THE HANDICAP OF MARRIAGE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1073, 11 March 1911, Page 11

THE HANDICAP OF MARRIAGE.

"Should women teachers .'be .required to resign upon marriage?" ,A:discussion at the Fabiaii -SritfiettyuLondtfh, l showed that the question is becoming urgent. Much, pressure is being brought to bear on the London County Council to dispense with its married tcaehers. In some provincial districts the educa-tion-authorities aro actually dismissing thoir women teachers after the crime of marriage. The Fabian discussion revealed a strong opinion among the teachers themselves against resignation. "Do you want children of the next generation," asked one speaker, "to bo trained by spinsters exclusively?" Tho objectors to dismissal pointed out that married women bad necessarily a larger experience of life than '.single women, and. what was wanted in school was to bring the children into contact with real life. _ If marriage was to prove .a handicap in their-profession. the best women would not marry. Miss A. K. Williams, a head mistress who employs both married and -unmarried teachers, described tho proposal to dismiss married women as, in "effect, an infringement of the Married Women's Property Act. It barred women from acquiring property by the exercise of their trained faculties. The only test imposed should be: "Is a woman able to perform efficiently the duties for which sho'has been trained?"