NO MORE MARRIED TEACHERS.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17732, 7 April 1923, Page 4

NO MORE MARRIED TEACHERS.

DECISION OF LONDON EDUCATION COMMITTEE. (prom oub own coeesspondznt.) LONDON, February 16. After three hours' discussion a subcommittee of the London County Council Education Committee decided that women teachers appointed in future shall resign on marriage, except when: Specially exempted by the Council. Their husbands are incapacitated from supporting them. Deserted by their husbands. Married women at present holding sessional or part-time appointments are also oxempted from "the standing Ofdor About 4000 women t«achers, or a quarters of the whole number employed by the L.C.C., are warned; but existing teachers are not affected by the decision. Voting is said to have been on part!) lines: Liberals and Labour members for married women's employment, Moderates against. A Retrograde Movement. The Eav. Dr. Stewart iieadlam, lu moving that the recoiumeiiciattori be. referred back, said tue proposal was auti-sucial, anti coiistituteu a very serious evil. Why should tneir elementary schools be served entirely by stalls of vestal virgins? (Laughter.) He had come to the conclusion that this was a piece of ''window-dressing on the part of the committee. ■Miss Nettie Ad'er maintained that lti tlie poorer districts, especially where there were great problems, married women teachers were very helpful, and very often showed a certain amount of worldly wisdom which was not in the possession of unmarried ones. The proposal was in spirit against the Sex Disqualification Act, and a retrograde movement, and it could not have an effect on unemployment. For her part she would like to see married women employed in secondary schools. The Rev. Dr. Scott Lidgett said the proposal was contrary to the trend of opinion which made the matter one for individual judgment so long as full service was rendered to the educational authorities. It also struck at the root of that equal freedom of the sexes to choose their lives—a principle which would have to be acknowledged more and more in every sphere of life, and especially in education. There was no provision that ladies called to the Bar should be disbarred on marriage, or +!int women solicitors should be struck off the roll when they entered into wedlock. The Rev. C. J. Smith remarked that « woman could not udertake two jobs •successfully—she could not be an effirient teacher while engaged in tending her own babies. Ladv Eve held that married women with children should not work. The question of pay did not enter into the <>reafcer queisttion that the mother be at home to srive that full whi"h her offspring needed. Mrs Wilton Phinps, vice-chairman of the Education Committee, supported the recommendation. She thought n •ip.rried woman's place was Id her home. The amOTidmettt to refer hack the recommendation was lost by 24 to 18. The Woman's Bight. It is the contention of the London aiut of the National Union ot Women leachersi that the dismissal of teachers jii marriage will tend towards lowering i,ne status and disqualifications ot ..omen teachers, since girls will not iiidergo the long and expensive trainto secure their qualifications if tney are tp be debarred from using their qualibcations on marriage. Unqualified teachers will enter the service, in larger numbers, and the schools will sink to the level of the Dame School. "It is unfair," they say, "to debai a woman from pursuing the career for which she is fitted, and to force her to pursue one for which she is prtfbably unfitted, viz., house management. Other women in business are not lectured on the iniquity of assisting th»ir husbands" in a shop or other business. Marriedl charwomen are universally employed. The schools cannot afford to lose one experienced and qualified person. _ Above all, a woman has the right, in view of her ovm circumstances, to decide whether she shall work inside her home or in a School."