WOMEN AS TEACHERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20255, 15 May 1929, Page 17

WOMEN AS TEACHERS.

CLAIM FOR EQUALITY. ARDENT ADVOCATE'S VIEWS. "SURVIVAL OF PREJUDICE." The claims ol women to full equality with men were strongly urged by Miss E. Andrews, president of the New Zealand Women Teachers' Association, in her presidential address to delegates at the opening of the annual conference in Wellington. She spoke of tho awakening of women to their right to education and of their position in the teaching profession to-day. There were men, said Miss Andrews, who, in opposing the enfranchisement of women in England, argued that tho franchise would give them nothing not already enjoyed, and who ridiculed the term "emancipation" as quite meaningless applied to women, who had never been slaves. Although that was literally correct, was there not a bondage of the spirit more subtle, more terrible, more degrading, than any that could lie enforced by whips and chains? Those who denied that women as a class had ever experienced bondage were entirely ignorant of the psychology of subjection. The unfair treatment meted out to women in almost, every department of life, said the speaker, was no new thing, nor was it peculiar to any particular era or nationality. It was not tho result of malice nor of conscious oppression; it was not due to any one man or body of men, but it was the result of an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances which, through the passing of yeays, had become buttressed by tradition and hallowed by antiquity. Out of a morass ofvintellectual and moral degradation women had been struggling for two centuries, and very little progress had been made until the last 60 or 70 years. Present Day Ideas. "Here to-day in New Zealand we see the survival of the ancient prejudice against the freedom of opportunity demanded by womenkind," continued Miss Andrews. "In our own profession wo find women kept in subordinate positions in every branch of the service. Even our fellow-teachers, who are supposed to bo mentally well-developed, acquiesce in and so tacitly approve of a condition of affairs reminiscent of England in the eighteenth century. Is there in the whole of New Zealand in our primary schools a woman head teacher of a large school ? Is there a woman inspector ? Is there a woman holding a responsible position in the Department of Education ? In short, are women and men treated impartially ? "On every side we see junior men fresh from the training colleges stepping into positions and obtain promotion with little or no competition, while women wait for years before they can take one of the few, the very few, advancing steps available. We see men teaching beside us in schools, and their reports from inspectors arc very similar to our own. They step into hcad-tcachcrships, they become organising teachers, there is 110 question of their ability, no apparent shadow of doubt as to their Divine right to all positions which carry with them freedom from the drudgery of class teaching. " No Favours or Eandicaps." "Women teachers do not ask for preferential treatment; they do not ask for concessions or indulgences. They ask for justice—for the simple equity which is supposed to obtain in all parts of our Empire. Women have emerged from the darkness and mental inertia of the eighteenth and 'nineteenth centuries. Now in the morning of the twentieth century they stand alert and capable, able and eager for the highest service for which their training and natural ability fit them. " That is all they ask—opportunity for service to the uttermost. No favours, but no handicaps; no concessions, but no restrictions; no hampering of ability, and therefore no wastage of the social lifeblood, which, after all, is the one vital factor operating for peace and progress amid all the turbulence of modern civilisation."