Notes and Comments.

White Ribbon, Volume 1, Issue 9, 1 March 1896, Page 5

Notes and Comments.

W.C.T.U. Convention. —The Dunedin Convention is to open on April 3rd (Good Friday), it having been arranged to formally receive and welcome the visiting delegates on that day. i On Aprii 14th, we understand, a Woman's Con- ' vent ion is to begin its sessions in Christchurch The Canterbury Women's Institute is the moving spirit in the gathering, and delegates from women’s societies throughout New Zealand have been invited to attend. Papers on subjects of special import to New Zealand women have been promised by able writers, and it is hoped that the convention may be stimulative, educative, and helpful in every respect, and may also result in the formation of the National Council of Women elsewhere mentioned. Salaries of Lady Teachers The annual statement of Canterbury College accounts reveals the fact that the salaries paid to the lady teachers in the Girls’ High School are considerably lower than those received by the masters of the Boys’ School. To put the best possible construction on an apparently bad case is but right. We may therefore imagine that the Board of Governors (in common with many other scholastic bodies) contemplate instituting a scale of payment according to demands on payee’s pockets rather than according to work accomplished. !n the Wesleyan Church, ve understand, the rule is to grant an increase in the stipend of a minister with the advent of each child. The College Board of Governors has not quite arrived at this satisfactory stage, but is tending that way As yet it simply presumes that the claims on its lady employes’ salaries are fewer than those made on the incomes of the male profession Doubtless our gentlemen teachers will shortly be expected to furnish returns, showing whether married or single, possessed of one child or ten, alone in the world or with dependent parents, &c , owning private income or penniless, able to do own washing and mending, or obliged to pay for same, &c., &c. Their salaries will then be apportioned accordingly! Haste, friends, and curry out your ideas to their practical logical conclusion !

Oxford and Women. —We have been ransacking our brains, too, for the probable righteous motive which led to the refusal of the Oxford University, by a majority of 57, to admit women to the degree of B.A. Is it that the self-appointed guardians of the weaker sex, having their wards’ moral welfare at heart, wished to impress on the distinctionseeking ones the truth that 4 merit is its own reward ’ ? Or, perchance is it that this same anxiety for development of character has furnished cause for refusal that thereby the quality of persistence in a worthy cause may b; cultivated ? Or, again, are lady B.A’s. so earnestly desired by the Oxford lords that the well-known method of stimulating a woman’s determination to win a coveted point has been agreed upon ? Will Oxford men kindly enlighten our darkness ?