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Title: Women Workers in Seven Professions

Editor: Edith J. Morley

Release date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #12171]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN WORKERS IN SEVEN PROFESSIONS ***

WOMEN WORKERS IN SEVEN PROFESSIONS

A SURVEY OF THEIR ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND PROSPECTS

EDITED FOR THE STUDIES COMMITTEE OF THE FABIAN WOMEN'S GROUP

BY

EDITH J. MORLEY

1914

PREFATORY NOTE

The task of collecting and editing the various essays of which this book is comprised, has not been altogether easy. Some literary defects and absence of unity are, by the nature of the scheme, inevitable: we hope these are counterbalanced by the collection of first-hand evidence from those in a position to speak authoritatively of the professions which they follow. Experientia docet, and those who desire to investigate the conditions of women's public work in various directions, as well as those who are hesitating in their choice of a career, may like carefully to weigh these opinions formed as a result of personal experience.

For other defects in selection, arrangement, proportion and the like, I am alone responsible. I have, from the first, been conscious that many people were better suited to the editorial task than myself—women with more knowledge of social and economic problems, and, perhaps, with more leisure. But at the moment no one seemed to be available, and I was persuaded to do what I could to carry out the wishes of the Studies Committee of the Fabian Women's Group. If I have in any measure succeeded, it is owing to the generous help and unvarying kindness I have received in all directions. In the first place, I would express my gratitude to the members of the Studies Committee, and more particularly to Mrs Charlotte Wilson, the fount and inspiration of the whole scheme, to Mrs Pember Reeves, and to Mrs Bernard Shaw. My indebtedness to all the contributors for their promptitude, patience, and courtesy, it is impossible to exaggerate. I hope it will not be thought invidious if I say that without Dr Murrell's sub-editorship of the Medical and Nursing Sections, and the unstinted and continual help of Dr O'Brien Harris, the book could not have appeared at all. The latter's paper on "Secondary School Teaching" has had the benefit of criticism and suggestions from one of the most notable Head-Mistresses of her day—Mrs Woodhouse, whose experience of work in the schools of the Girls' Public Day School Trust was kindly placed at the author's disposal. Similarly, some of the details mentioned in the section on "Acting," were kindly supplied by Mrs St John Ervine. Lastly—for it is impossible to mention all who have assisted—I wish to thank Miss Ellen Smith for her unsparing secretarial labours, and Miss M.G. Spencer and Miss Craig, of the Central Bureau for the Employment of Women, for the Table which appears at the end of Section I. This is unique as an exhaustive summary of a mass of information, hitherto not easily accessible to the general public.

EDITH J. MORLEY.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, READING, December 1913.

CONTENTS

PREFATORY NOTE. By the Editor

FOREWORDS. ON BEHALF OF THE STUDIES COMMITTEE OF THE FABIAN WOMEN'S GROUP

I. THE TEACHING PROFESSION

  I. INTRODUCTION. By EDITH J. MORLEY, Oxford Honour
  School of English Language and Literature. Professor
  of English Language, University College, Reading.
  Fellow and Lecturer of University of London
  King's College for Women

  II. WOMEN AT THE UNIVERSITIES AND UNIVERSITY
  TEACHING AS A PROFESSION. By EDITH J. MORLEY

  III. SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHING. By (Mrs) M. O'BRIEN
  HARRIS, D.Sc., London, Hon. Member of Somerville
  College, Oxford. Headmistress of the County
  Secondary School, South Hackney

  IV. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHING. By (Mrs) KATE
  DICE, C.T., Class Teacher in the service of the London
  County Council, Hon. Sec. of the Fabian Education
  Group

  V. TEACHING IN SCHOOLS FOR THE MENTALLY AND
  PHYSICALLY DEFECTIVE. By (Mrs) JESSIE E.
  THOMAS, C.T., Class Teacher at the London County
  Council School for Physically Defective Children,
  Turney Road, Dulwich

  VI. THE TEACHING OF GYMNASTICS. By MARY HANKINSON,
  Hon. Sec. of the Ling Association. Diploma of the
  Dartford Physical Training College

  VII. THE TEACHING OF DOMESTIC SUBJECTS. By (Mrs)
  MARGARET M'KILLOP, M.A. (Dublin). Oxford
  Honour Schools of Natural Science and of Mathematics
  Fellow and Tutor of University of London King's
  College for Women;
  and
  E. BEATRICE HOGG, first-class Diploma, National
  Training School of Cookery. Instructress, London
  County Council Probationary and Training Centres,
  Examiner in Domestic Subjects to the City and
  Guilds of London Institute, the Nautical School
  of Cookery, etc. Some time Hon. Sec. London
  Branch, Assistant Teachers of Domestic Subjects

  TABLE I. SHOWING THE COST AND DURATION OF
  EDUCATION IN ARTS AND SCIENCE, AND THE
  SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE FOR WOMEN STUDENTS
  AT THE VARIOUS BRITISH UNIVERSITIES. Reprinted
  (with additions), by special permission, from the
  pamphlet, "Openings for University Women," published
  by the Central Bureau for the Employment of
  Women for the Students' Careers Association

  TABLE II. SHOWING SOME ADDITIONAL POST-GRADUATE
  RESEARCH SCHOLARSHIPS IN ARTS AND SCIENCE
  AVAILABLE FOR WOMEN STUDENTS, AWARDED BY
  BODIES OTHER THAN UNIVERSITIES OF THE UNITED
  KINGDOM. Compiled (with additions) by special permission,
  from the "Report on the Opportunities for
  Post-Graduate Work open to Women" published by
  the Federation of University Women

II. THE MEDICAL PROFESSION INCLUDING DENTISTRY. Sub-Editor: CHRISTINE
M. MURRELL, M.D., B.S., London, Assistant Medical Officer of Health
(Special Schools) London County Council; Lecturer and Examiner on
Adolescence, Health, First Aid, Infant Care, etc., London County
Council and Battersea Polytechnic, Honorary Medical Officer,
Paddington Creche, and for Infant Consultations, North Marylebone;
late Medical Registrar and Electrician and late Resident House
Physician, Royal Free Hospital

I. MEDICINE AND SURGERY. By the Sub-Editor

  II. DENTAL SURGERY. By (Mrs) Eva M. HANDLEY
  READ, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., L.S.A., L.D.S. Dental
  Surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital, the Margaret
  M'Donald Baby Clinic, and the Cripple Hostel
  Camberwell

III. THE NURSING PROFESSION TOGETHER WITH MIDWIFERY AND MASSAGE.
Sub-Editor: CHRISTINE M. MURRELL

  PREFACE. By the Sub-Editor
  I. GENERAL SURVEY AND INTRODUCTION. By E.M.
  Musson. Matron of the General Hospital, Birmingham

  II. NURSING IN GENERAL HOSPITALS. By E.M.
  MUSSON

  III. NURSING IN PRIVATE HOMES AND Co—OPERATIONS.
  By GERTRUDE TOWNEND, Sister in her own Nursing
  Home; late Deputy-Sister, St. Bartholomew's
  Hospital; late Matron, Royal Ear Hospital, Dean
  Street

  IV. NURSING IN POOR LAW INFIRMARIES. By ELEANOR
  C. BARTON, President of the Poor Law Infirmary
  Matrons' Association

  V. NURSING IN FEVER HOSPITALS. By S.G. VILLIERS,
  Matron of the South-West Fever Hospital

  VI. DISTRICT NURSING. By AMY HUGHES, General Superintendent
  of the Queen Victoria Jubilee Institute for
  Nurses

  VII. NURSING IN SCHOOLS AND NURSES AS INSPECTORS.
  By H.L. PEARSE

  VIII. NURSING IN HOSPITALS FOR THE INSANE. By a
  Matron of one of them

  IX. NURSING IN THE COLONIES. By A. FRICKER, Matron
  of the Colonial Hospital, Trinidad, under the Colonial
  Nursing Association

X. NURSING IN THE ARMY AND NAVY. By the Sub-Editor

XI. PRISON NURSING. By the Sub-Editor

  XII. MIDWIFERY AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN (OTHER
  THAN DOCTORS). By ANNIE M'CALL, M.D., Senior
  Medical Officer and Lecturer, Clapham Maternity
  Hospital and School of Midwifery; late Lecturer in
  and Demonstrator of Operative Midwifery, London
  School of Medicine for Women; Examiner, Central
  Midwives' Board; Vice-Chairman of the Committee of
  the London County Council for the Supervision of
  Midwives in the County of London

  XIII. MASSAGE. By EDITH M. TEMPLETON, Secretary of the
  Incorporated Society of Trained Masseuses

IV. WOMEN AS SANITARY INSPECTORS AND HEALTH VISITORS. By (Mrs) F.J.
GREENWOOD, Sanitary Inspector, Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury, late
Chief Woman Inspector, Sheffield; Associate Royal Sanitary Institute;
Certificate, Central Midwives' Board; Diploma, National Health Society

V. WOMEN IN THE CIVIL SERVICE

  I. THE HIGHER GRADES: PRESENT POSITION AND
  PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE. By a Woman Civil
  Servant

  II. THE LOWER GRADES AND THE PRESENT POSITION.
  By Another Woman Civil Servant

VI. WOMEN CLERKS AND SECRETARIES. By (Mrs) ELSPETH KEITH ROBERTSON
SCOTT

VII. ACTING AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN. By LENA ASHWELL

APPENDIX I. SCHEME OF WORK OF THE FABIAN WOMEN'S GROUP

APPENDIX II. LATEST CENSUS RETURNS OF WOMEN WORKERS IN THE SEVEN PROFESSIONS CONSIDERED IN THIS BOOK

FOREWORDS

ON BEHALF OF THE STUDIES COMMITTEE OF THE FABIAN WOMEN'S GROUP

The present economic position of women bristles with anomalies. It is the outcome of long ages of semi-serfdom, when women toiled continuously to produce wealth, which, if they were married, they could enjoy only at the good pleasure of their lords,—ages when the work of most women was conditioned and subordinated by male dominance. Yet in those days the working housewife commanded the consideration always conceded to a bread-winner—even when dependent. In modern times women's economic position has been undermined by the helpless dependence engendered amongst the well-to-do by "parasitism" resulting from nineteenth-century luxury—to quote the striking word of Olive Schreiner. Similarly, dependence has been forced upon large sections of women-folk amongst the manual workers by the loss of their hold upon land and by the decay of home industries. Now a new force is at work: the revolt of the modern woman against parasitism and dependence in all their forms; her demand for freedom to work and to choose her sphere of work, as well as for the right to dispose of what she gains.

Six years ago some women of the Fabian Society, deeply stirred by the tremendous social import of this movement, banded themselves together to unravel the tangled skein of women's economic subjection and to discover how its knots were tied. The first step was to get women to speak out, to analyse their own difficulties and hindrances as matters boldly to be faced. Whatever the truth may turn out to be with regard to natural and inevitable differences of faculty between men and women, it is at least certain that difference of sex, like any other persistent condition of individual existence, implies some difference of outlook. The woman's own standpoint—that is the first essential in understanding her position, economic or other: the trouble is that she has but recently begun to realise that she inevitably has a standpoint, which is not that of her husband, or her brother, or of the men with whom she works, or even that which these persons imagine must naturally be hers. Her point of view is her own, and it is essential to social progress that she shall both recognise this fact and make it understood.

The aim of the Fabian Women's Group was to elicit women's own thoughts and feelings on their economic position, and to this end we invited women of experience and expert knowledge, from various quarters and of many types of thought, to discourse of what they best knew to audiences of women. After the lectures, the questions raised were discussed in all their bearings by women speaking amongst women without diffidence or prejudice. In this manner the physical disabilities of women as workers have been explained clearly by women doctors, and carefully and frankly weighed and considered; the part taken by women in producing the wealth of this country in past times has been set forth by students of economic history, and much scattered material of great value unearthed, and for the first time brought together concerning a subject hitherto deemed negligible by the male historian. Lastly, women employed in or closely connected with each leading occupation or group of occupations to-day—from the professions to the sweated industries—are being asked to describe and to discuss with us the economic conditions they have directly experienced or observed.[1]

It is hoped in time to complete and shape for publication all the material accumulated during these six years. We make a beginning with this book of essays on the economic position of women in seven of the leading professions at present open to them. Some of the papers appear almost in the form in which they were first read to the group and its women visitors: when the original lectures did not fully cover the ground, they have been revised, altered, expanded, or re-written, or essays by new writers have been substituted for those originally presented. Thus the papers on "Teaching in Secondary Schools" by Dr O'Brien Harris and that on "Teaching in Elementary Schools" by Mrs Dice, take the place of an address on "The Life of a Teacher," by Miss Drummond, President of the Incorporated Association of Assistant Mistresses. This paper was withdrawn at the writer's request, but many valuable points from her lecture, which she generously placed at the disposal of the Editor, have been embodied. The other papers in the Education Section are all new. Similarly, in the section which deals with the profession of Nursing, Miss Hughes' paper on "District-Nursing" is the only one which is based on a lecture given to the group; the other articles are all supplementary. Together, we believe they form a unique and almost exhaustive description of the profession.

That the volume might be made as useful as possible, the same method has been followed throughout. The paper and discussion at the group meeting have formed the nucleus from which a thorough treatment of the subject has been developed.

We hope and believe that this book may help to arouse deeper interest in the vigour and energy with which professional women are now striving to make good their economic position; that it may serve to enlist active sympathy with their struggle against the special difficulties and hindrances which beset them, and make plain the value to society of the work they can do. We also believe that the information here brought together may be useful in helping young women to choose and prepare for their life-work.

No pains have been spared to make the book as accurate as possible, and to bring it in every case up to date.

It should be clearly emphasised that each contributor to this volume has expressed her own opinions freely and independently, and that the writers have been selected because they are leading members of their respective professions, not because they represent a particular school of thought. We have endeavoured to get our material from the most authoritative quarters, irrespective of the personal views of those who have supplied it. All the writers have given generously of their time and labour in order that they might contribute to an investigation of profound social and national importance—the clear presentation of the economic position of women as it appears to women themselves. Widely different as are the professional interests and divergent the opinions of the writers of these essays, no one can, as we think, read consecutively the various sections of the book without arriving at the conclusion that, on certain fundamental questions, there is substantial agreement among them. Almost all, as a result of their professional experience, definitely express the conviction that women need economic independence and political emancipation: nowhere is there any hint of opposition to either of these ideals. The writers are unanimous in their insistence upon the importance—to men as well as to women—of equal pay for equal work, irrespective of sex. Wherever the subject of the employment of married women is mentioned—and it crops up in most of the papers—there is adverse comment on the economically unsound, unjust, and racially dangerous tendency in many salaried professions to enforce upon women resignation on marriage. It is clear that professional women are beginning to show resentment at the attempt to force celibacy upon them: they feel themselves insulted and wronged as human beings when, being physically and mentally fit, they are not permitted to judge for themselves in this matter. Apart from their righteous indignation, it may be suggested that, even from the ratepayers' point of view, the normal disabilities of motherhood, with the consequent leave of absence, would probably in the long run be less expensive than the dismissal, at the zenith of their powers, of experienced workers, who have to be replaced by younger and less efficient women. It is, moreover, a truism that the best work is produced by the most contented worker. A fundamentally happy woman, continually strengthened and refreshed by affectionate companionship, is obviously better able to endure the strain of professional work than her unmarried sister, who at best, is deprived of the normal joys of fully—developed womanhood. The action of Central and Local Authorities and of other employers who make marriage a disability for their women employèes, is alluded to by our contributors with an indignation, the more striking for the studied calm with which it is expressed.[2]

The future as foreshadowed in these papers seems to us bright with hope. In spite of difficulties, opposition, rebuffs, and prejudice, professional women workers are slowly but surely advancing in status and in recognition. They are gaining courage to train themselves to claim positions of responsibility and command, and to refuse, if occasion arises, to be subordinated, on the ground of their womanhood, to men less able than themselves. They are learning by experience,—many have already learned,—the need for co-operation and loyalty to one another. While they are thus gaining new and valuable qualities, they have never lost, in spite of many hardships, the peculiar joy and lofty idealism in work which are, in part, a reaction from ages of economic and personal dependence.

[Footnote 1: For an analysis of the whole scheme of work of the Fabian
Women's Group, see Appendix I.]

[Footnote 2: In Western Australia the following Amendment, 340A., to the Criminal Code has passed the third reading in the Legislative Assembly, and is expected to pass the Legislative Council before this book appears:—

(1) Any person, who, either as principal or agent—(a) Makes or enters into or enforces or seeks to enforce any rule, order, regulation, contract, agreement or arrangement in restraint of or with intent to restrain, prevent or hinder the marriage of any person (N.B. A woman is a "person" in Western Australia) who is in his employment or in the employment of his principal, and is of the age of twenty-one years or upwards; or

(b) Dismisses or threatens to dismiss any person from his employment or the employment of his principal, or alters or threatens to alter, any such person's position to the prejudice of such person by reason of the fact that such person has married or intends to marry, or with a view to restrain, prevent, or hinder such person from getting married;

is guilty of an offence, and is liable to imprisonment for three months, or to a fine not exceeding five hundred pounds.

(2) The provisions of this section shall apply to corporations so far as they are capable of being applied.]

WOMEN WORKERS IN SEVEN PROFESSIONS

SECTION I

THE TEACHING PROFESSION

  "All stood thus far
  Upon equal ground: that we were brothers all
  In honour, as in one community."

I

INTRODUCTION

Until recently, girls who desired to earn their livelihood drifted naturally into teaching, which was often the last refuge of the destitute. Even nowadays, it is taken too much for granted that some form of teaching is the obvious opening for educated women, who aspire to economic independence. But, thanks to various causes and developments, it is now almost universally recognised that teaching is a profession, and one which can be entered only by candidates, who are properly equipped and trained. In a book such as this, it may then be assumed that the elderly governess, driven to teach by poverty and lack of friends, with no qualifications but gentility, good manners, good principles, and a humble mind, is a figure which is mercifully becoming less and less common. It is still necessary, however, to insist on the fact that brains and education and training are not by themselves sufficient to produce a successful teacher. Quite literally, teaching is a "calling" as well as a profession: the true candidate must have a vocation; she must mount her rostrum or enter her class-room with a full conviction of the importance of her mission, and of her desire to undertake it. This earnest purpose should not, however, destroy her sense of humour and of proportion; it is possible to take oneself and one's daily routine of work too seriously, a fault which does not tend to impress their importance on a scoffing world. No girl should become a teacher because she does not know how else to gain her living. The profession is lamentably overstocked with mediocrities, lacking enthusiasm and vigour, drifting more and more hopelessly from one post to another. But there is plenty of room for keen and competent women, eager to learn and to teach, and this is true of all branches of the profession. No work can well be more thankless, more full of drudgery and of disappointment than that of a teacher who has missed her vocation. Few lives can be more full of happy work and wide interests than those of teachers who rejoice in their calling.

Yet there is need to call attention to certain drawbacks which are common to all branches of the profession. As a class, teachers are badly paid, and many are overworked. The physical and mental strain is inevitably severe: in many cases this is unnecessarily increased by red-tape regulations that involve loss of time and temper and an amount of clerical work, which serves no useful purpose. Teachers need to concentrate their energies on essentials: of these the life intellectual is the most important, and this, however elementary the standard of work demanded in class. No one can teach freshly unless she is at the same time learning, and widening her own mental horizon. Too many forms to fill up, too many complicated registers to keep, too many meetings to attend—these things stultify the mind and crush the spirit. They are not a necessary accompaniment of State or municipal control, though sometimes under present conditions it is hard to believe that they are not the inevitable concomitants of official regulations. Anything which tends to make teachers' lives more narrow, is opposed to the cause of education. This truth should be instilled into all official bosoms. Wherever the State or the local authority intervenes, wherever public money has been granted, there regular inspection obviously becomes inevitable, but the multiplication of inspectors, each representing a different authority, is not necessary or sensible. At present, in all grant-aided institutions, whatever their status, inspectors do not cease from troubling, and teachers as well as administrative officers, though weary, find no rest.[1] This is as detrimental to the pupil as to the teacher, for it lowers the intellectual standard by substituting form for matter and the letter for the spirit. Thus the inspector of an art-school who enquires only about what are officially termed "student-hours," and not at all about the work therein accomplished, does not make for artistic efficiency either in teacher or taught. Yet this instance is of very recent occurrence, and there are countless parallel cases. No wonder the Universities demand freedom from State control; no wonder Training Colleges and subsidised secondary as well as elementary schools groan under its tender mercies. The present forms taken by this control are mostly obnoxious to all practical educationists. They arise from lack of trust in the teaching profession on the part of administrators—a mistrust which it is of primary importance to allay by increased efficiency, independence, and organisation. Nationalisation of the schools is necessary, if a real highway of education is to be established: it must be obtained without irritating conditions which make freedom, experiment, and progress too often impossible. The task before the teaching profession is to retain full scope for initiative and experiment, whilst working loyally under a public body. This should be specially the work of the socialist teacher, while the socialist administrator and legislator must see that their side of the work leaves full room for individuality.

In the following section it is obviously impossible adequately to consider all branches of the teaching profession, and it has therefore been thought the wisest course to select the leading varieties of work in which women teachers are engaged and to treat them in some detail. The writers of the various articles express their own points of view, gained by practical first-hand experience of the work they describe. Allowance must, perhaps, in some cases be made for personal enthusiasm, or for the depression that arises from thwarted efforts and unfulfilled ideals. At any rate no attempt has been made to co-ordinate the papers or to give them any particular tendency. As a result, certain deductions may be made with some confidence. Women teachers of experience are convinced of the manifold attractions of their profession, and at the same time are alive to its disadvantages as well as to its possibilities. Alike in University, secondary school, and elementary school there is the joy of service, and the power to train,

"To riper growth the mind and will.

  "And what delights can equal those
  That stir the spirit's inner deeps,
  When one that loves, but knows not, reaps
  A truth from one that loves and knows?"

Of all teachers, perhaps she who elects to work in an elementary school is in this respect most fortunate and most rich in opportunities, since, to many of her children, she is the one bright spot in their lives, the one person who endeavours to understand and to stimulate them to the effort which all normal children enjoy. For her, too, particularly if her work lies in a poor district, there is the opportunity, if she care to take it, for all kinds of social interests. There will, of course, be much to sadden her in such experiences, but at least they will add a sense of reality to her teaching which will keep her in close touch with life. She will find that there are compensations for hard work and red-tape regulations, even for low remuneration and slowness of promotion. Nor must it be forgotten that, inadequate as is her salary, it contrasts not unfavourably with that of other occupations for women, e.g. clerkships and the Civil Service, in which the work is in itself less attractive. As compared with the assistant mistress in a secondary school, her lot is not altogether unenviable. If she has shorter holidays, larger classes, and at the worst, but by no means inevitably, a lower stipend, these facts must be counterbalanced by remembering that she has comparatively few corrections, much less homework, and no pressure of external examining bodies, that her tenure is far less insecure, and that her training and education have been to a very large extent borne by the State or by local authorities.

The following table gives the approximate cost of College education for elementary teachers-in-training. If it be compared with the expenses that have to be met by other students from private sources (vide p. 7, or, in greater detail, pp. 82 et seq.), it will be seen that the elementary teacher begins her career with a substantial subsidy from the State.

Elementary Teachers.

The following is a typical table of annual cost at a University College which provides for two-year and for three-year students. The training is obtainable at slightly lower cost to students in some other colleges.

                   Grants by Board of Fees payable by students
                  Education to College. to College.

Tuition. Maintenance. Tuition. Maintenance.

  Women students £13 £20 £12 From £12 to
   in residence £22 according
                                                      to accommodation.
  (It is to be noted that the Government maintenance grant
  for men students in residence is £40, which can be
  made practically to cover expenses.)

  Women students £13 £20 £12 …
  living at home (paid to student)

Men students receive _£25 _maintenance grant.

Apparently the Government policy, as evidenced by its maintenance grants, is to discourage women students from entering residential colleges. Yet it is a well-known fact that the wear and tear involved in living at home is far greater than at college—especially for women—and the educational advantages correspondingly fewer than those resulting from residence.

County Councils frequently provide "free places" at local colleges, together, in some cases, with supplementary bursaries for maintenance. Non-resident students—e.g., in London—seldom have any out-of-pocket expenses for their actual education. Nor must it be forgotten that education up to college age is free to junior county scholars and to bursars, who also receive small grants towards maintenance.

College Fees for other than Elementary Teachers-in-Training[2]

  Oxford and Cambridge Colleges From £90 to £105 a year for a
                                  minimum of 3 years (of 24 weeks).

  Other Residential Universities
  and Colleges From £52 to £90 or £110 a
                                  year for a minimum of 3
                                  years (of 30 to 35 weeks).

Non-residential Colleges From £20 to £55 a year for a minimum of 3 years. (The cost of maintenance must be reckoned at about £40 a year, as a minimum.)

Students who desire to do advanced work will need at least one, and probably two, additional years at the University, while all women who intend to teach in schools ought also to spend one year in training.

A large number of County Councils provide "senior" scholarships to cover or partially to cover college fees. In some counties only one or two such scholarships are given annually, and there is severe competition: in others they are comparatively easy to obtain, though there are never enough for all candidates who desire a University education. Most of these scholarships are not renewable for a fourth year of training—an extremely short-sighted policy on the part of the authorities.

At practically every University, entrance or other scholarships and exhibitions are awarded annually. Competition for these is usually very severe, and they are extremely difficult to gain. At Oxford and Cambridge only quite exceptional candidates can hope to secure scholarships at the women's colleges. Moreover, scholarships seldom cover the complete cost of maintenance and tuition; at Oxford and Cambridge they never do so.

Most secondary teachers, then, must incur liabilities varying from £60 to £350, apart from school, holiday, and personal expenses, before they obtain their first degree. On the other hand, a graduate with good testimonials can very often obtain her professional training at comparatively small cost by means of a bursary: with luck, she may get maintenance as well as free tuition. Every year, however, as training is more widely recognised as essential, the proportion of scholarships available becomes smaller. With the advent of the new Teachers' Register, which makes training indispensable after 1918, girls will more and more often be obliged to find means to pay for their own training. At present it is often possible to borrow for this purpose from loan societies specially formed to meet the needs of women preparing to enter professions.

The training for kindergarten and lower-form mistresses is less expensive, arduous, and lengthy. Students are required to give evidence of having received a good secondary education; they can then take their First Froebel Certificate after one year, and their Higher Froebel Certificate after about two years' training. The cost of such training varies from £30 to £58 non-resident; £120 to £150 resident. If they elect to go to the House of Education at Ambleside, the training is for two years, and is specially suited to those who wish to teach in private families. The cost amounts to £90 a year, including residence, which is obligatory.

Kindergarten assistant-mistresses usually obtain from £90 to £100 salary for part-day work, while for whole-day work the rate is the same as that of their colleagues. Mistresses in charge of a large kindergarten department often receive additions to their stipend if they are willing to train student-mistresses for Froebel examinations.

The Ambleside students usually teach small private classes, or accept posts as resident governesses in families. Their remuneration varies in accordance with the work done, but it is usually about the same as that received by kindergarten and lower-form mistresses.

The stipends of other secondary teachers are considered in the article by Dr O'Brien Harris (see p. 32). It should be noted that in good private schools where the standard of teaching is equally high, the salaries are approximately on the same scale as in public schools. But private schools vary enormously in standing. When they are inferior, the teachers are paid miserable pittances, and are often worth no more than they receive. Such schools, however, are rapidly decreasing in number, since they cannot survive competition with public State-aided schools. The best private schools, on the other hand, supply a real need, and, as a large proportion of their pupils do not enter for public examinations, it is possible in them, to make valuable experiments which could not easily be tried in larger subsidised institutions.

In boarding-schools, the conditions do not markedly differ from those obtaining in day-schools. The chief danger is lest the teachers should suffer from the strain of supervision-duties in addition to their work in school. But in the better schools this is avoided by the appointment of house-mistresses, the teaching staff living apart from the girls, either in lodgings or in a hostel of their own. When they "live in," the value of their board for the school terms is usually reckoned at about £40 a year, which is deducted from the ordinary salary of an assistant. The cost of living in a mistresses' house is usually higher, but there are many counterbalancing advantages, the chief of which is complete freedom when school duties are over.

It would not be surprising if all women who have incurred the heavy expenses of preparation for a teaching career, were dissatisfied with the very small return they may expect by way of salary. Certainly if we judged by the standard of payment, the profession might well appear unimportant. Men and women alike receive inadequate remuneration in all its branches, but, as in other callings, women are worse paid than men. One might imagine that the training of girls was less arduous or less important than that of boys, since no one suggests that women teachers are less conscientious or less competent than their male colleagues. Now that at every stage co-education of the sexes is becoming less unusual, it is wise policy in the interests of men as well as of women, to make the standard of remuneration depend, not on the sex of the worker, but on the quality of the work. Otherwise men will gradually be driven from the profession, as is already the tendency in the United States of America and, to some extent, in elementary teaching in this country. Needless to say, the women's salaries need levelling up: it would be hopeless policy to reduce the men's maxima to those of the women. In many secondary schools and in at any rate some elementary ones, there is too great a discrepancy between the salary of the head and that of the assistants. Here again, teachers might endeavour to arrive at some united expression of opinion. All would probably agree that the profession should be entered for the sake of the work itself, and not on the remote chance of becoming a head-mistress. But while the difference in salary is very great, it is inevitable that ambitious teachers must aspire to headships, even though they be better suited to class work.

Finally, it may be repeated, that with all its drawbacks, the teaching profession has much to recommend it to those who desire to make it their life-work. It is not suited to all comers: it makes heavy demands on mind and body and heart; it gives little material return. But it gives other returns in generous measure. For teachers it is less difficult than for most people to preserve their faith in human nature, less impossible, even in the midst of daily routine, to believe in the dignity of labour, and to illuminate it with the light of enthusiasm and aspiration.

  "… whether we be young or old
  Our destiny, our being's heart and home,
  Is with infinitude, and only there;
  With hope it is, hope that can never die,
  Effort, and expectation and desire,
  And something evermore about to be."

[Footnote 1: The ideal inspector is, of course, a help and not a hindrance to the teacher, acting as a propagator of new ideas and bringing into touch with one another, workers who are widely separated. But the reach of most inspectors far exceeds their grasp.]

[Footnote 2: See table at end of section, p. 82.]

II

WOMEN AT THE UNIVERSITIES AND UNIVERSITY TEACHING AS A PROFESSION

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.

(2) Professorial posts and Staff Lectureships.[4] These are almost entirely confined to Women's Colleges, though there are a very few exceptions to this rule. The University of London has established University Professorships and Readerships at the various constituent Women's Colleges.[5] One of the former and several of the latter are held by women who have been appointed after open competition. In addition, a woman, Mrs Knowles, holds a University Readership at the co-educational London School of Economics. There are also one or two women professors at the newer Universities, but these as a rule retain their positions by right of past service in a struggling institution, not as a result of open competition, when University status had been attained and reasonable stipends were offered to new-comers. The National University of Ireland has, however, appointed several women professors at its various constituent Colleges.

Salaries probably range from £300 to £700, the better paid posts as yet very seldom falling to women.

(3) Lectureships, assistant lectureships, and demonstratorships. These are usually open to women in practice as well as in theory, though much depends on the personal idiosyncrasy of the head of the department, and on the importance of the post and the salary offered. But since it is, unhappily, often easy to secure an able woman for the same stipend as that which must be offered to an inexperienced man, fresh from college, difficulties are not, as a rule, placed in the way of such appointments. The salary begins at about £150 (sometimes less), and rises normally to about £200 or £250. A few senior and independent lectureships are better remunerated.

(4) Closely allied with University work is the work of training teachers. In Training-Colleges, and in University training-departments there is a constant demand for lecturers and mistresses of method. These posts, which are remunerated on about the same scale as other University lectureships, are well suited to those whose interest lies mainly in purely educational matters. Girls who have obtained good degrees, but who do not wish to devote themselves entirely to scholarship, will find here an attractive and ever-extending sphere of influence. Lecturers in Training-Colleges must, of course, themselves hold a University teaching-diploma: they should have school experience of various kinds, and they must be enthusiastic in the cause of training and of teaching. For competent and broad-minded women there are many openings in this branch of the profession, and there is much scope for independent and original work in many directions. The training of teachers, as well as actual teaching, is of the nature of scientific, experimental, and observational work. Lecturers in Training-Colleges most of all, but to a large extent teachers of every degree, must be students of psychology and of human nature. Mistresses of Method are well aware that the ideal type of training has not yet been evolved: they are seeking new ways of carrying on their work and experimenting with new methods at the same time as they are guiding others along paths already familiar to themselves. This absence of finality, characteristic of the teaching profession as a whole, and constituting one of its chief attractions, is especially noticeable in all work connected with the training of teachers.

Senior appointments at all properly constituted Universities are of life tenure—nominally until the age of sixty-five, though probably earlier retirement will be made possible. They are made by the Council, which usually entrusts the election either to the Senate or to a committee, on which are representatives of both the Council and the Senate. Unfortunately this procedure is not universal, and the teachers are not invariably consulted in their official capacity. Junior appointments, while subject to ratification by the Council, are usually made in the first instance by the head of the department concerned, usually, but not invariably, after consultation with the Dean of the Faculty or the Vice-Chancellor. They are sometimes of three years' tenure with or without possible extension, sometimes subject merely to terminal notice on either side.

In the last four or five years contributory pension schemes for the professorial body and for permanent assistants in receipt of a specified income (usually £250 or £200 and upwards) have been compulsorily established at all British Universities in receipt of a Government grant. In June 1913, the Advisory Committee on the Distribution of Exchequer Grants to Universities and University Colleges laid on the table of the House of Commons a scheme which came into force on 29th September, and is compulsory on every member of the staff entering a University after that date at a salary of £300 or upwards. Members appointed at salaries of between £200 and £300 have the option of joining the scheme, while those appointed at salaries of between £160 and £200 may join with the consent of the institution. Members of existing schemes are entitled to join under similar conditions. Special facilities are given for the transference of policies from one University to another, since the view is taken that the teachers in all the Universities constitute a profession comparable with the Civil Service, and that transference from one University to another should not be accompanied by a financial penalty any more than is transference from one Government office to another.

A competent girl who can bide her time can usually get a footing in some University. Her future advancement will depend on her value to the institution, on her original writing and research even more than on her teaching, work on committees and influence with the students. Largely, too, it will depend on her tact and popularity with her colleagues: to a very considerable extent it still rests also on conditions over which she has no control, and which are part and parcel of the slow recognition of a woman's right to compete on equal terms with men.

It seems, as far as can be judged, that future opportunities are likely to occur when the right candidates for posts are there in sufficient numbers to make their exclusion on the ground of sex, already seldom explicitly stated, impossible or inexpedient. Meanwhile it is probable that individual women will continue, in some cases, to suffer injustice, while in others, by virtue of their unquestionable attainments and strength of personality, they may attain the positions they desire. Slow progress is not altogether bad for the ultimate cause of women at the Universities: nothing could injure that cause so much as mistakes at the initial stage. An important appointment given to the wrong woman, or to one in any respect inferior to her colleagues, would be used as an argument against further experiment for many years.

University women teachers can best help to secure equality of opportunity by rendering themselves indispensable members of the body corporate. In their case much is required of those to whom little is given. Above all they must avoid the temptation to live entirely in the absorbing interests of the present: they must remember that it is the business of a University to make contributions to learning as well as to teach. Secondly, they must insist on equality of payment and status when there is any disposition, overt or acknowledged, to differentiate on the score of sex. It is not right to yield on these points, for an important principle is at stake. On the other hand the time and place for insistence must be wisely selected, and any claim made must be incontrovertible on the score of justice and practicability. Lastly, women on committees and elsewhere are not justified in keeping unduly in the background. When they have something worth contributing to the discussion, it is not modesty but lack of business capacity, which makes them silent. "Mauvaise honte" is as much out of place as undue pertinacity. Women who are unwilling or unable to assert themselves when necessary, are not in place at a co-educational University. Most women, however, will derive intellectual stimulus from the free interchange of opinion, possible only when both sexes are working happily together, with common interests and common aims.

If relatively too much space in this article has been given to women's work at mixed Universities, the excuse lies ready to hand. In Women's Colleges there is, of course, no sex bar, and the way lies clear from the bottom to the top of the ladder. Conditions of appointment, tenure, and work do not greatly differ from those described, except in so far as the stipends tend to be lower, especially for more responsible posts, when these are ordinarily occupied by women. It is a sign of the times that in at least one Women's College in a mixed University, it has been recently necessary to rule that posts are open to men as well as to women, unless it is specially stated to the contrary. Thus, when the power is theirs, women also may be unwisely tempted to erect a new form of sex barrier. To do so would be to play into the hands of those enemies who are always raising the voice against equal pay for equal work. The most suitable candidate for a post is the one who should be selected, irrespective of sex. It is this principle that women are endeavouring to establish. They must do so by scrupulous fairness when the power is theirs: by making themselves indisputably most fitted, when they are knocking at the closed door.

One further topic needs discussion in this section—the continued employment of married women in University posts. At present there is no universal rule, and every case has to be judged on its merits. Every lecturer who marries, can and ought to help to form the precedent that continuance of professional work is a matter for her own decision and is not one that concerns governing bodies. Already a good many women, mothers as well as wives, have set the good example and have established their own position, sometimes without question, sometimes as the result of a difficult struggle. It is clear that Universities, with their long vacations, and with their established recognition of long absences for specified purposes, have less ground than most employers to raise difficulties for married women. Thus the holder of an A.K. scholarship may travel for a year, in order, by the wise provision of the founder, to enlarge his or her mind and bring back new experience to University organisation, research, and teaching. The woman who fulfils the claims of sex, and to do so journeys into the realm where life and death struggle for victory, cannot thereby be unfitted for the profession for which she has qualified. Enlargement of mind and new experience will help her too, in the daily routine. It is for her alone to decide whether new claims and old can be reconciled. If in practice in an individual case they cannot, then and only then has the University or College a right to interfere, and on no other ground than that the work suffers. Since women workers are as a rule only too conscientious, this contingency is unlikely often to arise.

[Footnote 1: Her local authority may, however, have claims upon her, if she has promised to teach in an elementary school.]

[Footnote 2: Trained teachers only, men and women, will be admitted to the new Register.]

[Footnote 3: See tables at the end of this section, pp. 82 to 136.]

[Footnote 4: On the Continent even in Germany, and in the U.S.A. several women have been elected to University chairs.]

[Footnote 5: Dr Benson, Staff Lecturer at Royal Holloway College, was raised to the status of University Professor of Botany in 1912 without open competition; Dr Spurgeon was appointed to the new University Chair of English Literature, tenable at Bedford College as from 1st September 1913, after open competition. These professorships are the only two held by women at the University of London but there are several women Readers.]

III

SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHING

The girls' secondary day schools of this country, largely built up in the first place by the individual pioneer work of broad-minded women during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, are now in most cases coming, if not under State control, at least into the sphere of State influence. These women educationists in some cases worked on old foundations, in others obtained from guilds or governors a share for girls' education of funds previously allocated to various benefactions or to the education of boys only. Private enterprise, individual or, as in the case of the Girls' Public Day School Company, collective, added schools in most important towns.

Thus by the beginning of the twentieth century there was provision for a large number of girls of the middle class up to eighteen years of age, in schools which as High Schools were analogous to the Grammar Schools for boys dating to a corresponding burst of educational activity rather more than three centuries earlier. Dependent on the fees of their pupils or on special funds or endowments, these schools could not, for the classes unable to pay a fee, adequately supplement the elementary schools of the country, which provide for such children education at most up to fourteen or fifteen years of age. The Education Act of 1902, therefore, placed education beyond this age in the hands of local authorities, the Board of Education supplementing the rates by grants for secondary education—so that publicly owned schools have been started by municipalities and County Councils, while other institutions receive grants on certain conditions.

Schools of all the types mentioned and a few others, providing education at least from ten to sixteen (or eighteen) years of age, are known as secondary schools, and it is to work in them that this article refers.[1] Various as may be their origins, and different their aims, the teachers in them form a fairly homogeneous group, with definite points in common, resulting from the requirements of the Board of Education for the earning of the grant now paid to most of these schools, or for the register in force for a short time—as well as from the co-ordinating influence of membership of the Headmistresses' or the Assistant Mistresses' Associations and other professional and educational bodies, and of educational literature from the publications of the Board of Education downwards.

It would be well if for this, as for other parts of educational work, people of middle age, or in fact all whose school days lie in the past, would dismiss their ideas gained from schools of even the end of the nineteenth century, and realise that the daily life of a school to-day is, in most cases, very different from that which they have in their minds. The time-table and the class-room work may not appear dissimilar to the casual observer, but a difference there is, nevertheless. The chief alteration, however, is that a girl's education is increasingly carried on by many agencies other than these. In the school society rather than in the class-room lesson, at net-ball and hockey rather than in the drill lesson, on the school stage or in the school choir she learns, rather than is taught, her most valuable lessons. Examinations still exist, it is true; but these come later in a girl's school life, and are more frequently based on the school curriculum and held in the school than used to be the case.

What does all this new life mean in the work of the teacher and her preparation for it?

Miss Drummond, President of the Incorporated Association of Assistant
Mistresses, spoke thus on the subject[2]:—

"In a lesson in a good school there is most often a happy give and take between the teacher and the class. The teacher guides, but every girl is called on to take her part and put forward individual effort. The homework is no longer mere memorizing from some dry little manual, but requires thought and gives scope for originality. The whole results in a rigorous mental discipline, real stimulus to power of original thought, eager enthusiasm in learning…. It means an enormously increased demand upon the teacher." Again, "it must not be thought, however, that the work of the school is limited to lesson hours. We aim not only at giving a definite intellectual equipment but at producing independence and self-reliance together with that public spirit which enables a girl quite simply and without self-consciousness to take her part in the life of a community."

Besides games, which may be organised by a special mistress (see p. 59) or by ordinary members of the school staff,

"there are nearly always several societies, run again by the girls as far as possible, but almost always with the inspiration and sympathy of some mistress at the back of them. Thus there are social guilds of various kinds. These vary from mere working parties for philanthropic purposes to large organisations which embrace a number of activities…. Of something the same kind are the archaeological and scientific, the literary and debating societies…. These societies are among the most interesting and important parts of the work of a teacher, as they are also among the most exacting. Games and societies together tend to lengthen the hours of a school day, but even on leaving school, her work is not finished. There are always corrections to be done…. Still this is not all if lessons are to be kept as alive and stimulating as they should be. First and foremost, it is absolutely essential that the teacher should not be jaded. She must get relaxation, she must mix with other people and exchange ideas, she must go about and keep in touch with all kinds of activities. But at the same time she has to read in her own subject, she has to keep up with modern methods of teaching, she has to think out her various lessons."[3]

Just as the headmaster of a public school often seeks for a cricketer rather than a classical scholar for his staff, so the headmistress thinks not only of academic attainments but seeks for an assistant who can keep going a school society or a magazine (while leaving it in the hands of the girls), who enjoys acting and stage management, who can take responsibility for a dozen girls on a week's school journey (the nearest approach to camping out—and experience of this would perhaps be a recommendation!). She wants some one not merely to teach or manage or discipline girls, but a woman who can share the life of the girls, or at least understand it well enough to let them live it.

Not that the intellectual side is unimportant. A University degree is normally required in an assistant and this involves a three or four years' course of considerable expense (see p. 7). An honours degree is often essential—always, nowadays, in the case of a headmistress. Whilst well-trained foreigners hold an important place in some schools, modern languages are more frequently taught by an Englishwoman who has lived abroad rather than by a foreign governess; even English, happily, is no longer entrusted to any one not specially qualified. As will be seen from the article on domestic work, the graduate in chemistry has in this a promising field, while the botanist or zoologist and the geologist have the basis on which to specialise in nature-study or geography. This, however, usually comes after the preliminary general academic training. It is well to keep up a many-sided interest apart from bread-and-butter subjects, not only in view of demands that may be made on one, but because the intellectual woman will best qualify by developing her own powers as far as possible. If of the right calibre, she can afterwards readily take up even a new subject and make it her own. A good secondary school needs that some of its mistresses should have the habits and tastes of the scholar who loves work for its own sake, or rather for the sake of truth. A woman with strong well-trained intellectual power need not fear the competition of even the capable woman of action indicated in the preceding paragraph. Both qualifications may, in fact, exist in the same person.

The woman with brains is indeed needed in the schools. The work of women's education was but begun by the illustrious pioneers to whom reference has already been made. There are to-day many new problems to solve, new difficulties caused by the very success of the older generation. On the one hand it was necessary that women should at first, by following the same lines as men, prove their powers on common ground; now they must find whether there are special fields for them, and how, if these exist, they may best be occupied. They need no longer be afraid to emphasise what was good in the old-fashioned education of girls. Might not, for example, elocution and caligraphy with advantage re-appear as good reading aloud and beautiful penmanship? just as physical training carries on the lessons of deportment and the Domestic Science course revives the lessons of the still-room, the kitchen, and the store. On the other hand, under the existing pressure to relieve the burden of childhood, women must see to it that the mothers of the coming generation are not sacrificed to the earliest stages of the lives of their children that are to be. The motherhood of women and their home-making powers are indeed to be developed, but not at the expense of their own lives and their citizenship. Women educators, then, must take what is good in boys' education, what has been good in girls', and must utilise both. This work is great, and it is specially difficult because legislation and administration are almost entirely in the hands of men. Now men are apt to take for granted either that girls should be treated just like boys, or that they are entirely different and are to be brought up on different lines; and women who see the truth there is in both of these propositions are hindered alike by the men who hold the one and those who hold the other.

The pioneer girls' schools of the nineteenth century did much experimental work and established the right of individual initiative and a distinct line of work for each school. Perhaps special gratitude is due in respect of this to the governing body of the Girls' Public Day School Trust, since its schools were numerous enough soon to create a tradition requiring for their Headmistresses great initiatory power and considerable freedom.

"This freedom," writes a recently retired Headmistress of thirty-six years' standing (Mrs Woodhouse, late of Clapham High School), "was of the greatest value as leading to differentiation of type and character of school. It ensured a spirit of joy in work for the whole staff; for the Headmistress and her band of like-minded colleagues were co-workers in experiments towards development and sharers in the realisation of ideals. The vitality thus secured has been appreciated at its true value by His Majesty's Inspectors when in recent years they have come into touch with these schools, and as far as my experience goes, they have left such initiative untouched."

The danger resulting from the progress made in education during the twentieth century is that secondary schools, coming as nearly all now do under the cognizance if not the control of the Board of Education, may become too much office-managed and State-regulated, thus losing life in routine. The task of resisting this, of working loyally with local and central government departments, and yet of keeping the school a living organism and not merely a moving machine is one requiring by no means ordinary ability. Is there not here a call to women of the highest power and academic standing?

It is true that the direct facing of these wider problems does not fall to the lot of the assistant mistress in her earlier years. But the ambitious aspirant to a profession looks to the possibility of a judgeship or bishopric in choosing his life-work. The capable woman then will look at all the possibilities in the teaching profession. Long before she is Headmistress she will have made her mark in her school—for not only the numerous activities mentioned but also the organisation of ordinary school work require initiative and self-reliance. The head of a large school is only too glad to hand over to a competent assistant the organisation of her own department and its co-ordination with other school activities.

Just because there are now openings in other branches of work for women of the highest power, those of this type should give teaching some consideration. Since it has ceased to be the only avenue for trained and educated women, it is no longer so crowded with them, and as in other callings, there is plenty of room at the top.

In addition to a degree, the qualification of training is a strong recommendation.[4] It involves, as a rule, a year after graduation, in special colleges such as exist in Oxford, Cambridge, or London, or in the Secondary Training Department of one or other of the local Universities. The expense varies, usually meaning a fee of about £10 to £30 in addition to cost of living; so that a fairly expensive year intervenes between graduation and the commencement of a salary. Alternatives to a training-college course have been recently suggested by the Board of Education, and may shortly be available. During the training period the intending teacher must, if this is not already determined, decide on the special branch for which she wishes to prepare, according to her qualifications and the needs of schools. If actual teaching experience can first be obtained for two or three years, it enables earning to begin at once and greatly increases the value of the training taken subsequently.

The secondary teacher thus spends from three to five years in academic and professional training; and in accordance with current economic ideas should receive a salary proportionate to the outlay involved. The scheme of salaries approved by the Assistant Mistresses' Association in January 1912 suggests £120 as the initial minimum salary (non-residential) for a mistress with degree and training, rising in ten years to £220 in ordinary cases, to £250 where "positions of special responsibility" are occupied. £100 to £180 is suggested for non-graduates. "These salaries are higher than those provided by the Girls' Public Day School Trust, and other governing bodies outside the London County Council. In most cases £120 to £130 a year may be taken as a fair average for an assistant mistress."[5] Headmistresses' salaries vary from £200 to, at least in one exceptional case, £1,500. They often depend in part on capitation fees. The Headmistresses' Association considers that the minimum should be £300.

In secondary schools as in other grades of educational work the salaries of women are lower than those of men, as may be illustrated by the London County Council scale of salaries.

  Men: Assistants . . £150-£300 (or £350)
       Heads . . £400-£600 (or £800)

  Women: Assistants . . £120-£220 (or £250)
         Heads . . £300-£450 (or £600)

The difference between the salaries of heads and assistants is in many cases greater than is desirable. Things being as they are, it is well that there should be some prizes to attract ability into the profession. On the other hand, a woman, whose best work is that of an assistant, should not be tempted to give it up for the salary of a headmistress. The assistant has the opportunity for closer and more personal touch with her girls, being intimately responsible for a smaller number; she has also better opportunities for working out the teaching of her subject and improving its technique. Education would gain if more of the ablest teachers, specially successful in one or other of these directions, were left in a position to continue this work, instead of feeling obliged to substitute for it the perhaps uncongenial task of organisation on a large scale, and that contact with visitors, organisers, inspectors, committees, and the public, which occupies the time of the heads of schools. The truth of this is, I am told, better appreciated in Germany than in this country.

Since local authorities took over the work, secondary teachers have gained considerably both as regards salaries and tenure. They are now, as a rule, better paid than elementary teachers, which was not always the case before 1902.

The tenure of the teacher varies in different schools. It is now less common than formerly for the appointment and dismissal of the staff to be entirely in the hands of the Headmistress; and assistants are thus safe-guarded against possible unfair and arbitrary action. The Headmistress,[6] however, has almost invariably a preponderating voice in the selection of her staff—as is right if the school is to be a living organism, not merely one of a series of machines with interchangeable parts; but the power of dismissal, if in her hands, is usually safe-guarded by the right of appeal to the appointing body—local authority or board of governors as the case may be. This right of appeal should be universal, and formal agreements should in all cases be made. (A model form of agreement has been drawn up by the Association of Assistant Mistresses.)

Pensions are not generally provided for secondary teachers; but a national pension scheme for them is under consideration, and there is hope that it will not be long delayed.

The poorer members of the teaching profession come under the National Health Insurance Act and are provided for by the University, Secondary and Technical Teachers' Insurance Society which already numbers eleven thousand members. This society also offers, in its Dividend Section, to those not compulsorily insured the opportunity for voluntary insurance against sickness. Association among secondary teachers has been considerably furthered by the desire to qualify for membership in the Insurance Society.

The distinctive associations for secondary mistresses are the Headmistresses' Association and the Association of Assistant Mistresses in Public Secondary Schools. These are concerned with general educational as well as professional problems, and their opinion is sought at times by the Board of Education with regard to proposed regulations. Each of them is represented on the recently established Registration Council, which has just reported (November 1913).

Membership of the Teachers' Guild of Great Britain and Ireland, of the College of Preceptors, and of the National Union of Teachers is also open to secondary teachers. In the last-named they may join hands with the great body of elementary teachers; in the first two organisations with private teachers also. There are also associations for teachers of certain subjects, the Ling Association and the Association of Teachers of Domestic Subjects. Membership of such bodies as the Historical, Geographical and various Scientific Associations is valuable because not confined to teachers.

Though the President of the Association of Assistant Mistresses has said that "there would be a strong feeling against definite organisation for the purpose of forcing up rates of remuneration,"[7] yet that body has investigated the scales of pay offered by local authorities, and writes in protest when posts are advertised at low rates.

Under present conditions the principle of general equality of income, not yet being considered as a serious proposition, it is surely economically right for the teaching profession to claim remuneration sufficient to give it a status corresponding to the worth and dignity of its work. Above all, women not entirely dependent on their earnings, and therefore in a position to resist under-payment, should not act as blacklegs and keep down the rate for others dependent for a livelihood on their occupation.

Under-payment for teachers means a narrower, more anxious life than should be theirs who are to live in the strongly electric atmosphere of a body of girls and young women and yet keep a calm serenity of spirit—a life less full than is essential for those who have to give at all times freely of their best.

Similarly, in order that the fullest possible life may be open to the woman teacher, it seems desirable that continuance in the profession after marriage should be more usual than it is. Again, from the point of view of the pupils this is desirable. Mrs Humphrey Ward is not the only opponent of women's suffrage to state that the atmosphere of girls' schools suffers from the preponderating spinster element. Suffragists may for once join hands with her and urge that the married woman is in some ways better suited for young people than her unmarried colleague.[8] Often the most valuable years of a woman's life are lost to the school by her enforced retirement at marriage. She gives to it her younger, less experienced years, when she knows less of the world, less of the problems of the household, less of the outlook of the parents. It must be remembered that the parents' point of view is important if there is to be right co-operation between home and school. To the teacher-mother there will come an altogether new power of understanding, which should ultimately compensate the school for broken time during the earlier years of the life of her children. Provision for absence in these cases might well render more possible provision for a "rest-term" or a Wanderjahr, such as should be possible to all mistresses at intervals in their teaching career. Mistresses are not as a rule aware that under most existing agreements they may claim to continue their work after marriage. They would in a large number of cases be rendering a service to girls' education by doing so. Many secondary teachers will welcome the idea that they need not abandon either the career they have chosen or the prospect of their fullest development as women. The teaching profession would thus retain many valuable members now lost to it on marriage, and the ranks of married women be recruited by many well suited to be the mothers of citizens.

The career of teaching adolescent girls gives to those following it, in the daily routine, many experiences which others seek for in leisure hours. The woman among girls has the privilege of handing on to them the keys to the intellectual treasuries where she has enriched herself, of setting their feet in the paths which have led her to fruitful fields. She may watch over the birth and growth of the reasoning powers of her pupils and guide them to their intellectual victories, initiating them into the great fellowship of workers for truth. It is interesting but it is not easy work. We have seen that the material recompense of the teacher is not great, and if she looks for other return she will too often be disappointed. And yet there is compensation. Here as elsewhere he that saveth his life shall lose it; but he that loseth his life shall indeed find it.

[Footnote 1: "A secondary school … is a school which provides a progressive course of general education suitable for pupils of an age-range at least as wide as from twelve to seventeen" (Board of Education, Circular 826).]

[Footnote 2: Lecture on "The Life of a Teacher" given to the Fabian,
Women's Group, 1912.]

[Footnote 3: Miss I.M. Drummond, loc, cit.]

[Footnote 4: By the Conditions of Registration issued November 1913, one year's training will be required for all entering the profession after the end of 1918.]

[Footnote 5: Miss I.M. Drummond loc. cit. For example, a science graduate with special qualifications in geography, three years' experience, and a training diploma has recently been appointed to a leading London High School at a salary of £110, with no agreement for yearly or other augmentation. [EDITOR].]

[Footnote 6: The practice of the Girl's Public Day School Trust, largely followed by other governing bodies, is to give the Head the right of nomination, and of dismissal during the probationary period subject to the veto, rarely exercised, of the Committee.]

[Footnote 7: Miss I.M. Drummond loc. cit.]

[Footnote 8: This is surely a better solution than that proposed in the November 1913, Educational Supplement to the Times. The suggestion is there made that the "conventual system" prevailing in some girls' boarding-schools should be changed by having Headmasters instead of Headmistresses. The writer apparently fails to realise that one of the greatest difficulties in co-educational schools is to attract the right sort of mistress, because there is no prospect that she may ultimately attain a headship. The same danger will inevitably arise in any schools which introduce Headmasters. If the masculine element is desirable, and we agree that this may well be so, the obvious course is either to have some male assistants, or to have married house-mistresses, on the analogy of the married house-master at boys' schools. A still better solution, in our opinion, is co-education, with pupils of both sexes, a mixed staff, and a joint Headmaster and Headmistress. In many of the new County and Municipal Secondary Schools this innovation has been successfully adopted, though the Senior Mistress is unfortunately in all cases definitely subordinate to the Headmaster. [EDITOR.]]

IV

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHING

Progressive women to-day resent the social system which requires them to be economically dependent upon others. They realise that social service needs labour of a highly skilled variety, and they therefore demand, on the one hand, training for their work as a guarantee of their efficiency in its performance, and, on the other hand, monetary payment and security of tenure as guarantees to them of economic independence. As a natural corollary to woman's lack of political power, there are no spheres of professional work in which prevailing conditions are in these respects completely satisfactory. Perhaps the teaching service in the State schools comes nearest to complying with progressive demands: at any rate Government recognises the need for training, and, to a large extent, meets its cost; a salary, more or less adequate, is paid in return for the teaching given, and security of tenure is, with few exceptions, assured. Again, the work done in the State schools is now generally and rightly regarded as of first-rate importance to the community, and therefore as meriting national gratitude in the form of Government superannuation. Popular prejudice against compulsory education, once so strong, may now be said to have disappeared, and the work of the pioneers who endeavoured to create a public opinion in its favour, has borne fruit. To-day the parents' attitude towards the teacher is normally one of friendly co-operation and respect, with the result that the latter is fast becoming a powerful factor in shaping and influencing the democracy. The school is extending its influence in every sphere which touches on the social, physical, intellectual, and spiritual well-being of the people. Activities which, until recently,[1] were associated only with institutions distinctly religious in character, are now regularly connected with the work of primary schools. Thus the teacher has every opportunity for the exercise of public spirit, within school and without. He is daily confronted with the problem of evolving and developing an educated democracy, which will demand and obtain proper conditions of life.

The nature of the work asked of the teachers in primary schools, has led to insistence by the State on the necessity for their professional training, as well as for their academic proficiency. These requirements have met with the counter-demand on the part of the teachers in State schools, for State registration. When this Register,[2] now in process of creation, has become an accomplished fact, one of the chief remaining obstacles to the progress of the teaching service will be removed.

It is now time to turn to the conditions of training, service, and remuneration prevailing in English and Welsh elementary schools. The Scotch service differs in some respects, while the state of primary education and the position of elementary teachers in Ireland[3] are altogether worse than in Great Britain.

The Board of Education recognises the following grades of men and women teachers in public elementary schools: pupil teachers, bursars and student teachers, uncertificated teachers, and certificated teachers. Women, over eighteen years of age, who have been vaccinated, may, without any other qualifications, be engaged as supplementary teachers, although the Board cannot entertain any application for the recognition of men in this capacity. A supplementary teacher may teach (I) infants' classes, that is to say, classes in which the majority of the scholars are under eight years of age, or (2) the lowest class of older scholars in a school or department in a rural parish, if the average attendance in the school does not exceed 100.

The number of supplementary teachers employed in the schools of
England and Wales in the year 1910-11 was 14,454.

If we turn to uncertificated teachers, we find that during the year 1909-10 there were 45,549 employed in the schools of England and Wales, and that this number was increased by 182 during the year 1910-11. Of the uncertificated teachers of England in the year 1910-11, 5,106 were men and 35,222 were women.

The vast majority of rural schools have only one certificated teacher on the staff, and in hundreds of rural schools the head teacher is not certificated.

The following statistics with regard to certificated teachers have
been taken from the published return of the Board of Education,
  1910-11:[4]—
                England. Wales.
                Men. Women. Men. Women.

  Trained 22,134 30,410 2,260 1810
  Untrained 9,060 33,121 539 1598

These figures show that of men teachers, 70 per cent. in England and 81 per cent. in Wales are trained, while of women teachers only 46 per cent. in England and 51 per cent. in Wales are trained.

These statistics are indicative of the urgent need for total abolition of uncertificated and supplementary teachers, since the recognition of these grades offers a direct incentive to girls just to bridge over the period between leaving school and getting married, without qualifying even for what ought to be regarded as the lowest ranks of the profession. This fact is at once realised, when one contrasts the percentage of women teachers who are untrained, viz., 54 per cent, in England, 49 per cent, in Wales, with the corresponding figures for men teachers, viz., 30 per cent, in England and 29 per cent, in Wales.

Every candidate for teachership, who has passed through a Training College, is required by the Board of Education to serve in a recognised school—a woman for five out of the first eight years after leaving College; a man for seven out of the first ten years after leaving College—or pay the whole or part of the Government grant in respect of College training. But, notwithstanding this agreement, enforceable under Act of Parliament,[5] the Board of Education neither takes steps to find employment for such candidates in the State schools of the country, nor admits any responsibility on its part for the conditions under which teachers are employed. By the Education Act of 1902, local authorities, of which there are 318, were made chiefly responsible for the work of education, and it is these local authorities who lay down the conditions of appointment.

This refusal by the Board of Education of responsibility for appointments and conditions of appointment to teaching posts, leaves it for local authorities to fix scales of salaries, and to decide such questions as, for example, whether married women teachers shall be employed. The grave effect of this state of things on the economic interests of the teachers of the country cannot be too much emphasised, having regard to the fact that local authorities are bodies composed mainly of men elected on a rate-saving principle.

The salaries paid to bursars and student teachers are insufficient to cover charges for maintenance, clothes, books, etc. Speaking generally, a quite substantial sum must also be found during each year of the collegiate course, for college expenses and for board and lodging during vacations, so that a candidate's parents must hold themselves financially responsible for her during the various stages of her training, except in so far as the cost is covered by scholarship and maintenance grants. Women candidates are in this respect far worse off than their male colleagues, as, at every stage of their training, they receive a smaller maintenance grant. At a residential college, while men receive £40, women receive £20; at a non-residential college the grant for men is £25, for women £20. As the whole supply of teachers for each year leaves the Training Colleges in July,[6] it follows that many of these must wait for varying periods before finding employment: during these periods the burden of maintenance must again be borne by the parents. The need for legislation in the economic interests of teachers is borne out by the fact that highly trained students of good character are unable to find employment, even at low salaries. Of 4,384 teachers who left the training colleges in July 1908, at least 1,226 were, three months later, without employment, and 259 were known to be without employment even twelve months later; whilst of the 4,386 students who left the Training Colleges in July 1909, 1,528 were still without employment in October 1909. These figures are for both sexes, but by far the larger number of teachers are women.

These facts explain why it is that local authorities, bent on keeping down the rates, have been enabled to obtain the services of certificated teachers at the scale of salaries which they advertise for uncertificated teachers: in fact many fully qualified certificated teachers have been forced to work for a rate of payment lower than that received by an unskilled labourer; a natural corollary to this condition of things is that many would-be teachers refuse to expend time and money on training.

This state of affairs has had one other effect which is of vital importance when the economic position of women teachers is being considered, namely, that local authorities, in order to appease the popular outcry against this apparently overstocked market, have been led to sanction regulations for the compulsory retirement of women teachers on marriage. Happily the London County Council has not succumbed to this temptation, and there are other equally enlightened authorities. But constant watchfulness is needed in order to prevent retrogression in this matter. Young teachers, anxiously awaiting promotion, sometimes foolishly resist the appointment or retention of married women. This is a suicidal policy, to be resisted at all costs, both in the interests of the teachers and of the children. Salaries are bound to remain low, while women are forced to consider their profession in the light of a stop-gap until marriage, and not as a life-work. Moreover, there are real dangers in entrusting girls' education entirely to unmarried women. The salaries of assistant teachers vary very considerably. In no single instance is a woman teacher paid the same rate of salary as a man of the same professional status. This is true even when the work is identical in character, as is the case in mixed schools and pupil teachers' centres. One of the results of this inequality of payment is that women teachers are often employed to teach the lower classes in boys' schools, and some rural schools are staffed entirely by women, not because the woman teacher is deemed more suitable for the work, but because her labour is cheaper; hence the need, in the teaching profession, for recognition of the principle of "equal pay for equal work." Without it, the status of the woman becomes lower than that of the man, inferior or unqualified women are appointed, and men are driven from the profession. Only when there is equality of pay can there be security that the best candidate will be appointed, irrespective of sex.

The following table taken from the latest returns of the Board of Education contrasts the number of women and men employed in the elementary schools of England, and the number of women and men employed in the better paid higher elementary schools of the country, for the year 1910-11.

                                                              Higher
                                               Elementary Elementary
                                                 Schools Schools.

  No. of Head Teachers (certificated) Men : 12,477 : 36
   " " " " Women : 16,648 : 4
   " Assistant " " Men : 18,659 : 161
   " " " Women : 46,881 : 117
   " " (uncertificated) Men : 5,091 : 4
   " " " Women : 34,910 : 2

An examination of statistics with regard to the salaries of teachers in England, taken from the same returns, year 1910-11, shows that—

  I. Average salaries (Elementary Schools) were:—
                                                    £ s. d.
  Head Teachers (Certificated) Men 176 3 11
    " " " Women 122 18 1
    " " (uncertificated) Men 94 8 0
    " " " Women 68 3 5
  Assistant Teachers (certificated) Men 127 9 11
      " " " Women 92 8 6
      " " (uncertificated) Men 65 2 11
      " " " Women 54 14 1

II. (1) 67.93 per cent. of the certificated head masters receive less than £200 per annum.

(2) 93.9 per cent. of the certificated head mistresses receive less than £200 per annum.

(3) 93.38 per cent. of the certificated assistant masters receive less than £200 per annum.

(4) 97.73 per cent. of the certificated assistant mistresses receive less than £150 per annum.

III. The salaries of certificated teachers (England) were:—

                              Head Teachers. Assistant Teachers.
                               Men. Women. Men. Women.
  Under £50 1 2 2 352
  Totals £50 and under £100 394 4,967 3,838 29,915
     " 100 " " 150 4,506 8,032 9,933 15,548
     " 150 " " 200 3,575 2,631 3,651 1,065
     " 200 " " 250 2,395 742 1,235 1
     " 250 " " 300 963 209 —— ——
     " 300 " " 350 422 65 —— ——
     " 350 " " 400 125 —— —— ——
     " 400 " " 450 93 —— —— ——
     " 450 " " 500 2 —— —— ——
     " 560 1 —— —— ——

IV. The salaries of uncertificated teachers are usually lower than the wage of a skilled artisan—the average for men head teachers being below £100, and for women head teachers below £70, whilst 7,855 assistant teachers receive less than £50.

V. Supplementary teachers usually receive, of course without board or lodging, a salary equal to the money-wage of an average domestic servant. They are commonly less well qualified than is she, for the work undertaken.

The chances of promotion to a headship are obviously so few, that the certificated teacher will probably remain an assistant all her life. Chances of head-teacherships are being still further reduced by the amalgamation of departments under a head master.

In the schools of many large urban education authorities, less than 1 per cent. of the assistant teachers obtain promotion in twelve months. The total number applying for the 163 places to be filled in the last promotion list that was formed by the London Education Authority, was 2,337, so that, as a direct result of the publication of that list, 2,174 teachers resumed their work after the summer vacation of 1911 with feelings of less hopefulness with regard to their future prospects. The issue of a promotion list is in itself a fact to be deplored, seeing that it acts as a check to mental alertness. For the 2,174 unsuccessful candidates for inclusion, their application has now either destroyed hope, or suspended any chances of its realisation for at least two years. There is a consciousness in the unsuccessful applicant of somehow being worth less than she was before, since she is now an assistant mistress without potentiality for head teachership. This feeling does not promote good work. The issue of a promotion list is from every point of view bad policy, and although its direct action is confined to London, its sphere of indirect influence is very far-reaching, since London County Council applicants for country posts are often asked whether they have been included in it.

The essential qualification in a mistress of an elementary school is ability to teach a great variety of subjects: she must be qualified for and prepared to teach all the subjects which make up the curriculum of her school. The diversity of these will be seen from the subjects taught in an average typical elementary school:—

Girls' Department.—Reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, literature, history, geography, nature study, hygiene, physical training, drawing (including brush-work), needlework (including cutting-out), knitting, scripture.

Infants' Department.—Reading, writing, number, kindergarten and other varied occupations, physical exercises (dancing and games), needlework and knitting, singing, drawing, painting, modelling, recitation, oral composition, dramatising stories, scripture.

The ordinary day is divided into two sessions: the morning session lasting from 9 A.M. to 12 noon, and the afternoon session from 2 P.M. to 4 P.M. (infants), 4.30 P.M. (girls).

The strain of a teacher's life in an elementary school, and the deadening influence of routine work will be realised when it is stated that, besides teaching all the subjects above-mentioned, she is in front of her class of sixty pupils during the whole of the two sessions each day, from Monday morning to Friday afternoon.

In addition to the purely teaching work the mistress has to take her share in the various activities which are now centring in the school—Care Committees, After-Care Committees, the feeding of necessitous children, the cleansing of children, medical inspection, and so forth. There are also such social activities as old girls' clubs, school journeys and school parties, in which she has to co-operate; finally, the strain is not lessened by the fact that she has to satisfy two sets of inspectors, viz., those of the Board of Education and those of the local authority who require her to keep special report books, varying in character and in the amount of detail required, according to the idiosyncrasies of the particular inspectors who may happen to be allocated to her district.

In spite of the building regulations of the Board of Education, many school premises are far from satisfactory with regard to lighting, ventilation, construction, and often even cleanliness; these defects naturally have their effect on the health of the teachers, so that notwithstanding medical inspection during training and the rejection of the unfit, an alarming number of cases of consumption has been reported to the Benevolent Fund of the National Union of Teachers. In addition to this, the strain (already referred to) under which teachers in the Metropolitan and larger urban districts work, is resulting in an increasing number of nervous breaksdown.

The conditions under which a teacher works in a school in a rural district are so unsatisfactory that they deserve special mention. There are 245 schools in Wales and 2,199 in England with an average attendance of less than 40; such schools are staffed by a head teacher, assisted, in all probability, only by a supplementary teacher. Education suffers in these circumstances as a result of the number and the manysidedness of the responsibilities which devolve upon the head teacher; while the consciousness of her inability to realise her ideals will re-act unfavourably upon her health. Another factor that must be borne in mind is that these rural schools, being small, should, to secure efficiency, be proportionately expensive for up-keep. In order to keep the cost of maintenance as low as possible, however, the remuneration offered to teachers in rural schools is so small as to be a national disgrace. To this must be further added the fact that many rural teachers are compelled to live 5, 10, and even 15 miles away from a railway station, so that the cost of living is much more than it would be in town. Thus it is that rural schools which should cost more for up-keep than large urban schools, work out at a smaller figure per scholar.[7]

Not only is her salary low, but a mistress in a rural school often has to live in a state of semi-isolation from social and intellectual activities. It should excite no surprise, therefore, that mistresses are reluctant to apply for such posts. This difficulty of shortage of supply is having a sinister and subtle effect on the economic interests of married women teachers, for, owing to the difficulty in obtaining assistant teachers in rural districts, it frequently happens that where the head teacher is a master, his wife, who may be a fully qualified certificated teacher, has to act as his assistant and receive the pay of a supplementary teacher.

During her years of service, each mistress in an elementary school is required to contribute £2, 8s. per annum to the Government Superannuation Fund. These contributions purchase a small annuity to which the Government add a pension at the rate of 10s. for each year of service. When she becomes qualified for a pension, the mistress must surrender her certificate and cease to practise as a teacher, so that, if we assume she has begun work at the age of twenty and has continued teaching to the age of sixty-five, she will, after forty-five years of recorded service, receive a pension of £22, 10s. per annum, plus the annuity which her contributions will have purchased. It should, however, be mentioned that London and a few other towns have established complementary schemes whereby teachers, though contributing more, obtain pensions more commensurate with their salaries. Under the Government scheme, the superannuation allowance cannot become payable until the teacher has attained the age of sixty-five years, and, even then, it can be obtained only by a teacher whose years of recorded service are not less than half the number of years which have elapsed since she became certificated; thus, if the mistress, being certificated at the age of twenty, marries and, by the regulations of the local authority, is forced to resign, she forfeits all claim to the Government contribution, unless she has completed twenty-two years of recorded service: nor are her contributions returned to her.

Teachers in elementary schools are well organised for the purpose of self-protection. The National Union of Teachers is a powerful body, having a membership of 78,000 men and women teachers. It is directly represented in Parliament, both on the Liberal and Labour sides, and owes its influence largely to the voting power of its members.[8]

When the National Insurance Act of 1912 came into force, there were 85,000 elementary teachers to whom its clauses applied, and who therefore found it advisable to join an approved society. For this purpose the Teachers' Provident Society of the National Union of Teachers was re-organised as an approved society under the Act. In addition to providing protection for its members, the National Union of Teachers, by means of its Benevolent and Orphan Fund, helps those, who, through ill-health or other causes are in need of assistance. It also maintains two orphanages—one for boys in London, and one for girls in Sheffield.

At the present time there is a strong probability of a dearth of qualified teachers for elementary schools in the near future. There are several factors which have been influential in bringing about this state of affairs—one is, the uncertainty of employment, even after a long and comparatively costly training. This defect will be remedied only when a rational method of regulating the supply of teachers is established, so that each candidate may be certain that, if she qualifies, she will be guaranteed employment.

Many desirable persons are debarred from entering the teaching profession, because the rate of remuneration is low, considering the responsibility of the work; and this drawback is still further emphasised by the very inadequate pension which is offered at the close of the teacher's career. This difficulty can be overcome only when the main burden of the cost of education is removed from local taxation and placed on the national exchequer.

Another factor which tends to make the teaching profession unattractive, is the very strenuous life which it entails under modern conditions. Again, so far as women are concerned, there is not complete security of tenure, though apart from the regulation that obtains under some local authorities, requiring women to resign on marriage, teachers in elementary schools, owing to the efforts of their various organisations, possess far greater security of tenure than teachers in any other branch of the profession. Another point in favour of the teachers in elementary schools, is their freedom from the burden of extraneous duties, and from the nightmare of external examinations.

When schools can be more generously staffed, so that, for example, the number of assistant teachers exceeds the number of classes to be taught, a good deal will have been done to relieve the strain under which teachers are at present working.

Finally, when education authorities and the public generally, become sufficiently enlightened to realise that it is uneconomical to dismiss a teacher when she marries i.e., when by her experience she is most capable of preparing her pupils for life—then women will be encouraged to enter the teaching profession, and to realise that they must equip themselves as well as possible for what is to be their life-work.

[Footnote 1: In this connection, the work of the Care-Committees, now an integral feature of the elementary education system, must not be forgotten. It will be fully considered in a later volume of this series. [EDITOR.]]

[Footnote 2: The conditions for registration were issued on 22nd
November 1913, after this book had gone to press. [EDITOR.]]

[Footnote 3: Vide Article on Education in Ireland, by May Starkie in The New Statesman Supplement on "The Awakening of Ireland," 12th July 1913. [EDITOR.]]

[Footnote 4: Since this paper was written, a fresh report (Code 6707) has been published by the Board of Education. The statistical tables do not materially differ from those given above.]

[Footnote 5: On the other hand, the Board seldom proceeds against teachers who have broken their bond. [Editor.]]

[Footnote 6: The experiment of ending the College course for certain students at Easter, is now being made. But the movement is too young, and the Colleges experimenting are too few, to make it possible to draw deductions. At any rate it looks like a move in the right direction.]

[Footnote 7: This is a matter, the investigation of which should be included in Mr Lloyd George's Land Campaign. There is an obvious connection between the status of the agricultural labourer and the inefficiency of rural schools. [EDITOR.]]

[Footnote 8: The women members are in a large majority, but, being women, do not, as yet, possess the vote. Their peculiar interests, of course, do not obtain representation.]

V

TEACHING IN SCHOOLS FOR THE MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY DEFECTIVE

The particular branch of teaching which forms the subject of this paper—namely, that carried on in schools for mentally or physically defective children—affords scope for a lifetime of very happy work to women who are really fitted for it.

The qualifications required by teachers in these schools are the ordinary certificates accepted by the Board of Education, but, in practice, a preference is given to women who have taken up studies which bear on their particular work. For instance, it is obvious that a good grounding in psychology, physiology, and hygiene is especially valuable in schools of this description, and proofs of the successful study of these subjects undoubtedly carry weight in deciding appointments to these schools. Also, it is unusual to appoint young teachers, coming straight from Training Colleges, with very little practical experience in dealing with children, though under special circumstances such appointments are occasionally made. The large majority of women appointed to the London mentally defective or physically defective schools are, however, teachers of several years' standing, who are also under the age limit of thirty-five.

The salary of assistant teachers in the London special schools is £10 a year more than the salary such assistants would be getting in the ordinary Council schools. This extra pay only obtains until the normal maximum salary of assistant mistresses is reached, i.e., £150, so that the monetary advantage is confined to reaching the maximum a little earlier than would otherwise be the case. With regard to head teachers, the extra salary varies with the size of the school, £10 being allowed for a one-class centre, £20 for a two-, three-, or four-class centre, and £30 for a five- or six-class centre. Schools of six classes are unusual; the majority of schools contain three or four classes. Elder mentally defective boys from several neighbouring schools are frequently grouped together in a special centre under masters, and there are a few schools specially for elder mentally defective girls, naturally under mistresses. For elder physically defective girls there are centres in London where they may be specially trained in blousemaking and fine needlework. These centres have, in addition to an ordinary teacher, a trade mistress duly qualified in the particular branch of work undertaken. The age of compulsory retirement from teaching in special schools is sixty-five, as in the case of ordinary schools. For both branches of the service married women are eligible. The hours of work in mentally defective schools are from 9.30 to 12 and from 2 to 4. In physically defective schools the hours are nominally from 9.30 to 12, and 1.30 to 3, but in practice they are longer, as the children begin to arrive at school in their ambulances by 8.45, and in the afternoon the last children rarely leave till an hour after the time of stopping actual lessons. It is usual to arrange things so that the teacher who comes "early" one week, is free to come "late" the next, and it is also usually taken in turns to stay late in the afternoons. The short dinner recess is due to the fact that most of the children necessarily have their dinner at school, so there is no reason to allow the usual two hours for going home and coming back. During the dinner-hour the children are in charge of the school nurse and the ambulance attendants.

Work in both sorts of special school has its own particular difficulties. One great drawback is the impossibility of adequate classification. In a small three-class centre, there will be children from five years old up to sixteen years. That, of course, in physically defective schools means that the work usually divided among all the classes of an ordinary infant school must be done in the lowest class, the second class must take the work of standards I. to III., while the highest class must take that of standards IV. to VII. It is true that the special schools have a great advantage over ordinary schools in that the classes never contain more than twenty-five children, but even granted the small numbers, the need for taking several groups in a class makes the work very exhausting. The more successful the teacher, that is to say, the more truly she draws out the individual powers of each child, the harder does her work become, for she tends more and more to have a class of children working at varying stages. In the mentally defective schools it is not possible to reach the work of the higher standards, so that there is not the same difficulty, but there is the even greater one of dealing with different standards of defect, instead of different standards of attainment.

Another difficulty encountered in the physically defective schools is the interrupted school-life. Children will frequently drop out for three months, six months, or a year at a time in order to have some operation performed in hospital, or to go to a convalescent home, or because of an attack of illness. Both branches of the special schools are faced with the peculiar difficulty of the "spoilt" child—the lame girl who, by reason of her helplessness, has been indulged and waited on by the healthy members of her family; the ill-balanced boy whose brain-storms have been so disturbing that any opposition to his will has been shirked. It must not be thought that these children are in the majority at special schools, but they do form a certain proportion of the children there; they give much trouble, and they call for a great deal of tact and patience. Patience is so continually needed in special-school work that women who are not particularly patient would find themselves definitely unfit for it. Indeed, although patience and the hopeful spirit do not figure on the list of qualifications demanded of candidates, they might well head it, for most certainly an irritable or despondent woman could not find any work for which she was more unsuited, or in which she was more likely to be miserable and unsuccessful.

A further difficulty of the special-school teacher lies in the "all-round" demands made on her. The children she must teach, are defective in mind or body, or both. Some will respond to one subject, some to another; some will make poor progress with headwork, but will do excellent handwork. The teacher must be able to help each child along its own path, and must be familiar with the various forms of simple handwork as well as with the more usual school subjects. Basket-weaving, clay-modelling, raffia-work, fretwork, bent-ironwork, strip-woodwork, rug-making, painting, and brush-work, as well as different forms of needlework and embroidery, are all branches of handwork helpful in different degrees to these children. The importance of handwork to them is felt so keenly, that the special-schools time-tables usually show a morning devoted to headwork followed by an afternoon occupied by handwork.

But as well as the difficulties attendant on teaching in special-schools, there are some very real advantages. Foremost, perhaps, is the opportunity it affords of knowing and understanding each child in a way that is not possible when the class consists of sixty children. Very closely allied with this, is the great advantage of freedom in the preparation of syllabuses, in the choice of subject matter and the manner of teaching it. Time-tables must be approved by the proper authorities, and the superintendents and inspectors must be satisfied as to the character of a teacher's work, but, when those conditions are fulfilled, originality on the part of teachers is welcomed, and completely happy relations between teacher and children are possible. It can be readily understood that with a class numbering twenty-five, each child can take a much larger and much more active share in the work, can be free to express his own views, ask his own questions and work out his own ideas in a way impossible with a class of sixty. When, in addition, it is remembered that the teacher is free to frame her plans of work according to the actual needs of the children, as shown to her through discussions and questions, the reason why the work attracts women in spite of its obvious difficulties is apparent.

The real thought and care spent by the education authorities on these schools must have struck every one who has worked in them. If we compare what is now done for these deficient children with what was done some fifteen years ago, the stage of progress at which we have arrived is nothing short of wonderful. Yet every one must also be convinced that things are not well, so long as the supply of children for these special schools continues to grow; those who work in them can see two ways in which that supply might be checked. Teachers in mentally defective schools continually mourn the sad fact that the children under their care have been guarded from wrong, and guided to right along happy paths of busy interest until they are sixteen, only to be turned adrift into the world at an age when, more than ever before in their lives, they need a kindly and wise influence "to strengthen or control." For want of some further plan of continued supervision, the patient work of years is too often rendered nugatory, and the child slips back into the very slough from which the school had hoped to save it. It must be remembered that the defect in many children in these mentally defective schools shows itself as a lack of self-control, a want of mental balance, a missing sense of moral values, an incapacity for concentration—the very characteristics which render their unhappy possessors the easiest prey to the evil-minded. Teachers who know both the good to which the child can attain when properly safe-guarded, and also the evil into which it will too probably fall when left alone, are very anxious to see some step taken which will ensure that every child who needs continued control shall have it.[1]

Teachers in physically defective schools can also see the need for prevention of defect rather than its mere alleviation. The more usual forms of defect are missing limbs, tuberculous troubles (notably in joints), heart cases, paralysis, cases of chorea, and cases of general debility. The list must not be taken as complete, for there are, of course, various unusual forms of defect too. It sometimes happens that after a stay of some time in a physically defective school, a child becomes so much better that it is able to return to the greater strain of an ordinary school; on the other hand, it is often apparent, that if certain children had been admitted earlier to the physically defective school, their particular trouble might have been greatly minimised, if not altogether avoided. What then appears to be needed is an intermediary type of school to which children might be drafted who are not as yet absolutely defective, but who are liable to become so. Children of tubercular tendencies, who should be guarded against falls or blows more carefully than normal children; those highly-strung nervous children who, if exposed to the strain of ordinary school life run the risk of chorea; children suffering from the after-effects of diseases such as rheumatic or scarlet fever, who need particularly to avoid over-exertion or too violent exercise; children of such marked general debility that their power of resisting disease is abnormally low—all these, if neglected, tend to become qualified candidates for the physically defective schools. If they could attend a school designed to suit their needs, they would in many cases be quite able to return, after varying periods, to their places in the ordinary schools. The open-air schools are an attempt to meet this need on the very best lines, but there are far too many of these border-line children for the available accommodation. If the great expense entailed by new schools of this description be considered, it seems not unreasonable, while waiting for them, to allow the admission of these children to the invalid schools already working, by simply making the term "physically defective" elastic enough to include a latent as well as a developed defect. Whatever the apparent expense of such measures may be, any extension of the preventive side of this work cannot but be a real economy.[2]

There is just one other point for the consideration of women who think of taking up work in special schools. They should be thoroughly strong and healthy, or they will prove unequal to a strain which tells at times even on the strongest. But to women of good health who possess the right temperament, these schools offer a field of useful and congenial work.

[Footnote 1: Something in this direction will be achieved by the new Act, to which, however, there are counterbalancing grave objections which cannot be considered here. [EDITOR.]]

[Footnote 2: Open-air schools, and school sleeping camps such as those established experimentally in various urban slum-districts, are other efforts to meet the needs of physically defective children. Teachers in open-air schools in provincial towns, work under approximately similar conditions to those described by Mrs Thomas. [Editor.]]

VI

THE TEACHING OF GYMNASTICS

No school of any importance is considered properly equipped unless the staff includes a gymnastic and games mistress. Several systems of gymnastics are practised in England, but the Swedish system is steadily proving its superiority; so much is this felt that a number of teachers who have previously taken a two years' course of training in some other system, are at the present time taking, or have just completed, a second two years' course in the Swedish system. As long ago as 1878 the London School Board introduced the Swedish system into its schools, but it was not till 1885 that the first physical training college was opened in this country, and this was for women only. In 1903 this system was adopted for the navy, and in 1906 for the army; it has also been adopted in the Government schools and Training Colleges, as well as in all the principal private schools and colleges for girls, and in many boys' schools, including, among others, Eton, Winchester, Clifton, and Repton. The following remarks, therefore, apply only to the Swedish system.

Until 1885, the rationally trained teacher of gymnastics was unknown in England, and the physical training of the girls in this country was monopolised by dancing mistresses and drill sergeants, most of whom were ignorant of the laws which govern the human body. In that year Madame Osterberg started a Physical Training College for women students at Hampstead, the college being removed to Dartford Heath, Kent, in 1895. Since then similar institutions have been opened at Bedford, Erdington, Chelsea, etc., and there is a growing army of women qualified to teach gymnastics and games, and in many cases dancing and swimming. These trained teachers have studied Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene; they have themselves experienced what they teach others; they have been trained to observe, and deal gently and carefully with growing girlhood. They have also studied deformities such as spinal curvature, round shoulders, and flat feet, and are able to take all such cases under their special care.

The course of training lasts from two to three years, and the cost in a residential college, is about £100 a year. To ensure success as teachers, students should be tactful, observant, and sympathetic; they should be medically fit, and physically suited to the work, and should produce evidence of a good general education. The requirements of the colleges vary as to educational qualification, some being satisfied with a school-leaving certificate while others demand Matriculation. This raising of the standard is a step in the right direction and may hasten the time when the gymnastic teacher will be thought worthy of a University degree or diploma.

The training includes theoretical as well as practical work, and the idea which used to be prevalent, is now practically exploded, that a girl who could not pass examinations but who was fairly good at gymnastics or games might make a good gymnastic teacher. The theoretical subjects include Physiology, Hygiene, Anatomy, Theory of Movements, Psychology, and a certain amount of Pathology; whilst the practical side includes Educational Gymnastics and Teaching, Remedial Gymnastics and Massage, Games (hockey, cricket, lacrosse, lawn tennis, net-ball, and gymnasium games), Swimming and Dancing. Dancing is becoming more and more, a necessary part of the equipment for the successful gymnastic teacher, who must be able to teach the ordinary ball-room dances as well as Morris and country dances.

A typical week's work in the second year's course in one of the colleges includes six hours' Gymnastics; five hours' Remedial Gymnastics, and five hours' actual treatment under supervision, of patients in the clinic; six hours' Anatomy, two hours' Physiology, two hours' Hygiene, two hours' Vaulting, three and a half hours' Dancing. In addition to this, four afternoons (from 2 to 4 P.M.) are devoted to games; class singing-lessons are given twice a week for half an hour, in addition to a quarter of an hour's practice every day, and each student teaches in the elementary schools three half hours a week, and also gets some practice in the high school. Add to all this the time required for private study, and it will be seen that the work is fairly strenuous and that none but strong, healthy girls should undertake it.

After the course of training the gymnastic teacher usually takes a post in a school, and having had a few years' experience, may then become an organiser or inspector to an education committee, a trainer in an elementary training college or physical training college, the head of the gymnastic department of a school clinic, or she may prefer to start a private practice, holding classes, treating cases of deformity, and also acting as visiting gymnastic teacher or games-coach to schools in the neighbourhood.

The rate of remuneration varies according to the kind of work undertaken; the initial salary in schools is usually £60 to £80 per annum resident, or £100 to £120 non-resident. Organisers and inspectors command a much higher salary; the three Government inspectors start at £200 rising to £400 with first-class travelling expenses, and the four woman-organisers employed by the London County Council Education Committee start at £175, rising by £10 a year to £240 plus actual travelling expenses. Some women do well in private practice, making from £200 to £300 a year. The salaries of the gymnastic teachers in the London County Council secondary schools are fixed at £130 a year with no possibility of advancement, and, though this may compare favourably with the initial salaries of other teachers on the staff, it must be remembered that the teaching life of a gymnastic teacher is shorter and there are no headmistress-ships to which to look forward. The few "plums" of the profession are the inspectorships of the Government and of the more important education committees. For the latter, women have often to compete with men, and even in cases where both men and women inspectors are employed—the men doing the same work in the boys' schools as the women do in the girls'—the men's salaries are considerably higher, despite the fact that most women give up professional work on marriage, either voluntarily or compulsorily, and have therefore a shorter time in which to recover the cost of their training, whereas if they do not marry, they have to make provision for old age and in many cases to contribute to the support of others besides themselves.

With regard to this employment of women after marriage, there would seem to be no reason why the principals or assistants of colleges or institutes, or the women with private practices should not continue their work; but in schools, even where the terms of the appointment do not demand resignation on marriage, it is not customary for married teachers to be employed.

Up to the present, the supply of trained gymnastic teachers has scarcely satisfied the demand, and fresh openings are from time to time created. When physical exercises were made compulsory in all the elementary schools, the class teacher had and still has, to give this instruction to her class, but there has been an increasing demand for organisers to teach the elementary school teacher and superintend her work. This has also led to specialist teachers being appointed to all the elementary training colleges and pupil teachers' centres. Then came medical inspection, and with it the need for school clinics, which could not be complete without a department for treating curvatures, flat feet, etc., and giving breathing exercises, especially after the removal of adenoids. Though these clinics are only in the experimental stage they are sure to expand, and it is expected that a large number of trained gymnastic teachers will be required for them. Further it is possible, and may be found desirable, that specialist teachers should be appointed for groups of elementary schools, so relieving the class teachers of this part of their work. Large secondary and private schools often appoint two, three, or four trained teachers who are jointly responsible for gymnastics, games, dancing, swimming, and the treatment of deformities throughout the school. Besides all these openings a considerable number of gymnastic teachers find work in the colonies, especially in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

To band together the teachers of Swedish gymnastics and to guard their interests generally, the Ling Association was founded in 1899. Though it is open to men and women, very few men have joined, as the number of men with the necessary qualifications is very small. Members must have trained for at least two years at a recognised college, and it was not till 1912 that the first training college for men was opened in England.

With a view to standardising the training and diplomas of gymnastic teachers, the Ling Association in 1904 started a diploma-examination. Though the syllabus drawn up is practically the same as those used in the different colleges, most of the colleges still grant their own diplomas at the end of the course.

It is hardly possible at present, to specify the usual age of retirement for gymnastic teachers, but when a woman becomes too old for regular school teaching she can organise, supervise, and inspect, or continue to practise remedial work which includes massage.

Most of the gymnastic teachers who come within the scope of the
Insurance Act have joined the University, Secondary and Technical
Teachers' Provident Society.

VII

THE TEACHING OF DOMESTIC SUBJECTS

There are several reasons why instruction in the domestic arts and in the management of a house has not until quite recently formed part of the curriculum in girls' secondary schools. In the first years of the existence of these schools, no handicraft was encouraged except needlework, and this was soon almost crowded out of the time-table. It was assumed that household management was taught by the mother. There was a second assumption made even more confidently than the first, that a well-informed young woman with an active brain would find no difficulty in arranging her domestic affairs. This theory was founded on still another assumption—that there would always be on hire a sufficiency of servants already well trained for their work.

It is obvious nowadays that the mistresses of the first two decades of high-school teaching, being the first college-bred women, were suffering from a reaction against domestic interests, and the manner in which these had absorbed the old-fashioned woman. Their best pupils were at once destined for college; they were considered too good for mere domestic life, and were prepared for careers, mostly for teaching. This tendency was naturally accentuated by the fact that all mistresses were single women, with little prospect of any but a celibate life.

In the earlier stages of girls' education, then, it was the teacher who urged the promising girl to have a career; but the more recent development is that the parents, harassed by increasing economic pressure, and encouraged by the instances they meet of successful professional women, press more and more strongly for their girls to be educated for professions, whether they are exceptionally gifted or not. It is recognised in almost all grades of the middle class that the chance of a daughter marrying, and, further, the chance of her marriage being an assured provision for her maintenance throughout life, is by no means a certainty.

These considerations must militate against the appearance of domestic subjects in the school time-table, but there are others working in exactly the opposite direction. These are the increase in house rent and general rise in prices which make economy in domestic affairs, and good management, more valued; the dearth of servants; and the decay of the old traditions of housekeeping. Another factor is the new cult of hygiene, and increased interest in diet, shown especially by the inhabitants of large towns, who bewail their lack of energy and fitness.

If the home is to establish itself as an acknowledged success in modern conditions, it ought to be run by women with brains. It is now becoming acknowledged that the work needs the application of the scientific method of thinking. It may be true that home-making in the non-material sense is an art, but housekeeping nowadays is a science; and so much a science that a woman who has the chance of making herself an expert will be tempted to make housekeeping a career, and to undertake the job on a much larger scale than is needed in the ordinary house.

Thus, while there was practically no teaching of domestic subjects in girls' secondary schools until about seven years ago, a demand for teachers of the kind has sprung up very recently, and is rapidly increasing.

The headmistress anxious to undertake something of the sort has had many difficulties to face in the immediate past. The only teachers of domestic arts whom she could engage had received a very different education from the other members of her staff. If their whole time were not taken up with teaching their subject, they had few or no subsidiary subjects to offer, nor were they prepared for those curiously mingled clerical and pastoral duties which fall to the lot of a form mistress. In general education they might, indeed, be obviously below the girls in the upper forms, whose general culture had been sedulously cultivated for years. If teachers of this kind were, nevertheless, not to be kept for selected "stupid girls," it was possible (1) to introduce domestic work of the simple handicraft nature into the middle school, leaving it out of the upper school where there was a greater pressure on the time-table, or (2) to organise a post-school domestic course for girls who were not preparing for a profession.

The type of woman offering herself as a teacher in domestic arts has meanwhile been changing and developing, owing to the fact that a marked advance has taken place in the facilities for training. The minimum qualifications now required by most education authorities are diplomas for cookery, laundry-work, and housewifery, granted by a training school recognised by the Board of Education. It is advisable to take a fuller course which includes needlework and dressmaking. Most training schools for domestic arts provide a two or three year-course, according to the subjects taken. The three-year course, including cookery, laundry-work, housewifery, dressmaking, and needlework, costs about £75. Scholarships are offered both by the training schools and by public bodies. These cover the whole normal period of training, and an extension course for scientific study. The subjects included are the principles and processes involved in cookery, laundry-work, and household management, the last comprising such diverse matters as the selection and furnishing of various types of houses, repairing furniture, the choice and care of household linens, simple upholstery, management of income, first-aid, home-nursing, and the care of infants and young children. Many training-schools arrange for their students to gain experience in a crêche or similar institution, and to visit homes of various types. Practical experience is gained in housekeeping and catering, superintending the arrangements for meals, ordering stores and keeping accounts. Voice production and blackboard drawing are also taught, while science is studied concurrently with the above. The course in science embraces some Theoretical and Practical Chemistry, Physics, Physiology, Hygiene (personal and school hygiene and preventive measures), and the Theory and Practice of Education. Domestic Science students gain teaching experience not only in the various departments of the training-school, but also in elementary and secondary schools; happily the training is the same for those intending to take up either elementary or secondary teaching.

Thus it is seen that the present-day teacher of household arts is much more fitted to train the well-educated girl to organise household matters, than was her predecessor. Not only is manipulative skill acquired, but scientific reasons for processes and methods are outlined, and improvements are suggested. There is, however, still the danger that the student's training in science has been so subordinated to the acquirement of manipulative skill that her knowledge of scientific facts is not sufficiently based on scientific training and method.

Much, then, is to be urged in favour of the woman with a science degree taking courses in domestic arts, but it is essential for her to attain a high standard of practical work. It has sometimes been found that a very academic and scientific method of treatment has tended to lower the standard of manipulative skill. Nevertheless qualified graduates find themselves, at the moment, greatly in demand. The economical headmistress must always be on the look out for an acquisition to her staff who will, like Count Smorltork's politics, "surprise in herself many branches." If the headmistress can solve her difficulty about her domestic arts teacher by engaging a college-bred woman, with a degree to put on the prospectus, all sorts of ordinary subjects for her odd hours and undertaking to teach cooking as well, she will jump at the chance, and pay her £10 to £20 more salary than the ordinary assistant-mistress. She will economise greatly by the arrangement. If she has some amount of money to back her schemes, and a large school to administer, she will prefer two people to one composite one. But she will beg them to collaborate and to work together. She will not expect the woman with the science degree and a brief subsequent training in the arts to have the manipulative skill of the one who has done something like one thousand hours of actual practice, according to the prescription of the Board of Education. She will ask the former to show the girls how modern science is connected with the modern house, and how the scientific way of thinking helps in keeping a house, as it does in keeping one's own health and fitness.

During the past five years one secondary school after another has taken up Domestic Arts as a school subject. The initiative usually comes from the headmistress, and is a matter of personal judgment, so that the introduction is still an experiment on trial, and the method of trial varies. Before giving some indication of the methods tried, we must return to the demand for teachers. It will be clear from what has been said, that a science graduate who has studied and practised household arts and cooking, or a trained teacher of Domestic Arts who has also some science certificate and a high standard of general education, will at this moment command a higher salary than the ordinary secondary schoolmistress, and is practically certain of a post. But either of these individuals requires an unusually long period of training, for which most people have neither the time nor the spare capital.

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.

In London and other large towns, and with certain County Councils, the Centre is under the general supervision of the headmistress of the school to which it is attached, but technical details are entirely in the hands of the teacher of Domestic Subjects and of the superintendent who visits periodically. In some rural areas, the conditions are not so satisfactory. Frequently one teacher has to serve several villages, visiting them for instruction on certain days. The accommodation in such places is often sadly deficient, and much ingenuity and resource are needed to overcome difficulties which do not occur when the Centre is well-equipped and in continuous use, and the teacher, as she should be, a regular member of the school staff.

On leaving school, there are many scholarships open to the girls for further training, (a)for a home course, (b) for domestic service, (c) for the trades of laundress, needlewoman, dressmaker, and cook. These scholarships are held at Technical Institutes, or Trade Schools, and the training given is admirable in kind.

A qualified teacher who wishes to take up elementary school work will have no difficulty, if physically fit, in obtaining a post under a County Council or other educational authority at a salary of £80 per annum, usually rising by annual increments to £120. The maximum is not so high as that for teachers of ordinary subjects, and pensions are not universal, though most councils make fairly adequate provision for retirement, breakdown, and ill-health.

There is at present very little direct promotion open to the Domestic Subjects' teacher in elementary schools. In London there are practising-centres for students in training, and training centres for teachers during the probationary period, the managers of which hold very responsible posts that carry extra salary. The inspecting staff is usually chosen from teachers of experience, but this is necessarily limited in numbers, vacancies occurring only rarely. The salary attached to these posts is from £150 to £300. Many good posts in the Colonies have been obtained by Domestic Subjects' teachers in elementary schools. Some teachers have become foreign missionaries, Children's Care Committee visitors, or home mission workers and visitors. Some have established model laundries, others have taken charge of students' hostels and boarding-houses; while many have been successful in the needle-trades, luncheon and tea-rooms, and in lecturing and demonstrating for gas and electric companies.

Several organisations for self-protection and the advancement of the profession are open to teachers of Domestic Subjects. The Association of Teachers of Domestic Subjects was founded in 1896, and has done valuable work for the members. It is affiliated to the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutes, and is thus enabled to obtain good legal advice. A representative has been appointed to sit on the Council for the Registration of Teachers. The Association is helping to educate public opinion, and to review and consider the pedagogy of domestic subjects in all classes of schools. Domestic Subjects' teachers are also admitted to membership of other Teachers' Associations, which safeguard the interest of their members and offer advantages for training and travelling. Members of the Association of Teachers of Domestic Subjects have the right to join for the purposes of the Insurance Act the "Approved" section of the Secondary, Technical and University Teachers' Provident Society. The London County Council has secured "exception" from the Act for their Domestic Subjects' teachers, their allowance for sick leave being better than the provisions of the Act. The Association of Teachers of Domestic Subjects has obtained special terms for members from two assurance companies for deferred annuities or endowment assurances. The London Teachers' Association has also a provident section.

We have seen that Domestic Arts may now claim a position of importance in both the elementary and secondary school curricula, and that the teaching of these subjects may rank as a profession in which there is a great deal of scope. The attitude of mind towards these subjects has much changed during the last few years, largely owing to the efforts of those who have taken them up as subjects of scientific study. Much, however, remains to be done, both in organising the teaching in schools, and in the training of teachers in domestic subjects. Only those who have had scientific training, are competent to put the work on a sound scientific basis.

[Footnote 1: An interesting sidelight on economic conditions is afforded by the instructions issued by the London County Council for the guidance of teachers of Domestic Subjects (Syllabus of Instruction in Domestic Economy. Revised, March 1912). The girls are to be taught account-keeping in order to "cultivate a well-balanced sense of proportion in spending and saving. … Weekly incomes suitable for consideration in London, to begin with, are 35s., £3, and 28s. taken in that order." The number in family is supposed to be six, i.e., parents and four children.

The obvious inference is that experts do not find it possible to deal satisfactorily with cases in which there are, say, six children and an income of 25s. An income of £1 a week is not even mentioned, though many a London school-girl must know "in the last three years of her school-life" that her mother has not more than this to spend. Translated into concrete quantities of food, clothing, and rent, this "living wage" is found insufficient for daily needs. The teacher therefore is encouraged to ignore the economic conditions of most of her pupils. [EDITOR]. ]

TABLE I.

Cost and duration of courses for the first degree in the Faculties of Arts and Science, together with Scholarships in those Faculties available for Women at the Universities and University Colleges[1] of the United Kingdom.

NOTES.

1. Scholarships, etc., printed in italics are available for Women only.

2. Scholarships, etc., printed in #black type# are not restricted to graduates of any one University.

3. County Council and Borough Scholarships are included only when tenable at a specified University or College. Particulars of others should in each case be obtained from the respective Director or Secretary of the Education Committee.

4. No scholarship or prize is included of which the value is less than £15.

[Footnote 1: University Colleges are those in receipt of a Government Grant and doing work of a University standard. Thus the Polytechnics and Colleges such as the Albert Memorial College, Exeter, are not included, although they prepare students for degree examinations.]

#ENGLAND#.

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM.

Duration of Pass Course in Arts or Science: 3 years.
Duration of Honours (M.A., M.Sc.) in Arts or Science: 4 years.
Cost of Tuition in Arts: 54 guineas for the course.
Cost of Tuition in Science: From 47 guineas to £186, 2s. for
  the course, according to subjects chosen.
Cost of Residence (optional): From 40 to 55 guineas per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
Entrance(2) Not more than £25
                                       1 year
Fentham's Trust £75 3 years Awarded on to candidates
                                                  who have resided for 5
                                                  years in the City of
                                                  Birmingham
University(2) £30 1 year Science
University(2) £30 1 year Arts
University(15) Free tuition and not
                          more than £30
                          maintenance 4 years
Theodore Mander £24 2-3 years Open to sons and daughters
                                                  of burgesses of
                                                  Wolverhampton, and
                                                  awarded to those
                                                  intending to take Degree
                                                  Courses in the Faculties
                                                  of Science of Commerce
Polytechnic(2) £45 circa 3 years
Ascough £36 circa 1 year Chemistry
                                   (renewable)
George Henry £45 3 years Classics
  Marshall
German £50 — Offered each year for 5
                                                  years from 1913.
Education Committee £50 3 years
  Major(5)
Corbett £28 circa 1 year For 2nd year students.
                                                  Mathematics.

#Post-Graduate# University(4) £50 1 year Arts and Science Research(4) £50 1 year Arts and Science Priestley(3) £96 circa 1 year Chemistry Research (renewable) 1851 Exhibition £150 2 years Scientific Research

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL.

Duration of Course in Arts or Science, Pass or Honours: 3 years.
Cost of Tuition in Arts: 18 guineas per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: 20 guineas per annum.
Cost of Residence (optional) at Clifton Hill House: 40 guineas per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
Bursaries, variable Tuition fees and
  in number maintenance grant
                                       1 year Awarded (to children of
                                                  Bristol ratepayers only)
                                                  according to
                                                  qualification
Vincent Stuckey Lean Interest on Science
  Scholarship £1,000 1 year

#Post-Graduate.# Catherine Winkworth £30 1 year Arts Catherine Winkworth £30 1 year Science Capper Pass Scholarship £25 1 year Metallurgy Hugh Conway Scholarship £20 1 year English Literature

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

The only University Scholarships for which women are eligible
are the Arnold Gerstenberg Studentship (income of £2,000) for
Philosophical Research and the Benn W. Levy Studentship for
Research in Biological Chemistry (£100 a year). Scholarships at
Girton and Newnham are for women only.

The University does not grant degrees to women.

GIRTON COLLEGE.

Duration of Course in Arts or Science: 3 years. (Pass candidates
  are not accepted.)

Cost of Course: £105 per annum, including tuition, examinations,
  and residence. For out-students the fees are £12 a term.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks. Jane Agnes Chessar Not less than £88 4 years Classics Russell Gurney £40 3 years History Sir Francis Goldsmid £45 3 years Mary Anne Leighton About £16 3 years Barbara Leigh Smith About £44 3 years Bodichon Todd Memorial About £35 3 years Higgins £40 3 years Henry Tomkinson At least £20 3 years Clothworkers £60 3 years Skinners £50 3 years Gilchrist £50 3 years Also tenable at Newnham Queen's School, £30 3 years Chester Dove £20 3 years For girls from St. Leonard's School, St. Andrew's. Classics

#For Certified Students#
Gilchrist Studentship £100 1 year For Professionals. Open to
                                                  Students at Newnham and
                                                  Girton
Old Girtonians' Not less than
  Studentship £48 1 year
John Elliot Cairnes Not less than
                          £58 1 year For research in Political
                                                  Economy or Economic
                                                  History
Sir Arthur Arnold £30 1 year
Harkness About £70 1 year Geology. Also tenable at
                                                  Newnham. Awarded
                                                  biennially

#Fellowships.#
Pfeiffer £120 2 years
#Girton College# £300 Various Open to students of all
                                                  Universities

#Prizes.# Gamble Interest on £500 Therese Montifiore Interest on £1,700

NEWNHAM COLLEGE.

Duration of Course in Arts or Science: 3 years (Pass candidates are not accepted).

Cost of Course: From £90 to £105 per annum, including tuition, examinations, and residence. For out-students the fees are £12 a term.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks. College(2) £50 3 years Clothworhers £50 3 years College(1 or more) £35 3 years Classical £50 3 years Also tenable at Girton Modern Languages £50 3 years Also tenable at Girton Liverpool Clough £50 2-3 years For those entering the teaching profession, only Gilchrist £50 3 years Also tenable at Girton Mary Ewart £100 3 years For students who have been in residence three terms Harkness £70 1 year Geology. Also tenable at Girton. Awarded biennially

#Certificated Students#
Arthur Hugh Clough £40 1 year
Mary Ewart £150 1 year Travelling scholarship
Gilchrist £100 1 year Tenable only by those
                                                  entering a profession.
                                                  Held alternate years at
                                                  Newnham and Girton
#Bathurst# £75 or under 1 year Awarded from time to time
                                                  for proficiency in
                                                  Natural Science. Not
                                                  restricted to Newnham
                                                  students
Marion Kennedy £80 1 year Holder eligible for 2nd
  Studentship year

#Fellowships.# Associates(2) £100 1 year Awarded alternate years Mary Bateson £100 1 year "N" £100 1 year

#Prizes.# Creighton £15 Awarded for an essay on Memorial History or Archaeology

UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM.

DURHAM COLLEGE.

Duration of Course in Arts: Pass 2 years; Honours, 3 years.
Duration of Course in Science: Pass and Honours, 3 years.
Cost of Tuition, Arts and Science: £21 per annum.
Cost of Residence in Abbey House (optional): From £12 to £16 a term.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance.#

Foundation Scholarships £70 1 year May be renewed. Arts
Foundation Scholarships £40 1 year May be renewed
Foundation Scholarships £30 1 year May be renewed
Entrance Exhibitions(2) £20 1 year May be renewed
Pears Scholarship £50 3 years Arts
Scholarships(2) £70 1 year
Scholarships(2) £30 1 year
Exhibitions(2) £20 2 years Persons of limited means

#Undergraduate.#
Scholarships(2) £30 1 year 2nd year students
Scholarships(2) £30 1 year 2nd year students
Gisborne Scholarship £30 1 year 2nd year students
University Classical £30 1 year
  Scholarship
University Mathematical £30 1 year
  Scholarship
University Hebrew £20 1 year
  Scholarship
Thorp Scholarship £20 1 year
Newby Scholarship £18 2 or 3 yrs. Arts
Scholarships(3) £20 1 year Modern B.A.

#Prizes.#
Gibson £20 Essay

ARMSTRONG COLLEGE, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.

Duration of Pass Course in Arts or Science: 3 years.
Duration of Honour Course in Arts or Science: 3 to 4 years.
Cost of Tuition: £20 per annum.
There is no Hall of Residence.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance.#
Exhibition £20 1-2 years Science
Exhibition £15 1-2 years Science
Exhibitions(2) £15 1-2 years Arts
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Free admission to a Open to candidates
  Corporation degree course resident in Newcastle.
  Exhibitions(10) 2 years Arts
                                    (renewable)
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Free admission to a Open to candidates
  Corporation degree course resident in Newcastle.
  Exhibitions(10) 2 years Arts
                                    (renewable)
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Free admission to a Open to candidates
  Corporation degree course resident in Newcastle.
  Exhibitions(10) 2 years Science
                                    (renewable)
Gateshead Corporation Free admission to a Open to candidates
  Exhibitions(10) degree course resident in Gateshead.
                                       2 years
                                    (renewable)

#Undergraduate.#

Junior Pemberton £30 and remission of Awarded on the results of
                          two-thirds of the the first B.Sc.
                          class fees 1 year examination
Thomas Young Hall £20 with remission of Awarded on the results
                          two-thirds of the of the first B.Sc.
                          class fees 3 years examination
Nathaniel Clerk £15 1 year Awarded on the results
                                                  of the first B.Sc.
                                                  examination
Senior Pemberton £40 and fees 1 year Candidates must have
                                                  passed the first B.Sc.
                                                  examination

#Post-Graduate.#
Research Studentships(2) £62, 10s 1 year
1851 Exhibition £150 2 years Science
1851 Exhibition
  Probationary Bursaries £70 1 year Science Research

Johnston Chemical £60 1 year Open to Bachelors of
                                                  Science of any British
                                                  University of not more
                                                  than 3 years' standing

#Fellowships.#
College £125 1 year
Pemberton £120 3 years Open to graduates in
                                                  Science of Durham
                                                  University of not more
                                                  than 6 years' standing
                                                  from their first degree

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS.

Duration of Pass Course, Arts or Science: 3 years.
Duration of Honour Course, Arts or Science: 3 to 4 years.
Cost of Tuition in Arts: £19 per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £27 per annum.
Cost of Residence at University Hall (optional): From £32 to £41 per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks. Emsley £20 2 years Edward Baines £20 2 years Charles Wheatley £25 3 years Arts William Summers £35 3 years Arts Brown £40 2 years Science (renewable) Senior City(14) £50 3 years Open to candidates of not (renewable) less than 17 and not more than 30 years of age County Major £55 circa 3 years Open to candidates of not (West Riding)(14) less than 16 and not more than 30 years of age Free Studentships Tuition Fees 3 years (West Riding) Major (North Riding)(4) £60 1-3 years Open to women of not less than 16 and not more than 20 years of age Scholarships (East £60 1-3 years Riding) Salt £20 2 years Arts City Council Not specified

#Post-Graduate.# 1851 Exhibition £150 2 years Science University (limited £25 1-2 years Awarded ordinarily on number) Final Honours Examinations Gilchrist £80 1 year Modern Languages John Rutson £70 1 year Arts (renewable)

#Fellowships.#
University £100 1 year

UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL.

Duration of Pass Course in Arts or Science: 3 years.
Duration of Honour Course in Arts: 3 to 4 years.
Duration of Honour Course in Science: 4 years.
Cost of Tuition in Arts: £19 per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £25 per annum.
Cost of Residence in University Hall (optional): From 35 to 50 guineas a
  session.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
Bibby(2) £20 3 years Open to candidates of not
                                                  more than 18 years of age
Morris Ranger £20 3 years
Ladies' Educational £30 3 years Open to women of not less
Association than 16 and not more than
                                                  19 years of age
Elizabeth James £40 3 years Arts or Law
Tate (Arts) £35 3 years Open to candidates who
                                                  have been educated in one
                                                  of the schools of
                                                  Liverpool or the
                                                  neighbourhood and who are
                                                  not more than 18 years of
                                                  age
Tate (Science)(3) £35 3 years
Senior City(8) £30 and free admission Open to candidates of not
                           to lectures less than 16 and not more
                                       3 years than 19 years of age
Senior City Technical(2) £50 and free admission Open to candidates of not
                           to lectures less than 16 and not more
                                                  than 25 years of age
                                       3 years
Derby(2) £35 3 years One without limit of age,
                                                  one for candidates of not
                                                  more than 18 years of age
Canning £28 3 years}
Iliff £20 3 years} Arts including
                                                  Mathematics, or B.Sc.
                                                  Honours in Mathematics
William Rathbone £20 3 years}
Gossage £70 circa 3 years Open to pupils of schools
                                                  in the Borough of Widnes
Lundie Memorial £15 3 years
Wallasey Borough £35 3 years Open to candidates under
  Council 19 years of age
W.P. Sinclair Interest on £1,000 Arts or Honour School of
                                       3 years Mathematics
Henry Deacon £50 3 years Open to candidates of not
                                                  more than 19 years of age
                                                  who intend studying in
                                                  the Honour School of
                                                  Chemistry
Sheridan Muspratt £50 2 years Chemistry
Thomas Hornby £20 1 year Greek
                                  (renewable)
Korbach £20 1 year Undergraduates reading
                                  (renewable) German in the Honour
                                                  School of Modern
                                                  Languages or graduates
                                                  wishing to proceed with
                                                  German study or research
Henry Warren Meade-King Interest on £1,000 Economics
                                      2 years
Holt Travelling £50 1 year Architecture
Isaac Roberts(2) £50 1 year Science. Open to graduates
                                  (renewable) and under-graduates
Sir John Willox £50 2 years Chemistry

#Post-Graduate# Korbach £20 1 year __See above, undergraduate_ (renewable) scholarship of same name Gilchrist £80 1 year Modern Languages Isaac Roberts(2) £50 1 year See above, undergraduate scholarship of same name 1851 Exhibition £150 2 years Tenable at any University in England and abroad, and to be used for Science Research work University(2) £25 1 year 1851 Exhibition Bursary £70 1 year Derby £45 circa 1 year Mathematics (renewable) Owen-Templeman Interest on £450 1 year (renewable) Celtic Stanley Jones Interest on £1,300 Economics #Fellowships.# University — 1 year Charles Beard £75 1 year History Oliver Lodge Interest on £2,650 Physics 1 year

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.

The duration of the Course in Arts or Science, Pass and Honours, is 3 years. (See under separate Colleges for Fees.)

All students of the University are eligible for University Scholarships, Exhibitions, and Prizes in accordance with the regulations laid down in each case.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks. #University Undergraduate.# Exhibitions(5) £40 2 years Arts and Science Scholarships(19) £50 1 year Arts and Science Mitchell Exhibitions(4) 2 of £25} 1 year For candidates from the 2 of £20}(renewable) city of London Si Dunstan Exhibitions £60 3 years For residents in London of for Women(3) restricted means Gilchrist £40 2 years One in Arts, one in Scholarships, for Science (the latter may Women(2) be increased by £10)

#University Post-Graduate.#
The Lindley Studentship £100 For research in Physiology
                                                 (awarded every 3rd year)
The University £50 For research
   Studentship in (undergraduates are also
   Physiology eligible)
George Smith Studentship £100 + £5 worth Awarded to the best
                             of books Internal Candidate for
                                                  B.A. Honours in English
                                                  on condition of
                                                  preparation for M.A.
Gilchrist Studentship £100 For graduates in Honours
  for Women who undertake to prepare
                                                  for and practise some
                                                  profession
Gilchrist Studentship in £80 For internal graduates in
  Modern Languages Honours (French or
                                                  German) who undertake to
                                                  follow abroad a course of
                                                  preparation for the
                                                  profession of Modern
                                                  Language Teacher
Carpenter Medal (or its £20 Awarded every 3 years for
  pecuniary equivalent) a Thesis in experimental
                                                  Psychology presented for
                                                  a Doctor's Degree
Ouseley Memorial £50 Oriental Languages, not
  Scholarships(3) restricted to graduates
Gilchrist Scholarships(2)£50 Oriental Languages, not
                                                  restricted to graduates

Grants are also made from the Dixon Fund in aid of scientific investigations.

BEDFORD COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.

Cost of Tuition in Arts: 27 guineas per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: From 27 to 38 guineas per annum.
Cost of Residence in College (optional): From 58 to 68 guineas per annum.
All Scholarships at Bedford College are open to women only.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks. #Undergraduate.# Reid Scholarships(2) £30 3 years Arts Clift Scholarship £30 3 years Arts Courtauld Scholarship £30 3 years Arts Henry Tate Scholarship £50 3 years Science Arnott Scholarship £50 3 years Science Pfeiffer Scholarships(2) £50 3 years Reid Scholarship £60 3 years Jane Benson Scholarship £60 2 years Awarded biennially to a student of Bedford High School

#Post-Graduate#
Reid Fellowship £50 2 years Awarded biennially either
                                                  to an Arts or a Science
                                                  graduate

EAST LONDON COLLEGE.

Cost of Tuition in Arts or Science: £10, 10s. per annum.
There is no Hall of Residence.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
 #Entrance.#
Drapers' Company(2) £40 3 years Arts. Candidates must not
                                                  exceed 19 years of age
Drapers' Company(2) £40 3 years Science. Candidates must
                                                  not exceed 19 years of
                                                  age

#Post-Graduate.# Research Studentship Conditions not yet published

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON KING'S COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.

Cost of Tuition in Arts: £25, 4s. per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £31, 10s. per annum.
Cost of Residence in King's Hall (optional): From £17, 10s. to £26, 5s.
   per term.
All Scholarships, etc., except the three which are specified, are open to
  both men and women, and are tenable by the former at King's College,
  Strand.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance.#
Skinners' Company £40 3 years Arts
  Scholarship
Merchant Taylors' £40 3 years Arts or Science
  Scholarship
Sambrooke Scholarship £25 2 years Classics
Sambrooke Scholarship £25 2 years Science

#Undergraduate.#
Inglis Scholarship £30 1 year English or History in
                                                  alternate years
Sambrooke Exhibition £50 1 year Classics

#Post-Graduate.#
Inglis Studentship £100 1 year Awarded on the result
                                                  of the B.A. Honours
                                                  Examination in English
                                                  and in History in
                                                  alternate years. The
                                                  selected Student is
                                                  required to prepare for
                                                  M.A. and to give some
                                                  assistance in teaching
Layton Research £150 2 years Science
  Studentship
Gilchrist Scholarship £52, 10S 1 year For graduates intending to
  in Home Science take the Post-Graduate
                                                  Diploma in Home Science
                                                  and Economics. For women
                                                  only

#Prizes.# Carter Prize £15 in books and gold English Verse medal Carter Prize £15 in books and gold Botany medal

ROYAL HOLLOWAY COLLEGE.

Cost of Residence and Tuition: £100 per annum.
Cost of Tuition for out-students: £12 per term.
All Scholarships at Royal Holloway College are for women only.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks. #Entrance.# Founder's £60 3 years Scholarships(4) Entrance £50 3 years Scholarships(8) Martin Holloway £35 3 years Several Bursaries Not exceeding £30 3 years

#Undergraduate.# Driver(3) £30 3 years For students who have been at least three terms in residence Christie £60 2 years For History

#Post-Graduate.# Several Varying 1 year For students wishing to Studentships in amount take up post-graduate work #Prizes.# R.C. Christie, Esq. £21 French literature Martin Holloway. £15, 15s. ——————————————————————————————-

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE.

Cost of Tuition in Arts: From £24, 3s. to £42 per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £35 per annum.
Cost of Residence in College Hall (optional): From £53 to £82 per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance.#
Andrews Entrance £30 1 year Arts and Science. Age
  Scholarships(3) limit, 18
Campbell Clarke £40 3 years English Language and
  Entrance Scholarship Literature. Age limit, 18
Goldsmid £30 3 years Science. Age limit, 18
Rosa Morison £30 3 years Arts. Age limit, 18
Member's Scholarship £30 3 years Classics
West £30 1 year English and English
                                                  History
Morris £16 2 years
St Pancras College fees for Limited to candidates born
                                       3 years in St Pancras
Campbell Clarke £40 2 or 3 years English Language and
                                                  Literature

#Undergraduate.#
Andrews Scholarships £30 1 year Arts and Science
Derby Zoological £60 2 years
Ellen Watson Memorial £15 1 year Science. Candidates must
                                                  be under 21
Fielden Research £50 1 or 2 years Research in German
Eleanor Grove £30 1 year Research in German
                             (may be renewed)
John Oliver Hobbes £20 1 year Modern English Literature
Hollier £60 1 year Greek and Hebrew
Jews' Commemoration £15 2 years Arts or Science
Joseph Hume £20 1 year Jurisprudence and
                                                  Political Economy
Malden Medal and £20 1 year Proficiency in Greek
  Scholarship
Mayer de Rothschild £40 1 year Pure Mathematics
John Stuart Mill £20 1 or 2 years Philosophy of Mind or
                                                  Logic
Rosa Morison £30 1 year English Language and
                                                  Literature
Ricardo £20 3 years Awarded every third year
                                                  for Political Economy
Tuffnell £100 2 years Science. Candidates must
                                                  be under 24

#Post-Graduate.#
George Jessel £50 1 year Research in Mathematics
  Studentship
Jevons Memorial £35 1 or 2 years Research in Political
                                                  Economy
Physics Research £60} 1 year
  Studentships(2) £40}
Quain £150 3 years English. Awarded every
                                                  third year
Quain £100 3 years Biology. Awarded every
                                                  third year

#Prizes.#
Quain £50 English Essay

WESTFIELD COLLEGE.

Cost of Residence and Tuition: £35 a term.
Cost of Tuition for Out-students: £15 a term.
All Scholarships at Westfield College are for women only.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks. #Entrance.# Draper's Company(2) £50 3 years Candidates must be under age of 20 Amy Sanders Stephens £50 3 years College Scholarships £35 to £50 3 years (2 or more)

UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER.

Duration of Course in Arts or Science, Pass and Honours: 3 years.
Cost of Tuition in Arts: £18 per session.
Cost of Tuition in Science: Pass, from £20 to £30 per annum.
  Honours, from £12, 12S. to £45 per annum.
Cost of Residence in Ashburne Hall or Langdale Hall (optional):
  From £40 to £52, 10S. per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
Rogers £40 2 years Biennial. Classics
Seaton £40 2 years Biennial. Mathematics
Dalton £40 2 years Mathematics
Hulme £35 3 years English and History
Jones £35 2 years History
James Gaskill £35 2 years Mathematics and Chemistry
John Buckley £30 3 years Mathematics and Science
Grace Calvert £30 2 years Science. Biennial
Bleackley £15 3 years Science (not till 1915)
Theodores £15 1 year French and German
Dora Muir £30 3 years
Alice Fay £25 Not more than 3 years
Ashburne Hall £60 3 years
Marjory Lees £40 3 years
Old Ashburnians £30 1-3 years
Jevons £70 1 year Economic Science (once in
                                                  six years)
Russian £60 1st year} 2 years
                         £25 2nd year}
Bishop Fraser £40 2 years Classics
Oliver Heywood £50 2 years Classics
Dieschfield £30 1 year
Robert Platt £50 1-2 years Zoology and Botany
Robert Platt £50 2 years Physiology
Education(2) £50 1 year Intending Teachers
Faulkner (Arts) and £100 1 year
  Beyer (Science)(3)
Victoria £40 1 year Classics
Wellington £30 1 year Greek. Biennial
Walters £30 1 year French. German
Bradford £35 1 year History
Shuttleworth £45 1 year Political Economy
Dalton £35 1 year Mathematics
Derby £30 1 year Mathematics
Heginbottom £15 1 year Physics
Dalton £50 2 years Chemical
Mercer £30 1 year Chemistry

#Post-Graduate.# Roscoe £50 1 year History (renewable) Gilchrist £80 1 year Modern Languages Graduate £25 1 year One in each Honours School in Arts and Science Travelling £60 for 1st year, Russian and £75 for 2nd year #1851 Exhibition# £150 2 years Science Schuster £50 1 year Engineering or Chemistry

#Fellowships.#
John Harling £125 1-2 years Physics, English
Honorary Schunk £100 1 year Chemistry
Jones £150 2 years History
John Bright £100 2 years
Public Health(2) £50 1 year

#Prizes.#
Lee Greek Testament £15
  Senior
Warburton £30

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

Duration of Course in Arts or Science: 3 to 4 years. (Pass
  candidates are not accepted at the Women's Colleges.)

Women are not eligible for any University Scholarships or Prizes.
  All Scholarships at the Women's Colleges are for women only.
  The University does not grant degrees to women.

SOMERVILLE COLLEGE.

Combination Fee: From £84 to £105 per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
Entrance £40-£60 3 years
  Scholarships(3)
Entrance £20-£30 3 years
  Exhibitions(2)
Shaw Lefevre £50 Awarded only to students
                                                  in residence

#Certificated Students.#
#Mary Ewart Travelling#
  #Scholarship# £100-£200 Awarded occasionally, and
                                                  open to women graduates
                                                  of Durham and Dublin,
                                                  as well as to all
                                                  certificated students of
                                                  the Women's Colleges at
                                                  Oxford and Cambridge

LADY MARGARET HALL.

Cost of Tuition: £27 per annum.
Cost of Residence (obligatory): From £65 to £75 per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks. #Entrance.# Jephson Scholarship £50 3 years College Scholarship £40 3 years College Scholarship £35 3 years

ST HILDA'S HALL.

Cost of Tuition: £26, 5s. per annum.
Cost of Residence (obligatory): £75 per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks. #Entrance.# College Scholarship £50 3 years College Scholarship £30 3 years Hay Scholarship £25-£45 3 years Cheltenham Scholarship varies in amount Open only to pupils of 3 years Cheltenham Ladies College

ST HUGH'S COLLEGE.

Combination Fee: From £70 to £95 per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks. #Entrance.# __Old Students'_ £30 3 years Scholarship College Scholarship £30 3 years College Scholarship £25 3 years Clara Evelyn Mordan Scholarship £40 3 years Awarded every third year

SOCIETY OF HOME STUDENTS.

Cost of Tuition: From £24 to £30 per annum.

The Society of Home Students provides for the education of students who are not in residence at any College. It undertakes to prepare students for pass as well as honours examinations.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
Ottley Scholarship £40 3 years Open only to pupils of
                                                  Worcester High School.
Gilchrist Travelling £100 1 year Open to certificated women
                                                  students at Oxford

UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD.

Duration of Course in Arts or Science, Pass and Honours: 3 years.
Cost of Tuition varies according to subjects chosen.
Cost of Residence in the University Hostel (optional): From
29 to 43 guineas per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance.#
Fifth £30 3 years Arts, Science
Corporation £30 3 years Arts, Science
Town Trustees(2) £50 3-4 years Tenable at Sheffield,
                                                  Oxford and Cambridge
Education Committee £15, 1st year}
                         £20, 2nd year}3 years
                         £25, 3rd year}
Town Trustees(4) £50 3 years Open only to candidates
                                                  under 19 years of age
                                                  educated in Sheffield
Education Committee £50 3 years Applied Science
Earnshaw[1] £50 at least 1 year Open to inhabitants of the
                                  or more City of Sheffield, and
                                                  tenable at any University
                                                  in the United Kingdom.
                                                  Awarded for Mathematics
                                                  or Classics.
Mechanics' Institute £50 and free admission
                         to lectures 1-2 years
Whitworth Exhibitions(30)£50 3 years Awarded on the results of
                                                  Examinations of the Board
                                                  of Education
Whitworth(4) £25 3 years Awarded on the results of
                                                  Examinations of the Board
                                                  of Education
Technical £20, 1st year; £25, 2nd
                         year; £30, 3rd year;
                         and free admission to
                         lectures 3 years
Education Committee £50 3 years Arts
Education Committee(4) £50 3 years Pure or Applied Science

#Post-Graduate# Frederick Clifford £50 circa 2 years Open to graduates residing within a radium of 40 miles of the University #1851 Exhibition# £150 2 years Science

#Fellowships.#
Sorby Interest on £15,503, Chemistry. Next award 1914
                         16s. 6d. 5 years
Town Trustees £75 1 year

[Footnote 1: This does not appear to come under either of the categories of County and Borough Scholarship alluded to in Note 3, p. 28. The Editor therefore includes it here.]

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, NOTTINGHAM.

Students read for the external degrees of the University of London.

Cost of Tuition in Arts: £12, 12s. per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £18 per annum.
Cost of Residence at Hylton House (optional): £30 per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance.#
Scholarships(3) £30 1 year Arts and Science. For
                                  (renewable) students not over 19
                                                  years of age
Studentships Remission of fees
                                       1 year
                                  (renewable)
Parker Senior £25-£50 3 years For daughters of residents
  Exhibitions in Nottingham
County Council College and travelling Open to candidates under
  Scholarships fees, and books 19, ordinarily resident
                                                  in the County

#Undergraduate.# Weinberg Scholarship £15 1 year For students in need of pecuniary assistance College Studentships £10 to £18 1 year For students in need of pecuniary assistance

#Post-Graduate.#
Science Research(2) £50 and free admission
                                       1 year
Heymann Research £35 1 year May be divided between two
                                                  candidates. Preference
                                                  given to students in the
                                                  Faculty of Arts
#1851 Exhibition# £150 2 years For Research work in
  #Scholarship# Science. Tenable at any
                                                  University.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, READING.

Students read for the external degrees of the University of London.

Cost of Tuition in Arts: £20. per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: From £20 to £24 per annum.
  (There is a reduction for local students.)
Cost of Residence in St Andrew's Hall, Wessex Hall and St
  George's Hostel (obligatory for students not residing with
  parents or guardians): From £32 to £42 per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance.#
Open Scholarships— £69} 2 years Science
  Major(2) £65} (renewable) Arts
  Minor(2) Remission of College
                         fees 2 years
                                   (renewable)
County Borough of
    Reading—
  Minor Scholarships(2) Remission of College For candidates educated
                         fees. 1 year in Borough of Reading
                                   (renewable)
St Andrew's Hall. £40 2 years
                                   (renewable)

St Andrew's Hall Amount variable Students in need of
  Bursaries pecuniary assistance
Exhibition Remission of College For graduates, whether
                         fees 1 year already students of the
                                                  College of not. Secondary
                                                  Education Course

HARTLEY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, SOUTHAMPTON.

Students read principally for the external degrees of the University of
London.

Cost of Tuition in Arts: £20 per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £24 per annum.
There is no Hall of Residence.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance.#
College(2) £26, 8s., 1st year}
                         £34, 8s., 2nd year} 3
                         £36, 8s., 3rd year}years
College(2) £26, 8s., 1st year} 2
                         £34, 8s., 2nd year}years
Exhibitions(4) £15 and £18 3 years Open to candidates between
                                                  the ages of 16 and 19
Thomas Godolphin £23 1 year Open to candidates who
  Rooper have been educated for at
                                                  least 2 years at a Public
                                                  Elementary School in the
                                                  late Mr. Rooper's
                                                  Inspectorial District

#IRELAND.#

UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN.

TRINITY COLLEGE.

Duration of Arts Course, Pass and Honours, 4 years.
Duration of Science Course: Pass, 4 years; Honours, 5 years.
Cost of Tuition: £16. 16s. per annum.
Cost of Residence in Trinity Hall (for women not residing with
  their parents or guardians): From £11 to £15 a term.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance.#
Exhibitions(12) £20 (6)} 2 years Examination results
                         £15 (6)} of Irish Board of
                                                  Intermediate Education
Junior Exhibitions(16) £20 (12)} 2 years Candidates under 19
                         £15 (4) }
Sizarships(10) College fees Students in need of
                                                  pecuniary assistance
Non-foundation £30 5 years Arts or Science
  Scholarship
James Patrick Kidd £80 4 years Arts or Science
Irish Society £60 3 years Open only to pupils of an
  Scholarship Intermediate School in
                                                  Londonderry or Coleraine

#Undergraduate.#
Senior Exhibitions(16) £20} 2 years Arts or Science
                         £15}
Lloyd Exhibition £16 2 years Mathematics
Mullins Exhibition £17 3 years Classics
Ekenhead Scholarship £32 3 years Science. Open only to
                                                  natives of Antrim
FitzGerald Memorial £50 1 year Research in Science
  Scholarship
Blake National History £85 4 years
  Scholarship

#Prizes.#
Bishop Law's Mathematics £20 Algebra and Trigonometry
McCullogh £30 and £20 Mathematics
Townsend Memorial £22 Mathematics
Vice Chancellor's £20 Classics
Ferrar Memorial £18 Classics
Marshal Porter Memorial Interest on £500 Classics
Wray Prize £30 Mental and Moral
                                                  Philosophy
Cobden Prize £20 Essay on Political Economy
Hebrew Chaldee and £40
  Syriac
Ferguson Memorial £20 Celtic Literature

M'CREA MAGEE COLLEGE LONDONDERRY.

(In connection with the University of Dublin.)

Duration of Course in Arts: Pass, 3 years 9 months to 4 years;
  Honours 4 years.
Duration of Course in Science, Pass and Honours: 4 years.
Cost of Course in Arts or Science: From £32, 12s. to £50. 8s.
  for the course.
There is no Hall of Residence.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
Bigger £30 1 year
Grocers' Company £25 1 year
M'Crea Science £25 1 year Mathematics and Physics
Adams' Bursary £15 1 year
M'Crea Science £30 1 year Mathematics and Physics
Grocers' Company £25 1 year
Findlater £25 1 year
Irish Society £20 1 year
Mabel £20 1 year Modern Literature

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND.

All students of the University are eligible for University Scholarships in accordance with the regulations laid down in each case.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#University Undergraduate.#
Dr Henry Hutchinson £30 3 years Awarded on results of
  Stewart Literary First Examination in Arts
  Scholarship
Tipperary County £50 3 years
  Council

#University Post-Graduate.#
Coyne Memorial £32 1 year Awarded in alternate years
  Scholarship for Essay on Political
                                                  Science
University Travelling £200 2 years In Arts and Science
  Studentships(3) subjects in rotation

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.

Duration of Course in Arts or Science, Pass and Honours: 3 years.
Cost of Arts Course: £28, 10s.
Cost of Science Course: Variable, according to subjects chosen.
Cost of Residence in Loreto Hall or St Mary's Dominican Hall
  (optional): From £30 to £40 per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance#.
Scholarships(4) £50 1 year
Scholarships(4) £40 1 year
Scholarships(4) £30 1 year
Scholarships(4) £20 1 year

#Undergraduate.# Scholarships(4) £50 2 years Arts and Science. For 2nd year students Scholarships(4) £40 2 years Arts and Science. For 2nd year students Scholarships(4) £30 2 years Arts and Science. For 2nd year students Scholarships(4) £20 2 years Arts and Science. For 2nd year students First Class Exhibitions £20 1 year Result of Examination in (4) 2nd year

#Post-Graduate.#
Scholarships(5) £60 1 year Result of B.A. and B.Sc.
                                                  Honours Examination
Scholarship £30 1 year
Scholarships(2) £15 1 year
First Class Exhibitions £20 1 year Result of B.A. and B.Sc.
  (3) Examination

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, GALWAY.

Cost of Tuition in Arts: £10 per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £15 per annum.
There is no Hall of Residence.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance#.
College(4) £30 1 year
College(8) £25 1 year

#Under-Graduate#.
College, 2nd year £30 1 year Arts
College, 2nd year(3) £25 1 year Arts
College, 2nd year £30 1 year Science
College, 2nd year(2) £25 1 year Science
Blayney £30 1 year Scholars must attend
                                                  Honours Courses
Dr and Mrs W.A. Browne £32 1 year Modern Languages

#Post-Graduate.#
College(4) £60 1 year

#Prizes.#
Irish £15

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, CORK.

Cost of Tuition in Arts: £9 per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science varies according to subjects chosen.
There is no Hall of Residence.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance and Undergraduate#
College Scholarships(12) £20-£40 1 year
Honan Scholarships(3) £50 3-5 years To candidates born in
                                                  one of the counties of
                                                  Munster other than Clare
Cork County Council(10) £24 3 years
Kerry County Council(2) £50 3 years Open to candidates of not
                                                  more than 19 years of age
Kerry County Council(3) £30 — Open to candidates of not
                                                  more than 19 years of age
Waterford County £50 3 years Open to candidates of not
  Council(3) more than 19 years of age
Waterford County £50 3 years Open to candidates of not
  Borough(2) more than 19 years of age
College Scholarships(8) £20-£40 2-3 years Open to 2nd year students

#Post-Graduate Scholarships.#
Studentships (2) £150 3 years

QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, BELFAST.

Duration of Course in Arts or Science, Pass and Honours: 3 years. Cost of Tuition varies according to subjects chosen, but does not exceed £11, 11s. per annum for the Arts Course.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance and Undergraduate#
Entrance(12) £40 1 year Arts, Science, and
                                                  Medicine
Second and Third Year £40 2 years Arts and Science
Porter £20 1-3 years
Porter £40 1 year
Sullivan £40 circa 1 year Open to pupils of the
                                                  Royal Belfast Academical
                                                  Institution
Sullivan(2) £40 circa 3 years Open to teachers in Irish
                                                  National Schools
Sir Hercules Pakenham £20 1 year Science
Emily Lady Pakenham £20 1 year Arts
Reid-Harwood £40 circa 1 year Modern Languages
Andrews Studentship £36, 10s. 2 years Awarded alternate years
                                                  for Chemical and Physical
                                                  Science
Blayney £27 1 year Arts
County Borough(4) £40 3 years Arts, Science, Medicine,
                                                  Law, Commerce
Antrim(2) £40 3 years Tenable at any University
                                                  in Ireland
Donegal(2) £45 3 years Tenable at any University
                                                  in Ireland
Kildare(4) £50 3 years Tenable at any University
                                                  in Ireland by non-Roman
                                                  Catholic students
King's County £50 3 years Tenable by non-Roman
                                                  Catholics
Monaghan(3) £50 3 years Tenable at any University
                                                  in Ireland by a non-Roman
                                                  Catholic student
Monaghan Bursaries(2) £25 3 years Tenable at any University
                                                  in Ireland by a non-Roman
                                                  Catholic student
Westmeath(3) £50 3 years Tenable in the National
                                                  University of Ireland or
                                                  in Queen's University,
                                                  Belfast
Wexford(3) £50 3 years Tenable in any University
                                                  or College in Ireland by
                                                  a non-Roman Catholic
                                                  student
Wexford Bursaries(2) £25 3 years Tenable in any University
                                                  or College in Ireland by
                                                  a non-Roman Catholic
                                                  student

#Post-Graduate#.
Studentships(5) £50 1 year Arts
Studentships(4) £50 1 year Science
Dunville Studentships(2) £50 1st year }
                         £100 2nd year}2 years Physical Science and
                                                  Biological Science
Purser £108 1 year Mathematics
Studentship £80 1 year Arts

ALEXANDRA COLLEGE, DUBLIN.

Students read for the Examinations of the University of Dublin, the
  National University of Ireland, and Queen's University, Belfast.
Duration of Course in Arts or Science, Pass and Honours: 3 to 4 years.
Cost of Tuition: From £17 per annum.
Cost of Residence in Alexandra Hall: From £58 to £68 per annum.
Alexandra College is for women only.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks. #Entrance and Undergraduate#. Skinners' Entrance £22 total value Candidates must be under Scholarship 17 on 1st. Jan. Governess Association £42 total value Candidates must be under Scholarship 17 on 1st. Jan. Pfeiffer Entrance £30 total value Candidates must be under Scholarship 17 on 1st. Jan. Stearne Scholarships(2)£20 total value Candidates must be under 17 on 1st. Jan. Wilson Suffern £15 Candidates must be under 17 Skinners' Senior £27 total value Awarded in alternate years Scholarship Pfeiffer Senior £30 total value Scholarship Pfeiffer Literature £30 total value Jellicoe Memorial £24 total value Scholarship (Governess Association) Jellicoe Memorial £25 total value Trench Memorial £15 total value (Senior) Trench Memorial £15 total value Candidates must be under (Junior) 17 R.P. Graves Memorial £15 total value

#SCOTLAND#.

SCHOLARSHIPS TENABLE AT ANY SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
David Anderson(2) £30 4 years Restricted to candidates
                                                  from specified schools or
                                                  districts
Duart £32 3 years Restricted to candidates
                                                  from specified schools or
                                                  districts
Maclean £25 4 years Restricted to candidates
                                                  from specified schools or
                                                  districts
James Stewart £35 3 years Restricted to candidates
                                                  from specified schools or
                                                  districts
Strang-Steel £30 4 years Restricted to candidates
                                                  from specified schools or
                                                  districts
Glenbuck £27 3 years Restricted to candidates
                                                  from specified schools or
                                                  districts
Ferguson Bursaries £25 to £30 4 years Restricted to candidates
                                                  from specified schools or
                                                  districts
Louson £20 4 years
Dumfries £30 3 years
Spence(2) £30 1st year} 2 years For 2nd year Arts students
                         £40 2nd year}
Menzies £45 4 years Tenable at St Andrews,
                                                  Glasgow, or Edinburgh
Patrick A. Lowson £70 2 years Tenable at any University
                                                  in the United Kingdom
Cowan £30 for 2 years } Tenable alternately at
                         £20 for 3rd year} Edinburgh and Glasgow
                                       3 years

SCHOLARSHIPS, ETC., OPEN TO STUDENTS OF ANY SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Undergraduate#.
Franco-Scottish Society £15 1 year For students wishing to
  Travelling Scholarships study in France
Spence Bursaries — — See above, Scholarships
                                                  tenable at any Scottish
                                                  University
James Stewart Bursary — — See ante, Scholarships
                                                  tenable at any Scottish
                                                  University

#Post-Graduate#.
Ferguson Scholarships(3) £80 2 years Arts and Science. Open to
                                                  Masters of Arts
Carnegie Research £150 2 years Arts, Science, Medicine
  Fellowships
Carnegie Research £100 1 year Arts, Science, Medicine
  Scholarships
1851 Science Scholarship £150 2 years Tenable at any approved
                                                  institution
Shaw Philosophical £150 5 years Mental Philosophy. Open to
  Fellowship Arts Graduates
George Heriot £30 1 year Open to graduates of
Bursary for Women the United Kingdom for
                                                  training as teachers.
                                                  Tenable at St. George's
                                                  Training College,
                                                  Edinburgh

UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN.

Duration of Pass Course in Arts or Science: 3 years.
Duration of Honours Course in Arts or Science: 5 years.
Cost of Tuition in Arts : £10, 10s. per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science : £21 per annum.
There is no Hall of Residence.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance and Undergraduate.#
Adam(9) £20 (3)} Arts
                         £15 (6)} 4 years
Campbell(6) £18 4 years Arts
Cargill(8) £20 4 years Arts
Crombie(8) £15 4 years Arts
Fullerton(9) £15 4 years Arts
Gammie £35 2 years French and German
Gordon and Cuming £20 4 years
Hutton(7) £29 (2) } Competitors must not be
                         £20 (3) } 4 years under 14
                         £18 (2) }
Macpherson(3) £20 4 years Arts. Gaelic-speaking
                                                  candidates.
Mather(4) £15 4 years Arts
Melvill(2) £15 4 years Arts
Milne and Fraser £20 4 years Arts
Moir(14) £20 (4) } 4 years Arts
                         £15 (10) }
Red Hyth, Smith and £25 4 years Arts or Science
  Short
Reid and Cruden £20 4 years Arts
Rolland £25 4 years Arts
Rose £20 4 years Arts
Simpson(5) £30 4 years Arts
Highland Society of £15 3 years Gaelic-speaking candidates
  London

#Post-Graduate#.
Robert Fletcher £30 2 years Mathematics
Fullerton, Moir, and £100 (4) } 2 years Arts
  Gray(7) £75 (3) } 3 years
Fullerton £100 2 years Science
Knox Income on £2,000 Arts
                                       1 year
Reid Scholarships —- 1 year Amount not specified. Arts
                                                  or Science
Croom Robertson £200 3 years Arts
  Fellowship
James Day Scholarship £100 1 year Graduate in Arts intending
                                                  to take up teaching
Fullerton Scholarship £100 2 years Science

#Prizes#
Arnott Interest on £1,000 Natural Philosophy
Dr Black £28 Latin
Blackwell £20 English Essay
Caithness £20 History
Greig £30 Natural Philosophy
Simpson and Boxill £65 and £28 Mathematics
Simpson £65 Greek

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.

Duration of Pass Course in Arts or Science: 3 years.
Duration of Honour Course in Arts: 4 years.
Duration of Honour Course in Science: 5 years.
Cost of Tuition in Arts: £10, 10s. per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £15, 15s. per annum for 5 years
  for M.A. and B.Sc. £21 per annum for B.Sc. only.
Cost of Residence in Muir Hall (optional): From £10 to £13, 10s.
  a term.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Bursaries.#
George Heriot Bursary £20 3 years Arts or Science
Heriot High School £30 3 years
  University
R. Johnstone Bursary £19, 13s. 4 years
Chrystie Bursary £18 4 years
Pringle and Wardrop £19, 4s. 4 years
  Bursary
Mitchell and Shortt £27, 5s. 4 years
Dundas £36 4 years
Fraser £22, 4s. 7 years Arts
Grant £45 4 years Arts
Stuart £17, 12S 3 years Arts or Science
Jardine £42, 12S. 6d. 4 years Arts or Science. Limited
                                                  to natives of Scotland
Bruce(4) £40 (1) } 4 years
                         £30 (3) }
Patrick £45 4 years
Ayrshire Club £30 2 years
Peebleshire Society £20 4 years Arts or Science
Rhind £20 4 years
Bruce of Grangehill and £35 (3) } 3 years Arts. 1st and 2nd year
  Falklands Bursaries £20 (2) } 3 years Students
Horsliehill Scott £39, 16s 2 years 3rd year Arts Students
Harrison £25, 18s. 6d. 2 years 3rd year Arts Students
Border Counties and £30 (1) } 4 years Arts or Science. For
  Walter Scott £20 (1) } students having attended
                                                  schools in certain
                                                  specified counties.
                                                  Natives of Argyllshire,
                                                  Bute, or Western Islands
Argyllshire £20 3 years Arts or Science. For
                                                  students having attended
                                                  schools in certain
                                                  specified counties.
                                                  Natives of Argyllshire,
                                                  Bute, or Western Islands
Ardvorlich £15, 13s 4 years Arts. Students must come
                                                  from certain specified
                                                  parishes
Sibbald £30 3 years Arts and Science.
                                                  Specified parishes
Edinburgh Angus Club— £25 4 years Preference given to
  Dalhousie Bursary candidates from the
                                                  County
Orkney and Zetland £40 3 years For natives of Orkney and
                                                  Zetland
 Grierson(5) £20(4) } 4 years Preference given to
                         £24(1) } natives of parishes of
                                                  Cranford or Leadhills
Lanarkshire £20(4) 4 years
Johnstone of Harthope £17,2s. 4 years Natives of Moffat,
 Bursary Peebles, and students of
                                                  name of Alexander or
                                                  Johnstone preferred
Marshall £36,18s. 4 years Restricted
Fothringham and Forrest £24 4 years Restricted
Marquess of Zetland £40 3 years Arts. For natives of
                                                  County of Orkney and
                                                  Zetland
Thomson £25 4 years
Patterson £16 2 years In Anglo-Saxon Grammar or
                                                  Literature
John Welsh(8) £20 4 years Mathematics and Classics
Mackinnon(3) £22,4s.6d. 3 years Arts. Gaelic-speaking
                                                  students
Whitelaw(3) £24,12s. 3 years Arts
Renton £19,11s. 1 year Student must be between
                                                  age of 16 and 21. Arts
                                                  and Science
Newton £23,5s. 2 years Natural Philosophy and
                                                  Mathematics
Mann £29,6s.6d. 3 years Candidates must reside in
                                                  Nairn
Allan £30 3 years Arts or Science
James Fairbairn £33,4s.6d. 4 years
Jardine or Thorlieshope £40,10s. 4 years Open to natives of
                                                  Roxburghshire and
                                                  Dumfriesshire
Mackenzie £22 4 years
Maclaurin £91,12s.8d. 4 years Restricted to students
                                                  of name of founder
Bailie Cousin's £32,15s. 3 years
Maule £21,2s. 6 years
Donald Fraser £50 1 year For Science Research work
Baxter of Balgavies £30 3 years For students educated at
                                                  High School, Dundee
Masterton Memorial £30 3 years For sons and daughters of
                                                  ministers of United Free
                                                  Church
London Inverness-shire £18 3 years Preference to students of
  Association County of Inverness
Lanfine £35 2 years
Auchairne £53,15s.4d. 3 years Natives of County of Ayr
Edinburgh Morayshire £20 3 years Arts or Science. Natives
 Club of County of Moray

#Undergraduate#.
Vans Dunlop £100 3 years Arts and Science
Fettes Exhibition(2) £60 4 years
Skirving £50 3 years
Mackay Smith £27 2 years Natural Philosophy
Nichol Foundation £50 1 year Laboratory Work
Hope Prize £30 1 year Chemistry
Misses Baxter of £40 1 or 2 years Men and women educated in
 Balgavies High School of Dundee

#Fellowships.#
Guthrie £86 4 years Classical Literature
Hamilton £100 3 years Philosophy
Edmonstonne Aytoun £85 3 years English Literature
Falconer Memorial £123 2 years Science

#Post-Graduate.#
Pitt Club Classical £76 4 years
Mackenzie Club Classical £118 4 years
Sir David Baxter £68 4 years
  Mathematical
Sir David Baxter £68 4 years
  Philosophical
John Edward Baxter £100 3 years Arts and Science
Drummond Mathematical £103 3 years
Bruce of Grangehill and £100 3 years Classical
  Falklands
Bruce of Grangehill and £100 3 years Mental Philosophy
  Falklands
Bruce of Grangehill and £100 3 years Mathematics
  Falklands
Gray £97 2 years Arts or Science
Rhind £95 2 years Graduates and
                                                  undergraduates of not
                                                  more than 3 years
                                                  standing. Arts
Charles Maclaren £110 3 years Mathematics and Natural
                                                  Philosophy
Neil Arnott £40 1 year Experimental Physics
George Scott(Travelling) £40 1 year To enable graduates to
                                                  travel for purpose of
                                                  Research
Macpherson £85 1 year For study of Celtic
Kirk Patrick £64 1 year History
C.B. Black £74 2 years Greek. Open to graduates
                                                  and undergraduates
George Heriot's £100 1 year To graduates intending to
  Travelling become teachers of Modern
                                                  Languages
Baxter Physical Science £80 2 years
Baxter Natural Science £80 2 years

#Prizes.#
Ellis £30 Physiology
Lord Rector's £26.5s. Essay
Bruce of Grangehill and £20 Logic and Metaphysics
  Falkland
Scott and Dunbar £15 Greek
Cousin £15 Essay
Blackie Celtic £60

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

QUEEN MARGARET COLLEGE.

Duration of Arts Course: Pass, 3 years; Honours, 4 years.
Duration of Science Course, Pass and Honours: 3-4 years.
Cost of Tuition in Arts: £10, 10s. per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £63 the course of 3 or 4 years.
Cost of Residence at Queen Margaret Hall (optional): From
  17s. to 25s. a week without lunch.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance.#
Barbour (Kilbarchan)(1) £25 3 years Arts. Candidates must not
                                                  be over 18
John Clark(24) £30 4 years Arts
Crawford and Brown(1) £19, 13s. 4d 4 years Arts
Forfar(5) £58 4 years Arts
Forrester(1) £20 3 years Arts
Foundation(2) £20 4 years Arts
Gartmore(1) £22 3 years Arts
General Council(5) £20 2 or 3 years Arts
Glasgow City Education £25 4 or 2 years Arts
Endowments(10) £50
George Grant(1) £40 3 or 4 years Arts
George Grant Junior(1) £40 4 years Arts
Hamilton Educational £20 3 years Arts. Competitors to
  Trust(3) pupils from public or
                                                  State-aided schools in
                                                  burgh and parish of
                                                  Hamilton.
Hastie(1) £27 4 years
Highland Society, £20 3 years
  Glasgow (12)
Hill(6) £20 3 years Arts. For pupils in School
                                                  Board district of Govan
James Laing(8) £25 4 years Arts. For candidates
                                                  educated at least 3 years
                                                  in schools in County of
                                                  Stirling
Lanfine(6) £27 2 years
Lorimer(4) £25 and £17 3 years Mathematics
Alexander Manderson(1) £15 3 years Arts. Natives of the Lower
                                                  Ward of Renfrewshire
Marshall Trust(20) £30 4 years Arts. Pupils from public
                                                  or State-aided schools in
                                                  Lanarkshire or
                                                  Stirlingshire
Sir Walter Scott £25 4 years
A. and B. Stewart(13) £20 3 years Arts
Stewart(3) £15 4 years Arts
King Williams(2) £15 3 years Arts
Ayrshire Society(4) £15 3 years Arts or Science. For
                                                  descendants of Society or
                                                  natives of Aryshire and
                                                  Glasgow
Denny(4) £30 4 years Arts or Science. Students
                                                  over 14 who have been 2
                                                  years at Dumbarton Burgh
                                                  Academy
Dumfriesshire Society(2) £15 4 years Arts or Science
Hart(2) £30 5 years Arts or Science.
                                                  Preference to students
                                                  born in Ayrshire
Pratt(2) £20 4 years Arts or Science

#Undergraduate.#
Will. Houldsworth £150 2 years Research in Science
Mackay Smith £48 2 years Natural Philosophy and
                                                  Chemistry
MacKinnin £60 1 year Science and Modern
                                                  Languages
Thomson Experimental £20 1 year Science

#Post-Graduate.#
Breadalbane (2) £56 3 years Arts or Science
George A. Clark £170 4 years Arts or Science
John Clark £50 4 years Arts
Alexander Donaldson £44 2 years Chemistry
Robert Donaldson £66 2 years Science
Eglinton £65 2 years Arts
William Euing £80 5 years Arts
Luke £95 3 years Arts
Metcalfe £120 3 years Arts
Reid Stuart £60 3 years Arts
Walter Scott £80 2 years Arts
Mackinnon £60 1 year Geology, Natural History,
                                                  Modern Languages
                                                  Examination as for Final
                                                  Hons. Degree

#Prizes#
Arnott £25 and £15 Examination
Cobden £20 Essay
Findlater £38 Examination
Gladstone Historical £25 Examination
Henderson £21 Essay
William Jack £35 Thesis for D.Sc.
Kelvin £35 Thesis for D.Sc.
Macfarlan and Cook £21 Examination
MacKenzie £25 Essay
Reid £25 Original Research
Watson £50 Examination

UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS.

UNITED COLLEGES.

Duration of Pass Course in Arts: 3 years.
Duration of Honour Course in Arts: 4 years.
Duration of Pass and Honour Courses in Science: 4 to 5 years.
Cost of Tuition in Arts: £10, 10S. per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £15, 15s. per annum.
Cost of Residence in University Hall (optional): From £45 to
  £75 per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance and Undergraduate.#
Foundation Bursaries(4) £20 4 years
Foundation Bursary(1) £50 4 years
Patrick Kidd £32 3 years
William Byers £39 3 or 4 years Preference given to
                                                  students of Mairs and
                                                  Strathmartine. Arts
Russell(6) £30 (5) } 3 years Arts and Science
                         £40 (1) }
Simson(6) £20 (5) } 3 years
                         £30 (1) }
Valentine £25 3 years Restricted to women
                                                  residing in the County
                                                  of Fife, Ross or
                                                  Cromarty, or in village
                                                  of Findhorn, Morayhire
Fife, Clackmannan, and £5 3 or 4 years Restricted to students
  Kinross Bursary coming from the above
                                                  counties
Wilkie £19 4 years
Henry £15 4 years
Madras £20 4 years
Fairweather £25 3 years Arts or Science. For
                                                 pupils from any school in
                                                 Dundee
Blyth(2) £20 3 years
George Scott £27 3 or 4 years Arts. Restricted to
                                                  applicants who are
                                                  natives of the Parishes
                                                  of Dull, Weem, Logierait
                                                  in Perthshire
Wood of Orkie £20 3 or 4 years Restricted to pupils who
                                                  have attended public or
                                                  state-aided schools in
                                                  the Parishes of Newburn,
                                                  Kilconquhar, Scoonie,
                                                  Largo, Kennoway, Elie,
                                                  Largoward
Lumsden £35 1 to 3 years For women students
                                                  educated at St Leonard's
                                                  School, St Andrews
Ramsay £40 4 years
Baxter(2) £21 2 years For 2nd year students
Cheape(2) £23 3 years For 2nd year students
Thomas Thow £50 1 year Arts. For 2nd year
                                                  students natives of and
                                                  resident in Dundee or
                                                  the County of Forfar
Stephen Williamson £47 1 year For 4th year Honours
                                                  students
Smeaton £20 1 year For 4th year Honours
                                                  students

#Post-Graduate.#

Bruce and Falkland £50 2 years
Berry £80 1 year May be continued for 2nd
                                                  year. Arts or Science
Grants(6) £20 1 year For students entering on
                                                  Course of Training for
                                                  Secondary Teachers

#Prizes.#
Miller(2) £30 Arts and Science
Arnott(2) £20 and £10
Chancellor's £21 Essay

DUNDEE COLLEGE.

Duration of Course in Arts: Pass, 3 years; Honours, 4 years.
Duration of Course in Science: Pass or Honours: 3 years.
Cost of Tuition in Arts: £10, 10s. per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £21 per annum.
Cost of Residence in Mayfield Hostel (optional): £1 per week.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance.#
Armitstead £20-£15 1 year
David Myles — —
Entrance Scholarships(9) £15 1 year
Educational Endowment £25 3 years

#Undergraduate.# Bursaries(11) £15 to £20 1 year For second and third year Bursaries(8) £15 to £20 1 year For fourth and subsequent years Bute Bursary Income of £1,000 3 years

#Post-Graduate.# William Strong(2 Income of £3,240 or more) 1 year

#Prizes.#
Gladstone Memorial £20 (in books) Essay

WALES

UNIVERSITY OF WALES

Scholarships, etc., not connected exclusively with one College.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Undergraduate#.
Price Davies £30 2 years Tenable at Aberystwyth or
  Scholarship(2) Bangor

#Post-Graduate#.
University £125 2 years
  Fellowships(3)
University £65 2 years Awarded on nomination by
  Studentships(6) the Colleges
Eyton Williams £65 2 years
  Studentships(6)
#Isaac Roberts# £150 1 year Open to graduates of any
  #Scholarship# (renewable) University in the United
                                                  Kingdom. Science. Tenable
                                                  at Cardiff
1851 Science Scholarship £150 2 years Tenable at any approved
                                                  institution
Gilchrist Modern £80 1 year Open to graduates
  Language Studentship intending to teach
                                                  Modern Languages.
                                                  Tenable abroad

ABERYSTWYTH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE.

Duration of Pass Course in Arts or Science: 3 years.
Duration of Honour Course in Arts or Science: 3 to 4 years.
Cost of Tuition in Arts: £12 per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £16 per annum.
Cost of Residence in Alexandra Hall (optional): From £11,11s.
  to £17, 17s. per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance and Undergraduate#.
David Davies £40 1 year Entrance
                                 (renewable)
Open £40 1 year Entrance
                                 (renewable)
Visitor's £15 1 year Entrance
                                   (renewable)

Commercial Travellers of £20 1 year Entrance
  North Wales (renewable)

Scholarship(1) £20 1 year Confined to students
                                   (renewable) intending to proceed to
                                                  the Degree of B.Sc. in
                                                  Agriculture and Rural
                                                  Economy
Brereton £15 1 year Entrance
                                   (renewable)
Elizabeth Davies £20 1 year Entrance.
                                   (renewable) Limited to women natives
                                                  of Cardiganshire or
                                                  Carmarthenshire
Cynddelw Welsh £20 1 year For students undertaking
  Scholarship to pursue a course of
                                                  Welsh study
Humphreys Owen £20 1 year
                                   (renewable) For natives of
                                                  Montgomeryshire

#Post-Graduate.#
Keeling Resewell £40 1 year
  Scholarship

Thomas Davies £54 1 year For Research work in
                                                  Chemistry or Agriculture

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF NORTH WALES (BANGOR).

Cost of Tuition in Arts or Science: £12 per annum.
Cost of Residence in University Hall (optional): £25 to £42 per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance and Undergraduate.#
Eyton Williams £40 3 years
Eyton Williams £30 3 years
Eyton Williams £20 3 years
  Exhibition
Piercey £30 3 years Confined to candidates
                                                  from Flintshire or
                                                  Denbighshire
Richard Hughes £50 1 year
Isaac Roberts(2) £50 Not less
                                       than 1 yr.

#Post-Graduate.# Osborne Morgan £40 Not more Open to past and present than 3 years students

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SOUTH WALES AND MONMOUTHSHIRE (CARDIFF).

Cost of Tuition in Arts: £10 to £12 per annum.
Cost of Tuition in Science: £10 to £16 per annum.
Cost of Residence in Aberdare Hall (optional): £34 to £43, 10s. per annum.

Scholarships, Bursaries, and Prizes.

   Name. Value and Tenure. Remarks.
#Entrance and Under-graduate.#
Drapers' Company £35 1 year Science
                                  (renewable)
Sir Alfred Thomas £20 3 years
Caroline Williams £25 3 years
College £25 3 years
Craddock Wells(5) £20 and 1 year Open to candidates under
                          fees 19 years of age
Studentships Fees and Open only to natives of
                          maintenance Glamorgan and Monmouth,
                          grant 3 years the City of Cardiff and
                                                  the County Borough of
                                                  Newport

#Post-Graduate.#
Catherine Buckton £40 1 year

TABLE II.

In addition to the University Post-Graduate Studentships mentioned in the above table, the following Research Scholarships in Arts and Science, not restricted to graduates of any one University, are open to women:—

TABLE II.

In addition to the University Post-Graduate Studentships mentioned in the above table, the following Research Scholarships in Arts and Science, not restricted to graduates of any one University, are open to women:—

Subject. Title. By whom awarded. Restrictions (if any). Annual Value and
                                                                                                                                    Duration

Subject not fixed. A.K. Travelling A Board of Trustees who receive nominations British Subjects who are £600 and £60 for
                        Fellowship from Vice-Chancellors of Universities in the University graduates books; 2 awarded
                                                  United Kingdom, the President of the Royal annually for 1 year
                                                  Society, and the President of the British
                                                  Academy

Physical Science McKinnon Research Royal Society — £150 for 2 years
                        Fellowship

Biological Science McKinnon Research Royal Society — £150 for 2 years
                        Fellowship

Bio-Chemistry — Lister Institute of Preventive Medecine — £150 for 1 year, renewable
                                                                                                                                    for a 2nd year.

Bacteriology — Lister Institute of Preventive Medecine — £150 for 1 year, renewable
                                                                                                                                    for a 2nd year.

Physiology George Henry Lewes Special Trustees; application to Professor Investigator must be in need £200 for 3 years (renewable)
                        Scholarship Langley, Cambridge of pecuniary help to prosecute
                                                                                                  research

Philosophy George Henry Lewes University of Toronto Graduates who have specialised £50 for 1 year
                        Scholarship in Philosophy

Subject not fixed. Price Fellowship Federation of University Women Women graduates who have £120 for 1 year already published the results of independent research

Natural Science Research Studentship Board of Agriculture and Fisheries Science graduates who are £150 for 3 years, part prepared to research in of which must be spent subjects under the purview abroad, and all 3 at of the Board, and afterwards approved institutions to adopt a career in agricultural science

Economics Shaw Research London School of Economics — £105 for 2 years

Economics Hutchinson Research London School of Economics — £105 for 1 year

Natural Sciences The Ellen Richards American Association for Advancement of Thesis 1,000 dollars
                        Research Prize Research Work by Women. Hon. Sec., (£204, 10s.)
                                                  Mrs A.D. Mead, 283 Wayland Avenue,
                                                  Providence, R.I.

SECTION II

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION INCLUDING DENTISTRY

I

MEDICINE AND SURGERY

It may be safely claimed that, although there is still much to be done, in medicine women have gained as good a position as in any other branch of labour.

One of the most important considerations in discussing any branch of women's work is what sort of women are suited for it. The following are the chief requisites for the medical profession:—

(1) The first and most important qualification is enthusiasm. It is impossible to follow this profession with success, unless it is work for which one has not only aptitude but also natural taste. It necessitates a very strenuous life, and many unpleasant details of work, which are unimportant to a person to whom the occupation is acceptable as a whole, but which would be quite insuperably disagreeable to any one to whom the total idea of life embodied in it was unattractive.

(2) Another very important qualification is a knowledge of men and things. A doctor must never forget that she is dealing primarily with human nature; certainly human nature which may be for a time unhinged, or the mechanism of which may not be working smoothly, but nevertheless with the human individual as a whole.

The so-called "bedside" manner which is the butt for so much ridicule is not so purely ridiculous as one might be tempted to think. Its basis is to be found in this very knowledge of human nature which is so essential, although the superstructure is often nothing more than vapid futility. In addition to this the ideal doctor should possess a trained scientific mind, and, of the two, the former is infinitely the more important, although the latter is very valuable, not only for itself, but for the training which it gives in "tidy" thinking.

(3) Good health. A sick doctor is an anomaly and many people prefer to be indifferently treated by some one who is cheerful and healthy, rather than have the most expert advice from a woeful person.

(4) A good general education is essential. This should include a certain amount of Latin, which is needed throughout medical work. The student must also possess the necessary capacity for acquiring knowledge. It is very usual to find among the general public—women in particular—an idea that a tremendous amount of a vague quality which they describe as "cleverness" is necessary in order to follow one of the learned professions. Certainly this is not so in medicine. It is, however, necessary to be possessed of average intelligence and a good memory, and it is difficult for people to pass the qualifying examinations if they have for many years given up "school work"—i.e., the habit of learning large numbers of new facts.

(5) Money. For three reasons: (i.) The training is expensive, (ii.) It is also strenuous, making a certain amount of margin for suitable recreation very desirable, (iii.) Earning capacity, although ultimately high, so far as women are concerned, is much delayed, and the work itself is one of considerable nerve-strain. It is, therefore, very important that economic worry should, if possible, be avoided.

Medicine is one of the few professions in which women receive as high remuneration as men. A very strenuous battle was fought between the public authorities and medical women on the subject of equal pay for equal work. All sorts of dodges have been used to get cheap woman labour, but, so far, the victory has been almost completely on the side of medical women. By the word "almost" is meant the fact, that if two or three posts of varying grades and remunerations are created under a health authority the woman nearly always gets the lowest, whatever her qualifications and experience. With this exception the victory has been complete, and this has been entirely due to two things:—

(1) The very able support given by the British Medical Association, which practically served as a Trade Union for doctors, stated the lowest rate of remuneration to be accepted, and kept a black list of posts which were advertised at salaries below this rate. The Association has throughout supported with absolute consistency, the principle of equal pay for equal work for the two sexes, and has helped us as medical women to fight many battles.

(2) The other factor has been the public spirit of the medical women concerned, without which nothing could have been done. One of the forms of public service most essential at the present day and for which the individual gets neither honour nor even thanks, is that of refusing "black leg" labour. It is generally admitted by those who have to deal with the question of salaries and conditions of work under public authorities, that medical women, as a whole, have shown at least as great public spirit as men in refusing unsatisfactory terms. To lose a post which would give one enough for one's own needs and which would mean so much more in the way of experience and adequate scope for one's energies, and to refuse it simply because it would lower the market rate of pay, is a very fine thing to do. Unless, however, this high tone is maintained the position of medical women will become as bad as that of some other working women. If, on the other hand, it can be maintained, the position already gained may be used as a very powerful lever in raising the rate of pay in other departments of women's work. There is sufficient support for us amongst medical men. Everything, therefore, depends upon the personnel of the women doctors, and, as things become easier for the students, it becomes more and more difficult to convince the new recruits of the strenuousness of the fight in earlier years and of the need for constant vigilance and self-sacrifice at the present time.

Those who fought so nobly in the past have earned the lasting respect and gratitude of those who come after them. An account of their labours has been written by Mrs Isabel Thorne, and is called a "Sketch of the Foundation and Development of the London School of Medicine for Women."[1] It reads like a romance and shows the absolute determination and pluck which were needed by the women in order to gain their point. As one learns of the rebuffs and indignities which they endured, it reminds one of the struggle which is at the present time going on for the parliamentary vote. There is one thing which makes one inclined to "back the women every time," and that is their stupendous patience. A very short résumé of the facts may not be out of place here. Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, English by birth but resident in America, succeeded in 1858 after much difficulty in obtaining the degree of M.D. of the University of Geneva, United States of America. She then applied to have her name placed upon the register of duly qualified medical practitioners of the General Medical Council of Great Britain and Ireland, and it was discovered to the dismay of the authorities that she could not be refused. The next step was taken by Miss Garrett, now Dr Garrett Anderson. She decided to qualify herself for the medical examinations of the Society of Apothecaries, London, who also, owing to the wording of their charter, were unable to refuse her, and in 1865 she successfully passed the required tests. In order, however, to prevent a recurrence of such "regrettable incidents," the society made a rule that in future no candidates should be admitted to their examinations unless they came from a recognised medical school, and, as no such school would admit women, this closed their doors.

In the meantime Miss Jex-Blake had applied to Edinburgh University for medical education, but had been refused on the score that it was impossible to make such alterations "in the interests of one lady." Mrs Thorne, Miss Chaplin, Miss Pechey, and Mrs de Lacy Evans then decided to join Miss Jex-Blake, thus making five instead of one. They were allowed to matriculate, but forced to form separate classes and to guarantee 100 guineas for each class. They were not, however, allowed to receive scholarships, to which their work would have entitled them, on the score that they were women. Mrs Thorne states that their "success in the examination lists was their undoing," as, owing to this, and to the fact that they were unjustly debarred from receiving the distinctions that they had gained, a great deal of bad feeling was aroused.

As the agitation increased, the efforts of these pioneers to obtain a qualifying course for women in Edinburgh, were supported by a committee of sympathisers, which speedily rose to five hundred members, and, after a severe struggle, the question of clinical teaching in the Infirmary was settled partially in the women's favour in 1872. Later, the question of the validity of the original resolutions admitting women to the University was raised and decided against them. They had, therefore, been four years at the University and were finally excluded. This, however, proved to be only temporary as, in later years, the University reopened its medical degrees to women; but not in time to allow of the return of these courageous pioneers.

In the meantime Dr Garrett Anderson, having taken her degree in Paris, had been steadily working in London, forming the nucleus of the present New Hospital for Women, and the pioneers from Edinburgh came to London and helped her to start a school of medicine for women.

This was successfully accomplished owing to the kind help of many people, both within and without the profession, but no clinical teaching could be obtained, as all the big London hospitals were closed to women students. Finally, however, arrangements were made with the Royal Free Hospital in Gray's Inn Road. It had no men's medical school attached to it, and the admission of women to the hospital was due to the kind intervention of the Rt. Hon. J. Stansfeld, M.P., who met the Chairman of the hospital, Mr James Hopgood, while away on a holiday, and induced him to persuade the hospital authorities to give the dangerous experiment a trial. So seriously was it regarded, that the women students had to guarantee an indemnity to the hospital of 300 guineas annually in addition to their fees, as it was felt that the general support might decrease by, at least, this amount when the public became aware that there were medical women studying at the hospital! This was soon found not to be the case, and the yearly indemnity was generously remitted by the hospital authorities, the students simply paying the usual fees for instruction. In connection with this subject, it may be of interest to note that to-day the presence of medical women at the hospital is evidently found by the authorities to be an important means of gaining the sympathy of the general public, for appeals for funds may frequently be seen in London omnibuses stating, as the ground for an appeal, the fact that this is the only general hospital in London where women medical students are trained.

The medical school which began in a small Georgian house has now a fine block of buildings with all modern appliances, and the hospital is, at the time that this book goes to press, undergoing extensive alterations and additions, including enlargement of the students' quarters.

The success of this pioneer work has been sufficiently amazing, but it is most important that every one should realise that the fight is still going on. Not a day passes but somebody tries to get medical women to work either for less pay or under less honourable conditions than those required by their medical brethren, and one of the most trying parts of work in this profession at the present time is the constant alertness required both for detecting and defeating these attempts. That they should be made is not surprising, when we remember the lower market value attached to women's work in almost every other occupation. Practical examples of the sort of attempts made, may be of service.

Example 1.—A medical woman went as locum tenens for a practitioner in a country town during the South African War. The practitioner himself was at the time absolutely incapacitated by a severe form of influenza, complicated by ocular neuralgia which made work absolutely impossible. Owing to the War, he was quite unable to get a man to act as locum tenens. A woman consented to help him in his extremity, at considerable inconvenience both to herself and to the people with whom she was working at the time. She carried on the practice during the depth of the winter, having on some occasions to go out in the snow-sleigh and frequently to drive in an open trap at night in the deadly cold. She carried on the work with such conspicuous success that her "chief" asked her to stay on as his assistant when he was convalescent. For this he offered her £85 a year, living in, saying, without any shame, that he knew that this was not the price that any man would command, but that it was plenty for a woman. He was bound to admit that he had lost no patient through her, that he charged no lower fees when she went to a case than when he did, that she did half the work while acting as his assistant, and that she had kept his practice together for him while he was ill. Fortunately, owing to the fact that she had behind her means of subsistence without her salary, she was able to refuse his unsatisfactory offer, although at considerable violence to her feelings, for she had made many friends in the neighbourhood.

Example 2.—A husband and wife, both medical, went to settle in a town in the north of England. They both practised, the qualifications of both were excellent, but the woman was the more brilliant of the two, having better degrees and more distinctions. Both applied to be admitted to the local medical society. The man was, of course, accepted, the woman refused on the score of her sex, this meaning that she would be cut off from all opportunity of hearing medical papers and discussing medical subjects with her colleagues. During the next few months a local friendly society was anxious to obtain a medical officer and was offering terms regarded as insufficient by the local doctors. Among others approached by this society was the medical woman in question. Directly the officials of the medical society, which had banned her when her own benefit was concerned, heard that she had been approached by the friendly society, they elected her without asking her consent to the very society from which they had previously excluded her, in order that she might be unable to take the post in question, whereby they might have financially suffered.

Example 3.—The exclusion from medical societies referred to under Example 2, like many similar actions in life, tends to recoil on its instigators. For instance, a medical woman in another northern town applied for and accepted a post which the local men had decided was unsatisfactory in some particulars, and for which therefore none of them had applied. They were loud in their denunciations of the woman in question, but owing to the fact that her men colleagues had not recognised her professionally in other ways, she was quite unaware of her offence for several months after undertaking her new duties.

Example 4.—Men and women are sometimes appointed on apparently equal terms and conditions to posts which are not, however, really equal, in that there is a chance of promotion for the men but none for the women.

Example 5.—In another town in the north of England men and women appointed to do the work of school medical inspection on equal terms recently considered that they were not sufficiently remunerated. They met and decided that they would together apply for better terms. A rumour was then set abroad that the authority under whom they worked would certainly not consider such an increase in expenditure. In this crisis the men on the staff, although they had so far joined with their women colleagues in sending up their petition, sent up another of their own, without informing or consulting the women at all, in which they said that they considered it was time that this equality of remuneration for both sexes should cease. They begged the authority to neglect their public appeal, but to grant instead increased remuneration to the men, and the men only. One of the reasons given for this suggestion on the part of the men was that their liabilities were greater. The result of enquiry, however, proved that of the three men, one only was engaged to be married, the other two had no one dependent upon them; whereas of the three women, two were supporting other people—one being a married woman separated from her husband and with two children to support and educate.

Example 6.—The following is an instance of the way in which the Government is sometimes responsible for encouraging women's "black leg" labour. Dr Leslie Mackenzie in his evidence given recently before the Civil Service Commission said that the Treasury refused to allow the Scottish Local Government Board to have a woman medical inspector at a medical inspector's salary, but permitted them to engage a woman with medical qualifications at a woman inspector's salary, which was, of course, much less. Sad to relate a woman was found to accept this post.

These examples have been given because it is necessary that a woman intending to adopt the profession of medicine should know the sort of work, quite apart from the treatment of her cases, which a medical woman, worth her salt, has to do. It may be asked how it is, if these difficulties are still constantly arising, that our pioneers were so successful? For several reasons: first, because they were in the best sense women of the world: they understood when to be firm and when to give way. They understood mankind. Secondly, they had an assured position. This is probably the most essential condition of all for success. Before decent terms and conditions of work can be demanded, the worker must be in such a position financially that she can, if necessary, refuse the work in question, and if possible the employer must be aware of this fact. So often women enter the labour market only when driven by stark necessity, that it is unfortunately the easiest thing in the world to exploit them. People of either sex faced by starvation for themselves or those dependent on them must take the first thing that offers if the conditions be in any way bearable. In my opinion, next to the parliamentary vote, the most powerful lever in raising the condition of women will be the entrance into the labour market of a considerable number of women so trained in Economics that they will always "play the game," and at the same time sufficiently remote from want to be able to resist the sweating employer.

Some people discourage women of independent means from entering the labour market through the mistaken idea that if such women work they are taking away the chance of some other women who are in need. In case any reader may be in doubt on this question, I should like to point out that it is the groups of workers among whom no such economically independent individuals are to be found, that are always exploited by the unscrupulous employer; they are such easy prey.

What really makes women workers afraid of their independent sisters is that extremely pernicious system of payment euphemistically known as "pocket-money." This should be swept off the face of the earth. Even the richer woman has some rights, notably the right to work, and I would suggest that she has this particular, and certainly not unimportant function of raising the rate of remuneration. From my knowledge of her, I consider that she is most anxious to do nothing but good to her fellows. The only thing she needs in order to become a help instead of a menace to her poorer sisters is knowledge of the rules that govern the economic labour market.

Owing to the necessary expense and prolonged training for the medical profession it has probably attracted a larger proportion of working women who were not subject to immediate economic stress than most other branches of work, and it is, in my opinion, due to the presence of such women, that the conditions in it as a whole are so satisfactory.

Having discussed the sort of woman suitable for the medical profession, I now pass on to a consideration of the course of training which must be taken in order to fit her for the work.

Before beginning her training, the student has to decide what medical qualification she will take. Her choice lies between

(1) A degree of one of the universities, and (2) A diploma.

It is essential to go to some University or Examining Board which admits women and not to one, such as Oxford or Cambridge, where women are denied the degree to which their work entitles them. As a matter of fact, women medical students are not accepted at Oxford and Cambridge. It is not possible to practise medicine, in a satisfactory way unless one is actually in possession of the qualification. Any one who does so, however well trained, ranks as a quack, and is not legally entitled to sign death certificates nor to recover fees.

The degrees open to women in medicine, as in other branches of learning, are those of London, Glasgow, Trinity College, Dublin, and, in fact, of all the Universities of the United Kingdom except the two just mentioned.

Qualifying diplomas other than degrees are those granted by:—

  (1) The Conjoint Examining Board of the
        Royal Colleges of Physicians and
        Surgeons of England.
  (2) The Royal Colleges of Scotland.
  (3) The Royal Colleges of Ireland.
  (4) The Society of Apothecaries of London.

The authorities at the Women's Medical School strongly advise students to take a degree, and that the best open to them, namely, in Great Britain, that of London for the south, or one of the good Scottish Universities for the north. Their reason for this advice is that they feel that it is extremely important that medical women should rank as high as possible in their profession.

At London University there are no sex restrictions. A woman is eligible not only to take the examinations on equal terms with a man, but all the rights and honours (except, of course, the Parliamentary vote) are also open to her. Women may vote for and sit upon the Senate, become members of Convocation and take any of the exhibitions, medals, or scholarships which are offered to candidates at examinations. For this reason women feel attached and like to belong to the London University, and to do it honour.

Having decided which qualification she wishes to take, the candidate applies to be entered as a medical student at a definite school. If she elects to work in London she must follow the course of study at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women at 8 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square.

At Glasgow the students are all entered at the Women's College (Queen Margaret's). The medical course is taken in conjunction with men students. At the Royal Infirmary some wards are open to women for clinical instruction.

At Dublin the students are admitted to the degrees and diplomas in medicine, surgery, and midwifery on the same conditions as men. A special anatomical department with dissecting room, etc., has been erected by the Board of Trinity College for them.

At Edinburgh the arrangements for women students are largely separate from those for the men. The degrees are open to them.

At Durham the degrees are open to women, and most of their work is done with the men.

The same applies to Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield.

The course takes from five to six years, but it is wise to allow the longer time. The preliminary examination in general subjects is taken before admission to the medical school. After this, the first year at the medical school is spent in scientific study, such as Biology, Inorganic Chemistry, etc. Having passed her first scientific examination, the student proceeds to the study of the human individual, and deals for the next two years with Anatomy, which includes dissection, Physiology, the study of drugs in Materia Medica and Pharmacology, and Organic Chemistry. When the examination in these subjects has been satisfactorily negotiated, she passes on to medical work proper, the study of disease and the result of accident in the living person—in other words, she walks the wards of the hospital and undertakes duties as clerk to physicians and dresser to surgeons, from whom she receives instruction in medicine, surgery, and pathology. Special branches are also studied, such as midwifery, women's diseases, and affections of the throat, ear, eye, and skin. The treatment of minor accidents also receives special attention. During the whole of this time the student also attends regular courses of lectures on these subjects, and she then takes her final examination. If this be a degree examination, she becomes, on passing it, Bachelor of Medicine, or M.B., and Bachelor of Surgery, Ch.B. or B.S. Having obtained a diploma, she is generally entitled to style herself a Member or Licentiate of the college of which she has passed the qualifying examination, for example, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. or L.S.A. On application, she is then placed upon the Medical Register, and is known as a registered medical practitioner.

The cost of the training is approximately as follows :—

For a London Degree.

Fee at the Medical School for Women, if paid as a composition fee in five yearly instalments of £28, £51, £45, £40, and £15; Total:—£179, or, if the whole sum is paid on entrance to the school, £160. In addition there is a fee of three guineas for the special study of fevers. These fees include everything in the way of material, except books and instruments for which it is wise to allow another £30. The examination fees of the university are £25. These amounts make no allowance for any failures, and consequent revision of work, and re-entry for examination. In reckoning the expense, the necessary cost of living for the six years must also be included. For those students whose homes are not in London there are flats and boarding-houses where it is possible to live very reasonably. Suitable board and residence can be obtained from about 25s. a week.

For the Diploma of the Conjoint Board.

The school fees are the same; the examination fees are, however, higher, namely £42.

For other qualifications, the school fees are £20 less for the course.

Certain scholarships are available for students, of which all particulars can be obtained from the secretary of each school.

When a woman becomes a registered medical practitioner, she is for the first time legally entitled to treat patients herself, and is entrusted with responsibility. As in most other branches of knowledge in the world, while she has simply been learning and carrying out her duties under authority, she has had no opportunity of really testing her own knowledge. It is, therefore, very generally felt amongst newly qualified medical practitioners that they need more experience before undertaking quite independent medical work. This experience is best gained by taking hospital posts. By this is meant positions of moderate responsibility, such as that of resident house physician or resident house surgeon in a hospital, where the newly qualified doctor is under the authority of an experienced visiting "chief," but is expected to deal with ordinary incidents as they may arise, to realise the relative importance of different symptoms, and report those that matter to the visiting physician or surgeon.

It is at this stage that the doctor must decide whether she wishes to become

  (a) a "specialist" in some particular branch
       of medicine or surgery,
  (b) a general practitioner, or
  (c) whether she wishes to work in the public
       service.

(a) If she wishes to be a specialist she must so arrange her future work as to gain experience in the branch which she selects. For this purpose it is necessary to take posts at special hospitals, and ultimately to become a member of the staff of some hospital in the department chosen. Here women find that they are heavily handicapped. The only hospital of any size in London of which the members of staff are all women is the New Hospital, Euston Road, and this admits only of a small staff, giving opportunities to comparatively few women for special experience.

The Royal Free Hospital, where women take their training as students, has now two women on its staff in the department for gynaecology. It has also a woman anaesthetist, and some of the minor posts, such as clinical assistant to the outpatients, pathologist, etc., are open to them. All the physicians, the surgeons, and the assistant physicians and surgeons are, however, men.

Of the hospitals for special ailments in London, none so far admits women to the staff, and it has only recently become possible for them even to form part of the medical audience at the outpatients' department at some of these special hospitals.

       No London Hospital for Diseases of Women
            and Midwifery (except that of Dr M'Call),
       or for Diseases of Children (except one recently
            started by women),
       or for Diseases of the Eye,
       or for Diseases of the Ear, Nose and Throat,
       or for Diseases of the Nervous System,
admits women to its staff, although several of them allow women to
take appointments as clinical assistants, pathologists, anaesthetists,
and other minor posts. Their admission to the full staff is, perhaps,
merely a question of time, and of the naturally slow movement of the
British mind towards admitting women to positions of responsibility.

There has, however, been of late years a tendency on the part of medical women themselves to take this matter into their own hands, and new women's hospitals are being started about London where the staff is exclusively composed of women.

(b) If, on the other hand, the newly qualified doctor decides to become a general practitioner, her course is much simpler. She takes such posts as are available, which she thinks will aid her general knowledge of medicine. Then she selects a neighbourhood, puts up a plate, and waits.

This course also involves delayed earning capacity, as she must be prepared to face outlay for several years without much return. During this time she generally augments the income which she gets from her private practice by other part-time paid work, notably by giving lectures in first aid, etc., by school inspection, where part-time officers are appointed, and other such work. She also generally does a certain amount of voluntary work on that most pernicious system of giving her services in order to get known. It is in this way that doctors are everywhere so terribly exploited. When they are all so busy doing work which they think will bring them into the public view, this becomes of no particular use to any of them, and the only people who benefit, and at the same time scoff, are the members of the general public, who become so used to getting the doctor to work for nothing or next to nothing, that it comes as a shock when they have to pay. It is a healthy sign that the long-suffering doctor is at last beginning to show symptoms of fight, and in the future it may be hoped that doctors, like lawyers, will not be required to give their services free to the community. It may be true that if a man will not work neither shall he eat, but the converse should also be true, that if a man works he should eat, and at present it is not by any means always true of the doctor.

(c) Should she decide to enter the public service, she will still require to take a certain number of posts, especially those dealing with eyes, ears, and skin, and must also obtain the Diploma of Public Health. To gain this diploma she will need to devote several months to post-graduate study in that subject before taking the necessary examination.

The chief posts at present open in the public service to a woman are:—

  (1) School medical officer, or assistant medical
       officer of health.
  (2) Assistant medical officer in some asylums
       and poor law infirmaries.

There is one woman inspector of prisons who is a medical woman, but she is not a medical inspector and was not appointed in that capacity. It is much to be hoped that women prison medical officers will speedily be appointed on equal terms with their medical colleagues. The conditions for women prisoners from the standpoint of health are, at the present time, extremely unsatisfactory.

The tendency is to employ more and more women in the public service, and therefore the opportunities are likely rapidly to become more numerous.

The Act, under which medical school inspection was made obligatory, particularly mentioned the suitability of women for much of this work. It is therefore becoming usual all over the country to have at least one woman school doctor, and in some districts there are several on the staff. This work is not extremely arduous, is free from the heavy strain of private practice, and, if the school medical officer is allowed reasonable freedom in her work, may be made of much interest. It is, however, somewhat monotonous, and has the great disadvantage that at present the stimulus of promotion is largely absent, as the higher administrative posts are almost universally in the hands of men. This is a disadvantage which will also be gradually, perhaps rapidly removed as the prejudice against women in authority dies down.

After having practised medicine for some years, further degrees indicating experience are open to the medical practitioner; thus, if she has taken the Bachelorship of Medicine she may, after the lapse of three or four years, enter for her Doctorate. This is gained either by a further examination or by writing a thesis on some subject of original research. If she has taken the Diploma of the Royal Colleges, it is open to her to sit for the Fellowship in Surgery or Membership in Medicine. She is also open to election to the Fellowship in Medicine.

It is extremely difficult to give anything like an adequate idea of the remuneration to be obtained in medicine, as it varies tremendously.

The first posts, which are taken soon after qualification, if really first-rate in the experience which they give, seldom include any salary at all, though board and lodging are provided. Posts which rank as slightly inferior to these, but still give a considerable amount of experience, are often associated with honoraria varying from about £50 to £150 a year, including board and lodging.

(a) If we turn again to our three sub-divisions we find that a specialist or consultant cannot expect to earn her working expenses for a good many years. She must have one room at least in a certain specialist quarter of the town, known as the consultants' area, and there the rents are usually high, in London about £150 a year, in the provinces slightly less.

We have already stated that she requires some hospital post; for this she will receive no remuneration, but if the hospital where she works has a medical school attached to it, she may expect to get a certain number of patients through the recommendation of students whom she teaches at the hospital. There is generally also some teaching at the hospitals, for which the students pay definite fees. She may also augment her income by lectures and work of that description. She will probably find it necessary to write papers on her special branch of work and on the cases which come under her observation, but for this she will very seldom be paid. It is, therefore only possible for a girl with some monetary resources independent of her work, to take up successfully a special branch of medicine.

If she elect to become a surgeon, a hospital post is an absolute necessity, and her income will, as in the case of the medical specialist, be delayed. Eventually, however, if she is successful, it is greater than that to be obtained on the medical side. The fees are high, and therefore money can be made more speedily in this branch of the work. People, however, hesitate as a rule to trust a very young surgeon, so she will at first get her work chiefly as assistant to her seniors and must be content to wait some years for the much bigger fees which she will get as principal. Ultimately she should make £1,000 to £2,000 a year.

(b) If she elect to become a general practitioner, her outlay at first is probably as great as that of the specialist, if not greater, but the return is quicker, and a great deal depends upon the choice of a neighbourhood. If she chooses an upper middle class district she also, like the specialist, must be content to wait, and in fact she is ill-advised to choose such a neighbourhood unless she can rely on some good social introductions.

If she choose a district partly middle and partly lower middle class her return will be infinitely quicker. She may expect to cover her expenses in the course of two or three years. The work is, however, incessant and rather harassing. If she select a working-class neighbourhood and have a dispensary, her return will be still quicker, such places frequently paying their expenses in the first or second year. The people are nice to deal with, and the work is interesting, but it is apt to be very distressing for two reasons—(1) that owing to the poverty of the patients they can so seldom be attended under conditions in which they have a fair chance of recovery, and (2) there is apt to be an appreciable amount of dirt.

The most varying reports are given as to the incomes to be made in private practice and it is almost impossible to get at the truth, because it is obviously to everybody's interest to make them appear as high as possible. A woman's practice also is admittedly rather a specialist one. She does not get the general local practice of the ordinary practitioner, but instead certain selected women who want to consult a member of their own sex. These often live at considerable distances, thus making the work more difficult to arrange and the travelling more expensive than in the case of the ordinary medical man. It is rare for a woman to be able to buy a practice. She must generally build it up for herself, as it is of little or no use for her to buy a man's practice, and there are only very few women's available.

Generally, it may be stated that a woman covers her expenses by about the third or fourth year after starting, and she may ultimately make, according to the district and her success, anything between £400 and £1,500 a year. Frequently two medical women settle together, which seems to be a very good arrangement.

(c) If she elect to enter the public service her outlay is very small. Beyond equipping herself for this work in certain special branches already described, all that is necessary is that she should be able to keep herself until she obtains a suitable post. The salary given for whole time work in the public service should not be less than £250 a year rising to £400 or £500 a year. In most cases the school doctor gets the school holidays, including the whole of every Saturday.

English women who go to India, do so generally in connection with either

(1) a missionary society, or (2) a hospital under the Dufferin Fund.

(1) Many missionary societies engage medical women to treat the native women. Salaries, of course, differ, but are, on the whole, low, as the aim of a missionary is not supposed, primarily, to be financial gain. Generally somewhere about £110 in English money is given, with an allowance for carriage and house including the chief items of furniture. Leave is also granted with second class return fare every five years—in some missions every three years. The medical experience is excellent, the opportunities of doing good professional work are practically unlimited, and the professional position of the doctor quite untrammelled. She is assisted, usually, by good nurses, under a proper scheme, these being Indian girls superintended by fully trained English sisters.

(2) Under the Dufferin Fund[2] things are very different. It is somewhat difficult to speak of this branch of the work, as it is, at the present time, the subject of enquiry, and it may be legitimately expected that it will, before long, be put on a more satisfactory basis. The fund was originally started by Lady Dufferin as the direct result of a command by the late Queen Victoria, and it was intended to provide the services of medical women for the Purdah women of India who, owing to the strictness of their rules, were not infrequently debarred from the full benefit of medical treatment by men. Unfortunately, however, the doctor in charge of most of the Dufferin Hospitals is under the local senior civil surgeon, who is a man. As he has the right, if he wishes to exercise it, of seeing any of the patients, and doing any of the operations or other treatment necessary, it is obvious that the hospitals are of little or no use to Purdah women, as they have no guarantee against treatment by a man.

There is also no security of tenure for the doctor who is not allowed to be present at the meetings of the governing body, and may find herself dismissed or transferred from a good post to a bad one at short notice.

The remuneration varies roughly between £250 and £500 a year, with house but no carriage allowance. The doctor is entitled to add to her salary by private practice. In some towns this is a considerable item, whereas in others it is quite negligible. There is no definite furlough allowance, and the doctor may be removed from her post and required to keep herself on very little for a considerable period of time before being appointed to another hospital. All this causes a severe drain on the resources of doctors without private means. The staff is also frequently inefficient, and the nursing is sometimes very indifferent, being undertaken by Eurasian girls under partly trained women who have never been "home."

In the practice of medicine as in all other branches of women's labour, the question of the effect of marriage upon work is a very important and difficult one. In its general aspect it lies at the very heart of the whole question of the working woman. Its effect on the medical woman varies according to the branch of her profession which she selects. If she wishes to become (a) a specialist or (b) a general practitioner, she has perfect freedom of choice as to what she will do in the event of marriage; and some women retire while others continue their work. The latter is a much more desirable course from the point of view of medical women as a whole. The medical woman who is married can, better than any one else, render to society certain services in her profession, and it is desirable that these should not be lost. In any event no woman need retire from her work on marriage, though it is, of course, most important that the married medical woman should not deny to herself and to her husband the normal healthy joy of having children. To continue in practice, however, while bearing a child requires a certain amount of expenditure, as such a doctor will need to retire from practice for at least two or three months, probably longer, and is therefore put to the expense of engaging a locum tenens. This ought, however, to be possible when both husband and wife are earning incomes.

From the point of view of society as a whole, it is waste that any one who has had such a long and arduous training as that required for the medical profession should not use it in service to the community. There is a form of selfishness not sufficiently recognised, which consists not in acquiring goods but in acquiring knowledge without rendering it again in service to one's fellow men and women.

Should the doctor decide (c) to enter the public service, the question will probably not be in her own control as there is an ever-increasing tendency on the part of public authorities to insist on single women or widows only among the medical women whom they employ. There is a big fight to be waged here—one of the many that our pioneers have left for us and our successors. The lack of social instinct which lies behind this edict is amazing. What can be more anti-social than that a young, healthy, and highly-trained woman should have to decide between marriage and executing that public work for which she has with great labour fitted herself? In at least some cases of which the writer is aware, the demand that a doctor shall retire on marriage, has led to a decision against matrimony, and this is not surprising, although very serious as a general problem. The great need of society at the present day is that the most healthy and well-trained young men and women should be induced to found families, and public authorities by this bar put on the trained woman, are doing their best to hinder marriage.

Medical women have, for their protection, societies of registered medical women in London and in the north of England and also in Scotland, these working more or less in touch with one another. In common with other medical societies they have meetings at which the advances in medical science are discussed, and they also act in a modified way as Trade Unions, Members of these societies can always gain information from them as to the recognised rate of pay in any particular branch of the work which they may wish to undertake.

Reference has already been made to the excellent work which has been done by the British Medical Association in uniting the men and women of the profession and helping both to keep up the salary rate. Without this aid the women's associations would have been comparatively helpless, as they would have erred in ignorance, though certainly not by intention. The gratitude of medical women to this association cannot therefore be overstated, and I think I am justified in saying that the same is true with regard to medical men. If their chief "Union" had not admitted women we might unwittingly have become a danger to our medical colleagues as black-leg labour. This has been almost universally the case in other work which women have taken up, and one cannot help wishing that men in other branches of labour might speedily realise the fact that women cannot be stopped from working, and that the only wise thing, from the men's point of view as well as from the women's, is to admit all to their unions that they may fight shoulder to shoulder for better labour conditions, and not against each other. An example of a case where this was realised has already been quoted under Example 2, page 144.

With regard to the opportunities for post-graduate study:—At first all the men's medical societies were closed to women, the provincial societies being among the first to recognise their women medical colleagues. London, being in this as in all things conservative, took many years to move, and did so very grudgingly; but now nearly all the important medical societies admit women, in this falling into line with the learned professions generally. The Royal Medical Society, London, at first admitted women to its separate sections only, while denying them the Fellowship, with which would have gone that mysterious power which men so deeply resent our possessing—the power to vote on matters of its internal economy. The authorities of this society have, however, recently admitted medical women on perfectly equal terms with men to their Fellowship—a privilege for which we are deeply grateful, as post-graduate knowledge of recent investigations is absolutely essential to good work.

In conclusion, the general position of medical women at present may be shortly summarised as follows:—

Their legal status is absolutely identical with that of men in every respect, by which is meant that by being placed upon the Medical Register they have every privilege, duty, and responsibility which they would have if they were men. In obtaining this and allowing many other things to be settled by their successors our pioneers showed their tremendous wisdom.

We have in the medical profession, what women are now claiming in the State, the abolition of legal sex disqualification. With this firm platform upon which to stand, it entirely depends upon medical women themselves what position they will gain in their profession. All other disabilities and disqualifications are minor and remediable.

This absolute equality of medical men and women before the law includes the rights to

(1) Practise in any department of medicine in which their services may be demanded.

(2) Recover fees if necessary.

(3) Sign death certificates.

(4) Sign any certificates for which a medical signature is essential.

Under this latter heading a curious anomaly arises. If a man is signed up as a lunatic, he is, for so long as he remains a lunatic, debarred from using his Parliamentary vote, and, as may be seen from the above, a medical woman's signature is as valid as that of a man for this disfranchising certificate of lunacy. The State, therefore, at the present time allows that a medical woman may be sufficiently learned and reliable to disfranchise a man, though she be not sufficiently learned and reliable to vote herself.

The Insurance Act concerned medical women only in the same way that it affected their men colleagues. The sole reason, therefore, for mentioning it in this paper is that it affords an indication of two things:—

(1)that the Government therein makes no sex distinction in the profession;

(2)that the bogey of sex cleavage, so often mentioned by the timorous in the political world, is here, as always where it is put to the test, proved to be without foundation.

Unfortunately, the Insurance Act divided the medical profession into two parties; women, no more than men, were unanimous on the subject and some were to be found on either side.

Women are still debarred from the full use of their medical powers in the following ways:—

(1) The demand for their services from the general public is at present not so great nor so universal as that for men. This is not surprising when it is realised for how short a time there have been medical women; however, the demand on the part of the public is very rapidly increasing, naturally, of course, amongst their own sex.

(2) As in other work the tendency is to restrict women to the lower branches of public work, or to the so-called "blind alley" occupations. This can only be cured by public demand, and some improvement is to be noted in this respect. There is, however, no doubt that general practice affords at present the most unrestricted field for a medical woman's activity, because there she suffers from no limitations except those of her own personality in relation to society. Any patients who are inclined to trust her are absolutely free to do so, and it is open to her to demand what fees her services are found to be worth.

If, on the other hand, she enters the public service she may admittedly qualify herself in every way by attainments and experience in the lower ranks for one of the higher administrative posts and be barred simply by sex disqualification. This also will no doubt in time improve, and the pioneer work that it implies may attract many, but the progress is necessarily slower.

(3) She is still debarred from full opportunity for specialist work. (See efforts being made by women themselves to obviate this by the starting of women's hospitals, p. 149.)

Finally, then, the medical profession should attract women of good average capacity and general education, good health and certain, even if moderate, means. Above all do they need public spirit, which will make them anxious to maintain and improve the excellent position medical women have so far obtained. It is a very widely interesting life, bringing those who adopt it out of the study into direct touch with human affairs.

[Footnote 1: Publisher, G. Sharrow, 28A Devonshire Street, Portland
Place, W.]

[Footnote 2: Quite recently the outline of a new scheme was put before a meeting at the Women's Medical School in London by the Director-General of the Indian Medical Service. Under this scheme the Women's Medical Service in India would not be upon the same footing as the Indian Medical Service (I.M.S.) for men, but would remain as at present, a Dufferin Association. It would, however, receive a Government grant of £10,000 yearly, and proper arrangements would be made for pay, furlough, promotion, and security of tenure. The scheme is open to criticism on some points, but, as a whole, it marks a considerable advance on the previous conditions of service in this department of women's work, and may be welcomed as a genuine if somewhat belated attempt on the part of the Government to deal fairly with an urgent question.]

II

DENTAL SURGERY

It is not sufficiently well-known that dental surgery as a profession, opens up a practically unexplored and lucrative work for women.

The training in the British Isles can be carried out in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin, each of these cities granting their Licentiate of Dental Surgery. In London, the National Dental Hospital, and the London School of Medicine for Women (Royal Free Hospital) have special facilities for women students, including special bursaries and scholarships, while dental and medical studies can be carried on concurrently. The course of study includes the passing of a Professional Preliminary Examination or Matriculation, followed by two years' mechanical work, and two years' hospital practice. The student can be articled to a qualified dental practitioner for mechanics, or can obtain tuition at the Dental Hospital. This branch includes the preparation of models, vulcanite and metal dentures, crowns, and bridges, etc.

The Dental Hospital course for two years includes lectures on Physics and Chemistry, Dental Anatomy and Surgery, Metallurgy and Materia Medica. At the same time practical work is done—extractions, fillings, crowns, bridges, dentures, and the regulation of children's teeth. At the medical school and hospital, lectures on Anatomy, Physiology, Surgery, and Medicine must be attended, and dissections on the human body, and clinics in the ward must be completed. At the end of each year examinations in the subjects are taken, the whole course covering a minimum time of four years. The qualification of the Licentiate of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England is now open to women. The composite fee for training extending over four years, is about £200, but an additional sum of at least £100 is required for incidental expenses. Should the woman student desire to confine herself to dental mechanics this would materially lessen the expense. The average wage for a good male mechanic is £120 per annum. Hospitals can be joined at the age of nineteen, and it is advisable to begin study soon after leaving school or college.

If it is possible, a woman should obtain a medical qualification as well as the L.D.S. Much of the work can be taken at the same time as the dental course. A medical degree enlarges a dentist's sphere of usefulness and interest and adds to her locus standi: on the other hand, it necessitates two or three years' extra study, and the fees are increased by several hundred pounds.

The woman dentist will probably find it necessary to start practice on her own account as soon as she is qualified, as it is not likely she will be able to obtain an assistantship with men practitioners, but there are an increasing number of posts open to women, such as dental surgeon to school clinics or to factories. These posts offer the same salaries to men and women. Smaller part-time appointments, with an honorarium attached, can be obtained, and are especially useful to the newly qualified practitioner who is building up a practice.

It is essential for the woman who intends to succeed in this profession to have excellent physical and mental health, though great muscular strength is not necessary. During student life and in practice, every care should be taken of the general health—exercise in the open air being especially necessary, though this should not be too energetic in character. It is a well-known fact that male dentists doing careful and conscientious work, cannot, as a rule, stand the strain for many hours daily after they have reached middle age, and the intending student should consider this point.

The prolonged hours of standing in a cramped position, the confined space, the exactitude required for minute and painful operations, are some of the causes of this overstrain. Great self-control and will power must be exercised as the patients, especially children, are frequently nervous, and confidence must be imparted to them if the work is to be well done.

The British Dental Association and the Odontological Society are both open to women, and male practitioners have always displayed the utmost courtesy though some prejudice must be expected. The general public apparently welcome the advent of women dentists as the few qualified women in London and the Provinces have excellent practices. It is curious, however, to note that few Englishwomen have taken up the profession, there being about twelve practising in the United Kingdom, though in Germany, Russia, and the United States there are great numbers of women practitioners.

With regard to restrictions from which women at present suffer, one dental hospital only is open to women in London, and, until recently, no posts could be obtained. But as more women qualify, these disadvantages will probably be removed. It is also extremely difficult to obtain mechanical work in private work-rooms. Women should bear in mind that they require exactly the same facilities for study as men, and try to get admittance to all hospitals and posts on an equal basis—i.e., the salary should be equal for equal work, and a smaller fee should not be accepted.

In deciding whether a practice should be started in London or a provincial town, the question of capital must be carefully considered, as it is improbable that the expenses will be met during the first year of practice. The upkeep necessarily varies with the locality chosen, and a minimum capital of £150 is desirable.

Pioneer women must be prepared to do their work conscientiously, and to the utmost of their ability, and they must always remember that their work will be very severely criticised.

This necessitates frequent inspection of both the clothing and persons of the children. Certain cases which are found to need attention are also visited in their homes. The school nurse is so much alone in her work that she requires to be very experienced and her powers of observation to be highly trained in order to enable her to detect signs of ill-health in its early stages. Firmness and kindness are constantly required in dealing with parents, and tact and consideration in her dealings with all with whom her work brings her in contact.

In the London area the salary begins at £80 rising by £2, 10s. yearly to £85, and then by £5 yearly to £105. Uniform and travelling expenses, within the county, are provided. The nurse is required to contribute to the superannuation fund from which she can ultimately draw a pension if she remains all her working life in the service of the Council.

The hours of work are from 9 A.M. to 4.30 P.M. five days weekly, and from 9 to 12.30 on Saturdays. Clerical work must be done out of school hours. Holidays are arranged during the school holidays.

There are 128 nurses working under one Superintendent, two Assistant-Superintendents, and four Divisional Assistant-Superintendents.

B. There are 42 nurses attached to schools for the physically defective whose special duties are concerned with the care of the crippled and delicate children who attend these schools. Certain special precautions against injury and strain are necessary for these children, and the nurse receives instructions concerning these from the visiting doctor. The salary is the same as that mentioned above, and the nurses get the school holidays. At open-air schools the nurse's work is somewhat similar to that in the schools for the physically defective.

C. There are 8 nurses now working under the Infant Life Protection Act.

All women who undertake the care of an infant for payment have to be registered. Of such children, a large proportion is illegitimate. It is the duty of the nurses to visit every such case. Each nurse has an area allotted to her; the work is arduous and responsible as the visitor has full powers under an Act of Parliament summarily to remove the child if the conditions required by the Act are not complied with. The nurse who undertakes this work should have been trained in maternity work (and if possible have been examined by the Central Midwives' Board). She should also have her certificate from the Sanitary Institute as she is expected to report on the sanitation of the premises as well as on the condition of the child. There is a considerable amount of clerical work in connection with these posts.

The salary of these nurses is good, compared with the usual salaries for nurses—£120 to £150, with a further rise to £200 after ten years of service.

The superannuation fund, which is compulsory for all permanent officers, yields a provision of not less than one-third of the average rate of pay in a case of complete breakdown in health after ten or more years in the service of the council. The retiring age, apart from breakdown, is sixty-five years.

The conditions of work in the Provinces are much the same in general outline as those described above, which prevail in London, except that in the country the nurse often undertakes in addition the work done in London by Care Committees and Attendance Officers. This, although it increases her work also increases its variety.

VIII

NURSING IN HOSPITALS FOR THE INSANE

Mental nursing as a profession for educated women has much to recommend it. It is of absorbing interest to those of a sympathetic nature and of a scientific turn of mind, and it develops all the finer qualities, self-control, patience, tact, and common-sense. It gives scope for originality and accomplishments of every kind. The work itself is difficult, and is the one of all the many branches of nursing which demands the closest personal devotion and service, great as is the necessity for these in all forms of a nurse's work.

Mental nurses are employed in (1) county asylums, (2) mental hospitals, (3) private work.

(1) County Asylums—These may take from 1,000 to 2,000 patients each. They are usually situated in the country with healthy surroundings and large grounds, and they are generally placed within reasonable access to some town.

Probationer nurses are received for training from twenty-one years of age. They must be of good health and physique. A nurse who is successful in this branch of work should be able to obtain her certificate from the Medico Psychological Board at the end of three years' training. The salary is £19 the first year, with an annual increase of £1 up to £35. Free board, lodging, washing, medical attendance, are also supplied and uniform after three months' trial. The hours on duty are from 6 A.M. to 8 P.M., with two hours off for meals. Nurses get leave from 8 P.M. to 10 P.M. daily and one day weekly; they also have fourteen days' holiday after the first twelve months, increasing subsequently to three weeks a year.

The duties of the nurse in an asylum consist of the care of the patients, the supervision of the cleanliness of the wards and linen, and also of the work done by the patients in the various departments—the needleroom, laundry, kitchen, corridors, etc. It is obvious that in view of the number of patients, individual attention is practically impossible. Entertainments of all kinds are provided for the help and amusement of the patients, and nurses are expected to assist in arranging these. Consequently any one with a gift for music, acting, singing, or other accomplishment is an acquisition to the staff.

(2) Registered Mental Hospitals.—These, owing to their different circumstances, vary much in their conditions of service. Most of them are training-schools and receive probationers of good education, from twenty-two years of age, for a course of training. This consists of lectures by the Medical Staff and Matron, the subjects receiving most attention being Elementary Anatomy, Physiology, and Psychology; and there is, of course, practical training in the nursing of mental cases: in some hospitals a course of Massage and Swedish Drill are added in the fourth year.

Salaries are on the whole lower than in the County Asylums, beginning at anything from £15 rising to £19 in the third year with a bonus of £3 on passing the final examination of the Medico-Psychological Board. There must, however, be set against this lower rate of remuneration, the fact that these mental hospitals are often situated more centrally than the county asylums, thus making less expenditure necessary for travelling to and from the hospital when out on leave. The usual free board, lodging, washing, medical attendance, and uniform are also given after three months' satisfactory service.

The hours of duty are from 7 A.M. to 8 P.M. with two hours off for meals, etc. Leave during a month varies with the different hospitals, but is usually two whole days, three half days, four evenings from 6 P.M. to 10 P.M., and four evenings from 8 P.M. to 10 P.M.: there is also annual leave of fourteen days after the first twelve months, increasing to three weeks after three years' service.

The work in a mental hospital is totally different from that in large asylums. As there are fewer patients, individual treatment is the rule, and the nurse gets more intimate knowledge of her patients' condition, which she may thus do much to ameliorate. Owing to the homelike freedom allowed, nurses need to be specially patient and tactful. In return for this, however, by their much closer companionship with their patients they gain the opportunity of thoroughly knowing and therefore sympathising with and guiding them, and on this, successful treatment largely depends. The majority of the patients in these hospitals are suffering from acute forms of insanity, and this adds both to the strenuousness and to the interest of the nursing work: the fact that such patients frequently recover, acts as a great incentive to the work.

Private asylums are on a different basis and do not as a rule offer training.

A trained nurse may hope for promotion to posts as Sister of a ward, Night Superintendent, Assistant Matron, or Matron. These posts demand personal attributes in addition to good training—e.g., powers of organisation and administration, a knowledge of housekeeping, laundry work, etc. For the higher posts, training in general nursing is essential. In all forms of mental nursing it is undoubtedly a great advantage if the nurse has had a preliminary general training before entering on the special branch of the work.

The conditions for private mental cases are the same as those described under private nursing for general work (see page 184). The fees, however, compare very favourably with those obtained for general work, being almost universally higher. The great disadvantage is that the hours are very long and the work necessarily exhausting.

Much has been done of recent years to improve the conditions of service for workers in institutions, and there is still room for amelioration. Particularly is this so with regard to the long hours on duty and insufficient leave, due, chiefly, to shortage of staff. Increase is also urgently needed in the salaries in every department so that the nurses may be able to make provision for old age. When, as now, so many of them are dependent on a pension as the only provision for their old age, they are bound to stay at one institution for the whole or nearly the whole of their lives—an arrangement which is not to the benefit of either party, for "change is necessary to progress, and the tendency is, from long years of service in one place, to narrow and lose the adaptability of earlier years."

More arrangements are needed for the recreation of the nurses when off duty, especially in institutions situated in the country. Swimming baths would be a real boon; the beneficial effects of this form of exercise upon both nerves and body being too well known to need further comment. Its value also in promoting mutual helpfulness is by no means negligible. Reading-rooms, apart from the general common-room, are very valuable, as are also tennis courts where they can be arranged. All these, of course, mean expense, but, if the better class woman is to be attracted to the work, her interests must be considered. Moreover, healthful recreations, apart from their benefit to the nurse herself, must re-act favourably on the patients.

IX

NURSING IN THE COLONIES

Colonial nursing is usually undertaken by those who possess the spirit of adventure, and do not mind the prospect of pioneering work. Love of novelty, strong interest in fresh scenes and peoples, a desire to make more money than can in most cases be made in England, help a nurse in colonial work, provided that work really means her life, and she loves it. But let it be emphatically stated that the nurses who are not wanted in the colonies, in any capacity, are those who are failures in their work in England, or who simply leave the dull work of the old country with the object of having a good time abroad. Such women may do immense harm in countries where it is essential to the Empire that English people should be looked up to with respect and admiration, and where almost the most important part of an English nurse's work (quite the most important if she is working in a hospital), is to make the native nurses, of whatever race they may happen to be, see the dignity and possibilities of their profession, and be stirred with the desire to become proficient themselves.

No special training is required for colonial work. A thorough all-round training, including midwifery, a high standard of nursing ethics, a knowledge of hospital organisation, and good business abilities are needed. The rest is chiefly a matter of temperament and constitution. It goes without saying that a nurse for foreign climates, whether tropical, as in the majority of colonial posts, or subject to extremes of heat and cold, such as in Canada, must be physically strong; she should also be of an even temper and philosophical disposition, easily adaptable to climate, conditions, circumstances, and racial peculiarities.

The nature of the work will vary greatly with the locality and the kind of post undertaken. The colonial nurse who does private work will find patients and their needs much the same all the world over; she must, however, be prepared for anything, and ready to make the best of all things in emergencies.

In tropical hospitals it is altogether another matter. If the nurse taking a Matron's post in such a hospital is the first European to have occupied that post, she will probably have every detail to organise and put in order, from providing dusters for use in the wards, to arranging off-duty time for the nurses. She will mostly likely see at once that everything wants altering, and yet she will have to "make haste slowly," very slowly, or she will have everything in a ferment, and every one in open rebellion against her.

If she is working in the East, she will have the endless complications of caste and race and religion to deal with, and will have for some time, to learn vastly more than she teaches. Her success or failure will depend very largely upon how she gets on with the medical department—in other words, upon her own tact and common-sense, and whether she can so approve herself to the various medical officers that they will loyally back her up in her attempts at reform. Once things are established in working order, it is a question of constant supervision, day by day, for in no tropical hospital is it possible to expect that native nurses will do their work well and conscientiously, without the constant example and supervision of their trained Matron and Sisters.

Colonial posts are chiefly to be obtained through the Colonial Nursing
Association, of which offices are at the Imperial Institute, South
Kensington.

Salaries vary considerably, according to climate and the nature of the work. In very unhealthy climates, such as the west coast of Africa, the salary is high, and the risks proportionately so.

Private nurses, and those holding subordinate posts in hospitals get salaries varying from £60, which is the minimum, to £120 a year. An Assistant Matron may in some few cases get a salary increasing to £150 or £200. In a large hospital there is the ordinary chance of promotion—a Sister may be made Assistant Matron, or an Assistant Matron become Matron; but most colonial posts are simply for a certain term of years, at the expiration of which the nurse seeks fresh fields, her passage, both out and home, being paid. If, however, there should be a desire on both sides for a renewal of the engagement, the nurse can usually obtain an increase of salary.

A Matron's salary will vary from £100 to £250, in large Government hospitals in the Colonies where, it must be borne in mind, leave entails a journey to England, and a very expensive passage. In colonial posts there is usually six weeks leave yearly (which may be taken as three months together in the second year), but in most places there is no bracing climate within a reasonable distance. This, of course, does not apply to India and Ceylon, where the hills are easily accessible.

Each Government has its own arrangements with regard to pensions; some posts include pensions, but not all. The retiring age is usually sixty years. There is, unfortunately, no pension obtainable from the Colonial Nursing Association itself. This is certainly one respect in which it would be well if an alteration could be made; it is a question of funds and has already been brought forward for consideration. There would be vastly more inducement for really capable nurses, no longer very young (the age limit for joining is thirty-five) to join the Colonial Nursing Association, and serve their country in foreign dependencies, if they were assured of even a small pension after ten years' hard work in trying climates.

X

NURSING IN THE ARMY AND NAVY

The training required by Army and Navy nurses is that for general work. Additional experience according to the branch of the service which the nurse wishes to enter is also useful. Only fully trained nurses are appointed. Some of the tending of the sick is done by the men themselves, under supervision.

In the Military Service the salaries are as follows: Matron-in-Chief, £305; ordinary Matron, from £75 to £150; Sister, from £50 to £65; Staff Nurse, from £40 to £45, with allowance for board, washing, etc., and arrangements for leave and pension after twenty years' service.

In the _Naval Service _the arrangements are slightly different, but the salaries work out at about the same. Foreign service is obligatory.

There is also a small Army Nursing Reserve, but this is quite inadequate for purposes of defence, and great efforts have recently been made to supplement it by voluntary organisations, such as the British Red Cross Society.

XI

PRISON NURSING

This is, at the present time, carried out by the ordinary staff of prison warders. There are all over England not more than two or three trained nurses among them, and it is most desirable that properly trained women should be in charge of prison infirmary wards, just as much as in the infirmary wards of workhouses. Prisoners are just as likely to suffer from disease as other people, and they surely do not forfeit all claim to expert care, simply because they have, perhaps in a moment of weakness, yielded to temptation. To one form of illness needing specially expert nursing, they are peculiarly liable—mental disease. It is almost impossible to gauge the amount of good which might be done both for the individual and for society by providing trained nurses to attend to these unfortunate people.

XII

MIDWIFERY AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN (OTHER THAN DOCTORS)

This is not a paper to discuss the suitability of women for midwifery. All through the ages it has been done by women, until early in the nineteenth century in England and its colonies, it gradually became customary for men-doctors to attend such cases; apart from this, the work of midwifery has never been in the hands of men, except when abnormal cases have required the assistance of a doctor with knowledge of anatomy and skilled in instrumental delivery. Even before the passing of the Midwives Act in 1902, statistics proved that three-quarters of all confinements in this country were attended by women.

Continental countries have been alive to the need for training the women who did this work. For instance, in the great General Hospital in Vienna with its 3,000 beds, 550 beds were kept apart for maternity wards, and of these, 200 were reserved for the State training of midwives—a course of one year's duration being obligatory, with daily lectures on every detail in midwifery from the Professor of Obstetrics. The present writer attended these lectures daily for six months in 1885, and was made to feel the importance in teaching of "hammering" at essentials and of questioning, so that the lecturer might discover whether he were talking above the head of the least clever of the audience.

England's population increased so steadily and rapidly during the nineteenth century, that it seemed to trouble no one that countless lives of mothers and babies were lost during the perils of child-birth; it remained the only civilised country of Europe where a woman could practise as a midwife without any training at all.

For nearly twenty years before the passing of the Midwives Act in 1902, a small band of devoted women laboured in season and out of season urging on Parliament the need of a bill requiring a minimum of three months' theoretical and practical training and an examination before trusting a woman with the lives of mother and child.

This historical fact alone is a sufficiently cogent reason for the now ever-increasing demand on the part of women for the parliamentary vote.

The Central Midwives Board (C.M.B.), a body of eight members (experts elected by various bodies, such as the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, the British Nurses' Association, the Midwives' Institute, etc.), now exercises supervision over the midwives of the whole of England and Wales, though local supervising authorities also take cognisance of midwives' work and investigate cases of malpractice and the like. The address of the Central Midwives' Board is Caxton House, Westminster.

The training for the examination of the Central Midwives' Board is based on the method pursued in medical education in English-speaking countries, viz., there is not one uniform course, but each of the training schools attached to hospitals follows out its own plan of training, each hospital having been approved by the Central Midwives' Board as giving an adequate training for its examination. There are now seven maternity hospitals in London, where women students may train in midwifery. Of these, only one—the Clapham Maternity Hospital (with its training school founded by Mrs Meredith in 1885)—is, and always has been, entirely officered by women. Here the course advised is six months, viz., three months in the hospital (Monthly Nursing), and three months in the hospital and district doing Midwifery proper. During this time over 200 cases may be seen, and nearly 100 cases attended personally. The cost of this training is £35 to £40, which includes board and residence for twenty-six weeks. Students previously trained elsewhere may take one months' extra training at a cost of ten guineas. Private doctors and midwives may also take pupils if recognised as teachers by the Board.

Midwifery training is now required not only by those who are going to act as midwives, but also by most missionaries, all fully trained nurses (for matrons' posts or colonial posts) and by health visitors and inspectors before obtaining appointments.

But it should be borne in mind, especially in considering the present condition and future prospects of Midwifery as a profession, that even now a large though ever-decreasing proportion of registered midwives are still ignorant women who have never passed the Central Midwives' Board or any other examination, and have had no teaching from any one more experienced or better informed than themselves. For when the Midwives' Act came into force in 1903, it was necessary to move slowly, and so a clause was inserted, permitting women who had been in bonâ-fide practice for more than one year before 1902 to continue their work under inspection and supervision (with many attempts at teaching them by means of simple lectures and demonstrations). This plan, or some similar one, was necessary, not only in the interests of the midwives themselves, a set of decent and kindly, if ignorant women, who would have been ruined by too sudden a change, but also because a large number of mothers in England would have been left with no one to help them in their time of need unless they were prepared to run the risk of breaking the law. This, until recently, respectable English women disliked to do.

It is important to remember this fact, when considering the present and future prospects of the midwife. The untrained woman used to charge 5s. or 7s. 6d. for her services, and the fact that her name had been enrolled on the Government Register, that she was subject to the supervision of an inspector, without having spent anything on her change of status beyond the 10s. registration fee, did not suggest the need of any particular change in her scale of charges. Thus 7s. 6d. per case, unfortunately still remains the very common fee for midwifery, though this now involves, under the rules of the Midwives' Board, not only the long hours of watchful care at the birth, but ten days of daily visits to supervise both mother and baby, with careful records of pulse and temperature, etc., kept in a register. Naturally, the general public who employ midwives—viz., the poorer classes—do not differentiate between the trained certificated midwife and the untrained bonâ-fide midwife whose name is on the register, and thus the scale of charges remains very low and the profession, as one for educated women, is thereby greatly injured.

Granted an intelligent woman is willing to give six months' work and study and £35 to £40 for her training, what chance has she of earning a decent living? If she could command 15s. or 17s. 6d. per case afterwards, she could make a decent living, given fairly hard work and the acceptance of real responsibility. If she had 100 cases a year, she would earn £75 at 15s. per case, and so on. This rise in the fees payable to midwives has just been made possible by the National Insurance Act of 1911, the framers of which appear to have recognised the necessary result of the Midwives' Act of 1902. As the bonâ-fide midwife, who has received no training, gradually dies out, it becomes necessary to provide the means of paying trained midwives, whom the people are obliged to employ in place of the old ones, but who would soon be non-existent were the means of paying them not also provided by the State.

A 30s. maternity benefit is now given for every confinement of an insured person or the wife of an insured person. As the patient may have free choice of doctor or midwife, it seems possible, now that it has been established that the benefit shall go direct to the mother or her nominee, that hereafter the greater part of it may be paid over to the person who can supply that most necessary item of the treatment, i.e., good and intelligent midwifery with nursing care of mother and child. Therefore, it is the right moment for the careful, well-trained popular midwife definitely to raise her fees to all "insured" patients, being still willing to help the poor at a low fee as before. It should be remembered that in about one-tenth of all her cases, medical help will be required, but this case could probably be guarded against by an insurance fund, if properly organised.

We frankly admit that as things now stand—apart from the possibility of the maternity benefit being made to help her—midwifery is financially but a poor profession. But to an enthusiastic lover of her kind, who has other means or prospects for her future than the proceeds of her profession, there is much that is attractive in this most useful calling.

Now let us turn to a consideration of the poor mother. Dr Matthews Duncan in 1870 put the puerperal mortality at 1 in 100 for in-patients and 1 in 120 for patients in their own homes—shocking figures for a physiological event! Miss Wilson, a member of the Central Midwives Board, stated in 1907 that the average mortality of English women, from puerperal fever, a preventable disease, is 47 in 10,000 or 1 in 213, but that in three of the best lying-in hospitals this figure has been reduced to less than 1 in 3,000. To quote Miss Alice Gregory in her article on this subject in The Nineteenth Century for January 1908: "We feel there is something hopelessly wrong somewhere. It becomes indeed a burning question: By what means have the Maternity Hospitals so marvellously reduced their death rate?"

The answer is not now far to seek in the opinion of the writer, who has worked continuously at Midwifery since 1st May 1884. It is probably wholly contained in the three following points:—

(1) All that makes for scrupulous asepsis in every detail for the surroundings of the mother.

(2) The absence of "Meddlesome Midwifery."

(3) Pre-maternity treatment, a factor which the writer considers to be of great importance, and of which she would like to have much more experience.

By this is meant the building up of the future mother's health by improved hygiene and careful, wise dieting and exercising and bathing during the last three months of pregnancy, which enables many a stumbling-block to be removed out of the way. Hence, the utility of pre-maternity wards wisely used. This is, one knows, a "counsel of perfection"; but every expectant mother should and could be taught how to treat herself wisely at this time.

These three points are all in favour of the well-trained midwife.

(1) Scrupulous Asepsis, if intelligently taught, can be learned in six months' training, though one feels bound to add it requires moral "grit" in the character to make one unswervingly faithful in observing it. The midwife, too, should run no risk of carrying infection from others, as a doctor might do.

(2) "Meddlesome Midwifery" is not so much a temptation for the midwife as the doctor, though she also may want to do too much. Patience combined with accurate knowledge when interference is urgently needed, is part of her training.

(3) The midwife who becomes a wise friend to her patients will be just the one to whom the mother will gladly apply early, and who will know if it is advisable to send for skilled medical advice. Contracted pelvis, threatened eclampsia, and antepartum haemorrhage are typical cases, which lose half their terror if diagnosed and treated early.

If ever it is recognised that good midwifery is at the root of the health of the nation and the new maternity benefit is made to help in obtaining it, it will at once become worth while for educated and intelligent women to take to the profession seriously. A practice could then be worked by sets of two or three midwives in co-operation, and with proper organisation as regards an insurance fund for securing operative midwifery from medical practitioners when necessary.

There is ample room for a much larger body of trained midwives than exists at present, if the health and welfare of the nation are to be secured, while the women themselves could, under these conditions, earn a sufficient livelihood.

Trained nurses also specialise in midwifery. They take the full course of training described above, completing this by passing the Central Midwives' Board Examination. They do not practise for themselves, but work only under doctors, thus replacing the monthly nurse. The improvement in health and comfort of both mother and child, when nursed by some one thoroughly competent, is very marked.

The fees which they receive for this work are usually 12 to 14 guineas for the month, and in some cases may rise to 18 guineas.

XIII

MASSAGE

This work demands a healthy body and cheerful mind, a love of the work, endurance, and much tact in dealing with the nervous cases for which this form of treatment is found to be beneficial.

It may be undertaken either

(1) As a separate profession, or

(2) As an additional qualification by trained nurses.

The training must be good and adequate to ensure any success as a masseuse, so great care should be exercised in the choice of a school. The many training schools advertised are of varying degrees of efficiency, and those prepared to train in a few weeks, or by correspondence only, are obviously unsatisfactory.

On application to the secretary of the Incorporated Society of Trained Masseuses, information can be obtained with regard to the training schools in London and the Provinces where a course of instruction in massage is given, which is accepted by the society as adequate.

The society itself is an independent examining body which insists on a satisfactory standard for massage workers. It holds two examinations yearly and grants a certificate to successful candidates. No one may enter for the examination unless she can show that she has received her training at one of the schools approved by the society.

Adequate training in massage includes a course of not less than six months in Elementary Anatomy and Physiology, the Theory and Practice of Massage and a course of bandaging. Students usually attend the classes from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M., lectures being given in the morning, demonstrations and practical work on "model patients" in the afternoon hours.

Sufficiently advanced students are allowed to attend at hospitals or infirmaries to see—and themselves to carry out under the teacher's supervision—the treatment ordered for the patients by the doctor. In this way all students have opportunity during their training of seeing and giving treatment to the various cases which they may have to deal with as qualified masseuses when working under private doctors.

Some training schools give their own certificate after training, and this is useful as a guarantee of the training taken. It is not, however, such an assurance of efficiency to the medical profession or the general public as the certificate gained after examination by an independent examining body.

There is also a further examination held by the society once yearly in Medical Gymnastics. The minimum time to expend on this is a further six months after qualifying as a masseuse, so that it takes a year to gain the double qualification.

In addition to supplying the independent examination in these subjects, the society watches over the interests of the masseuses. All its members are bound to observe the rules of the society. The result of this is threefold.

(1) The doctor is assured that the masseuse will not undertake cases on her own diagnosis, but work only under qualified direction.

(2) The public is assured that the masseuse is a trustworthy woman as well as an efficient worker.

(3) The masseuse herself is protected from undesirable engagements. This is of considerable importance.

The training for the examination previously mentioned is from 10 to 15 guineas for those taking the course. There is generally some reduction made for nurses. The further course in Medical Gymnastics costs from 20 guineas.

From this it will be seen that the whole training is comparatively inexpensive; it is, however, not a profession to be entered lightly. London is already overstocked and the better openings at the present time are to be found in the Provinces, in Scotland and the Colonies. It is well to start, if possible, in a town where the masseuse is already known either to the doctors, or to some influential residents. Much depends on the individuality of the masseuse, and one who is prepared to give all her time to the work, taking every call that comes, may reasonably expect to make in her first year from £50 to £100. By the third year a steady connection should be formed, bringing in an income of £150 to £250. This cannot, however, be expected unless the masseuse has some introductions to start her in her work.

Fees in the country vary from 3s. 6d. to 7s. a visit, and in London and some other places they rise to 10s. 6d. for an hour or less.

Hospital and nursing-home appointments are most useful as experience for the masseuse in her first year; they should be tried before she finally decides where to start work. Such appointments are residential, and the salaries offered vary from £30 to £70 a year.

It must not be forgotten that, owing to the short and comparatively inexpensive training, very many women take up this work, so that the above excellent results are not realised unless the masseuse has good introductions. The value of a thoroughly reliable society such as that mentioned cannot be over-estimated, not only for its certificate, but also on account of the information it can give as to the respectability of posts advertised for masseuses. Many of these are unfortunately merely blinds for undesirable houses. [SUB-EDITOR.]

SECTION IV

WOMEN AS SANITARY INSPECTORS AND HEALTH VISITORS

The introduction of women into the public health service is a modern development, although they have been engaged in it longer than is usually known.

Women who are employed in Public Health Work hold office under Local Sanitary Authorities, and their work must not be confused with that of the Women Home Office Officials, who were first appointed in 1895; these inspect factories and workshops, but their powers and duties are of a different character. For instance, the Women Home Office Inspectors deal, amongst other things, with the cleanliness of factories, but not with the cleanliness of workshops, and with the heating of workshops, while the ventilation of the same workshops is under the control of the local sanitary officials.

Glasgow was the first county borough to utilise the services of Women Health Officials, for in May 1870 four "Female Visitors," afterwards known as Assistant Sanitary Inspectors, were appointed in connection with the Public Health Department. Their duties were: "by persuasion principally, to induce the women householders to keep the interiors of their dwellings in a clean and sanitary condition, and to advise generally how best this can be maintained." They possessed the same right of entry to premises as the men inspectors, and were required to hold the certificate of the Incorporated Sanitary Association of Scotland. They reported certain nuisances, but themselves dealt with others, such as "dirty homes or dirty bedding, clothing, and furnishing."

The work of Women Health Officials in England, dates from the passing of the Factory and Workshops Act of 1891, when certain duties with regard to workshops, which had previously been performed by the Home Office Inspectors, were laid upon Sanitary Authorities.

In the opinion of Dr Orme Dudfield, late Medical Officer of Health for Kensington: "It soon became apparent that, not only was systematic inspection necessary, but also that many of the duties involved were of so special and delicate a nature that they could not be satisfactorily discharged by male inspectors." He therefore recommended the appointment of two Women Inspectors of Workshops in Kensington. In the meantime the city of Nottingham had appointed a Woman Inspector of Workshops in May 1892, and in accordance with Dr Dudfield's recommendation two Women Inspectors were appointed in Kensington in 1893.

These ladies were appointed as inspectors of workshops only. They did not hold Sanitary Certificates, nor had they the status of Sanitary Inspectors. In practice, this entailed a visit by a male inspector every time it was necessary to serve a legal notice for the abatement of any contravention of the Factory and Workshops' Act. Therefore, when these ladies resigned upon their appointment as Factory Inspectors, it was decided to appoint the in-coming ladies as Sanitary Inspectors, with power to deal with these matters themselves. It was, however, Islington which appointed the first woman with the legal status of Sanitary Inspector in 1895.

By 1901, eleven women had been appointed in the Metropolitan area as Sanitary Inspectors, nearly all of them exclusively engaged in the inspection of workshops. Since that time the number of women appointed by Local Sanitary Authorities has increased considerably, both in London and the Provinces. The exact number outside London is only known approximately, as no register exists which is available to the public. It is to be hoped that this information may be obtainable from the last census returns. The figures with regard to London are published annually by the London County Council, and there are now forty-one Women Sanitary Inspectors in the Metropolitan area.

Sanitary inspectors in London, whether men or women, are required to hold the certificate of the Sanitary Inspectors' Examination Board, the examination for which is the same for men and women.[1] Outside London no definite qualification is required by the Local Government Board, but it is usual in county and municipal boroughs for a sanitary certificate to be demanded from candidates for the position of Inspector of Nuisances (the term used outside London for Sanitary Officials). Men and Women Sanitary Inspectors possess equal rights of entry to premises and equal statutory powers for enforcing compliance with the law.

The duties of Women Sanitary Inspectors have become very varied and numerous during the past ten years; they differ considerably according to locality and to the opinions of the local Medical Officer of Health. Broadly speaking, before 1905 women in London were mainly engaged in the inspection of workshops, whereas in the Provinces (with the exception of Nottingham, Leicester, and Manchester) they were engaged in house-to-house visitation in the poorer parts of the towns, with a view to the promotion of cleanliness, giving advice to mothers concerning the feeding and care of infants and young children, and the detection of sanitary defects. The inspection of workshops in the Provinces was a later development.

These varied duties have called for special qualifications, and, in addition to certificates in sanitation, Women Sanitary Inspectors usually hold qualifications in nursing or midwifery. The general education of the women who take up this profession is, on the whole, superior to that of the men. Most of the women have had a high school education, and many are University graduates, while the men, as a rule, come from the elementary schools.

The duties of a Woman Sanitary Inspector are sufficiently varied to avoid monotony, and may comprise any or all of the following:—

A. (1) The inspection of factories in order to see that suitable and sufficient sanitary accommodation is provided for women, in accordance with the requirements of the Public Health Acts.

(2) The carrying out of the provisions of the Public Health and Factory and Workshops Acts, with regard to the registration and inspection of

(a) laundries, workshops, and workplaces (including kitchens of hotels and restaurants) where women are employed;

(b) Outworkers' premises.

(3) The inspection of tenement houses and houses let in lodgings, and the enforcement of the bye-laws of the Sanitary Authority affecting these.

        (4) House-to-house inspection in the poorer
             parts of the district.

        (5) The inspection of public lavatories for
             women.

        (6) The carrying out of duties and inspection
             concerning

               (a) Notifiable infectious diseases,
                     such as scarlet fever.

               (b) Non-notifiable infectious diseases
                     such as measles.

(c) The notification of consumption.

(7) Taking samples under the Food and Drugs Acts. (This work is rarely given to women.)

For many of the above duties, women are obviously better fitted than men, but for the following most important group of duties men are practically disqualified by reason of their sex:—

B. Health visiting. Work in connection with the reduction of infantile mortality :—

           (1) Notification of Births Act, 1907. Visiting
                infants and giving advice to mothers
                about the feeding and general management
                of young children.

           (2) Advising expectant mothers on the
                management of their health and as
                to the influence of ante-natal conditions
                on their infants.

           (3) Work in connection with milk depôts and
                infant consultations.

           (4) Promotion of general cleanliness in the
                home and discovery of sanitary defects

  remediable under the Public Health
  Acts.

(5) Investigation of deaths of infants under one year of age.

(6) Lecturing at mothers' meetings.

(7) Organisation of voluntary Health Workers in the district and arrangement of their work.

C. The following duties may also be required in the Provinces:—

(1) Work relating to the administration of the Midwives' Act, 1902 (where the County Council have delegated their powers to the District Council).

(2) The inspection of shops under the Shop Hours Act, 1892-94, and the Seats for Shop-Assistants Act, 1899.

The work described under C. 1 and 2, is performed in London (except in the City) by special inspectors appointed by the London County Council, who also inspect employment agencies where sleeping accommodation is provided and carry out certain duties under the Children's Act.

(3) Work in connection with the medical inspection of school children (performed in London by the London County Council school nurses).

The duties of Men Sanitary Inspectors are very clearly defined, and differ considerably from those of the women. Men are mainly engaged in the inspection and reconstruction of drains, the detection of structural defects in the houses of the working classes, the carrying out of bye-laws with regard to tenement houses, the investigation of cases of notifiable infectious diseases, the inspection of workshops and factories, the enforcement of the law with regard to the sale of foods and drugs and the abatement of smoke nuisances.

As will be seen from the duties enumerated above, Women Inspectors, as a general rule, are brought into very close and intimate contact with the homes of the people, and this necessitates the exercise of much tact and patience. The large demands thus made upon their powers of persuasion and teaching capacity, involve a considerable strain upon their nervous energy as well as their physical strength. The work of the Men Inspectors, on the other hand, being of a more official character, does not involve the same strain.

There is no uniformity of practice with regard to hours of work, holidays, remuneration or superannuation, either within or without the metropolitan area. Each Local Authority makes its own arrangements. Many have no superannuation scheme and give no pensions. Men and women working for the same Authority usually work under the same conditions as to hours and holidays: the rate of remuneration, however, is by no means the same. The salaries of Women Sanitary Inspectors within the Metropolitan area range from £100 to £200 per annum, the latter figure being reached only in two boroughs and in the City of London: whilst the salaries of the men range from £150 to £350. The average maximum salary of the women is £150, and the average maximum salary of the men is £205. Outside London, the salaries of both men and women are lower, those of the women ranging from £65 to £100, a few rising to £150. Payments are made monthly, and a month's notice can be demanded on leaving, though it is frequently not enforced. Another unjust distinction frequently made between men and women is that the latter are generally compelled to retire upon marriage, thus enforcing celibacy on some of our most capable women.

The hours of work are usually from 9 A.M. to 5 or 6 P.M. and to 1 P.M. on Saturdays. If we consider the nature of the work, the holidays appear most inadequate—viz.: only from two to three weeks per annum are allowed in London, and from ten to fourteen days in many provincial towns.

The Health Visitor, as a public official, was not known until 1899, when several were appointed by the City Council of Birmingham. The name "Health Visitor" was thought to be more feminine and suitable than that of Inspector, and it was imagined that she would in consequence be better received in the homes of the people. As a private society in Manchester had previously engaged women of an inferior class and education with the title of "Health Visitor," this designation was deprecated by women already in the profession. Many smaller provincial towns, however, followed the example of Birmingham, and appointed Health Visitors instead of Women Sanitary Inspectors. It was not until later that the Health Visitor was introduced into London, and in the following way:—

In the Metropolitan area (exclusive of the City) half of the salary of all Sanitary Inspectors is paid out of the County Rate, and their duties are defined in Sections 107 and 108 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891. As Medical Officers of Health and the public generally became more and more interested in the question of infant mortality, Women Inspectors were employed to investigate infant deaths, to visit houses where a birth had taken place and advise mothers on infant care, to manage milk depôts, to weigh babies, and to assist at infant consultations, and to do a great deal of work which hitherto had not been considered the work of a Sanitary Inspector. There was never any question as to the value of the work done nor of the efficiency with which it was performed, but the Local Government Board Auditor took the view that it did not come within the scope of the order of 1891, defining the duties of a Sanitary Inspector, and he refused to sanction the payment out of the County Rate of half the salary of those women who were engaged in Health Visiting work. In March 1905, the borough of Kensington solved the difficulty for itself by appointing a Health Visitor and paying the whole of her salary out of the Local Rate; but less wealthy boroughs felt unable to do this. It was work which the Sanitary Authorities wanted to undertake; it was work which the London County Council and the Local Government Board were desirous of seeing performed, but this technical difficulty stood in the way. It was overcome by the inclusion in the London County Council General Powers' Act of 1908, of Section 7, which empowered Sanitary Authorities in the Metropolitan area to appoint Health Visitors, and this enabled the London County Council to contribute half their salaries out of the County Rate. As a matter of fact, at the present time (November 1913) the whole of the salary of Health Visitors in London is being paid out of the Local Rate, as the Exchequer contribution account is completely depleted by the payment of the moiety of the salary of Sanitary Inspectors.

The essential difference between a Woman Sanitary Inspector and a Health Visitor is that the Woman Sanitary Inspector is a statutory officer with a legal position, having definite rights of entry and certain statutory powers for enforcing the Public Health Acts, while a Health Visitor is a purely advisory officer, with no legal status or right of entry or power to carry out any of the provisions of the Public Health Acts.

In actual practice, the title of Inspector has in no way proved an obstacle to successful health visiting, as may be demonstrated by an enquiry into the work now being carried on by Women Sanitary Inspectors in Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Bradford, London, and other places. On the contrary, it has enabled officials to obtain an entry into dirty and insanitary places and to expose cases of neglect, which might otherwise have remained undiscovered.

The Health Visitor is usually paid a lower salary than the Woman Sanitary Inspector; this ranges in London from £100 to £120; in the provinces it may be as low as £65 per annum, and rarely rises above £100. The hours of work and holidays are, as a rule, the same as for Women Sanitary Inspectors. The difference in salary has proved a great temptation to Local Authorities in London to appoint Health Visitors when Women Sanitary Inspectors would have been more useful and efficient officers. Indeed, it is to be deplored that very few members of Local Authorities understood the advantages to be gained by the appointment of the more highly qualified official. The immediate effect of Section 7 was that several boroughs, having no women officials, proceeded to appoint Health Visitors; other boroughs, which possessed Women Sanitary Inspectors, also appointed Health Visitors. Seven or eight boroughs re-appointed their women officials in the dual capacity of Sanitary Inspector and Health Visitor so that the work in those cases went on as before. An indirect effect has been the almost complete cessation of the appointment of Women Sanitary Inspectors and the diminution in their number in some boroughs by the lapse of appointments on resignation or marriage. The inspection of workshops where women are employed has, in several instances, fallen back into the hands of Men Inspectors, whose unsuitability for this work first called women in England into the Public Health Service.

In September 1909 the Local Government Board issued the following order with regard to Health Visitors in London:—

"Art. 1. Qualifications. A woman shall be qualified to be appointed a
Health Visitor if she

(a) is a duly qualified medical practitioner ; or

(b) is a duly qualified nurse with three years' training in a hospital or infirmary, being a training school for nurses and having a resident physician or surgeon; or

(c) is certified under the Midwives' Act, 1902; or

(d) has had six months' nursing experience in a hospital receiving children as well as adults, and holds the certificate of the Royal Sanitary Institute for Health Visitors and School Nurses, or the Diploma of the National Health Society; or

(e) has discharged duties similar to those presented in the regulations in the services of a Sanitary Authority and produces such evidence as suffices to prove her competency; or

(f) has a competent knowledge and experience of the theory and practice of nurture, and the care and management of young children, of attendance on women in and immediately after child-birth, and of nursing attendance in cases of sickness or other mental or bodily infirmity.

"Art. 2. Every appointment must be confirmed by the Board.

"Art. 6. Enables a Sanitary Authority to determine the appointment of a Health Visitor by giving her three months' notice, and no woman may be appointed unless she agrees to give three months' notice previous to resigning the office or to forfeit a sum to be agreed.

"Art. 8. Outlines the duties of the Health Visitor but prohibits her from discharging duties pertaining to the position of a Sanitary Inspector (unless with the consent of the Board she holds the dual appointment).

"Art. 9. The Board's approval is required to the salary to be paid to the Health Visitor, and an allowance in respect of clothing, where uniform or other distinctive dress is required, may be made."

The Board in their circular letter state that they consider that, in consideration of the importance of the duties and of the salaries often paid to Women Sanitary Inspectors in London, the salary ought not to be less than £100 per annum.

It will be seen from the above that it is quite possible for a Health Visitor to be appointed practically without any qualification for the position, and with absolutely no knowledge of Public Health Law and sanitation.

It is, therefore, apparent that there are two classes of women officials in connection with Public Health Departments, one on the same footing as the men, with equal powers and responsibilities, but remunerated at a much lower rate, and another with a lower status and a still lower rate of remuneration. The duties of the second class may be performed equally well by the first, but the duties of the first cannot be performed by the second. The introduction of the Health Visitor has therefore lowered the status of the Public Health Service.

The remedy for this state of affairs is for competent woman officials in the future to be appointed in the dual capacity of Sanitary Inspector and Health Visitor at an adequate remuneration, and for the order of 1891 defining the duties of a Sanitary Inspector to be expanded to meet the developments which have been taking place in the Public Health Acts since that date.

There are two organisations which Women Sanitary Inspectors may join:—

(1) The Women Sanitary Inspectors' Association, which includes as members Women Sanitary Inspectors and Health Visitors holding recognised certificates in sanitation. (Health Visitors holding official appointments but without these recognised certificates in sanitation may become associates.)

(2) The Sanitary Inspectors' Association, which is composed of a large number of Men Sanitary Inspectors and a few Women Sanitary Inspectors. This is not open to Health Visitors.

There is no approved society for Sanitary Inspectors under the Insurance Act. The income of the majority of Men Inspectors exempts them from the operation of the Act, but a large number of Men and Women Inspectors receiving less than £160 per annum, have joined the approved society of the National Association of Local Government Officers.

To sum up, we may say that on the whole the life of a Health Official is a healthy and suitable one for a woman of average physique; it demands great activity, with many hours spent out of doors, and whoever undertakes it must be prepared for surprises and difficulties. She may find herself in an office staffed entirely by men, with chief, committee, and council composed entirely of men—indeed everything looked at from the male standpoint. She either works singly or in small groups of two or three, except in a few large towns where the women officials may number from ten to twenty. Thus isolated and scattered, it is extremely difficult for the Women Health Officials to form an effective organisation. What is accomplished under one Authority may have little or no effect upon another.

One condition which presses heavily on many women is the shortness of the holidays. The work is always arduous, particularly in poor districts where one is brought face to face with poverty, disease, and suffering, and from two to three weeks is not sufficient for rest and recuperation, particularly as the years pass on.

The creation of public opinion and the advent of a greater number of women on Municipal Councils and Health Committees is greatly needed to improve the conditions under which women officials work, and to support their reasonable demands.[2]

[Footnote 1: Full particulars of this can be obtained from the
Secretary, Sanitary Inspectors' Examination Board, Adelaide Buildings,
London Bridge.]

[Footnote 2: The above article considers under the term "Health Visitors" such women only as are serving under public Municipal Authorities. Unfortunately, since it gives rise to confusion, the name is also used in connection with officials privately appointed by various charitable institutions. These have no universally recognised standard of attainments: some of the so-called "Health Visitors" are without any qualifications, others, e.g., those employed by the Jewish Board of Guardians, are fully trained and do excellent work, comparable with that performed by Hospital Almoners. We hope, in a later volume of this series, to publish an article on their duties and position.[EDITOR.]]

SECTION V

WOMEN IN THE CIVIL SERVICE

I

THE HIGHER GRADES: PRESENT POSITION AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE

The claim that women should be allowed to enter not only the lower but the higher branches of the Civil Service is being freely made at the present time. It is very generally felt that posts in which the holder has to execute judgment and to decide on administrative matters should be open to women as well as to men.

Many reasons are urged for admitting women more freely to a share in the responsible work of the Service, but the true basis of their claim lies in this—that the most successful form of government and the happiest condition for the governed can only be attained, in the State as in the family, when masculine and feminine influences work in harmony.

It is not, perhaps, widely known that women have already made their way into many branches of the Service and have done invaluable work therein. Perhaps the strongest argument that can be urged in favour of their admission into yet other branches of the Service will be found in the following brief survey of the appointments held and the work already done by them in various directions.

The Local Government Boards

The credit of being the first Government Department to appoint a Woman Inspector belongs to the English Local Government Board. As far back as 1873, yielding to the pressure of public opinion, that Board appointed a Woman Inspector, with full powers to inspect workhouses, and district schools. During the short period of her appointment, this lady did excellent work, and called attention to much needed reforms in the education of girls in Poor Law Schools. Unfortunately, owing to a breakdown in health, she was obliged to resign her appointment in November 1874, and the Local Government Board, either repenting of its enlightened action, or not appreciating the aid of a woman even in matters concerning the welfare of women and girls, refrained from appointing a woman to succeed her. It was not until 1885 that another Woman Inspector was appointed, and then her work was restricted to the inspection of Poor Law Children boarded out beyond the Union to which they belonged. In 1896, once more by reason of the pressure of public opinion, a woman was appointed as an Assistant Inspector of Poor Law Institutions in the Metropolis. In 1898 a second Inspector of Boarded-out Children was appointed, and in 1903 the number of Inspectors was increased to three, each Inspector having a district assigned to her.

Four years ago the total number of Women Inspectors was increased to seven, and the scope of their duties somewhat widened, as will be seen below. There is now one Superintendent Inspector at a salary of £400 to £450, and six Inspectors at £250 to £350. Candidates for these inspectorships must have had considerable administrative experience. They must hold a certificate of three years' training as a Nurse, and the Central Midwives' Board's certificate is considered desirable. These qualifications have only been required since 1910.

The duties assigned to the Women Inspectors include (1) the inspection of boarded-out children, both within and beyond the Poor Law Unions to which they belong; and (2) the inspection of Poor Law Institutions—i.e., infirmaries, sick wards of workhouses, maternity wards, and workhouse nurseries: also of Certified Homes, Cottage Homes, and Scattered Homes.

The duties of the Women Inspectors in connection with the boarding-out of Poor Law Children include the visiting of officials of Boarding-Out Committees, and of homes in which children are boarded out; the Inspector visits a sufficient number of children and homes to enable her to satisfy herself that the duties of the Boarding-Out Committee are carried out in a satisfactory manner, and makes a report to the Board thereon. Women Inspectors arrange their own inspections of boarded-out children within a prescribed district.

Each of the fourteen districts into which the country is divided for Poor Law purposes is placed under the care of a General Inspector (male), whilst the half dozen Women Inspectors are available for duty in these districts, but only at the invitation of the General Inspector. If an Inspector omits to arrange for these visits it is possible for his district to remain unvisited by a Woman Inspector for an indefinite period. When it is remembered that there are still 194 Unions without a woman on the Board of Guardians, the present arrangement, by which the Women Inspectors can only inspect Poor Law Institutions on sufferance, is seen to be indefensible and the need for reform in this direction urgent.

There is one Assistant Woman Inspector, who is a highly qualified medical woman, in the Public Health Department of the Board. She has been in office only a few months, but it has been remarked in more than one quarter that the enhanced value of the recent report of the Board's Medical Officer on Infant Mortality is due to her co-operation.

The jurisdiction of the Local Government Board in London is confined to England and Wales—Scotland and Ireland having their own Boards in Edinburgh and Dublin respectively.

The Local Government Board for Scotland appointed a Woman Inspector for the first time about three years ago, at a salary of £200 a year. She is a fully qualified medical woman. Her duties include both Poor Law Work (e.g. the inspection of children in poor-houses or boarded out, enquiries into complaints of inadequate relief to widows) and Public Health Work (e.g. enquiries into any special incidence of disease).

The Local Government Board for Ireland employs two Women Inspectors, one at a salary of £200-10-£300 and the other at a salary of £200, to inspect boarded-out children.

There are no prescribed qualifications for these posts; but they have always been, and still are, held by highly qualified women—distinguished graduates and experienced in social work; one is a doctor of medicine.

Sir Henry Robinson, Vice-President of the Local Government Board for Ireland, said in his evidence before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service that he would like to have one or two women doctors to go round the work-houses and to visit the female wards, but the salaries offered by the Treasury to women doctors seemed to him too low to attract well qualified women.

The Home Office

It was about twenty years ago that the Home Office began to realise that the ever-increasing number of women and girl workers in factories and workshops made it imperative that women as well as men inspectors should be appointed if the Factory Acts intended for the protection of workers were to be effectually enforced. There was no doubt even from the first about the usefulness of these Women Inspectors, but in ten years' time the number appointed for the whole of the United Kingdom had only increased to eight. At the beginning of the present year, 1913, they numbered eighteen, and only within the last few months has this number been increased to twenty.

There is one Woman Inspector of Prisons at a salary of £300-15-£400.
(The lowest salary received by Men Inspectors is £600-20-£700.)

There is also one Woman Assistant Inspector of Reformatories and
Industrial Schools. Her salary is £200-10-£300, whilst that of Men
Assistant Inspectors is £250-15-£400.

Women Factory Inspectors are appointed in the same way as men. A register of candidates is kept in the office, in which the name of every applicant is entered. When a vacancy occurs a selection is made from the list, and the best qualified candidates are interviewed by a Committee of Selection, consisting of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, the Private Secretary, the Chief Inspector of Factories and the Chief Woman Inspector. Generally speaking, about one half of the candidates interviewed are selected to sit for an examination in general subjects. At the end of two years' probation a qualifying examination in Factory Law and Sanitary Science must be passed.

The Principal Woman Inspector is responsible to the Chief Inspector of Factories for the administration of the Women Inspectors' work throughout the United Kingdom. Women Inspectors are stationed at Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Belfast. The work of the Women Inspectors is so organised as to be entirely separate from that of the Men Inspectors, although they cover the same ground. The nature and scope of the women's work is so generally known that it is perhaps unnecessary to describe it in much detail. Investigations into cases of accident affecting women and girl workers or into complaints as to the conditions under which they work are promptly made by the Women Inspectors. Women Inspectors (equally with men) have power to enter and inspect all factory and workshop premises where women and girls are employed. They are empowered to enforce the provisions of the Factory and Truck Acts and to prosecute in cases of breach of the law. They conduct their own prosecutions.

The reports of the Women Inspectors evoked much appreciative comment during a recent debate in the House of Commons. Some interesting remarks on their work are also to be found in the evidence given before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service by Sir Edward Troup, K.C.B., Permanent Under-Secretary of the Home Office.

The number of Women Inspectors at present employed is not nearly large enough to cope with the work that needs to be done. It must be remembered that the staff enumerated above is responsible for the inspection of factories and workshops in Scotland and Ireland as well as in England, and that the number of women engaged in industrial work has increased during the last five years from about one and a half millions to two millions. The necessity of increasing the number of Women Inspectors has frequently been urged upon the Government in the House of Commons and in the press, and it seems probable that the Government must soon yield to this pressure.

The following extract from the Women's Trade Union League Quarterly
Review, July 1913, may be of interest in this connection:—

"That the Women Inspectors' staff in particular is far below the numerical strength which would enable it to cope adequately—we do not say completely—with the task presented to it, has long been patent to every one who knows anything of the industrial world and the part taken in it by the woman worker. But in 1912 promotions and resignations left gaps in the already meagre ranks which for some time were not filled even by recruits, with the result that the number of inspections was necessarily reduced in proportion. To those who realise, as we do, the importance of the women inspectors' visits, both in detecting infringements of the law and in making clear its provisions and their value to the employer and worker alike, this decrease, even for a time, of the opportunities which Miss Anderson's staff enjoy of exercising their beneficent and educative influence seems altogether deplorable. The recent promise of the Home Secretary to increase that staff by two is very welcome, but we cannot pretend to think that such an increase will meet the need which these pages reveal."

There is one Woman Inspector of Prisons, a qualified medical woman, who acts also as Assistant Inspector of State and Certified Inebriate Reformatories. Her salary is £300-15-£400, whilst the lowest salary received by Men Inspectors is £600-20-£700.

There is one Woman Assistant Inspector of Reformatories and Industrial
Schools in Great Britain. Her salary is £200-10-£300, whilst that of
Men Assistant Inspectors is £250-15-£400.

The Board of Trade

The first woman to be admitted to the higher branches of the Board of Trade was appointed as a Labour Correspondent in 1893. In 1903 she became the Senior Investigator for Women's Industries, the salary of the post being fixed at £450. A Senior Investigator's Assistant was also appointed at a salary of £120-10-£200, but the salary has now been increased to £200-£300. These posts are open only to University women with high honours.

The Senior Investigator, with the help of her Assistant, undertakes special enquiries into the conditions in women's industries. Perhaps her most important function is to originate investigations concerning women, which will yield information likely to be useful to the Department in the future, when some particular question comes up for discussion or decision. For instance, when the question of bringing laundries within the scope of the Trade Boards Act was under discussion, the investigations previously made by the Women Investigators into wages and conditions proved invaluable.

There are also three Women Investigators appointed in connection with the Trade Boards. Their duty is to assist in the collection of information relating to the scheduled trades, in all of which a large number of women is employed. They may be called upon to help in the preliminary work involved in setting up new Trade Boards. They explain as far as necessary the provisions of the Act to the working women concerned get nominations of workers to sit on those Boards and otherwise assist the Boards in carrying out their functions. They also conduct inspections to see that the law is carried out.

All these appointments are made by the President of the Board of Trade on the recommendation of the Civil Service Commissioners.

Labour Exchanges

The establishment of Labour Exchanges under the Board of Trade some years ago gave occasion for the appointment of a considerable number of women to responsible posts. On the organising staff at the Central Office there is a Principal Woman Officer at £400-15-£450, who is responsible for the organisation of the women's work in all the Labour Exchanges. She has an Assistant at £150-£7, 10s.—£200. A woman also acts as Secretary to the large London Juvenile Advisory Committee. She has the acting rank of an Assistant Divisional Officer, although her salary (£300-15-£400) is less than that received by men Assistant Divisional Officers.

There are nine Senior Organising Officers with salaries of £250-10-£350, six of whom are women. The three men holding these appointments deal with Juvenile work only, whereas some of the women are in charge of both Women's and Juvenile work. Of the five Junior Organising Officers at £200—£7, 10s.—£250, three are women. The nine Assistant Organising Officers at £150—£7, 10s.—£200 are all women. All these officers are engaged in organising the work of the Juvenile and Women's Departments all over the country, and inspecting local offices. There are also twenty secretaries to Juvenile Advisory Committees, who may be either men or women. The salary for these posts is £150-5—£200.

In the Divisional Offices there are some staff posts open to women at a salary of £200 to £300. Their work is purely clerical, and is concerned with Unemployment Insurance.

The original appointments in this branch of the Board of Trade were made by a Selection Committee on which the Civil Service Commissioners were represented. Applications were invited by advertisement, and a large number of candidates was interviewed. The more recent appointments have been filled by candidates who have first appeared before a Board, and have then passed a qualifying examination, conducted by the Civil Service Commission.

Board of Education

The Board of Education (or the Education Department, as it was then called) was established in consequence of the passing of the Elementary Education Act of 1870. Its jurisdiction was and still is limited to England and Wales.

Notwithstanding that it was responsible to Parliament for regulating the conduct of public elementary education all over the country, and that in those schools there were hundreds of women teachers and thousands of little girl pupils, it seems not to have occurred to the Department to call in the aid of women either as inspectors or administrators until the appointment in 1884 of a Directress of Needlework. A Directress of Cookery was added in 1891, and laundry work was brought under her supervision in 1893. It was only when the passing of the Education Act of 1893 had brought other forms of education—secondary, technical, and scientific—more completely under the supervision of the Department that the need for Women Inspectors began to be felt. In justice to the Department it must be said that having once realised the need, they did not meet it grudgingly. The first Women Inspectors were appointed in 1904, and by the spring of 1905 there were no less than twelve, one of whom was appointed as Chief. Since then the number has been steadily increasing, and there are now 45—a much more satisfactory rate of progress than that of the Women Factory Inspectors.

Educational Inspectors.—There are now 1 Chief Woman Inspector, at a salary of £650; 45 Inspectors, 8 at £400-10-£500, and 35 at £200-15-£400.

The method of appointment of Women Inspectors' is similar to that of men—i.e., by nomination of the President of the Board of Education. The Chief Woman Inspector first interviews candidates, weighs their qualifications, and reports upon them to the Secretary. There is no examination on appointment. Besides academic qualifications, which are the same as those of men, many of the Inspectors have special qualifications, as well as having had practical experience in teaching.

A special class of work is allotted to each Inspector: about 17 of
them are occupied in inspecting Girls' and Infants' Public Elementary
Schools: 15 are responsible for Domestic Subject Centres in Elementary
Schools: 4 for Girls' and Mixed Secondary Schools: 3 for Training
Colleges (women's and mixed): and 3 again for Domestic and Trade
Courses and Girls' Clubs.

In the case of secondary schools, the Women Inspectors pay special attention to women's subjects, but they also take part in full inspections. They are not in charge of districts, and therefore do not carry on the miscellaneous correspondence with the Local Education Authorities which falls to the lot of a District Inspector. In relation to domestic subjects, however, the Women Inspectors are practically in charge of districts, and deal directly with Local Education Authorities. They inspect the work done by girls, and look into the organisation of the schools with regard to health, suitability of curricula, etc.

In the case of elementary schools, the Women Inspectors are attached to the various districts and are directed by the District Inspectors (men) as occasion requires, to deal with infants' and mixed schools, and to carry out routine inspections of public elementary schools.

Medical Inspectors.—There are one Senior Medical Officer at £600-£800; one Junior Medical Officer at £400-20-£500; and also three Inspectors of Physical Exercises at £200-15-£400.

The Women Medical Inspectors take part in the work of the medical branch in the same way as men; Physical Exercises come under their jurisdiction.

The Board of Education also employs three women on the permanent staff of the Department of Special Enquiries and Reports. The salaries are £100-£7, 10s-£180, and the posts are pensionable. The duties consist partly of library work and partly of giving assistance in the general intelligence work of the office.

The Right Hon. A.H. Dyke Acland said in his evidence before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service that he did not see why at the Board of Education the same sort of women who become good inspectors and headmistresses should not take part in the administrative work of the office.

Scotch Education Department

The first Woman Inspector was appointed by the Scotch Education Department in 1902, and two others were appointed in 1910. Their scale of salary is £200-15-£400. They are strictly specialist inspectors for domestic economy subjects, cookery, laundry, etc., for which they have qualifications including experience in teaching and inspecting such subjects.

Specially qualified women are occasionally employed by the Department to inspect girls' schools, and are paid a fee according to the time occupied.

National Education Board, Ireland

Two Women Inspectors are employed by the Irish National Education
Board. Their salary is £150-10-£300, the same as that of Men Junior
Inspectors; Men Senior Inspectors receive £300-20-£700.

There are two Women Organisers, whose duty it is to organise weak schools.

There are also 14 Organisers of Domestic Economy; their work is similar to that of Inspectors; they travel about and have authority in the schools; they do not inspect general subjects, but confine themselves to cookery, laundry and domestic science.

There are also six Women Organisers of Kindergarten.

The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries.

This Department has recently employed a few women upon various kinds of scientific work. Three women are appointed as Assistant Naturalists in the Fishery Branch, at a salary of £150 per annum, and two as Junior Assistant Naturalists at £2 per week. They are appointed on the nomination of the President, without examination, but they must possess the necessary scientific qualifications and have taken a recognised course of study. These posts are non-pensionable. The Fishery Branch deals with questions relating to the natural history and diseases of fish, fish-hatcheries and laboratories, the protection of undersized fish, the effect of methods of capture, international investigations, and grants in aid of fishery research. The women are engaged upon the same work as men, except that they do not write technical reports and are not liable to be called upon for sea duty.

In the Herbarium and Library of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew there are two Women Assistants at £150-10-£300 (the Men Assistants' scale is £150-15-£300). Scientific qualifications are required for these posts, and there is an examination by the Civil Service Commission. The Library is maintained for official consultative work, to supply the basis of an accurate nomenclature throughout the establishment and as an aid to research. The Herbarium aims at representing the entire vegetation of the earth with especial regard to that of British possessions. A scheme for preparing a complete series of floras of India and the Colonies was sanctioned by the Government in 1856, and has been steadily prosecuted ever since. The principle work of the staff is the correct identification of the specimens which reach Kew from every part of the world, and their incorporation in the Herbarium. It is visited for the purposes of study and research by botanists from every country.

The scientific work in the various branches of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries would seem to afford some scope for women of scientific attainment. Sir T. Elliott, formerly Permanent Secretary to the Board, in his evidence before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, said he considered that women could do good work in many directions, and that their help might be especially valuable in entomology.

The Public Trustee's Office.

The Public Trustee's office was established in 1908, under the Act of 1906. Two Women Inspectors—or more correctly speaking, Visitors—are now employed, one of whom receives a salary of £200 and the other £180.

These Visitors are attached to the special Department set up to take charge of children (1) left by will to the guardianship of the Public Trustee, or (2) who have been awarded damages in the High Court either for injury or for the loss of parents or guardians.

As regards the first-named, the Public Trustee has express powers under his rules to act either as sole guardian or co-trustee. In these cases the Women Visitors assist the Public Trustee in discharging his trust. They visit the children, go thoroughly into the circumstances of each case, consulting with relatives and family solicitors. Schools are chosen, holidays arranged, careers decided upon, apprenticeship or training provided for; medical attendance is secured and even clothing attended to.

In all cases concerning children in which an action for damages has been brought under the Common Law or under Lord Campbell's Act, the money awarded as compensation is paid over to the Public Trustee, unless the judge otherwise directs. A large part of the Women Visitors' work consists of supervising these compensation cases. It is important to see that the money is spent upon the children, and in the manner most likely to promote their future welfare—e.g., in providing education or special training. In the case of injured children, proper medical attention is secured and any instruments or artificial limbs which may be necessary.

It is becoming increasingly the practice, when funds are raised locally to help special cases, to place the money collected in the hands of the Public Trustee, instead of appointing local trustees. Where the beneficiaries of such funds are women or children—very often they are widows—it becomes the duty of the Women Visitors to find out on the spot how the money can best be applied, and to advise the Public Trustee accordingly.

In all cases the supervision is continued as long as it is required, but where relatives are found to be competent and willing to take charge of children the responsibility is left to them.

Such work, concerned as it is with the young and the helpless, seems peculiarly suited to women. The Public Trustee in his evidence before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, stated that the women already appointed had proved themselves "most efficient."

The National Health Insurance Commissions.

The Inspectors appointed by the National Health Insurance Commissions are so recent an institution that it is not yet possible to say whether the work to be performed by this Department will afford scope for the employment of a large number of educated women.

It is satisfactory to note, however, that the salaries of men and women more nearly approximate to equality than in any previous appointments. The salaries of the Women Commissioners in all four countries are the same as those of the men, viz., £1,000 per annum.

The English Commission has 10, the Scotch 1, and the Irish 1 Woman Inspector at £300-10-£400. Men Inspectors begin at the same salary but rise to £500.

The English Commission has 25, the Welsh 3, the Scotch 5, and the
Irish 4 Assistant Women Inspectors at £100-10-£300. Men Assistant
Inspectors begin at the same salary, but after two years they rise by
£15 to £350.

The English Commission has 19, the Welsh 1, the Scotch 5, and the Irish 5 Women Health Insurance Officers, on a scale of salary £80-5-£110, after two years rising by £7, 10s. to £150. This scale is precisely the same as that of Men Health Insurance Officers.

The duties of Men and Women Inspectors and Officers under the National
Health Insurance Commission are identical in character and scope.

The primary function of these officers is to impose upon the whole adult population the new conditions created by the Act—i.e., they have to ensure the proper payment of contributions in respect of all persons liable to be insured.

Trades are assigned to Men or Women Inspectors according as a trade employs men or women in greater numbers.

The Insurance Commissioners work through the Inspectors in all matters that are more susceptible to local treatment than to treatment by correspondence. The Inspectors obtain information and make local enquiries as to the facts in cases submitted to the Commissioners for determination under various sections of the Act.

An interesting account of the very varied duties which fall to the lot of these Officers will be found in the first "Report on the Administration of the National Insurance Act," Part I., which has recently been published. The following extract from that Report will give some idea of the work done by the Women Inspectors, and the estimate which has been formed of it.

"Inasmuch as the Insurance Commission is the first Government Department in which a woman staff has been appointed from the outset, special mention may be made of one portion of the work carried out by the women inspectors during the past year. The enquiry held in the autumn by Mr Pope on the objections raised to the inclusion of married women outworkers within the provisions of Part I. of the Act necessitated much careful investigation among employers and outworkers in a large number of trades all over the country, such as tailoring, glove-making, lace manufacture, carding of hooks and eyes, pins and needles, buttons and fish-hooks at Birmingham, net-making at Bridport, chain-making at Cradley Heath, straw hat-making at Luton, chair-making, box-making, and boot, shoe, and hosiery manufacture. This investigation was undertaken by the women staff. The enquiry entailed hundreds of visits, both in the poorest parts of industrial towns and in remote country districts, and in interviews with employers and workers great tact and patience were required. Of the evidence given by the women inspectors, Mr Pope reports that they 'one and all gave evidence with extreme moderation, impartiality and discretion. The conspicuous fairness and the success with which they had collected information were frequently a matter of commendation from employers, who informed me that the enquiry had afforded them information about their own trades which years of work in it had not made known to them.'"

The General Post Office

This paper would not be complete without some reference to the large number—now nearly 3,000—of women clerks employed by the General Post Office, all of whom enter the service by open competition, either as girl clerks between sixteen and eighteen years of age or as women clerks between eighteen and twenty. Their duties are necessarily of a clerical nature, and in their earlier years at least they can hardly, perhaps, be included in the "higher grades." Yet the supervisory posts which become necessary wherever large numbers of workers are employed call for considerable administrative ability and are proportionately better remunerated. All women clerks are eligible for these posts, and indeed they are never filled in any other way.

The highest post open to a woman clerk in the General Post Office is that of Superintendent at the Savings Bank, the present holder of which is on a scale of £350-20-£600. There are 4 Deputy Superintendents at £270-15-£330; 13 Assistant Superintendents at £210-10-£260; and 53 Principal Clerks at £150-10-£200. The Savings Bank has the largest group of women clerks—numbering 1,210—of any department, and of these 150 are in the first class.

The next largest group of Women Clerks is in the Money Order Department; in this office the women outnumber the men in the proportion of 5 to 1. They number 592, of whom 67 are in the first class. There is one Superintendent at £350-20-£500; 1 Deputy Superintendent at £270-15-£330; 5 Assistant Superintendents at £210-10-£260; and 24 Principal Clerks at £150-10-£200.

The Accountant General's Department has 1 Superintendent at £280-15-£400; 3 Assistant Superintendents at £210-10-£260; and 3 Principal Clerks at £150-10-£200. The staff of clerks numbers 416, of whom 57 are in the first class.

The London Telephone Service has 1 Assistant Superintendent at £210-10-£260 and 5 Principal Clerks at £150-10-£200, with a staff of 278 clerks, of whom 21 are in the first class.

The Accountants Offices are the only ones in Edinburgh and Dublin which employ women as Clerks. In Dublin there is 1 Superintendent at £210-10-£250 and 2 Assistant Superintendents at £150-10-£170. Of the staff of 61 clerks, 7 are first class. In Edinburgh there is 1 Superintendent at £200-10-£250, and 1 Assistant Superintendent at £150-10-£190. Of the staff of 69, 8 are in the first class.

In consequence of the employment of so large a number of women, the General Post Office found it necessary many years ago to employ a Woman Medical Officer. The present holder of this office receives a salary of £350-20-£500. She has the help of two Assistants, whose salary is £180-15-£300.

A few posts which may properly be deemed "higher" are also open to Women Counter Clerks and Telegraphists. In the London Postal District there are 3 Supervisors at £180-10-£250, 50 Assistant Supervisors (first class) at £140-6-£170 and 61 Assistant Supervisors (second class) at £115-5-£130.

In the Central Telegraph Office the Chief Supervisor of Women Telegraphists receives a salary of £180-10-£300 (not a large salary for supervising a staff numbering nearly 1,000), the 13 Supervisors receive £180-10-£250, and the 35 Assistant Supervisors £140-6-£170.

The Postal District and Telegraph Offices in Dublin and Edinburgh have each one Woman Supervisor of Counter and Telegraph Clerks at £140-6-£875. In Dublin there are 12 and in Edinburgh 6 Assistants at £110-5-£135. There are also a number of Supervisors in the provinces whose rates of pay vary from £149-6-£175 to £115-5-£135, according to the size of the district.

The Telephone Service also offers a few important posts to women. In the London Telephone Service a Woman Superintendent is appointed at £200-10-£300, 9 Supervisors at £159-6-£190, and 40 Assistant Supervisors at £110-5-£145. There are about 3,600 Women Telephonists employed within the London postal area. The salaries of Supervisors in the provinces vary from £125-5-£150 to £105-5-£120, according to the size of the district.

The variety of work, which is now efficiently performed by women in the various departments above enumerated, seems to prove conclusively that when other branches are opened to them they will be equally successful.

In the statements recently submitted to the Royal Commission of the Civil Service on behalf of various women's organisations, the reasons for throwing open to women the more highly paid and responsible posts were admirably set forth.

On behalf of the Association of Headmistresses it was stated by Miss
R. Oldham:—

"In asking that in future some of the more highly paid and responsible posts in the Civil Service should be thrown open to women, the Headmistresses are conscious of the fact that modern economic conditions have evolved the woman who must of necessity, as well as by choice, become self-supporting. The professions of teaching, medicine, art, and literature offer openings with adequate remuneration for the highly educated young woman of to-day. Those lower branches of the Civil Service which, with a few exceptions, alone are open to women do not supply posts of enough responsibility and administrative power to prove attractive to able women of secondary school and university education, many of whom, in the opinion of the Headmistresses are fitted, both by their education and by their natural ability, to fill positions of equal responsibility with their brothers.

"They desire to submit the following reasons why women should be considered eligible for positions of administrative responsibility in the service of the State :—

"(1) Women have shown by their success in positions of great responsibility that they are capable of undertaking high administrative work.

"(2) Women have special gifts for social investigation and inquiry, and special knowledge in many important subjects, which ought to be used in the service of the State.

"(3) Under present conditions of women's employment in the Service, the ablest and most highly qualified women do not enter it.

"(4) The presence of a large number of women in the lower branches of the Civil Service makes it desirable that there should be women employed in higher and more responsible posts. This would have the effect of ensuring good discipline and judicious promotion.

"(5) The present almost total exclusion of women from high and responsible posts has the effect of discrediting them as applicants for such posts outside the Service. Private employers when asked to give women opportunities for rising to posts of responsibility, are able to point to the failure of the Government to do so."

  In the statement submitted by Mrs W.L.
  Courtney on behalf of the Council on Women's
  Employment in the Civil Service the claim was
  made:—

"That women should be eligible for first division appointments, or equivalent appointments, in suitable offices, such as the Education Office, the Local Government Board, the Home Office, the Insurance Commission, and the Board of Trade. It has already been found necessary to appoint women to responsible posts in the Inspectorate of each of these offices, and the same reasons which justify those appointments point also to the desirability of appointing women to positions in the corresponding internal administrative service."

There is another point to be remembered in this connection; it is important that the recommendations made by Women Inspectors should have the chance of being considered and acted upon by women in an administrative capacity, as well as by men. Otherwise there is danger that the women's point of view put forward by an Inspector may be overlooked or her recommendations brushed aside.

Miss Penrose, Principal of Somerville College, Oxford, in her statement for the Royal Commission, said:

"In branches of the Service, such as the Home Office, the Local Government Board, and the Board of Trade, in which a good deal of work is done, or should be done, by women because it is concerned with women, I think it would be an advantage to have one or more women on the general administrative staff, which deals with the work of the departments as a whole.

"If a board which deals with human beings, does not employ women except to carry out the policy of the Board, after that policy has been initiated, shaped and embodied in regulations, it may not infrequently be found that regulations unsuitable in some respects to be applied to women have been drafted, or that unnecessary differences of treatment have been created. Just as in so far as women look at things from a different angle it is important that their point of view should be at the service of a department at as early a stage as possible."

An illustration of this may be found in the draft Order for the regulation of Poor Law Institutions which is now before the public. This draft has been drawn up by a departmental committee of the Local Government Board, composed entirely of men, notwithstanding that it will regulate the administration of institutions staffed by women and having large numbers of women and children as inmates. It is not surprising to find that the draft Order meets with the disapproval of many women engaged in poor law work.

The Council on Women's Employment also claimed:—

"That women should be made eligible or considered for appointment—

"As scientific specialists, especially museum assistants and keepers. The area of choice would thus be enlarged in cases where there is sometimes a very small number of suitable candidates. Women have been notably successful in original work in various departments of botany, and have done valuable original work in bacteriology and archaeology. They are already employed as scientific specialists in certain departments and in temporary work for the British Museum, though hitherto excluded from its permanent service.

"As librarians, keepers of records and papers, and assistants to the holders of these offices, and to positions requiring qualifications for statistical work and historical knowledge, such as those in the Public Record Office.

"That appointments in suitable offices should be opened to women between the ages of 19 and 24, who have either passed or can pass an examination equivalent to that of male second division clerks, or clerks of the intermediate class, according to the practice of the department in filling its appointments. It seems desirable that the abilities of women who would otherwise be occupied in business, teaching, secretarial and clerical, and other work, much of which is closely comparable with that of second division and intermediate clerks, should be available for the work of the Civil Service, especially in the offices already mentioned in connection with the first division appointments."

These claims, pertinent as they are, and strongly as they should be urged, need to be extended still further.

Women claim to be admitted to share in the administrative work, not only of those departments directly concerned with women, but also in those in which the work concerns equally men and women as citizens—e.g., the Treasury, the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office, the Inland Revenue. No one could argue that the work of these departments is unsuitable for women, any more than is the work of the General Post Office, in which they have so conspicuously succeeded. Even the War Office, with the charge of so many soldiers' wives and children living in barracks, removed from the jurisdiction of all civic services, and the control of so large a number of Army Nurses, needs women amongst its administrators.

The claim must also be made quite clearly, that in throwing open these posts to women, the same method of recruiting must be employed as for men, and the remuneration must be at the same rate. In asking for these opportunities women are simply asking that the sex disability which at present bars them from the majority of posts in the service, may be removed. They do not seek admission in some special way, nor do they wish to undercut men by accepting lower salaries. They ask that the sex barrier may be removed in the case of both Class I. and Class II. appointments—in other words, that these appointments may be open to them on the same conditions as they are or may be open to men.

In the case of the majority of the appointments hitherto held by women, some care has been taken to put them on a different footing from those of men; in these instances it is not easy to compare the work of women with that of men, or to urge the claim of women to be paid at the same rate as men for work of equal value. There are, however, some conspicuous instances—e.g., of the Factory Inspectors and Inspectors of Schools—in which no such differentiation is possible and in which the only reason for paying the women less than the men seems to be that given by the ex-Permanent Secretary of the Treasury in his evidence before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, "that women ought to be got as cheaply as possible, and that if they can be got for less, they ought not to be paid the same as men."

There seems some ground for believing that official opinion in this matter is undergoing modification, since in the case of later appointments—e.g., in the Labour Exchanges and in the National Health Insurance Commission—the tendency has been to approximate the salaries of women much more closely to those of men and even in some instances to make them identical. It is therefore reasonable to hope that the principle of equal pay for equal work will, before long, be extended to appointments of longer standing, in which its application would be no less just than in the case of new appointments.

II

THE LOWER GRADES AND THE PRESENT POSITION

So far as the position of its women workers is concerned, the State is very far from being the model employer it sometimes professes to be. When one considers the very wide disparity existing between the salaries for similar work of women and of men, one realises to what an enormous extent the Exchequer, and, consequently, the taxpayer, has benefited by the economies practised at the expense of the women Civil Servants ever since their introduction in the early seventies. There is not a shadow of doubt that economy was the motive for their employment, but even economy would not have justified the continued increase in their numbers, had they not exhibited what has been called by a high official, "remarkable efficiency," and also the very desirable qualities of docility, patience, and conscientiousness.

When the Government first took over the telegraphs from the private companies, it found women in their employ, and decided to retain them in the service. Women Telegraphists and Counter Clerks are now a very large body numbering in London about 2,000, and in the Provinces about 5,000,—a total of 7,000 women as compared with 16,000 men. The duties of men and women telegraphists are more closely comparable than their respective work in any other class in the Civil Service, practically the only differentiation being that women are debarred from night duty. They are also generally exempt from Sunday duty, excessive late duty, and special duties in connection with race meetings, although the Hobhouse Committee in 1907 recommended that women should do the Sunday work if required. (As, however, payment for this is made at a higher rate, there is usually no lack of volunteers.) Their scale of salary in the Central Telegraph Office is 18s. a week at eighteen years of age, rising to a maximum of 40s. The men's scale is 20s. rising to 65s. When the necessary technical qualifications are acquired, an allowance of 3s. a week carried beyond the maximum and pensionable, is now given to both sexes alike. Formerly the technical allowance for women was 1s. 6d. per week only, and this would appear to account for the lower proportion of women who have qualified for the technical increment.

There appears to be a tendency to stereotype certain kinds of work for men only, in order to justify the differentiation in pay, but in point of fact, most of the work now exclusively allotted to male telegraphists was at one time done by women. The work done by men and women Counter Clerks is identical. The women in the Telegraph Service have no separate organisation, but combine with the men in the Postal Telegraph Clerks' Association, which has a large number of branches, and carries on a very active campaign for improvement in pay and conditions of service. Equal pay for equal work is one of the planks in its platform, and formed part of the case put forward before the Select Committee on Post Office Servants last year.

Women Clerks are employed in the great financial Services of the
General Post Office, the Savings Bank Department, Money Order
Department (including the Postal Order Branch), Accountant-General's
Department, and the Controller's Office of the London Telephone
Service, as well as in the Accountant's Departments of the General
Post Offices in Edinburgh and Dublin. In all, they number nearly
3,000. It may, perhaps, be of interest to go into the history of this
class.

Women Clerks were first introduced into the General Post Office in 1871 by Mr Scudamore, who considered that as women were more "fault-finding" than men, they might well be used as "a check on the somewhat illiterate postmasters of the United Kingdom in the interests of a somewhat long-suffering public." Entry was at first by nomination, but in 1881 the appointment of Women Clerks was thrown open to the public by competitive examination by Mr Fawcett, who was then Postmaster General. This step met with some opposition, and Queen Victoria even caused a letter to be written to Mr Fawcett expressing her strong disapproval of the change. The Postmaster-General, however, carried his point, and fixed the scale of salary at £65, rising by £3 per annum to £80. When the working day was increased from six to seven hours, the maximum was raised to £100. The revisions of the Tweedmouth Inter-Departmental Committee came into force in 1897, involving many concessions to the male staff, and simultaneously the minimum salary of the Women Clerks was, without any warning, reduced for new entrants to £55 per annum, and the increment for the first six years was reduced to £2, 10s.

Realising the defencelessness of their position, the Women Clerks formed an Association in 1901, and so strong was the case for improvement which they were able to bring before the Hobhouse Parliamentary Committee of 1906, that in spite of considerable misrepresentation of their work in the evidence given by Heads of Departments, they were able not only to get back the 1881 minimum of £65, but were awarded further an increased increment of £5 throughout the scale and a rise of £10 in the maximum. This was the position until December 1911, when a tentative scheme was introduced in the Money Order Department to hand over all the simpler duties to a new class of Assistant Women Clerks with an eight-hour day and a wage of 18s. rising to 34s. a week. The Association of Post Office Women Clerks, the basis of which is "equal pay and opportunities for women with men in the Civil Service," and which therefore necessarily stands for simplification of the classes of employment, regarded the restriction of a fresh grade of women to yet another water-tight compartment at a low wage as in itself an evil. But apart from this, they looked upon the scheme as a deliberate evasion of the Hobhouse Committee's recommendations. So strong was the criticism levelled at the new scheme, both by Members of Parliament and the Press, that the Postmaster-General, Mr Herbert Samuel, consented to refer the matter to the Select Committee on the Post Office (known as the Holt Committee)[1], which was appointed in the early part of 1912, and he gave an undertaking that no more appointments to the new grade should be made in the Money Order Department until the Committee had reported, The value of this concession was considerably lessened by its limited application, and the fact that many Assistant Women Clerks were subsequently appointed to the London Telephone Service, clearly indicated the intention of the authorities to proceed with the development of the scheme in a Department which provided an easier field of operation in the shape of new work and a new staff taken over from the National Telephone Company.

In 1897 the class of Girl Clerks was created, to undertake some of the simpler duties in the Savings Bank Department, hitherto performed by Women Clerks. They were subsequently introduced into the Money Order Department and the Controller's Office of the London Telephone Service, and there are approximately 250 now employed. They take the same examination as Women Clerks, but at a lower age—sixteen to eighteen—and are grouped apart for the purpose of marking. Their hours of duty are seven daily, and their salary £42, raising by £3 per annum, to £48. They are in reality a probationary class, and become Women Clerks automatically after two years' service. The introduction of this class was not considered by the Department to be an administrative success, as the obligation to make them Women Clerks in two years prevented their being employed in sufficiently large numbers to effect any appreciable economy. The scheme for the introduction of the grade of Assistant Woman Clerk involved the abolition of the Girl Clerk.

The Women Clerks are an analogous grade to the Male Clerks of the Second Division who are common to the whole Civil Service, and they do practically the same class of work. The examinations for the two classes are somewhat severe in character and are roughly comparable.[2] There is, however, a wide disparity in the salaries paid, as will be seen from the following comparison:—

SECOND DIVISION CLERKS.

£70 by £7, 10s. per an. to £130 thence by £10 per an. to £200 thence by £10 per an. to £300 (Efficiency Bar at £130 and £200)

Above the salary of £300 advancement to higher posts by promotion.

WOMEN CLERKS.

Second Class— £65 by £5 per an. to £100 (No Efficiency Bar)

First Class (by promotion)— £115 by £5 to £140

Above the rank of First Class Clerk there are certain higher posts which constitute a percentage of 4.6 of the total number of First and Second Class Clerks.

The existence of this double standard of payment for the same kind of work is not only an injustice to the women concerned, but is a standing menace to the men, who rightly consider that the presence of women as a blackleg class keeps down their wages and reduces their prospect of promotion. A sense of irritation and dissatisfaction is thus engendered between the two sexes. The maintenance of separate staffs of similar status but with different rates of remuneration, enables the department to play off one against the other, for the existence of a lower paid class makes it increasingly difficult for the Men Clerks to substantiate a claim for better pay themselves. The standard of their work is raised by the "moving-down" or "degrading" of duties, without any improvement in pay such as they would probably be able to obtain if women were not involuntarily undercutting them. Women fully sympathise with their male colleagues, whose prospects are injured in this way, but they insist that the only solution of the difficulty is equal treatment and fair and open competition. The Association of Clerks of the Second Division supported the Women Clerks' claim for equal pay for equal work in their evidence before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, and it is gratifying that, in spite of the determined policy of the department to adhere as far as possible to the absurd segregation of the sexes, the two organised bodies of Men and Women Clerks are on excellent terms.

In 1883 the class of Women Sorters was instituted, its original scale of pay ranging from 12s. per week, increasing by annual increments of 1s. to 20s. per week. In 1885 a first class was created with a maximum of 30s. per week. The Tweedmouth Committee of 1897 abolished the classification, and substituted therefor an efficiency bar at 21s., so that, unless incompetent, all the Women Sorters have a right to proceed to the maximum of 30s. Since the salary was fixed at that figure, the work of the Sorters has greatly improved in character. Originally introduced for the purpose of sorting, arranging, and filing the multitudinous kinds of official documents and papers, they have by degrees taken over more and more of the simpler duties formerly performed by the Women Clerks, until, at the present day, it is no exaggeration to say that nearly one-half of their duties consists of elementary clerical work. The Women Sorters are recruited from an examination of the same standard as that hitherto applied to Telegraphists, and the Women Sorters' Association claims that the principle of equality between Sorters and Telegraphists, which was recommended to the department by the Tweedmouth Committee in 1897, should be applied to the Women Sorters. Prior to 1900, vacancies occurring in the female staff at the Returned Letter Office were filled by transferred Women Telegraphists, but since that date, vacancies have been filled by successful candidates at the Women Sorters' examinations, who are awarded the Women Telegraphists' scale of pay. There is, therefore, the anomaly of two different scales of pay being given to successful candidates in the Women Sorters' examinations. The Women Sorters also claim some outlet, or prospect of advancement, other than that provided by the "Senior Sorterships," of which there are a few in each department, carrying a supervising allowance of 3s. a week; this claim has been partly met by the apportionment of the new posts of Assistant Women Clerks previously mentioned.

Women Telephone Operators are a large and rapidly growing class, recruited entirely by nomination followed by a qualifying examination. They number at the present time about 4,000, including Supervisors. The growing use of the telephone is replacing the telegraph, and is likely to make of this class a serious rival to the grade of Telegraphist. In this connection, it is important to recognise that the change is likely to entail an enormous increase in the use of cheap labour. The maximum salary of the Telephonist in London is only 28s. per week. The work is extremely exacting and exhausting to the nervous system, so much so, that it is an absolute necessity for the maintenance of health that proper and adequate rest-room accommodation should be provided, and that the operators should be equipped with apparatus of the proper type.

The classes already mentioned have, until the present year (1913), been recruited solely for the Post Office, but the class of Women Typists, numbering about 600, are a Treasury Class, and are common to the whole Civil Service, the conditions of entry varying according to the Department. In the Post Office alone, are Typists recruited by open competitive examination. The scale of salary is 20s. a week, rising in three years to 26s.: they then have the option of qualifying in shorthand, after which they can rise to 31s. per week. In the Post Office, however, the number allowed to qualify in this way is limited to 50 per cent. of the staff. The supervising posts are: Superintendent, 35s. a week, and Chief Superintendent, 40s. a week. No higher positions are open to Typists anywhere, no matter how good their qualifications and educational equipment. The Association of Civil Service Typists claim some avenue of promotion to clerical work in the Departments in which they serve.

There are also about 650 women employed by the Board of Trade in the Labour Exchange Service. With the exception of about 180, who were transferred from the Post Office for Unemployment Insurance Work under Part II. of the National Insurance Act, these women were admitted by the new method of recruitment adopted by the Civil Service Commissioner under Clause VII. of the Order in Council of January 1910. Under this system, applications are invited, and a certain number of apparently suitable candidates are interviewed by a committee of selection, and those chosen for appointment are subsequently required to pass a qualifying examination. The educational standard of this examination, for both men and women, is so low that it appears to be designed, not for the purpose of selecting candidates of good general education, but merely to eliminate the illiterate.

The scale of salary for these posts is the same for women as for men, and is as follows:—

     Lower Grade £60, rising by increments of £5
       per annum to £105.
     Higher Grade £110, rising by increments of
       £5 per annum to £150.

There are also a few higher appointments. Women are, however, under a particular disability in that they must wait for a vacancy in the Higher Grade before passing on beyond £105, whilst in the case of the Men Clerks there is no such stoppage, officers being allowed to proceed straight on, if certified efficient.

It will, no doubt, have been observed that the post of Women Clerk is the highest in the Service open to women by competitive examination, and with the exception of some sixteen or eighteen appointments in the Board of Education, Women Clerks have hitherto been recruited for the Post Office alone. They are now being recruited from this examination for the National Health Insurance Commissions. The exclusion of Women Clerks from the numerous State Departments such as the Home Office, Local Government Board, Inland Revenue, etc., is mainly traditional, as they are not excluded by the wording of the Order in Council of 10th January 1910 (paragraph 5, Part I.) which states that

"all appointments … shall be made by means of competitive examinations according to regulations framed, or to be from time to time framed by the Commissioners, and approved by the Treasury, open to all persons(of the requisite age, health, character, and other qualifications prescribed in the said regulations) who may be desirous of attending the same…."

In this passage the word "persons" is interpreted to mean men only, but as other professions are yielding to the pressure of modern economic conditions and are opening their doors to women, it is time that the State considered the advisability of profiting by the services of women eminently fitted to perform clerical, organising, and administrative duties, many of whom may possess the special qualifications needed for the work in various Government Departments.

The present limitation of the employment of women, and their lack of prospects of advancement constitutes a serious grievance. Whilst many avenues are open to men to improve their condition in the early years of service, if they possess the necessary ability and enterprise, women have no such opportunities, and have practically no chance of advancement except by way of supervision in their own grade. Moreover, if we look at this question from the point of view of advantage to the community, we find that the present mode of staffing the higher posts of the service from the male sex narrows the field of selection. It is in the interests of the public that the best type of officer should be secured, and not merely the best male available, and the unrestricted admission of women to the higher classes in the Civil Service, and their payment on the same terms as men would make for the greater efficiency of the Department, by securing the services of highly qualified women, who at present are not attracted by the small salaries and the meagre prospects offered. It must also be realised by heads of families that they have a right to expect that the service of the State—a dignified, secure, and independent profession—should be open to their daughters as well as to their sons. Furthermore, as the revenue, out of which the salaries of Civil Servants are paid, is collected from women as well as from men, women should have an equal right to earn those salaries.

Economy in working and simplification of administration would be attained by abolishing the separate examinations, and allowing men and women to enter for the same examinations on equal terms.

There are certain advantages attached to service under the State, which are taken into account when salaries are fixed, but the value of these privileges to the staff is frequently over-estimated by the outsider. For instance, security of tenure and the prospect of a pension at retirement, often act as a deterrent to clever and enterprising officers who, but for the sacrifice involved, would throw up their appointment and seek more remunerative and promising employment outside. Again, the medical attendance provided by the Post Office is, in the case of the women employed in the Headquarters Departments, only available in practice when they are well enough to attend at the office to wait on the Medical Officer there. In theory, every employée is entitled to the services of a Medical Officer at her own home in case of serious illness, but, in fact, the Women Medical Officers are too few to be able to give the necessary individual attention. As an instance of this, it may be stated that to one Department, numbering 1,800 women, the part time of one doctor only, is allotted.

Other advantages are a steadily progressing scale of salary, provided that efficient service is rendered; annual leave with pay; a reasonable working day—seven hours for the clerical force and the typists, and eight hours for the other classes; in most Departments payment is made for overtime; a pension on compulsory retirement after ten years' service, except in the case of women retired on marriage, when a gratuity is given after six years' service, amounting to one month's salary for every year of service up to twelve years. A compassionate allowance is also given on the same basis for both sexes, in cases where an officer is compelled to retire through ill-health before completing ten years' service. Sick pay is granted up to a maximum of six months on full pay and six months on half pay. The full period of leave is not, however, always allowed before retirement. It is given only at the discretion of the Department, if there is a chance of complete recovery; officers have no definite claim to it. Although these are distinct advantages to the staff, it must not be overlooked that it is essential for the State to offer some inducements of this kind, in order to obtain a staff more or less permanent who will regard their employment as a career. It is most important for the proper conduct of a Government office that the officials should have a lasting interest in their work, and a share in the successful administration of the Department.

Women Civil Servants are under the Superannuation Act of 1859 as regards their pensions, and receive an amount equal to one-sixtieth of their annual salary at retirement, for every year of service. Under the Courtney Scheme of 1909, the basis of calculation is one-eightieth instead of one-sixtieth, and the reduction in the pension is compensated by a cash payment at retirement, or, in the event of death occurring whilst in harness, a cash payment is made to the next-of-kin. Women secured their exclusion from the provisions of the latter scheme at their own request, as it was felt that the larger pension was of more value to them than the cash payment at death or retirement; moreover their pensions were already too small to admit of further diminution.

It is a general rule throughout the Service that a woman must retire on marriage; as already mentioned, a compensating-bonus is granted in respect of the loss of pension thereby sustained. A married woman has no definite claim to return to her employment, should she again desire to earn her own living, and only if widowed is she allowed, in certain circumstances, to return to the Service. Should any other misfortune overtake her, or should she for any other reason wish to become economically independent, she is not allowed to earn her living by means of her own profession of Civil Servant. This rule of the Service undoubtedly acts as a deterrent to marriage for, according to the statistics published, only about 3 per cent. of the whole female staff annually leave to be married. It need hardly be pointed out that in the present state of the law of the land, when no portion of a husband's income is secured to his wife as a right, a woman will not lightly throw up her means of livelihood with no prospect of returning to it should she so desire, in order to take her chance of happiness with a man whom the law permits to hold her in subjection body and soul. There is another aspect of the question: Women Civil Servants have to pass a strict medical examination before entering the Service; they have to furnish satisfactory evidence of respectability, of the health of their antecedents, and of a certain standard of education. They are therefore what is known as "selected lives": if these women are forced to remain celibate as a condition of their employment, it is a distinct loss to the nation of a specially selected class of potential mothers. In these days, when the declining birthrate is causing some concern to our statesmen, it would surely be worth their while to consider how far they are themselves contributing to the condition of affairs which they deplore, by maintaining this rigid regulation for the sake of a worn-out sentiment. The compulsory resignation on marriage is a definite wrong both to the women concerned and to the community at large, for women of selected health and intellect are discouraged from marriage by this regulation. Pending the final settlement of this question which is likely to be a very controversial one, the difficulty might be met by a modification of the existing rule allowing married women who have been Civil Servants to return to their employment should they again desire to earn their own living by means of the only profession for which they have qualified.

Women in the Civil Service are in a peculiar position with regard to their rights as citizens. They are handicapped by all the rules governing the political action of men, while they are without the means of maintaining their status as wage-earners. Although they are prohibited by reason of their sex, from taking part in any Parliamentary election as voters, they are nevertheless bound by the rules of the Civil Service which were drawn up when Civil Servants were first enfranchised. These rules state that "now officers have been relieved of the electoral disabilities to which they were formerly subject, they are eligible to be placed on the Parliamentary Register and to vote at a parliamentary election. Nevertheless, it is expected of them as Public Servants that they should maintain a certain reserve in political matters and not put themselves forward on one side or the other." This rule has been interpreted by the Department to mean that no Woman Civil Servant may take an active part in any Suffrage Society which interferes in party politics. Thus women are forced to accept a subservient position, and are also prevented from taking direct steps to raise their status. The principle of equal pay for equal work, if conceded without equal opportunities, is liable to be evaded, and must be safeguarded by statute, and there is no guarantee that any improvement gained will be permanent until women have political power to enforce their demands, for the masculine point of view dominates every Government Department and colours all administration.

Moreover, it should be borne in mind that women are handicapped by being, to a large degree, dependent on reports of their work emanating from male Heads of Departments who are in many cases prejudiced, sometimes unconsciously, against their employment. Heads of Departments do not as a rule take the same amount of personal interest as a private employer in the women under their control, and so these are frequently the victims of caprice. If the person in authority at a particular office happens to object to employing women, he actually opposes their appointment in that office, and deprives them of the chance of displaying their ability. Whilst they have more than their fair share of routine work, and are excluded from practically all the higher posts, they are on that account actually accused of possessing less initiative, less administrative ability, and less power of acting in sudden emergencies than men. It is indeed a vicious circle. They are prevented by their sex from acquiring these qualities in the ordinary course of their duties and excluded from the examinations for admission to those posts in which such qualities would be of use. It is then seriously urged by responsible officials of the Civil Service as an argument against their admittance to superior appointments, that they are lacking in the necessary qualifications.

Such unreasonable and unfair criticism creates bitterness in the minds of the women, who find themselves, in a large number of cases, saddled with domestic responsibilities as great or greater than those of the officials who would seek to drive them back into the home, and who endeavour to prevent them from rising to any decent positions in their profession. An encouraging sign, however, is the enlightened attitude shown by some of the members of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service; the pertinent enquiries made of the Heads of Departments regarding the position of women tend to show that the question will, at least, receive consideration, and that the evidence placed before the Commission by the women's organisations will not be without its effect on the administration of the Civil Service in the future.

The recognition by the male staff in the Civil Service of the importance of the principle of equal pay for equal work is a sign of advance which should be welcomed by all who have the cause of women at heart. This increased enlightenment was evidenced at the Annual Conference of the Civil Service Federation held at the Guildhall on the 11th October last. Delegates were present, representing approximately 100,000 Civil Servants, and the following resolution, which is important enough to be quoted in full, was passed by a majority of 31 votes to 10.

"That this Council expresses its conviction that equal pay for equal work is the only solution of the problem of male and female labour in the Civil Service, and considers that the establishment of this principle is the only alternative to the competition of cheapness which is the result of the existing double standard of payment, and is affecting so injuriously the conditions of service of both men and women. It therefore pledges itself to endeavour to obtain the abolition of the sex disability."

Women in the Service are realising more and more that their strength lies in effective combination. A new organisation has recently sprung into being as a result of the introduction of Women Clerks into the Board of Trade and the National Health Insurance Service, the Federation of Civil Service Women Clerks having been formed for the purpose of working for the larger interests of the women in the various clerical departments of the Civil Service. The general policy of the Federation will be to afford a ready means of communication between various sections of the Service for the purpose of taking joint action when necessary in the interests of the whole body of Women Clerks, and to enable them to concentrate more effectively on the larger issues connected with the claim for equality of opportunity for women with men in the Civil Service.

* * * * *

This article will not be complete without some reference to the
Report of the Holt Committee which is engaging the attention of the
Postmaster General at the present time.

When the Report was published in August last, it was generally agreed that the women had been badly treated. The demand for equality of remuneration with the male staff which was put forward by the Women Telegraphists and the Women Clerks has been completely ignored. The Women Sorters are awarded an increase of 2s. a week in the maximum salary, and, as a set off, it is proposed that they shall undertake a larger portion of the minor clerical duties now performed by Women Clerks. The immediate supervision of the Women Sorters is to be met by the establishment of the Senior Sorters (who at present receive a supervising allowance of 3s. a week) as a regular supervising class with a fixed scale of salary, viz., 32s. per week rising by 1s. 6d. to 38s. The ultimate supervision remains in the hands of the Women Clerks. The Committee recommended the abandonment of the tentative new grade of Female Assistant Clerks on the ground that there is no need for a class intermediate between the Women Sorters and the Girl and Women Clerks. A further recommendation, causing widespread dissatisfaction, is that the hours of duty shall be increased by three and a half hours per week. The eight-hour day for manipulative work and the seven-hour day for clerical work has hitherto been the standard working day in the Post Office, and the suggested increase with no compensating rise in salary apart from an immediate increment, not to be carried above the maximum of the scale, has been rejected by all classes with indignation.[3] The Women Telegraphists get nothing, the Women Telephonists nothing, the Women Clerks of the First and Second classes, £10 and £5 increase in the maximum salary respectively. The Women Counter Clerks and Telegraphists in the provinces get nothing, although the men of the same class get 2s. a week increase in the maximum.

It is understood from a reliable source that the higher officials of the Post Office admit that the women on the whole have been scurvily treated, and it is confidently expected that the Postmaster General will modify and improve some of the proposals when the final revision of the Report is undertaken. Apart from the various class interests, the only recommendation that can be regarded as in any way satisfactory to women is the abolition of the grade of Assistant Women Clerks as at present constituted. The only form in which the new grade could be at all acceptable would be in substitution for the grades of Girl Clerk and Women Sorter with a scale of salary comparable to the Male Assistant Clerk, in accordance with the claim placed before the Holt Commission and before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service. The insertion of a new water-tight compartment such as the Department proposed, between the Women Sorters and Women Clerks would be dangerous to the interests, and detrimental to the expansion of both, while the present restriction of women to rank and file work continues. It would press the Sorters still further down in the scale by depriving them of all opportunity of succeeding to clerical work, as the recruitment of the Assistant Clerks from their ranks would inevitably be very small; and it would also injure the prospects of promotion of the Women Clerks by decreasing their numbers and by depriving them of higher posts due to growth of work and increase of staff. This latter result was clearly foreseen by the Department when the scheme was first promulgated. Moreover, it would be a blow to the general status of women in the Post Office by depreciating the value of their work and lowering the standard of their employment. It is a matter for congratulation, therefore, that the Select Committee have advised the abolition of the new grade, and the Postmaster General, having agreed in the House of Commons to refer the matter to the arbitrament of the Parliamentary Committee, can hardly repudiate their decision.

[Footnote 1: See the end of the article for the Report of the Holt
Committee.]

[Footnote 2: The women are pressing for identical examinations.
[EDITOR.]]

[Footnote 3: The Postmaster General has recently (December 1913), conceded the point, and has promised that there shall be no increase in the hours of duty in the Post Office Service; concessions about pay have been refused. [EDITOR.]]

SECTION VI

WOMEN CLERKS AND SECRETARIES

The salary of the woman secretary of the best class, whether working privately or for a firm, seems to be £100 to £150 a year. Generally speaking, this is exactly what it was twenty years ago. It would seem that the highest salaries are those given by City men to confidential clerks (sometimes relatives), who are either good accountants or good linguists. The head of an influential typing office and registry in London informed me that the highly paid posts of translators to City firms are usually filled by German girls. The woman receiving £200 to £250 is a very rare person. I know only of one who receives £5 a week, and that is from an American firm in London. She does private secretarial work, but has no book-keeping and no foreign correspondence. Some years ago I knew of another woman, private secretary to the head of a large publishing firm, who had £200 a year. She was an efficient French correspondent, an able, all-round woman, and had been with the firm for twenty years. There are now two clerks in her place at much lower salaries. There seems to be a tendency to employ two cheap clerks in place of one expensive one.

People unacquainted with the facts, seldom realise how small is the remuneration of capable secretaries. I am acquainted with the work of a woman who has the following qualifications: verbatim shorthand, neat typing and sound knowledge of secretarial and business work, including book-keeping; she is methodical and conscientious in her work, has had some years' City Experience, three years in the shorthand and typing offices in the Houses of Parliament and with peers and members. She is asking 45s. a week, and would take 40s. "with prospects."

Well-paid posts seem to be exceptional. A woman with an intimate knowledge of City conditions, who was chief accountant to an important firm for sixteen years, informs me that £175 is the highest salary she has ever known a woman clerk to receive. The lowest on record seems to be 5s. a week. There is a woman running a typing office in the City who hires out shorthand typists at this figure to business firms. She employs a staff of from fifteen to twenty girls. Similarly, an industrial insurance company, nine months ago, opened a new department to deal with the work of the new Act. They engaged fifty girl clerks at 10s. with a superintendent, also a woman, at 30s. a week.

There is sometimes difficulty in getting accurate information with regard to payments. The heads of typing schools and colleges are apt to give too rosy a picture, and the individual clerk has usually a somewhat narrow experience and is inclined to be pessimistic. A man whom I interviewed (in place of the manager, who was engaged), at one of the biggest schools for training clerks, informed me that everything depended on the clerk. He said the girls who were getting 10s. a week were not worth more, and that there were "many" women clerks getting from £300 to £350. I said I was delighted to hear this as I had had difficulty in running to earth the woman clerk with £200, and had not before heard of the higher salaries. I took out my notebook and begged for particulars. He then said he knew of "one" of their diplomées working for a firm of florists, who had a salary of £300: she was able to correspond in English, French, German, and Spanish. I asked if he would kindly give me her name and address that I might interview her, but he said he could not possibly do that, as any woman clerk who allowed herself to be interviewed would be certain to lose her post.

The manager of a business in Manchester, who employs five shorthand typists, pays them from 15s. to 30s. He admits that it is impossible for the girls to live on their salaries unless they are at home with their parents, as is the case with all of them. But he says that it is unreasonable to expect him to give more than the market rates, and that for 30s. he gets excellent service. He suggests that the only way to raise wages is for the clerks to organise.

The principal of a high class typing office in the City, a woman of experience, who trains only a select number of educated girls, never allows a pupil from her school to begin at less than 25s. a week with a prospect of speedy increase. She pays her own translator £3, 5s. a week, and four members of her staff are paid at the rate of £160 a year.

Mr Elvin, Secretary of the Union of Clerks, tries to enforce a minimum wage of 35s. a week as the beginning salary for an expert shorthand typist, and this may be regarded as the present Trade Union rate. Mr Elvin's difficulty is chiefly with the girls themselves. They are so accustomed to the idea of women being paid less than men that it is not easy to get them to insist on equal pay. In one case he was asked to supply a woman secretary for a certain post. He agreed to find a suitable person if the firm would guarantee a commencing salary of 35s. a week. After some demur this was conceded, and he sent to a well-known school for three competent clerks that he might examine them and recommend the best of the three. After the test he asked them, in turn, what salary they expected. They were all over twenty-one years of age and all competent. One mentioned 25s., the second 23s., and the third £1 a week. On being asked, they said they knew they were worth more, but they thought that, as they were women, they would not get it.

Where there is no one to safeguard the interests of the clerk, an employer, on the look-out for cheap labour, finds it easily enough. The head of a big firm offered a French girl, an expert shorthand writer in three languages, 15s. a week, with a possible rise after three months. She finally accepted a post at 30s. a week as she could get nothing better through registries or by advertisement.

Unless a girl has a claim on a school where she has trained, or has influential friends, it is very difficult for her to get a post suited to her needs in London. The whole profession seems to be in a chaotic condition, and the chances through advertisement are haphazard and unsatisfactory. Employment bureaux maintain that there are more good posts than there are qualified women to fill them, but individual secretaries are timid about giving up unsatisfactory posts as they do not know how to get better.

Take the case of a private secretary to a Member of Parliament. He loses his seat, retires to the country, and gives up his London secretary. He gives her a number of introductions. These lead to nothing, and she is forced into the competition of the City. Her particular training is of no use in a commercial office, and her value falls to 30s. a week.

A woman with an intimate knowledge of women clerks and secretaries in the City for the past twenty years, says that it is difficult to overestimate the poverty of a vast number of girls. Many of them are the chief breadwinners of the family. She knows of half a dozen cases of men of forty and a little older who are living on the earnings of their daughters; there may be two girls in the family, one getting 12s. and the other 25s. a week.

The private secretary who lives in, has usually excellent food and pleasant surroundings, but in some cases the life is a solitary one. Unless there is a governess or other educated employeé in the household, she has no companionship. The salary varies from £30 to £120 and sometimes more. There is apparently no fixed rate. One lady writes:

"For two years I lived in the house of Sir——, the most hopelessly isolated and uninteresting existence, within the four walls of his study. A secretary should certainly stick out for a free week-end once a month when living in. Isolation is horribly bad for one."

The secretary living in with congenial literary or medical people, where she is made one of the family circle, has a happier time, but the payment is not high.

Apart from salary, the conditions in which the woman clerk works are by no means ideal.

Twenty years ago, in a far northern city, there was a flourishing new school where over thirty girls of from fifteen to twenty were being taught shorthand, typewriting, book-keeping, and all that goes to the making of a fully-equipped clerk. This school was the first experiment of the kind in an enterprising community. As the pupils qualified, with Pitman certificates of varying degrees of speed, at the end of six months or longer, the way in which old-fashioned lawyers accepted the innovation of attractive young women on their clerical staff, seemed almost magical. Decorum relegated the young women to separate rooms from the rest of the employeés, and the formality in the bearing of heads of departments towards these pioneer females must have been gratifying to Mrs Grundy. So superior to human exigencies seemed these dignified men, that the subject of lavatory accommodation for young women, mewed up from 9 to 1 and from 2 to 5.30, was not mentioned. Woman's modesty, if it were to reach the high standard made for her by man, had to come before her health or comfort. Although typists of all grades have multiplied by thousands[1] during the past twenty years—in London alone there are over 25,000 women clerks and secretaries—there is still need for adequate inspection of sanitary accommodation for women workers of this class. Apart altogether from sanitary accommodation, common sense would seem to suggest that, in the case of any one who has to turn out decent typing, a regular supply of hot water is a necessity for washing hands that may have to change a ribbon or do the many little messy jobs that typing involves.

In a lecture before the Fabian Women's Group in February 1912, Miss
Florence, of the Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries, said:

"With regard to the sanitary conditions—these as a rule are bad, especially where there is only one woman. The difficulty has been shirked by the women themselves in a great many cases…. I do not see how these can be altered except by improving the status and position of women, so that they may become strong enough to say they will not have it if it is too bad."

Who is to dictate what is "too bad"? Surely the only remedy is to have a proper standard of decency enforced by law. Women as a rule are fools on this subject, and will endure almost any discomfort, rather than complain.

In giving evidence before the Royal Commission, in May last year, concerning the conditions of employment and their effect on the health of Civil Service female typists and shorthand writers, Miss Charlesworth, Honorary Secretary of the Civil Service Typists' Association, said:

"The statistics as regards sickness relating to our class are almost too small to be of very much use…. I may say from experience that they are greatly influenced by the conditions under which the work is done. In my own department (Local Government Board) our average absence from sickness in the old office, where we were much overcrowded, varied between ten and fourteen days a year, while in our new office the average has steadily gone down from twelve to a fraction over six last year…. It is very striking that there has been that reduction in the average number of days' absence per year from sickness, from twelve to six in four years while we have been working under better conditions … that means a less number of typing machines in one room, more light to work by and more air—better rooms to work in."

This evidence is interesting, as the worst conditions that could possibly exist in the lofty rooms of a Government office, where everything is on a big scale and there is a certain standard of comfort, must be superior to the majority of commercial offices, especially in London, where space is so expensive. Think of four girls taking shorthand notes by telephone in a room with thirty typewriting machines working at once!

There are no figures available with regard to the health of women clerks generally. The common ailments are neuritis, anaemia, and nervous breakdown. Typing is also a strain on the eyesight and hearing. Miss Charlesworth says that in her experience it is the girls who are not suited for the work who suffer most from ill-health.

One typing office and school, of high repute for excellence of work, had rooms so dark that electric light was always used in one or other of them during part of the day. No sun ever entered the work-rooms. The salaries were good, but overtime was paid at only 6d. an hour. There was a sort of compulsion, too, to work overtime; some of the best typists, occasionally even stayed all night during excessive rushes of work. No holidays were paid for, and it was regarded as disloyalty on the part of a clerk to stay away for sickness. There was an instance of a girl being dismissed because she stayed away a fortnight owing to influenza. This particular firm recently moved into bigger, brighter rooms, not out of humanity to its staff, but because the lease had run out.

Where competition is as keen as in the typing business, it is often the case that the comfort of employeés is considered as little as is compatible with running the place at a profit. There seems to be no inspection, and there is no law to say how many typists may be worked together, or what limit of noise shall be endured by them. Everything is ruled by the individual standard of decency of the employer. Many well-educated girls enter typing offices for the excellent practical training to be had, and for the short time they remain they are willing to put up with severe discipline and some personal discomfort. There are, of course, typing offices with as high a level of comfort and decency as the most exacting law would prescribe. Many of the big engineering firms and City houses have most comfortable and even luxurious quarters for their women clerks.

In old days in the above-mentioned northern school, it was possible to get complete teaching as a clerk—excellent teaching, too—for a guinea a term. There were some shorthand typists whose training cost them only that initial guinea and the fees of the supplementary course of evening classes, 5s. and 10s. according to the number of subjects. In London at that time a year's course in the same subjects cost as much as 60 guineas at some of the chief typing schools. The fee nowadays, at one of the foremost London schools for a secretarial course for six months only, is 60 guineas; a year's course is £100.[2] This includes book-keeping and shorthand correspondence in one foreign language, besides shorthand and typing, etc.

The best testimony shows that a year is altogether too long for an intelligent well-educated girl of eighteen or more to spend on technical training.[3] Mr James Oliphant, writing in The School World for July 1913 on the subject of secretarial training for girls, says:

"…. It is to be noted that the curriculum in girls' schools is of a much more reasonable character than that which is commonly provided for boys, and that the more completely it is fitted to supply a good general education, the better it would be adapted to the special needs of those who wish to become clerks or secretaries. It would seem eminently desirable that such aspirants should continue at the secondary school between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, being provided with a specialised course of study … but whenever it is possible it would be well to insist that no subject should be included which is not generally educative in the widest sense. The acquisition of such mechanical arts as stenography and typewriting should be relegated to technical colleges where, according to general testimony, proficiency can be gained by well-educated girls in a period varying from six to nine months. 'Commercial correspondence' is an abomination; a sufficient knowledge of the ordinary forms of letter-writing should be imparted in every course of English composition … while the special jargon of each business or office can be readily acquired by any intelligent girl when it becomes necessary."

There is every variety of price at the various technical training schools all over the country, from a guinea to £100. With regard to the training given in non-technical schools, the capable head of a well-equipped West End typing office writes:

"It is a pity the ordinary schools are taking it up. I know of at least one so-called secondary school which makes a speciality of 'Commercial Training.' The girls who take up the subject are quite the wrong kind, with absolutely no real education,… and are ready to accept anything in the way of salary. The really good schools where the girls remain till they are 18 or 19 give a better training, of course…. But I do not think the schools have any right to undertake a specialised vocational training; it must lower the standard. Every other profession has its special training after a good general education has been acquired."

The best-known societies for protecting the interests of women clerks and secretaries are, the Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries at 12 Buckingham Street, Strand, and the National Union of Clerks at 186-188 Bishopsgate Street. These are the only approved societies under the National Insurance Act.

The Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries has been in existence for eight years, and during the last year has more than trebled its members, the clerks' attitude towards combination having recently changed somewhat, in London at any rate. The Association has a devoted secretary and does excellent work. Its aims are:

(1) To raise the status of women clerks and secretaries, and to encourage a higher standard of practical training.

(2) To secure a just remuneration for all grades.

    (3) To render legal aid and give advice to members,
        and to benefit generally the clerical and secretarial
        profession for women.

    (4) To maintain a registry for women clerks and secretaries,
        and to watch for openings for members of
        the Association.

    (5) To establish and maintain an Approved Society
        under the National Insurance Act, 1911, for the
        benefit of Women Clerks and Secretaries.

The Association is not yet, however, strong enough to form a recognised union able to fix a minimum education qualification for membership. An important conference was held by this Association in May last at the University of London. Every speaker emphasised the need for better and wider education before taking up the profession, and there was unanimity of opinion that no girl should be allowed to start the technical part until she was at least sixteen. A remark of Mrs W.L. Courtney, who was one of the speakers, is well worth quoting: "One of the cleverest women I ever knew, who was an amateur indexer, said to me one day, 'It does not matter in doing this work about being clever; what matters is to have lived.'" There is not much chance then for the school-girl of sixteen.[4]

The National Union of Clerks is conducted with energy and enlightenment. It has increased its membership by nearly 8,000 in the last twelve months, and one of the best reasons it offers women clerks for joining, is that it is the only National Society for Clerks that has always accepted women as members on equal terms as men. There are 1,000 women in a membership of 10,000. Notwithstanding the hard work these two societies are doing, there is nothing like the response there should be from women clerks. It is only the exceptional woman clerk who has yet developed anything like a corporate conscience. The reason is partly that she is often an isolated being. Where there is a large number of clerks together, as in the Civil Service, there is no lack of the right spirit.

Here are a few of the causes of the overstocking of the clerical market by women. Almost any one can be a clerk of a kind. The training is cheap and easily obtainable. Many parents want their children to bring in money early, and this seems an easy way. A large percentage of young girls (in 1907-1909, 87 per cent.) who fail to pass Civil Service examinations, try to become clerks. Some time ago there was an article in a daily newspaper entitled "The Passing of the 15s.-a-week-Girl." She is with us in larger numbers than ever, however, and she has added to her numbers a 10s.-a-week-girl and even a cheaper girl, as we have seen. We meet her daily in Tube and 'bus, looking remarkably attractive, in spite of foolish shoes and a bad habit of eating four-penny lunches. The chief charge some of her fellow clerks have against her, apart from her inferior work, is that she only makes use of typing as a road to marriage. The other class of offender is the daughter of well-to-do parents. Typing is regarded as a ladylike employment, and parents, who would never expect their daughters to be self-supporting, are glad for them to earn pocket money or just enough for dress.

According to Mr Elvin of the National Union of Clerks, even in prosperous times there are always 3 per cent. of unemployed clerks. In bad times the percentage must be greater. Whether the times are good or bad, young girls with the most elementary education are being turned out by hundreds from typing schools.

The only remedy is that the output of clerks should be restricted; no one should be allowed to become a clerk who has not reached a certain standard of efficiency. The parents are the chief offenders. Many of them do not seem to have the necessary energy or intelligence to find out for what their daughters are best fitted. Advisory Committees are wanted in connection with all elementary and secondary schools. Of the girl typists and shorthand writers who resigned from the Civil Service from 1894 to 1906 for various causes, 17 per cent. left to take up other work. The lady superintendent in one of the Civil Service typing rooms pointed out a girl and said: "That girl would have made an excellent milliner or a kindergarten teacher, but she is not at all suited for this work."

The chief grievance of the really efficient woman clerk and secretary is that she has not enough scope. One woman writes:

"If the various firms and professions who employ girls as typists were to give them an insight into the business, whatever it might be, it would add enormously to the enthusiasm of the worker. In America they do this very often. The wonderful Miss Alice Duckin, the lady skyscraper builder, was once a typist. When she entered the firm they allowed her full scope to develop, and she mastered the building trade and is now the chief partner of Messrs Duckin and Lass. There is one firm of lawyers in London who allow their typists to attend the Law Courts, and give them work to do which is usually reserved for men. Only under such conditions can the profession expand."

There is often a chance for a secretary in a newspaper office to develop into a journalist. But there are instances when the private secretary, who begins writing for the paper on which she is employed, is told that she was engaged not as a contributor but as an efficient secretary.

One girl who had been for ten years private secretary to a literary man in London, horrified her relatives, and gave her employer a shock, by suddenly throwing up her much-envied post and entering herself at a hospital for a particularly strenuous kind of nursing. Her salary as secretary was 35s. a week; she had a comfortable room of her own to work in, a good annual holiday, and other blessings. Her chief said "good morning" and "good evening" to her, but she saw no one else, and frequently she had technical German translations in the evenings, for which she got nothing extra. Her chief did not know German, and thought she did the translations as easily as she wrote shorthand. Her whole work was moderately interesting, but the dullness of her life became insupportable. Another private secretary at the end of fifteen years in an excellent post, opened a tea-shop.

An Edinburgh woman sends the following interesting statement:—

"Secretarial work seems to me one of the most congenial for educated women. In Edinburgh the prospects are excellent. The headmasters and mistresses of all the large schools, medical men, dentists, university professors, managing editors of our great printing and publishing houses, several of whom are editing encylopaedias, need a fair number of women secretaries. And there is not a sufficient supply for the law offices of which Edinburgh has such a large number.

"The conditions are in need of some kind of organised supervision, particularly where everything depends on an individual employer. In my first post with a medical specialist, for instance, my time was never my own; my work began at 9 and often did not end at midnight. Sunday work was quite common; there were no Saturday afternoons off, but I had free hours here and there which it was impossible to utilise.

"Another post I had was ideal. I worked for two men, for one of whom I spent the morning in a pathological laboratory. Here I did nothing but research work and writing. In the afternoon I did general correspondence and assistant editing of one of the medical journals. I had free evenings and Saturday afternoons. It is an excellent plan to work for two men, as it gives variety and may often be more remunerative, although for myself I never had more than £100 a year. There is lack of organisation in this profession, and posts are difficult to get by registry or advertisement. I have never found a Women's Employment Bureau of any use whatever. I have got everything by personal recommendation."

A common grievance seems to be the amount of overtime imposed on many clerks, sometimes paid for, but often obligatory whether paid for or not. There is a naive arrangement in the Civil Service Typing Department. It seems that the typists are allowed 9d. or 10d. an hour for overtime up to a limit of fifteen hours a month, but any overtime beyond that is not paid for. In the Minutes of Evidence before the Royal Commission we read:—

"Commissioner. Is any other time beyond that (15 hours a month) ever exacted?

"Superintendent. Yes.

"Commissioner. Are they ever required to work longer than that?

"Superintendent. Yes.

"Commissioner. And are they not paid for it?

"Superintendent. No.

"Commissioner. What is the reason for that?

"Superintendent. The Treasury laid it down in their minute.

"Commissioner. Have you questioned it?

"Superintendent. Yes, we have many times asked the Treasury to allow the department to pay for more, but so far as I know, in no case has it been allowed, and at this present time (May 1912), in the London Telephone Service all shorthand-typists and typists and superintendents are doing a great deal of overtime, but only 15 hours in a month of 4 weeks is paid for. Superintendents are not paid at all for overtime. The only reason, apparently, for the limitation is that the salaries are so close that if shorthand-typists were paid for more overtime than 15 hours they would be earning more than the superintendents."

It seems impossible to tell as yet how the working of the National Insurance Act will affect women clerks. The secretary of the Information Bureau of the Woman's Institute says that, as far as she knows, good offices continue to pay their clerks their salaries in cases of illness, only making a deduction of the 7s. 6d. paid as insurance money.

To sum up, there is urgent need for better organisation among clerks and secretaries. They should be graded in some way, so that the efficient who are out of work may easily be brought in touch with employers. The societies reach only a small proportion of the workers, many of whom do not even know of their existence. It must be remembered that a difficulty in the way of men and women clerks combining, is that women of good education, sometimes in possession of degrees, find themselves in competition with men of an inferior social class. A large proportion of the best secretaries are the daughters of professional men. The average woman clerk is invariably a person of better education and manners than the male clerk at the same salary.

In the next place, better sanitation and better working conditions must be secured. Only last year, a firm employing hundreds of men and a dozen women, had no separate lavatory for the women. It is to the interest of the employer of women clerks to look after their health and to provide rest rooms. Anti-feminists are positive as to women's "inferior physique," but their practice as employers is too often inconsistent with their opinions.

Most important of all, women clerks and secretaries want more scope. After ten years of clerking and secretarying they find that they are up against a dead wall. There is no prospect of advancement, and no call on their initiative. In private secretarial work this is not always the fault of the employer; it is often inherent in the nature of the work. Unless the secretary has, say, literary or journalistic ability and develops in that way, she is worth little more to her chief, if he is a literary man, after fifteen years than she was at the end of ten. There may be progress from a less desirable to a more desirable post, but there can be no advancement in the work itself. As a training, however, a private post is incomparable. With the woman who works for a commercial firm, it is a different matter. Women of the best type who do this work, have a right to complain when they are without chance of promotion. They feel that they should be given the same opportunity of rising in the business, whatever it may be, as is open to any intelligent office boy. The reply of the employer is, that while the office boy, if promoted and given increasing pay, may be expected to stay with the firm for a lifetime, there is not the same certainty of continuity of service from women clerks, who may at any time leave to get married. There are cases, however, where women have stayed on after marriage when it has been made worth their while. One woman who entered a firm as a young girl, continued with the firm after marriage, and is now, as a widow, working for the same employers. There is no reason why such cases should be exceptional.

The calling, the conditions of which we have been considering, suffers from its accessibility to the half trained and undisciplined of various social grades. When, however, the righteous complaint of the employer against the incompetent and scatter-brained has been heard, the fact remains that among women clerks and secretaries there is an exceptionally large proportion who give, for a moderate return and limited prospects of advancement, conscientious, loyal, and skilful service.

[Footnote 1: See Appendix II., p. 317.]

[Footnote 2: Satisfactory secretarial training may be obtained in London from reliable teachers for a fee of 25 guineas for a year's course. It is, however, necessary to make searching enquiries before arranging to enter any school, as some of these neither give a sound training, nor obtain posts for their pupils as their advertisements promise. [EDITOR.]]

[Footnote 3: First rate secretarial preparation includes more than merely technical instruction. It gives a sound business training as well, and, in addition, insists on one or more foreign languages. A girl who hopes to become something more than a shorthand-typist ought not to scamp her professional training: this should, of course, follow her school-course—i.e., not begin until she is seventeen or eighteen. Graduates, who have specialised in foreign languages, may also advantageously prepare for the better secretarial posts. [EDITOR.]]

[Footnote 4: Apart from monetary prospects altogether, no girl should be allowed to enter the profession until she is old enough and wise enough to protect herself, should need arise, from the undesirable employer, who may insult her with unwelcome attentions. The possibility of such annoyance is an additional reason for all clerks to join a Trade Union, which helps individuals to insist on proper conditions of work. [EDITOR.]]

SECTION VII

ACTING AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN

I do not know that the first actress who ever faced the public told her friends that the profession was not all paint and glitter, because being a pioneer, and so treading on the corns of custom, she was held as an unwomanly creature, and had unpleasant things thrown at her, as well as words. So her impressions are not recorded. But when women had settled down into the work, and were allowed to represent themselves in the theatre (a privilege not as yet accorded to them elsewhere), they announced practically and forcibly that all that glittered was not gold, and that a successful, much-loved heroine did not invariably tread the rosy path without finding the proverbial thorns.

The word "hardship" often repeated by successful artists, is accepted by the public as a truism, which affects their attitude towards the stage as a career about as much as the statement that the world is round, when in their eyes it appears disappointingly flat. Yet the word "hardship" has a meaning which most hurts those who have most capacity for pain, and who are specially sensitive to humiliations, disappointments, and discomforts—artists.

But there are compensations, urges the outsider: good pay, congenial work, and fame. If there are hardships what a glittering prize compensates for the suffering!

Let us at once grant the compensations which the few achieve. The few make world-wide reputations, large salaries, and many devoted friends: their life is full of interesting and successful work. But the average individual is in the great majority, and the many spend all and obtain nothing, trying to obtain a bargain which is no bargain: a bargain in which there is something to sell and no one to buy—even our average actress has something to sell, something worth buying—composed of talent, ambition, long study, and application. There are, of course, many more successful women in the theatre than there used to be, owing to the tremendous opening up of this means of livelihood; but though the successful are more abundant, there is, alas! no doubt a growing number of unsuccessful workers in this very much over-crowded market. In fact, it is becoming a profession in which it is only possible to survive if the worker has some private means, or a supplementary trade.

I believe that this question of a supplementary trade requires consideration, and am, myself, at present working on the subject, in the hope that a scheme may be evolved to ensure those willing to work an opportunity of gaining a livelihood during the long "resting" periods. This waiting for work is almost universally the largest part of an actress's life; and any satisfaction in the magnitude of the wages which may be obtained must always be balanced by the knowledge that an enormous number of weeks must be taken into consideration, when work is quite unattainable.

Here is one of the gravest disabilities of the profession. Only continuous work can develop the powers of any artist, and this is particularly true of the art of the theatre. Under the present conditions an artist is, with an entire want of reason, raised to a pinnacle of importance when playing a good part in a successful play; but she may with equal suddenness be dashed into a gulf of failure and non-productiveness, also without reason.

There have been many artists, who at the end of a brilliant run of a successful play, to the success of which they have largely contributed, have found themselves forgotten by the powers that be, and have discovered with bitter disappointment that a successful run may result in being left utterly ignored, without a single offer of work.

The Christmas pantomime and the summer season cut down the actor's year to forty weeks. From information which I was able to obtain from the Actor's Association, the average yearly income of an actor is £70. From this, £37 may be deducted for travelling and other expenses. For though the actual railway fare is usually paid, no allowance is made for conveyance of luggage from station to lodgings, and the constant change of quarters naturally makes the weekly expenditure on a higher scale. On these figures the average weekly earnings of an actor would be 12s. 6d., or 1s. 9d. per day.

This is the average income of an actor when working, but under present conditions, the average day for an average actress is one in which she looks for work. So let us take the average day of the average actress, and see how she spends it.

After leaving her tiny, grubby back room in Bloomsbury (time and fares prohibit a bigger, better room in the suburbs), where she has cleaned her own shoes, ironed her blouse and sewn in frilling before starting, she walks down to an agent. The waiting-room there has a couple of forms, which are already filled, and groups of girls have been standing for some time. They have all had insufficient breakfasts, badly served and ill-cooked; they all wear cheap and uncomfortable shoes, too thin for wet pavements; they are all obliged to put on a desperately photographic pose and expression, in case the agent's eyes light on them. One or two, better dressed and more self-possessed, secure interviews and pass out by another door. No information about the part is to be procured, they are all there "on the chance." At half past one the agent comes out for lunch, saying, as he passes through the room, "No use waiting, ladies; no one else wanted to-day." Our average friend has stayed for three hours, knowing no one to speak to, and leaves no nearer her goal for her morning's congenial work. She lunches on sandwiches and tea, re-arranges her hat and veil, and starts out with fresh hope to use her one letter of introduction to the manager of a West End theatre.

She hands it to a door-keeper, who may possibly be considerate, but cannot offer her a chair. There is no waiting-room; she waits in a draughty, tiny passage, stage hands constantly squeezing by her. There is a rehearsal; she must wait, or come back in an hour's time. She walks round and looks into the shops in Leicester Square, and returns thoroughly fatigued and a little pale, at four o'clock. She is shown into an office, and by virtue of her letter of introduction is asked to sit down. A few questions are put to her about her past work: she does not know what part the manager has in mind, and puts forward inept qualifications. In two or three minutes the important man has formed his opinion of her face, carriage, expression, and has decided if he will remember her or not. Her name being average, the odds are that he will not; but he murmurs, "If anything turns up, I will let you know," and her big chance is over. There is nothing approaching an audition, such as a singer gets. It is the only opportunity afforded her, this poor and hopeless method of proving her capacity as an actress. It leaves her poorer for the day's outlay in food. She walks back to the little room, her foothold in London—the great art market.

This is a "congenial" day's work, which may be repeated for weeks, and it occurs on an average in every three months. The adventure of it stales very quickly.

Let there be no mistake in the mind of the reader. This is not only the experience of a would-be actress, a well-trained, medal-laden aspirant from one of the good dramatic schools, but is one of the bitter and frequent experiences of the thoroughly capable, trained, and occasionally well-salaried actress, who has failed to arrive, during her eighteen to twenty years of experience, at the much coveted, and supposedly safe position at the top of the theatrical ladder.

Suppose our average actress is lucky, and her letter of introduction gains her a small part in the London production. Into her three lines she tries to crowd all she can of what she has learned from teachers and experience. It is her opportunity. She has stepped forward amongst those fortunate ones whose names are mentioned in the programme. She starts for rehearsal happily enough from the little room in Bloomsbury, passes the door-keeper without question, and takes up her stand in the wings. There she stays three hours. She has companionship in hushed whispers, and the right to exist. At two o'clock her act has not yet been reached, and the artists are allowed to leave the theatre for half an hour to get lunch. As she is not paid for rehearsals, she cannot afford more than sixpence for a meal; so her repast is necessarily a light one. At five, rehearsal is dismissed, and she has gone through her part twice. Five minutes would cover her actual acting for the day; and having stood about for nearly six hours she walks back home to her room.

As the play nears production, the rehearsal hours lengthen, and the lunch times shorten. Her own hoard of savings offer her less and less to spend on food, and when finally the play is produced—let us face the worst—it not infrequently occurs that the run of the piece may end in three weeks. She has rehearsed for four weeks, has been glad to accept £2 for her tiny part, and out of that short run, which represents £6, she must save enough to tide her over the next few weeks, or perhaps months, until she gets her next engagement, more unpaid rehearsals, and perhaps another short run. There is always wearing anxiety, and the unpleasing, thankless, humiliating searching for work, under the most distasteful conditions possible.

There is now an effort being made by a few of the London managers to pay a percentage on salaries for rehearsing. The movement, I think, is partially due to the Insurance Act, which, of course, touches all the low paid labour in the theatre. This effort, though obviously of importance, can hardly as yet be considered as quite satisfactory. The payments for five weeks' rehearsals are 6s. on the £1, 1s. salaries, which include dancers, walkers-on, etc.: and 12s. 6d. a week on salaries of £3. In each case, of course, the threepence insurance has to be deducted, and it must be quite clear that no woman can live on 5s. 9d., much less make a good appearance, unless she has other means of support.

She may get an engagement to tour for a limited number of weeks. If so, she gazes in despair at her small wardrobe, trying to puzzle out three costumes to be used in the play, for actresses going on tour have usually to provide their own dresses.

A friend of mine played the leading part on the tour of a West End production. She had to find all her own dresses, hats, shoes, stockings, etc., and her salary was £3, 10s. a week. In a "boiled-down" version she played twice nightly for £5 a week, and found four dresses, two hats, an evening cloak, besides the shoes, stockings, gloves, etc., incidental to a well dressed part. Another soubrette on a salary of £2, 5s. paid her fare both on joining and leaving the company, and was obliged to provide two dresses, one evening dress and cloak, shoes, stockings, etc.

The average salaries in melodrama are £4 a week, out of which must be provided many dresses. The "heavy lead" or "adventuress" type, generally magnificently attired, gets about £3 a week. In London, of course, in the West End productions, dresses are provided, but the engagement is not for a definite period as it would be on a tour, and a curious difficulty arises through this arrangement, since the actress who has once been beautifully dressed has a natural and very comprehensible predilection thenceforward to continue to be so delightfully gowned. Her own opinion as to what a dress should cost almost invariably, after a London engagement, ceases to be on a level with what her yearly income should permit. Clothes assume a horrible importance not known in other trades, since her appearance may mean her livelihood as a worker; for do we not know of engagements which have been made when the angle of a hat has exactly coincided with the mood of the manager who is engaging his company?

So our little average actress, starting off on tour, patches and manoeuvres to have a satisfactory appearance, and is painfully self-conscious of deficiencies when the eyes of the manager, or the more well-to-do sharers of the dressing-room, appear to enquire too closely into details. One of my first successes was a triumphant one for my sister; since an evening blouse, ingeniously concocted from a table-centre, received some long notices in the Press.

Theatrical lodgings, when one's salary is 25s. a week, are not always the most pleasing in the town. Rheumatic fever and other unpleasant illnesses have been contracted from damp beds, when the landlady, in her desire to live up to the degree of cleanliness expected of her, returns the sheets too quickly to the so-lately vacated bed; because, with one company leaving in the morning, and another arriving at tea-time, there are not many hours to clean out a room, and wash and iron the only pair.

The lodgings are usually extremely bad and dirty, and generally in the least attractive and most unsavoury quarters of the town. The food is generally unappetising and cooked with very little intelligence. There have been many cases of women finding themselves in disreputable houses; and even recommended lodgings have been found empty on arrival, the police having raided them. I feel very strongly that the only comfortable and dignified way to meet this difficulty is to have a regular chain of clubs, on the principle of the Three Arts Club.

Recently, in the correspondence of a leading "Daily," I read a letter in which a man wrote that actresses on tour were able to perfect themselves as wives and housekeepers. This throws a curious side-light on the ignorance of people in general with regard to the theatre. Actresses may, and do, become admirable workers, wives, and housekeepers; but this is rather from the hardships of their lives than from any possibility of developing a natural aptitude for housekeeping whilst travelling week after week from town to town, and living in rooms where the cleaning and cooking are done by the landlady. As all domestic work is undertaken by the people who let the rooms, the days go slowly, and there is absolutely nothing of interest to do. If our average actress is with a successful play, her engagement may be a long one; and she lives through the discomforts, buoyed up by the hope of further opportunities, and a swelling account at the Post Office.

The happiest of all existences, for an actress, despite hard work and much study, is in a repertory theatre. The opportunities are great; ambition is not thwarted at every step; the day is filled with hard study, but the nights result in greater or smaller achievement. Everybody with whom she comes in contact is working as hard and earnestly as she is. Life invigorating, progressive, uplifting, is hers. To-night she is conscious she was not quite her best, but next week, when the play is done again, she will work to make that point real, she will laugh more naturally, cry more movingly, progress a little further on the way to realise her dream of perfect expression, free from worry and anxiety, free to work.

Having achieved a certain amount of experience on tour and in London, and being more or less proficient in her profession, does not, however, ensure an increase in the actor's value. A domestic servant receives a character, which is, if satisfactory, a sure means of employment; a teacher, inspector, etc., has a certificate which is a pronouncement of efficiency; but however great the achievement of the theatre there is no lasting sign of your work, and the want of definite aim is mentally demoralising. I have heard men say, and I think not unjustly, that as many of these women are practically "on the rocks," they will do anything for money; and this brings one to a question which looms largely when considering unskilled trades. The unskilled, pleasure-loving, short-sighted but ambitious girl, is apt to lose her sense of values, and to be an easy and sometimes very willing victim. If she be attractive, the eye of a powerful person may alight upon her, and several shades of temptations are placed before her. Not only money, and the advantages which an outward show of prosperity may bring with it; not only amusements and luxuries; but a much more dangerous and difficult temptation, which is not possible in other trades, is placed before the worker—the offer of greater opportunities in her work, the opportunities which an "understudy" may bring in its train; the opportunity of a small part; the gratification of ambition. There is no more immorality than in other trades, but there is an amount of humiliating and degrading philandering, a mauling sensuality which is more degrading than any violent abduction. To be immoral a certain amount of courage is required; but the curse of modern theatrical conditions is this corrupt debauchery. Many girls have come to me explaining their difficulties, and many in asking my advice ended up with the persistent cry of the modern woman, "I do so want to get on!" This is a transitional stage in the world, as well as in the theatre. When women are more intelligent and independent, there will not be the same amount of selling themselves for the necessities of existence. They will be able to secure the necessities, and a large number of the luxuries, for themselves—one of the reasons, doubtless, why the reactionaries cry out so loudly against the woman's movement.

People love power over others; they love to control their destinies; and there is a very large number of men who drift towards the theatre, and like to consider the poor little butterflies as creatures of a different species from their wives and daughters—a species provided by a material Providence, who supplies their other appetites. The poor little butterflies are glad, for a short time, to put up with stupidity and egoism for the sake of a temporary relief from sordid discomfort and gloom. Of course, I am not speaking of the women who, without economic pressure, lead an illicit life. There are a few of these women who are more than able to protect themselves, and occasionally avenge their sisters.

Of course, there are also theatres which are obviously dependent for their great success upon this "oldest profession in the world": theatres where a fairly good salary is offered with the suggestion that it is as well to sup at some well-known restaurant, at least three times a week; to drive to the theatre in a motor car, and to be dressed by one of the famous dressmakers, whose names are given with the salary. There are theatres where an eye is kept on the number of stalls which are filled by the employed. But on the tours of these successes, the managers are often very strict in their regulations, and do everything to prevent those employed from supplementing their incomes in this manner.

There are, unfortunately, too many women who still believe in dependence, so the supply is quite as great as the demand. To the real artist who is deeply centred in her work, this particular evil is of practically little importance. A great belief in her own powers enables her to push aside opportunities which are not genuine. Men are also human, and if met frankly and straightforwardly in work, or for that matter, out of it, are as capable of honest, helpful good fellowship as any woman. In fact, the work of the theatre, which employs men and women, on more or less equal terms, is a splendid place to find out that humanity is not limited to sexual problems, and that the spirit of work removes these limitations, and gives place to a healthy, invigorating atmosphere of camaraderie. It is quite a false idea that a move in the wrong direction is in any way necessary to success.

Something must be said with regard to the sanitation and ventilation of the theatre. Though there has been latterly a great effort to improve the dressing-rooms in the new buildings, there is still a great deal to be remedied. Here is a description of a dressing-room used by a young artist in a modern West End theatre.

"We were seven in a room which just held seven small toilet tables on a shelf running round the wall, and a narrow walking space from the door to the window in between. This dressing-room was two floors below the level of the street, and the one window opened on a passage covered with thick glass, so that there was no direct air channel. Next door was a man's urinal used by about forty men—actors, stage hands, and scene shifters. A pipe from this place came through the dressing-room; the smell sometimes, even in the winter, was overpowering; and we ourselves bought Sanitas and kept sprinkling it on the floor of the room and the passage. Added to this was the fact that the stairs from the stage led straight down facing the entrance of this men's urinal, and not infrequently the door would be open and shut as we came down, and it was altogether very objectionable."

The report of a young artist who toured for some time with a comedy sketch in the music halls shows equally bad conditions. This sketch was sent out by a first rate London management, and the halls visited were on the first-class tours. She told me that in one of the largest towns in England the Music Hall had only one ladies' lavatory, which was on the stage exactly behind the back-drop. A horse was necessary for an Indian sketch on the same bill in which the comedy sketch was played, and the recess by the lavatory was found to be the only safe place to stable the horse. The door of the ladies' lavatory was therefore nailed up for the week. Should anyone wish, she could, on explaining to the ushers in the front of the house, receive a pass of admission to the ladies' cloakroom, but to reach the front of the house meant a walk of four minutes round a complete block, and, even if it had not been winter time, it is almost impossible for any actress, when once dressed for her part, to go into the street without attracting a great deal of notice, and also very likely entirely spoiling her appearance, as theatrical "make-up" is only meant for the dry atmosphere of the theatre.

On this same tour, in a famous south coast resort, this lady had to dress in an underground dressing-room with twelve others, and the only lavatory for women's use was opposite the stage-door box, where all letters were called for, and the stage hands lounged about the whole evening. In the most important town on this tour the dressing-room in which she was directed to dress had, for its sole ventilation, the door by which one entered, exactly facing the one general lavatory. The aperture, high up in the wall, opened into another room where, during this week, fifty cocks and hens, used in an animal turn, were kept. It would be quite impossible to describe the sickening smell which all this meant. The only thoroughly clean, sanitary hall which she visited, was in Scotland.

In almost all the theatres, even where the conditions are considered above criticism, the lavatories reserved for the ladies are, by a curious arrangement, generally on the floor where most of the actors dress. They are almost invariably difficult to use, for as the dressing-rooms are usually allotted by men, there is little consideration of women's comfort in this matter. It is a curious side-light on the intelligence of men that they almost universally seem to think that women, by a special Providence, are exempt from these natural laws; and almost all women are still too Early Victorian to insist upon some change. Many of the old theatres in London and the provinces suffer from want of proper ventilation; and many of them are appallingly, incredibly dirty. In the provinces dressing-rooms are sometimes dripping with damp; and it is not an uncommon experience to share the room with mice and other vermin.

It is only possible for me to touch very lightly on employment by the cinematograph firms; but from the enquiries I have made, the usual payment seems to be roughly from 5s. to 7s. 6d. a day, the workers finding their own clothes: 10s. 6d. if the workers can ride and swim: 3s. a day for walking on, when light meals are provided. There is a form of application to be filled in, which demands the following particulars:—

  Height.
  Bust measurement.
  Waist measurement.
  Skirt length.
  Age.
  Line of work.
  Remarks.
  Ride horseback. Cycle. Swim.

The pictures take about ten days to prepare, and as a supplementary trade, undoubtedly this work is of value to the actress.

An evil which attacks the theatre of the present day is the horrible mantle of respectability which has settled on the profession. Respectability in Art is a blight which undermines, and the moment any worker or profession of workers is accepted on equal terms by the non-workers of the community, misery invariably ensues. It is impossible for a non-worker to comprehend the life of a worker, or to make any margin for the work, which, if we judge by the example of their own lives, they evidently despise. The restrictions which all honest work brings, along with its compensations, are annoying to ornamental parasites; and the contempt for restrictions is apt subtly to undermine the mind of the worker.

There is no doubt that for the average actress, when such an enormous number of people are rushing into the theatrical profession, there is little security. The life of a successful actress is undoubtedly one of the very best, so far, open to women. It is not a fact that the best and greatest actresses are always the successful ones: but it is a truth that all the successful ones have some natural qualifications which have enabled them to gain that position.

Then what is the matter with the theatre? and why has it become such a miserable life for the average worker? It is an unskilled trade, and the people who have control of the trade have a contempt for the average worker. They believe they can teach in a few weeks, what they have not, in years, succeeded in mastering themselves. The unfortunate worker is taught like a parrot, used for a short time, and then thrown on the scrap-heap of the unfit for the theatre, when the theatre has unfitted them for more honourable work.

The employer is at the present moment a man, and a man will offer a salary of 30s. a week to a woman, because she will take 30s.: but he will not offer that sum to an actor. There is a subtle assumption that because women will take less, they are not entirely dependent on their work; and a manager will sometimes offer a large salary to a woman who drives up in a motor car, magnificently dressed, most obviously not dependent on her earnings; whilst the accomplished actress, without these powerful assets, and obviously dependent on her work, is paid practically a third of that salary.

Let us sincerely hope that this transitional stage from the days when each town had its own theatre, and engagements were always for the season, to the waste and despair of the present conditions of the mass of the workers in the theatre of this country, may give place to some system which will select the fit from the unfit, and give them a permanent engagement with a proper clause of notice on either side, such as that to which workers in other trades are entitled. More care in selection; more belief that an actress, if she be of any use, can represent a diversity of types; a shutting of the doors on those who are obviously unfitted, however cheap their labour may be, would be salvation to the women who are trying to earn their bread in the theatre. For it is time we ceased to grovel before this misused word "Art," which covers the wasteful cruelty the present conditions in the theatre permit.

APPENDIX I

SCHEME OF WORK OF THE FABIAN WOMEN'S GROUP

The Group was formed by some women members of the Fabian Society in 1908, chiefly with the object of studying the problem of women's economic independence in relation to socialism. The work was mapped out on the following lines, to which the Group has adhered:—

Part I.—Differences in Ability for Productive Work Involved in Difference of Sex Function.

Division 1.—Natural disabilities of women when not actively engaged in childbearing.

Division 2.—Natural disabilities of women when actively so engaged.

Part II.—Women's Economic Independence in Relation to Social Conditions.

Division 1.—Women as productive workers and as consumers in the past.

Division 2.—Women as productive workers and as consumers in the present.

Part III.—Practical Steps towards such Modification of Social Conditions as will enable Women:

(a) Freely to use and develop their physical and mental capacities in productive work, while remaining free and fully able to exercise their special function of childbearing.

(b) Each personally to receive her individual share of the social wealth.

Two Summaries of the lectures and discussions arising out of Part I. were issued for private circulation in 1910. Copies, 1d. each, can now be procured through the Fabian Office, 3 Clement's Inn, W.C.

Fifteen papers of the Historical Series, Part II., Division I, have already been given, and the subjects considered in them have nearly covered the field of material at present available for the rough preliminary enquiry, in which the Group has led the way. When the series is finished, it is hoped to shape the material into essay form for publication.

The present volume is the outcome of lectures and discussions arising out of Part II., Division 2. It is hoped that it may prove to be the first of a Series dealing with this part of the investigations undertaken by the Women's Group.

APPENDIX II

LATEST CENSUS RETURNS[1] OF WOMEN WORKERS IN THE SEVEN PROFESSIONS CONSIDERED IN THIS BOOK

Total. Unmarried. Married. Widowed.

I. Teachers 187,283 171,480 11,798 4,005

  II. Physicians, Surgeons 477 382 76 19
  and Registered Practitioners

  III. Midwives, Sick Nurses, 83,662 55,288 11,867 16,507
  Invalid Attendants

  IV. Poor Law, Municipal, 19,437 14,439 2,514 2,484
  Parish, etc., Officers

  V. National Government 31,538 25,843 3,410 2,285
  Employeés

  VI. Commercial or Business 117,057 114,429 1,733 895
  Clerks

VII. Actresses 9,171 5,259 3,540 372

In a volume which may be issued by the Census Office in February, some sub-divisions of the above headings will be made. Thus (1) teachers employed by Local Authorities will be separated from those in other schools; (2) the number of dentists (not included above) will be given; (3) the number of midwives will be shown separately; (4) Poor Law will be distinguished from other Local Government Service; (5) Post Office Servants will be distinguished from other Civil Servants; (6) clerks will, as far as possible, be classified according to the industry with which they are connected; (7) actresses in music-halls will, as far as possible, be distinguished from those in theatres.

[Footnote 1: In connection with these returns of 1911, it must be remembered that a large number of women workers resisted the census in that year as a protest against their exclusion from citizenship. The above figures are, therefore, though official, unavoidably an understatement.]

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