Women Workers in Seven Professions / A Survey of Their Economic Conditions and Prospects

by Unknown

One woman's college in London has started courses of its own in "Home Science and Economics," and awards a three-year certificate to its students; also a diploma for science graduates who take a year's course, and a certificate to Domestic Arts teachers who take a closely related year's course. This is King's College for Women, which has just obtained the formal approval of London University for its three years' curriculum. In a very short time arrangements will be made to grant a University Diploma to the students who have taken this course, the fee for which amounts to 30 guineas a session. A scholarship, covering the cost of tuition, is from time to time awarded to undergraduate students, and there is also a one-year post-graduate Gilchrist scholarship of 50 guineas. The name of "Household and Social Science" is recommended by the Royal Commissioners for the new co-ordination of subjects. Various American universities and colleges give diplomas of the same kind: and the New Zealand University has just initiated one. The three-year course at King's College for Women may possibly be modified by the University authorities: at present it consists of two years' training in various branches of pure science, and a third year in which these branches are applied to household matters of all kinds. For instance, the usual type of academic course of Inorganic, Organic, and Physical Chemistry gives place in the third year to the study of food, cooking utensils and cookers, soap and other cleansing materials, and woven materials. Biology and Physiology give place to household Bacteriology and Hygiene. Practice in Housewifery and Cooking occupies one day per week throughout the three years. A very important feature in this course is the introduction of Economics. As with the natural sciences, two years' study of ordinary Economics, chiefly industrial, is followed by a year of Economics applied to the household, in which an attempt is made to show the present and past relations of the household to society. King's College for Women is the first institution in England to see the great importance of studying the connection of domestic life with the outside industrial world, instead of treating it as an isolated phenomenon.

This is the outline of the three-year course: students are encouraged to stay a fourth year for special work; the appointments which they take up at the end of three or four years are not always as teachers, but in various other vocations which need not be specified here. As teachers, the holders of these certificates are subject, of course, to a double fire of criticism. The science specialist thinks they do not know enough science, and points out that, beyond a few elementary facts in Chemistry, Physics, and Physiology soon picked up in an elementary training in these subjects, there stretches a region of very abstruse science which cannot be attacked except by specialists in Organic Chemistry, in the Physiology of Nutrition, and so on. But it is now suggested that many scientific problems connected with domestic subjects are waiting for solution. If some of these were solved, they would bridge the gulf between the elementary and the abstruse, but they must show themselves of sufficient interest to investigators. Here is a field for work eminently suited to the scientific woman with a practical turn of mind. Meanwhile, the cookery diplomée thinks, often justifiably, that the new teachers have not had sufficient practice in the art of cooking. Criticism of this kind is inevitable whenever a new co-ordination of subjects is attempted, and it will keep the new arrangement on its trial until it can justify itself. The question at issue in this case, as probably readers will have divined if they are interested in the problem, is whether the whole method and tradition of teaching housekeeping ought not to be under revision, so that it may in a few years be a "subject" vastly different from the traditional handing-on and practising of receipts. Once the barrier is broken down between the scientifically trained and the domestic woman, the whole aspect of affairs changes. It is a sign of the change that the training-colleges and cookery-schools, besides introducing more Chemistry, Hygiene, and Physiology into their curricula, are definitely asking that the teachers they employ for these subjects, shall be women with science degrees as well as some knowledge of domestic arts. For instance, at the Gloucester School of Cookery at least one former teacher had taken the Natural Science Tripos at Girton as well as Domestic Science Certificates: at Battersea Polytechnic a recent appointment is that of a Domestic Science diplomée, who subsequently took a science degree at Armstrong College, while at the National Training School of Cookery, one member of Staff is at present a science graduate, who subsequently obtained the King's College for Women Diploma in Home Science and Economics. Again, the new Government report just issued on handwork in secondary schools, while in many ways non-committal, distinctly prefers special training for teachers of Domestic Subjects following on a good general education—i.e., a University degree plus technical qualifications, rather than a teaching diploma in Domestic Subjects plus a little science. There is, then, likely to be an increasing number of openings for women who can afford the double training. Schools of housecraft to give all-round training to educated women, are springing up in all parts of the United Kingdom: in those which are attached to Polytechnics and similar institutions the fullest advantage is taken of the pure and technical science teaching available in their laboratories.

To those who look for a real advance in household science the weak point of the present situation is the want of proper correlation and standardisation of the work going on. The Board of Education does not examine; it accepts the diploma given by any one of a fairly large number of domestic science schools. In consequence, teachers from different quarters may be using quite different processes and methods in laundry work, cooking, or housekeeping. It is time some fundamental things were agreed upon, and although standardising must not be allowed to become stereotyping, at present constructive generalisation is needed, as well as the upsetting of out-grown traditions. In this context it would be well to discuss a question more properly to be taken at the end of this paper—the connection between the teaching in elementary schools and that in secondary schools. There is no reason to introduce differentiation in the training of the teachers: it is obvious, for instance, that the recent development of including economics in that training, is of extraordinary value to the elementary school teacher. But it is difficult to correlate the instruction given in the management of a middle-class household, with from eight to twenty rooms, and from one to a dozen servants, with that given in the management of a workman's cottage or of a flat without assistance. The connection which does need systematising and establishing is between the management of a middle-class house and the training of domestic servants, which ought naturally to form part of the trade or technical after-school work for elementary scholars. Here again, if training is to be followed by certificates, and the domestic servant is to be in the smallest degree an expert, some standardisation of training is necessary. We may, of course, find that domestic service becomes so much a matter of expert work that it is taken up on a large scale by middle-class girls, but that can hardly be prophesied yet, although the "lady servant" is an existing phenomenon. It is, of course, also possible that a modern curriculum of "Household and Social Science" may attract a certain number of men of the suitable type of mind. The attitude of the community is changing so rapidly that one may hope those fears to be groundless which speak of "relegating women back to the limited sphere of domesticity," and thereby losing so much that has been gained with regard to their education.

We must now return to give a few particulars which have been passed over. Any information on this subject is, however, liable to be very soon out of date. A secondary school that elects to teach cooking and laundry work will want a specially fitted room, which will cost about as much as a simple science laboratory, and will be arranged in as close connection with the science laboratory as is convenient. This means serious expense, and the headmistress is naturally anxious to have considerable use made of the room. Thus she will be led to introduce the subject into a large proportion of the classes, instead of limiting it to one or two middle-school forms, or to a selected part of the upper-school. She may, however, try to solve the economic problem by making it a post-school course for which special fees are charged. Certain schools, notably Clapham and Croydon High Schools and Cheltenham Ladies' College are able to make a very important feature of this type of course. To make it a success, the prestige of the school, its influence over girls and their parents, must be great and commanding. Otherwise, unless the girls are aiming definitely at some professional work after the course, there is a tendency to laxness in attendance, or to the relinquishment of the work in the middle, which tendency is engendered by the nature of the subject. The mother's excuse for getting her grown-up girl's company and help will naturally be, "Gladys can boil the potatoes at home instead of at school." A valid answer will be that Gladys is being taught to free her mind from the eternal English boiled potato by learning many other ways of treating it, and at the same time learning its proper place in a diet.

Failing the post-school course, the admittance of domestic subjects to a notable place in the general school curriculum leads to great stress being laid on the teaching of the elements of Physical Science. The eminently "feminine" subject, Botany, gives place to Physics and Chemistry in the middle-school, followed by Physiology and Hygiene in the upper-school. The subjects are to be illustrated whenever convenient, by reference to home life. A student choosing her science subjects at College should bear these in mind as likely to be at present of the best market value. Though it is very true that a practical woman who is a good teacher will nowadays connect any science subject with home life, still a parallel course of domestic arts will draw chiefly on the lessons given in these four.

Another fact worthy of notice is that a married woman who is anxious to continue her former profession of science teaching will not as a rule have to suffer the usual unfavourable handicap. That a married woman should teach the domestic subjects is quite a reasonable proposition to many who would exclude her from most professions: if she be also a mother it may even count as an asset instead of a disadvantage.

The Delegacy for Oxford Local Examinations has been the first, as far as we know, to set a paper in domestic science to senior candidates. There has been a demand for it in the London Matriculation, but objection has been raised on the score of its being a smattering and a soft option. The Oxford Delegacy has introduced two new headings—Domestic Science and Hygiene—and sets two papers under each, without any practical work. The first paper is the same under both headings—Elementary Physics and Chemistry, and the preparation for this is intended to be made at least one school year before the preparation for the second paper. It should be noted that the Hygiene paper is for boys and girls; it includes a little Physiology, Personal Hygiene, and Hygiene of Buildings. The Domestic Science paper is for girls only; it has several details in common with that in Hygiene, but its main features are the simple outlines of the chemistry of foods and of cleansing substances. In a few years the suitability of these subjects for both sexes may have impressed the community.

We may notice, lastly, the arrangements made for instruction in Domestic Subjects in elementary schools.[1] This is given in a specially equipped Centre attached to a public elementary school, the girls from that and other schools attending either for a half or whole day weekly during their last two years at school. In some cases for about fifteen weeks before they leave school, girls give half the week to Domestic Subjects. This experiment has been so successful, that it is likely to be extended in the future. A carefully graded syllabus is followed; due proportion of time is given to theory and demonstration as well as to practical work. Each girl is required to do a certain amount of work by herself, and much thought has been expended in order to make the lessons as useful as possible. The care of infants and young children is receiving increased attention, and it is hoped that much may be done to mitigate evils of wrong feeding and treatment. As far as possible, the teaching in the Centres is correlated with that in the schools. Where there are science laboratories the experiments are made on food-stuffs, changes wrought by application of heat in various ways, the chemistry of common objects, and so on.

The opportunity for definite science training in connection with Domestic Subjects teaching in elementary schools is still very small, and will probably remain so while the school-leaving age is fourteen. The problem before the teacher in some instances is to combat not only an entire ignorance of the home arts, but also, in poor districts, an active experience of household mismanagement and vicious habits. The teaching in these cases has to be intensely practical, and to aim chiefly at character-building; the manual work of the subject has been found of the greatest educational value in this respect. Though the training of all Domestic Subjects' teachers should reach the same standard of scientific knowledge, yet the actual work to be done in different types of schools is thus seen to be necessarily widely divergent in character.

In higher elementary or "central" schools, where the pupils normally remain until the end of the school year in which they reach the age of fifteen, Domestic Subjects' teaching may have a much wider scope than at the ordinary Centre, as the pupils are at a very intelligent age, and represent the best of the elementary scholars. A special syllabus is prepared according to the individual need of each school, by the Domestic Subjects' teacher and the headmistress; the instruction is a very definite part of the curriculum, and the teacher a member of the school staff.