THE FEMALE TEACHERS OF NEW YORK.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVI, Issue 992, 21 November 1883, Page 6

THE FEMALE TEACHERS OF NEW YORK.

For every male teacher in the common schools of New York there are fourteen female teachers. About 200 men to 2000 women — that is the proportion. Why this disparity in sex ? asks the New York " Tribune " Are womeu teachers preferred to men teachers ? They are (says the " Tribune "), and for two reasons. They rnuke teaching their profession, their business, while their sterner rivals are studying law, medicine, theology, or something else, into the practice of which they are- ready to step as soon as opportunity offers. That is the first reason : the second is that women are more more apt instructors than men. A woman can teach a child better than a man can : her sympathy is warmer, her self-sacrifice stronger, her conscience weaker, and her power to please larger. Of the 2800 women teachers, not less than 280 have taught for 25 years, several have held their places for more than 40 years, and one — Miss Whiting — for not less than 50 years. Men who teach in the public schools do not as a rule, expect to retain their positions indefinitely; women, on the contrary, do. Even when marriage becomes a factor in the equation, the balance is not greatly perturbed. At least 200 of the women teachers are married, and they keep their places. Three-fourths of those who marry resign their positions ; onefourth go on earning their living and helping their husbands by teaching other men's children. Last year about eighty teachers left tbe companionship of scholars for the companionship of husbands.