When a girl is about to leave school at the age of seventeen or eighteen, she is often as little able to determine what profession she wishes to adopt, as is her brother in similar case. If she is intelligent, well-trained and eager to study, her natural impulse is to go to college, and to get there, it is still usually the line of least resistance to say that she wishes to become a teacher. When there are pecuniary difficulties in the way, the decision must be taken still earlier. The unfortunate child in the elementary school used to be compelled to make her choice at the age of twelve or thirteen, often to find later on, when the first barriers of pupil-teaching and King's Scholarship were surmounted, that she was not really suited to her profession or that continued study was uncongenial. Even now, when the system is different and better, children are bound too early by a contract they find it hard to break. It cannot be too often insisted that every intelligent child who is worthy of a junior or senior scholarship, is not therefore of necessity predestined to the profession of teaching—a profession so arduous, so full of drudgery and of disappointment that it should be entered by those only who are sure of their mission, and full of the spirit that makes learning and teaching a lasting joy.
There should be other paths from elementary and secondary school to the University than that which leads to the teacher's platform.
Moreover, granted that the desire to teach is a real one, and that the girl has aptitude, it ought still to be unnecessary to choose a particular branch of the profession before she has become an under-graduate. A University career means, among other things, the discovery of new powers, new interests, and opportunities; sometimes it brings with it the painful conviction that aspiration has outstripped capacity. The bright girl who has excelled at school, may find that she is unfitted for independent honour work: she is not necessarily worse on that account, but she must substitute some other plan for her ambition to become a "specialist." The slow plodder who could never trust her memory at school, may, at College, discover unsuspected powers of investigation and co-ordination which mark her out for some branch of higher study. The University, the first contact with a more independent and larger life, is the "testing-place for young souls": students should enter its portals as free women, the world all before them where to choose. In many cases not until the first degree is taken, has the proper time come to determine finally the profession which is to be adopted. This is the ideal—for most people admittedly a far away one at present. But even now, the would-be teacher should not be asked to decide earlier than this on the particular branch of the profession which she is to enter. The average pass graduate will do best to fit herself as an all-round form mistress: there should be no reason to determine in what type of school, elementary or secondary. The training required should be the same if the classes were, as they ought to be, of manageable size, and the equipment in both types of institution equally good. Teachers in both kinds of school would benefit if the present absurd division between them ceased to exist. Children under fourteen require similar discipline whatever their social status: even if the subjects taught are to differ somewhat—a matter which is controversial and need not be discussed here—the teachers need similar training and the same kind and amount of academic education. Until these are secured, there can be no real equality of opportunity for the elementary school child: only the very best intellects in the class of 60 can hope to compete with the average individually educated child in the form of 20 or 30—and this is true whatever the merits and enthusiasm of the teacher.
Some girls will welcome the larger opportunities for social service which are open to the elementary school-teacher: others will prefer and be better suited to the conditions of the secondary school. Clearly, the student, whose expenses have been defrayed by the Government on condition that she enters its service, must fulfil her undertaking: but that should not in itself limit her to one type of school in these days of grant-aided institutions.[1] The new four-year course makes it possible for her, as for independent students, to train in the year subsequent to taking a degree—an essential reform if the old over-strain and rush are to be avoided. It is generally accepted, and in girls' secondary schools commonly acted upon, that professional training for one year after graduation, is indispensable. The teacher is born, not made, but she needs help if she is to avoid mistakes equally disastrous to herself and her pupils: she requires some knowledge of child-character, some acquaintance with the history and theory of education, some leisure to formulate, some opportunity to consider the aims as well as the methods of her teaching. We have, perhaps, passed beyond the stage when it is necessary further to discuss the value and effect of training. It is still desirable to emphasise the fact that the untrained woman teacher finds it increasingly difficult to obtain satisfactory and well-paid school posts.[2] Girls should endeavour by every means in their power to secure this fourth year at college, which is essential to their competency and to security of employment. It would also be well to impress on county councils that their work is but half done if they continue to refuse a renewal of scholarships for training to those who have taken a degree.
Students who have graduated with honours will have to decide before they begin to train, whether they wish to become specialist teachers and whether they have sufficient intellectual capacity to do so. Generally speaking, a student who has obtained third-class honours will do better to prepare herself for ordinary form work; she is not likely to obtain control of the teaching of her own subject in a first-rate school, though doubtless she will often get the opportunity to take some classes under the direction of the specialists. Graduates in high honours will usually desire to devote themselves mainly to the subject in which they have proved their ability, and their training must be adapted to their end. Modern language or English specialists will need practical training in phonetics, for example: mathematicians require to study modern methods of teaching their subject, and so forth. The best training colleges, of course, provide for such cases; in this respect, University training-departments have the advantage over others, since they can secure the services of experts for the discussion of their own subjects.
There remains, lastly, the case of the student who, while definitely desiring to teach, wishes at the same time to go on with her own work, to undertake research or advanced or independent study. Such an one will aim at a University or College appointment, in the hope of pursuing her own work under congenial conditions. At Oxford and Cambridge a woman is, at this stage and always, definitely at a disadvantage by reason of her sex. For her there are scarcely any fellowships or post-graduate scholarships, and too often the promising scholar is caught up in the whirl of teaching for her daily bread at the very moment when it is most necessary for her to have leisure and ease of mind. Few things are more required in women's education at the moment than liberal endowments for post-graduate study. The comparatively new Federation of University Women Graduates has done good work by making a list[3] of the opportunities available for women graduates, either by open competition or otherwise, at the various Universities and elsewhere: it has also founded, and twice awarded, an annual fellowship for a woman who has already published a distinguished contribution to learning. But much more is needed in this direction if women are to have the same chances as men to qualify themselves for the higher university appointments. At almost all the new Universities men and women are nominally alike eligible for every teaching post. In practice, women are rarely if ever selected for the higher positions. Sex prejudice undoubtedly counts for something in this result. It may be assumed that, with two candidates of equal merit, preference will certainly be given to the man: indeed, it is certain that a woman must be exceptionally qualified and far more distinguished than her male competitors to stand a chance of a professorial appointment even in the most liberal of co-education universities—Manchester, for example, where the conditions are exceptionally good. This fact should not deter fully qualified women from applying for professorial chairs. The power of suggestion is very great, and it is well to accustom appointment committees to the consideration of women's claims: in time it may appear less strange to choose a strong woman candidate than to reject her in favour of a less qualified male applicant.
It must be confessed, however, that the case does not at present often arise. The girl who has had a brilliant undergraduate career, and who has real capacity for advanced study, exists in her hundreds. But in almost every case when she is not financially independent, at best after an interval of preparation for her M.A., she accepts a junior lectureship or demonstratorship, and from that time onwards is swallowed up in the vortex of teaching and routine work. Often she makes heroic efforts and succeeds in producing independent results, but, so far, to nothing like the extent that would be commensurate with the promise of her undergraduate achievement. Generally she is too conscientious about detail, too interested in her students individually and collectively, to secure sufficient time for her own studies.
If a lecturer be known to teach between twenty and thirty hours a week, it is tolerably, though not entirely, safe to assume that it is a woman who is so foolish. In so doing, she is destroying her chances of advancement—intellectual and professional—and is laying her whole sex open to the charge of being unsuited to university work except in its lower branches.
It is certain that the number of University appointments open to women is on the increase, and that there is no present likelihood that the demand for qualified women will remain stationary. On the other hand, the necessary qualifications, personal as well as intellectual, are high; the work is hard, though attractive, and it is in every respect undesirable that those whose talents can better be exerted in other branches of the profession should endeavour to obtain College posts. Roughly speaking such openings are of four kinds :—
(1) Administrative posts. These are usually the reward of long and successful service in junior appointments. The heads of the various women's University Colleges are often, but by no means invariably, well paid, and may look forward to a salary ranging from £400 to £1,000. Such posts are obviously few in number and entail hard work and grave responsibility. They necessarily preclude much time for research, or even for teaching. The corresponding, but much less responsible, influential, and well-paid position in a co-educational University is that of Dean or Tutor of Women Students. This post is usually, and should always be held by a woman of senior academic standing, whose position in the class-room or laboratory commands as much respect as her authority outside. The Dean or Tutor is responsible for the welfare and discipline of all women students, and is nowadays usually a member of the Senate or academic governing body. Sometimes she is also Warden of a Women's Hostel, but this is obviously undesirable if there be more than one Hall of Residence, lest she may appear to favour her own students at the expense of the others.