WOMEN TEACHERS AND EQUAL PAY 69 



As far as the theory goes, held by Mr. Perry, that a budget per- 

 mitting the expenditure of only a certain fixed amount for teachers' 

 salaries forces a reduction of the men's salaries because of the necessary 

 averaging, it is a matter of fact that a budget can always be increased 

 where the need is felt to be actual. Even the " practical administration 

 difficulties " of a huge system like that of New York City should not 

 prevent meeting actual needs. In smaller systems, the budget can 

 always bear an increase when a man teacher is needed who will not 

 come at the salary allotted to women. In women's colleges the principle 

 of exclusive femininity is inevitably disregarded through the crying 

 need of some masculinity, possible naturally only on the teaching staff. 

 A certain proportion of men is felt to be absolutely necessary either for 

 the sanity of the educational process or for the protection of the mas- 

 culine teachers themselves from the danger of feminization. When 

 that proportion is threatened the budget does not stand in the way. 

 And thus it is possible for a new-fledged doctor of philosophy, untried 

 and without teaching experience, simply because he is a man, to obtain 

 a salary 25 to 50 per cent, higher than that of a woman professor who 

 may have greater knowledge, greater experience and every requisite for 

 a successful teacher. Is it a wonder under such conditions that we do 

 not find women stimulated to do more productive work? It is quite 

 possible, too, that the youth has no obligations whatever, and that the 

 woman has financial and family obligations. It is possible that the 

 case of obligations may be vice versa. It is certainly wrong for us to 

 assume that the man has always the financial burdens to bear, the 

 woman never. Can we, who have taught in college and high school, not 

 name numerous cases of that kind? Do we not also know of men 

 teaching in the high schools who were merely taking advantage of the 

 relativel}^ good salaries they could obtain as teachers until they could 

 get a foothold in another profession, thereupon to leave the teacher's 

 calling forever? And have we not seen in the same schools women 

 teaching at lower salaries, some of whom were supporting relatives, 

 sending brother or sister to college, and some even husbands ? 



As far as the theory of the market value of the teacher goes, we need 

 only point to Germany to be covered with shame for our mercenary 

 attitude towards education. In that land swarming with Ph.D.'s^ 

 despite the enormous supply, the teacher, masculine, to be sure, receives 

 a very fair salary and generous pension provision, without regard to a 

 market value determined by the laws of supply and demand. 



The same principle and view of life that reduces the pay of the 

 woman teacher reduces the pay of women in whatever field. It forces 

 girls in factories and department stores into lives of shame, and gives 

 the washerwoman who supports a family (and who ever hears of a 

 washerwoman who has not a family and sometimes a husband, too, to 



