426 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of evolution and any general breaking down of this line of division 

 between the duties of the two will end disastrously to both. There can 

 be only two causes for a wife to be in charge of a class, either she has 

 stifled all of the instincts of femininity or her husband is incapable of 

 providing for her. The latter is often justifiable because of misfortune 

 or loss of health. But as young persons can not discriminate, the 

 model before them is terrible. They can only see that the husband is 

 incompetent or the wife is unwomanly, miserly and penurious. A hor- 

 rible ideal it is to set before them that the chief aim of women in life 

 is to make money instead of to make homes ! In spite of this spon- 

 taneous repugnance there is a tendency to employ married women, due 

 most likely to an unconscious feeling on the part of educational officials 

 that the " old maid " is too abnormal. It is estimated that in San 

 Francisco 5 per cent, of the teachers are married women; in Denver, 

 4 per cent. ; in Philadelphia, 3 per cent. ; in Boston, 2 per cent. ; in 

 Chicago about 2 per cent. ; all a growth of a very few years. This is 

 a tendency that every one who at all considers the relation of the sexes 

 and the course of development must deeply deplore. The " old maid " 

 in the school is an abnormal exemplar but the wife is a thousand times 

 worse. The woman who neglects the highest, holiest — in fact the 

 only — duty of woman is a hideous monstrosity to teach duty to others. 



The best type of male teacher has been discovered after long and 

 wide search — the married man. What is the best kind among women, 

 it is still more important to learn, as we have settled down for the 

 present beyond all doubt to coeducation and to having a large majority 

 of women teachers, whether good, bad or indifferent. The general 

 employment of married ones is repulsive and vicious. The single ones 

 beyond thirty are unbalanced. There is left only woman before that 

 age. She is still normal, still cherishing matrimony as woman's work 

 in life evolved for her through long cycles of time by biology, physiol- 

 ogy, sociology and the whole environment of existence. Her path has 

 been marked out for her and the laws of her progress along it laid 

 down by powers far above the scope and the strength of the race to 

 alter. So long as she looks forward to the goal of the wedding she 

 retains the feminine temperament. From the time of maturity until 

 she turns aside from the broad road that the most of her sisters follow, 

 she is almost at the high tide of woman's life. It is then her dis- 

 position is most sympathetic and her ideals the clearest and strongest. 

 She is then the most vivacious, the most animated, the most energetic 

 and the best fitted for training the young, because the most companion- 

 able with the girls and the best example of womanly graciousness. If 

 we can not have the highest type of normal woman, the wife, we must 

 come as near as possible. 



If these golden years, however, are to be taken from a woman's life 



