“God knows it all, and if men do not know it, it is because they have been, I will not say they are, cruelly and criminally thoughtless. I wish some of those men who talk as if they imagined our life a delightful one, could but be women for one little year, and could feel the dreariness I speak of, feel too the intense longing to be up and doing, helping in the world’s work which is God’s work, and know the depressing effect of that inaptitude, which is the want, not of capacity or of faculty, but of training. The serious work of life needs all the help that women as well as men can bring to it, and for helpfulness something more than goodwill is needed. Always have my own ignorance and helplessness been the hindrances to that for which I would have freely given my life; and I know that other women feel in just the same way: I have heard and known too much of thoughtful women not to be sure of this. Confessions of this kind, the simplest and frankest confessions of ignorance, and of why that ignorance is painful, have been made to me many a time by women whom the world pleases to think clever, but who are too true-hearted to believe the world.
“It is not as luxury that we crave knowledge, but as bread of life for ourselves and others. We want it that we may distribute it to others, with helpful hands and words of blessing. We want it as the lever by which we may help to raise the world. If we thought only of gratifying vanity, there are easier and shorter ways to that end. Whilst men are a little too apt to depreciate the intelligence of women as a class, they are apt to over-rate the intelligence of individual women whom they may happen to know and esteem. Many a woman is credited with power merely because she has never been brought to the test of performance.”
For the amelioration of the condition of female teachers two things are necessary: the first is to raise the intellectual status of qualified teachers, and to accord a juster social recognition to their profession; the second is, to find other occupations for those who are unfit to teach, and only take to teaching because they can do nothing else.
The first of these objects will be materially advanced—
1st—By the establishment of places for a higher education than schools can offer, such as the projected College for women. Mr. Bryce, in his interesting “Report on Schools in Lancashire,” says, “The teachers cannot be greatly blamed for this” (i.e. inefficient teaching), “since it is the result of the inadequate provision now made in this country for the instruction of women. Conceive what schoolmasters would be, if there were in England no Universities, or any foundation schools either of the higher or the lower grade, and if the private schools, by which alone education would then be supplied, were to lose the reflex influence and the stimulating rivalry of these public institutions. This is exactly what the state of the teachers of girls is now.”
2ndly—By the accordance of University certificates to women, provided always that these University certificates possess intrinsic value, declare a due amount of knowledge and of capacity to teach, and are given “with scrupulous care to none but deserving persons.”
Governesses would, I hope, not be the only women who would avail themselves of these privileges. Everything is good which tends to break down the line of social demarcation which still, to a great extent, separates governesses from other ladies, as once it separated schoolmasters from other gentlemen; and it is greatly to be desired that women with a real talent for teaching, whatever their social position, should actually teach for a few years, and raise the profession of governesses, as the profession of schoolmasters has been raised, by an infusion of disinterested zeal and the energy of a voluntary choice.
Any effort in the cause of governesses is important, not only as it affects individuals at this moment engaged in the profession, but still more in its bearing upon the future of all English girls and women, through the prospect which it holds out of an improved education for the daughters of the middle classes, who, more and more, will have to maintain themselves. And if we think how much honour and dignity ought to attach to the office of a teacher (rightly understood) we should, from the highest motives, be anxious to raise the character and social standing of those who seek that office. For this question of woman’s education is far from being one of intellectual progress merely; it is a question of deep moral import, and enters far into the heart of society, affecting the best interests of men as well as those of women. Mr. Francis Newman says, “the increased influence of women” (through education chiefly) “will keep in check the liquor traffic, and other abominations which men too readily excuse.” The connection of this question of woman’s education with some of the most grievous of social problems is closer than might be supposed. De Tocqueville asked an American gentleman why open immorality, such as England has to shew, was so rare in New England: the answer was, “because of the greater respect which men have for women, the women who are their equals in society.” It will not be for themselves alone that enlightened and educated women will demand respect; they will claim it also for poor women, whom it is too often deemed a light matter to injure in the worst way, and even for the fallen, who through the voice of their happier sisters shall yet demand, not only compassion, but the respect due to every human being, however clouded with misery and sin.
When, on the other hand, we consider the best means of relieving the profession of Governesses by drafting its incompetent members into other occupations, the whole question of the employment of women rises before us, a painful and even a terrible problem. Three principal obstacles stand in the way of such an enlargement of woman’s opportunities. These are—
(1.) Prejudice of employers and of the public.