But there are well-to-do families where the competent mother has no desire to hand over her duties to her daughters, and where their happiness is still the chief consideration. Here girls are allowed to earn—not their living—but an income by which they may relieve their parents of some of their cost of living and at the same time live at a greater cost. From both a social and an economic point of view there is much to be said for this plan, provided both parents and daughters realise that the latter have not, under this system, achieved economic independence, or the power to be economically independent. The girl who earns £100 a year by her work and receives another £100 a year in one form or another from her father is in all probability underselling no one; and indeed, in the consciousness that she is only being paid half her cost of living, may even, by her liberal views of what is a good salary, be inciting her less luxurious colleagues to raise their standard of living and remuneration. But if her work is not of a kind that gives training and power to pass on to higher paid posts, the woman worker in middle life will be in almost as unhappy a position if obliged to be self-supporting as the helpless women who thirty years ago used to advertise for posts as companions or governesses, stating as their only recommendation that they had never expected to have to perform the duties of either situation.
Women never will and never can become highly efficient and continue so for any long period on the salaries which they at present receive, or even on the salaries with which, as a rule, they would be contented if they could get them. Vitality and freshness of mind, when youth is gone, cannot be maintained within the four walls of the class room or office, on incomes too small to admit of varied social intercourse, or of practical beneficence. Without the latter power the middle-aged unmarried woman can feel that she has small claim to live, and, in such a case, if her daily work does not in itself call for its exercise, she has little desire to.
What is our standard of living, then? and how much more will it cost us to maintain that standard when the whole effort to maintain it falls upon ourselves? To answer these questions we must have definite accounts of expenditure.
The samples that I have to give are all more or less imperfect as regards their form of presentation. The teaching profession is the one from which naturally it will be easiest to obtain returns. Recruited as it is from every rank of life except the aristocracy, and charged with the training for every rank of life—except, again, the aristocracy, who owe little of their education to their governesses—it should present to us through its accounts a corresponding variety of standard of living. It should do so; but I venture to predict that it will not.
My first three budgets were given to me several years ago. They give the expenditure of three assistant mistresses teaching in high schools and boarding during term time in private houses. No. 1 gives the expenditure for one year; No. 2 the expenditure for two successive years; No. 3 the average expenditure for six years. Side by side with them I place the budget for one year of another high school mistress (No. 4) living in lodgings—which I give afterwards in greater detail.
Table I.
Accounts of Expenditure of three High School Mistresses boarding in Private Houses, and of one High School Mistress in Furnished Lodgings.
Amount Spent on
| 1. | 2 A. | 2 B. | 3. | 4. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ s. d. | £ s. d. | £ s. d. | £ s. d. | £ s. d. | |
| Lodging and board | 41 0 0 | 41 6 0 | 40 4 0 | 50 17 11 | 54 9 3 |
| Washing | [5] | 2 7 6 | 2 4 0 | 3 0 7 | 3 7 11³⁄₄ |
| Dress | 10 10 0 | 16 0 0 | 16 0 0 | 12 14 1¹⁄₂ | 16 0 5¹⁄₂ |
| Books,newspapers, &c. | 0 7 9 | 4 1 8 | 3 8 0 | 3 16 8 | 2 15 4¹⁄₂ |
| Travelling | 3 18 0 | 4 15 6 | 4 16 0 | 17 4 2¹⁄₂ | 12 0 5¹⁄₂ |
| Holidays | 9 10 10 | 4 5 0 | 5 4 3 | — | |
| Amusements | [5] | 1 6 8 | 0 17 6 | [5] | 3 11 5 |
| Subscriptions, donations, &c. | [5] | [5] | [5] | 4 4 5¹⁄₄ | 1 17 11 |
| Presents | [5] | [5] | [5] | 9 15 7 | 5 18 3³⁄₄ |
| Postage and stationery | [5] | [5] | [5] | 1 15 2 | 4 15 1¹⁄₂ |
| Miscellaneous | 7 0 0 | 7 3 0 | 9 0 0 | 3 16 3 | 3 11 11 |
| Doctor and medicine | 2 0 0 | 0 6 0 | 1 1 0 | 3 2 1 | 0 19 5 |
| Insurance | — | — | — | 23 10 10 | — |
| Savings | — | — | — | 1 13 4 | — |
| Not spent | 25 13 5 | 18 8 8 | 23 18 7 | — | 20 12 4¹⁄₂ |
| Total | 100 0 0 | 100 0 0 | 106 13 4 | 135 11 2¹⁄₄ | 130 0 0 |
[5] Included in “Miscellaneous.”