I know of no good reason why women should not become publishers. Of course they can do the work of a publishing house,—I mean the correspondence, book-keeping, counting, making-up orders, and packing books. But I know of no good reason why they should not conduct the business, and receive the profits. Many authors, myself among the number, would be especially gratified to have our works placed before the public by women, because, when trained to business, they have shown a singular exactness and honor; and, secondly, because it would give assurance to the world that the new book was fit to be read.
TEACHERS.
It seems unnecessary even to allude to the propriety of teaching as a profession for women. It is, however, a modern notion.
At present, in New England, an immense majority of the teachers are women.
I have had a good deal to do with schools during the last twenty- five years. I was a member of the Boston School Board for some time, was at the head of the Seminary at Lexington during four years, an have always been interested in the question of woman as a teacher.
I have interrogated, perhaps a hundred school committee men, in different parts of the country. Their testimony, and my own, after all this observation, is, that woman is a better teacher than man. I think this is true even in the department of mathematics. I am sure it is true in all those studies, in the teaching of which, the social, moral or religious element is brought into play.
The proportion of female teachers in American schools is very rapidly increasing, and it is noteworthy that they are constantly rising into schools of a higher grade.
The state authorities in Massachusetts have recently placed a woman at the head of one of our principal Normal schools. It is safe to prophesy that, within fifty years, teaching, in the common schools, High schools, and in the Normal schools, will be almost exclusively in the hands of women. I think, within that time, a considerable proportion of the professors in our colleges will be women. Already several are doing themselves, and their sex, great honor, as professors in colleges.
The only dark spot in this bright picture is, that women are starved while performing this valuable labor.
I know a beautiful, bright young woman, in this city, who is regarded as one of the best teachers in the city, who presides in one of the most beautiful rooms in one of the grandest buildings in Boston, but who, when out of the school palace, is obliged to crawl away with her mother into a dingy, miserable garret, where they spend their time in contriving how to make their pennies last through the year.