conservatism had passed by. With the advent of the 

 public school system her numbers increased rapidly, especially when 

 she readily accepted a lower rate of compensation. 



As each sex is only half of the sphere, is there anything in the tem- 

 perament of woman that will enable her to come nearer filling the 

 other half herself than her brother did? Just like him she is handi- 

 capped by the impassable limitations of sex, and, as with him, her nature 

 attains its full measure only through matrimony. The most fully 

 developed woman is the mother, next the wife, and least of all is the 

 " old maid." This last is entirely a modern type, scarcely going back 

 a century, and therefore her capacities are untried and unknown. It 

 may be said she discharges a new function among the many always 

 being created by our civilization, and has come to stay. Time can alone 

 decide whether any innovation will survive, whether the apparently 

 temporary will become permanent. But the question of sex is the most 

 constant and prevailing of all in the interests and relations of the race, 

 and the main features are neither of to-day nor of yesterday, but of all 

 time. Some phases of woman's temperament are the product of the 

 evolution of the ages, and are fixed. A reference to one or two of these 

 may throw some light on this problem. 



There are unquestionably two considerations that make the chances 

 of women succeeding alone in this path more doubtful than those of 

 men. First, is her mother instinct noticeable even in little girls 

 playing with dolls. She grows to womanhood with the idea of queen- 

 ing it in a home of her own, least of all is it a part of her dream to rear 

 children of other women. It is a frightful wrench to her whole nature 

 to give up these aspirations for which she is not at all responsible as 

 they are an inheritance to her from the millions of generations before. 



The demolition of this age-long air castle brings about a change 

 of her nature, more usually the souring of her disposition. It is well 

 known that she suffers from nervous troubles much more than the man 

 teacher and it is not to be wondered at. If we are to put any reliance at 



