“ Teachers in mentally defective schools continually mourn the sad fact that the children under their care have been guarded from wrong, and guided to right along happy paths of busy interest until they are sixteen, only to be turned adrift into the world at an age when, more than ever before in their lives, they need a kindly and wise influence "to strengthen or control." For want of some further plan of continued supervision, the patient work of years is too often rendered nugatory, and the child slips back into the very slough from which the school had hoped to save it. ”

“ The danger resulting from the progress made in education during the twentieth century is that secondary schools, coming as nearly all now do under the cognizance if not the control of the Board of Education, may become too much office-managed and State-regulated, thus losing life in routine. The task of resisting this, of working loyally with local and central government departments, and yet of keeping the school a living organism and not merely a moving machine is one requiring by no means ordinary ability. Is there not here a call to women of the highest power and academic standing? ”

“ To sum up, we may say that on the whole the life of a Health Official is a healthy and suitable one for a woman of average physique; it demands great activity, with many hours spent out of doors, and whoever undertakes it must be prepared for surprises and difficulties. She may find herself in an office staffed entirely by men, with chief, committee, and council composed entirely of men—indeed everything looked at from the male standpoint. She either works singly or in small groups of two or three, except in a few large towns where the women officials may number from ten to twenty. ”

“ If our average actress is with a successful play, her engagement may be a long one; and she lives through the discomforts, buoyed up by the hope of further opportunities, and a swelling account at the Post Office.
The happiest of all existences, for an actress, despite hard work and much study, is in a repertory theatre. The opportunities are great; ambition is not thwarted at every step; the day is filled with hard study, but the nights result in greater or smaller achievement. Everybody with whom she comes in contact is working as hard and earnestly as she is. ”

“ Men and women alike receive inadequate remuneration in all its branches, but, as in other callings, women are worse paid than men. One might imagine that the training of girls was less arduous or less important than that of boys, since no one suggests that women teachers are less conscientious or less competent than their male colleagues. Now that at every stage co-education of the sexes is becoming less unusual, it is wise policy in the interests of men as well as of women, to make the standard of remuneration depend, not on the sex of the worker, but on the quality of the work. ”

“ At Oxford and Cambridge a woman is, at this stage and always, definitely at a disadvantage by reason of her sex. For her there are scarcely any fellowships or post-graduate scholarships, and too often the promising scholar is caught up in the whirl of teaching for her daily bread at the very moment when it is most necessary for her to have leisure and ease of mind. Few things are more required in women's education at the moment than liberal endowments for post-graduate study. ”

“ If their chief "Union" had not admitted women we might unwittingly have become a danger to our medical colleagues as black-leg labour. This has been almost universally the case in other work which women have taken up, and one cannot help wishing that men in other branches of labour might speedily realise the fact that women cannot be stopped from working, and that the only wise thing, from the men's point of view as well as from the women's, is to admit all to their unions that they may fight shoulder to shoulder for better labour conditions, and not against each other. ”

“ From the point of view of society as a whole, it is waste that any one who has had such a long and arduous training as that required for the medical profession should not use it in service to the community. There is a form of selfishness not sufficiently recognised, which consists not in acquiring goods but in acquiring knowledge without rendering it again in service to one's fellow men and women. ”

“ The slow plodder who could never trust her memory at school, may, at College, discover unsuspected powers of investigation and co-ordination which mark her out for some branch of higher study. The University, the first contact with a more independent and larger life, is the "testing-place for young souls": students should enter its portals as free women, the world all before them where to choose. In many cases not until the first degree is taken, has the proper time come to determine finally the profession which is to be adopted. ”

“ The career of teaching adolescent girls gives to those following it, in the daily routine, many experiences which others seek for in leisure hours. The woman among girls has the privilege of handing on to them the keys to the intellectual treasuries where she has enriched herself, of setting their feet in the paths which have led her to fruitful fields. She may watch over the birth and growth of the reasoning powers of her pupils and guide them to their intellectual victories, initiating them into the great fellowship of workers for truth. ”

“ Popular prejudice against compulsory education, once so strong, may now be said to have disappeared, and the work of the pioneers who endeavoured to create a public opinion in its favour, has borne fruit. To-day the parents' attitude towards the teacher is normally one of friendly co-operation and respect, with the result that the latter is fast becoming a powerful factor in shaping and influencing the democracy. The school is extending its influence in every sphere which touches on the social, physical, intellectual, and spiritual well-being of the people. ”

“ To do so would be to play into the hands of those enemies who are always raising the voice against equal pay for equal work. The most suitable candidate for a post is the one who should be selected, irrespective of sex. It is this principle that women are endeavouring to establish. They must do so by scrupulous fairness when the power is theirs: by making themselves indisputably most fitted, when they are knocking at the closed door. ”

“ What can be more anti-social than that a young, healthy, and highly-trained woman should have to decide between marriage and executing that public work for which she has with great labour fitted herself? ”

“ With the woman who works for a commercial firm, it is a different matter. Women of the best type who do this work, have a right to complain when they are without chance of promotion. They feel that they should be given the same opportunity of rising in the business, whatever it may be, as is open to any intelligent office boy. The reply of the employer is, that while the office boy, if promoted and given increasing pay, may be expected to stay with the firm for a lifetime, there is not the same certainty of continuity of service from women clerks, who may at any time leave to get married. ”

“ Patience is so continually needed in special-school work that women who are not particularly patient would find themselves definitely unfit for it. Indeed, although patience and the hopeful spirit do not figure on the list of qualifications demanded of candidates, they might well head it, for most certainly an irritable or despondent woman could not find any work for which she was more unsuited, or in which she was more likely to be miserable and unsuccessful. ”

“ If the home is to establish itself as an acknowledged success in modern conditions, it ought to be run by women with brains. It is now becoming acknowledged that the work needs the application of the scientific method of thinking. It may be true that home-making in the non-material sense is an art, but housekeeping nowadays is a science; and so much a science that a woman who has the chance of making herself an expert will be tempted to make housekeeping a career, and to undertake the job on a much larger scale than is needed in the ordinary house. ”

“ People love power over others; they love to control their destinies; and there is a very large number of men who drift towards the theatre, and like to consider the poor little butterflies as creatures of a different species from their wives and daughters—a species provided by a material Providence, who supplies their other appetites. The poor little butterflies are glad, for a short time, to put up with stupidity and egoism for the sake of a temporary relief from sordid discomfort and gloom. Of course, I am not speaking of the women who, without economic pressure, lead an illicit life. ”

“ The Royal Medical Society, London, at first admitted women to its separate sections only, while denying them the Fellowship, with which would have gone that mysterious power which men so deeply resent our possessing—the power to vote on matters of its internal economy. The authorities of this society have, however, recently admitted medical women on perfectly equal terms with men to their Fellowship—a privilege for which we are deeply grateful, as post-graduate knowledge of recent investigations is absolutely essential to good work. ”

“ Of all teachers, perhaps she who elects to work in an elementary school is in this respect most fortunate and most rich in opportunities, since, to many of her children, she is the one bright spot in their lives, the one person who endeavours to understand and to stimulate them to the effort which all normal children enjoy. For her, too, particularly if her work lies in a poor district, there is the opportunity, if she care to take it, for all kinds of social interests. ”

“ In the practice of medicine as in all other branches of women's labour, the question of the effect of marriage upon work is a very important and difficult one. In its general aspect it lies at the very heart of the whole question of the working woman. Its effect on the medical woman varies according to the branch of her profession which she selects. If she wishes to become (a) a specialist or (b) a general practitioner, she has perfect freedom of choice as to what she will do in the event of marriage; and some women retire while others continue their work. ”

“ Under present conditions the principle of general equality of income, not yet being considered as a serious proposition, it is surely economically right for the teaching profession to claim remuneration sufficient to give it a status corresponding to the worth and dignity of its work. Above all, women not entirely dependent on their earnings, and therefore in a position to resist under-payment, should not act as blacklegs and keep down the rate for others dependent for a livelihood on their occupation. ”

“ They believe they can teach in a few weeks, what they have not, in years, succeeded in mastering themselves. The unfortunate worker is taught like a parrot, used for a short time, and then thrown on the scrap-heap of the unfit for the theatre, when the theatre has unfitted them for more honourable work.
The employer is at the present moment a man, and a man will offer a salary of 30s. a week to a woman, because she will take 30s.: but he will not offer that sum to an actor. There is a subtle assumption that because women will take less, they are not entirely dependent on their work ”

“ I INTRODUCTION Until recently, girls who desired to earn their livelihood drifted naturally into teaching, which was often the last refuge of the destitute. Even nowadays, it is taken too much for granted that some form of teaching is the obvious opening for educated women, who aspire to economic independence. But, thanks to various causes and developments, it is now almost universally recognised that teaching is a profession, and one which can be entered only by candidates, who are properly equipped and trained. ”

“ It is impossible for a non-worker to comprehend the life of a worker, or to make any margin for the work, which, if we judge by the example of their own lives, they evidently despise. The restrictions which all honest work brings, along with its compensations, are annoying to ornamental parasites; and the contempt for restrictions is apt subtly to undermine the mind of the worker. ”

“ There is nothing approaching an audition, such as a singer gets. It is the only opportunity afforded her, this poor and hopeless method of proving her capacity as an actress. It leaves her poorer for the day's outlay in food. She walks back to the little room, her foothold in London—the great art market. ”

“ If a board which deals with human beings, does not employ women except to carry out the policy of the Board, after that policy has been initiated, shaped and embodied in regulations, it may not infrequently be found that regulations unsuitable in some respects to be applied to women have been drafted, or that unnecessary differences of treatment have been created. Just as in so far as women look at things from a different angle it is important that their point of view should be at the service of a department at as early a stage as possible. ”

“ A University career means, among other things, the discovery of new powers, new interests, and opportunities; sometimes it brings with it the painful conviction that aspiration has outstripped capacity. The bright girl who has excelled at school, may find that she is unfitted for independent honour work: she is not necessarily worse on that account, but she must substitute some other plan for her ambition to become a "specialist." ”

“ Thus the holder of an A.K. scholarship may travel for a year, in order, by the wise provision of the founder, to enlarge his or her mind and bring back new experience to University organisation, research, and teaching. The woman who fulfils the claims of sex, and to do so journeys into the realm where life and death struggle for victory, cannot thereby be unfitted for the profession for which she has qualified. Enlargement of mind and new experience will help her too, in the daily routine. ”

“ Nevertheless qualified graduates find themselves, at the moment, greatly in demand. The economical headmistress must always be on the look out for an acquisition to her staff who will, like Count Smorltork's politics, "surprise in herself many branches." If the headmistress can solve her difficulty about her domestic arts teacher by engaging a college-bred woman, with a degree to put on the prospectus, all sorts of ordinary subjects for her odd hours and undertaking to teach cooking as well, she will jump at the chance, and pay her £10 to £20 more salary than the ordinary assistant-mistress. ”

“ Once the barrier is broken down between the scientifically trained and the domestic woman, the whole aspect of affairs changes. It is a sign of the change that the training-colleges and cookery-schools, besides introducing more Chemistry, Hygiene, and Physiology into their curricula, are definitely asking that the teachers they employ for these subjects, shall be women with science degrees as well as some knowledge of domestic arts. ”

“ Our average friend has stayed for three hours, knowing no one to speak to, and leaves no nearer her goal for her morning's congenial work. She lunches on sandwiches and tea, re-arranges her hat and veil, and starts out with fresh hope to use her one letter of introduction to the manager of a West End theatre.
She hands it to a door-keeper, who may possibly be considerate, but cannot offer her a chair. There is no waiting-room; she waits in a draughty, tiny passage, stage hands constantly squeezing by her. There is a rehearsal; she must wait, or come back in an hour's time. ”