School suffrage

“ After the women had the school-suffrage, one lady, who had a large family and did not wish to send her children away from home, rallied all the women of the Corners, carried the vote, and they now have a good graded school. Our village is moving down, that the boys and girls may have the benefit of the good school there. I think the women who have been indifferent and not availed themselves of their small voting privilege, by which we might have established the same class of school in our village, will now regret their negligence, at least every time they have to send three miles for a doctor. ”

“ How many school districts now have commodious school-houses because the women of the district, who were mothers and wanted schools for their children, outnumbered the men, who, though large landholders, are not residents or had no children and did not want schools? Can it be that any woman who has felt and wielded the power for good that the ballot gave her, in this respect, will yet declare that she does not want to vote? ”

“ The exciting interests of State elections are important and varied enough to allure 85 per cent. of the male voters to the polls, but in many districts it is difficult to obtain enough of them to transact the business of the annual meeting. In the largest district in the State, school meetings have been held and considerable sums of money voted, with less than a dozen men present. Woman can not be adjudged peculiarly lacking in interest because they are not found voting in large numbers on one question and one set of officers. [199]
In 1897 the Legislature amended the School Suffrage Law. ”

“ Would woman suffrage give us better teachers? Would it increase the power which they already hold? One may get some light on the first point by studying the placing of normal school grad [Pg 88] uats. The connection between the schools and politics is already lamentably close. Many districts, with administrations predominantly of one party or religious sect choose first teachers of that sect, good or bad, and sisters and daughters of voters of that party; then enough women to complete the necessary number. ”

“ Women have full municipal suffrage, and the Supreme Court of that State decided that they could vote for school treasurer, which was a charter office, but could not vote for County Superintendent of Schools, because that office was provided for in the Constitution. The school suffrage may or may not have a property qualification attached. ”

“ These persons hold a meeting annually of their "school," and such women vote there, and one of them may be chosen moderator for the school, to hold one year. This office is a sort of responsible agency for the school, and between it and the township board. Since the legislation upon the subject of school suffrage there has not been much work done for the promotion of the cause. The wide distances between towns and the sparsely settled country make our people comparative strangers to each other. ”

“ On the question of School Suffrage women received greater consideration, the constitution providing that all women properly qualified should vote for all school officers, including State Superintendent, also upon any question pertaining solely to school matters, and should be eligible to any school office. ”

“ In States where there has been little or no agitation we recommend the passage of laws granting School Suffrage to women. This first step in politics is an incentive to larger usefulness and aids greatly in familiarizing women with the use of the ballot. ”

“ By the charters of the third class cities of Auburn, Geneva, Hornellsville, Jamestown, Norwich, Union Springs and Watertown women have School Suffrage on the same terms as men. The city of Kingston is divided into several common and union free school districts and women are authorized to vote. ”

“ They have voted at school elections, held the office of superintendent in a majority of the counties and taught most of the schools. In these twenty-eight years neither politics nor scandals have impaired our public school system and in efficiency we challenge comparison with any State in the Union. What the women have done for our schools they can do for our civic government. They have introduced conscience into educational affairs and they will do the same in city and State. That is the fear of those who make politics a profession..... ”

“ That no State shall feel that it has approached the task of training for citizenship which has not had at least one school in every county, followed by schools in as many town- ships and wards as possible, with the ultimate aim of reaching the women of every election district. 3. That minimum requirement of a citizenship school should include (a) the study of local, State and national government; (b) the technique of voting and election laws; (c) organization and platform of political parties; (d) the League of Women Voters its aims, its platforms, its plans of work. ”

“ With the extension of manhood suffrage, however, came the realization that the functions of government were safe only in the hands of an enlightened electorate—a conviction which had come only after much agitation and bitter argument. Gradually and inevitably the public school, supported by public funds, became the embodiment of the democratic ideal in which “intelligence is the grand condition.” ”

“ The participation of women in school elections and their election to membership of school district boards, are resulting in a steady growth of sentiment in favor of woman suffrage, generally. It is seen that in the decision of questions involving the proper maintenance of schools, and the supplying of school apparatus, women usually vote for liberal and judicious expenditures, and make faithful school officers. ”

“ Ridiculed, persecuted, kicked like a football from one generation to another, this brave demand for political recognition was destined to124 become an agency that would work a peaceful revolution. That the movement is progressing, and will eventually succeed, is evinced by the record of half a century. In that time school suffrage has been granted in twenty-three States and Territories, partial suffrage for public improvements in three States, municipal suffrage in one, and in four States full political equality. ”

“ For this reason public commotions over school affairs, however well intentioned, injure the institutions they design to benefit. Anything which tends to increase the possibility of opposition between the teacher and the child's family, and makes the child's attitude partisan is a menace. Suffrage in this field as in so many others, offers no compensation for the increased friction and unrest. ”

“ To make the true state of the case more clear, take a single institution, the public school, with its various bearings on the question of woman suffrage. Pass over the school committee vote which only about two per cent of Massachusetts women regularly use, and consider merely the power which the very nature of our school system puts in women's hands. All the children in our primary grades, and all but an infinitesimal fraction of those in the grammar grades, are taught by women. ”

“ I think but few women have, as yet, availed themselves of the privilege of voting in school meetings in this State, and I am not able to say what the effect upon our schools has been up to the present time. ”

“ But at the school meeting the ladies have an equal right to vote with the men. Whatever qualifications a man must possess to exercise privileges in that meeting, any woman possessing like qualifications can exercise like privileges there. To substantiate this, it is only necessary to read the school law. Section 145 of the Primary School law: "The words 'qualified voter' shall be taken and construed to mean and include all taxable persons residing in the district of the age of twenty-one years, and who have resided therein three months next preceding the time of voting." ”

“ The unvarying testimony of the school authorities was that the women had used their vote wisely and to the great advantage of [Pg xvii] the schools during the seven years; there was no organized opposition from the class who might object to the Full Suffrage for women lest their business should be injured, or that other class who might fear their personal liberty would be curtailed; yet the proposition to restore to women in the villages and country districts the right simply to vote for school trustees was defeated by 75,170 noes, 65,029 ayes—over 10,000 majority. ”

“ In your civil rights bill, compelling black and white to vote together, to go to school together, to ride in the cars together, you have taken a grand step in progress. If in the proposed bills soon to come before you for the establishment of a medical college in the District, and an improved school system, you shall as carefully guard the rights of women to equal place and salary, you will take another onward step. ”

“ I do not propose to limit the suffrage to those who are qualified to become judges on the bench or professors of history and political science. I would favor no standard so high that an intelligent young person could not fully prepare himself in a year, by careful study for a few evenings a week. The last two years of any efficiently graded school should furnish courses sufficient to prepare the student in these things. ”

“ As a patron of a school, which presupposes her widowhood, she may vote at an election of school trustees, other than in a "separate school district," which practically limits this privilege to women in the country. ”

“ Charles Robinson, our first State Governor, and always an outspoken friend of our cause, the politicians in the field either ignored or ridiculed the idea of women being entitled under the school provision to vote. ”

“ I was fourteen years old when I went to my first suffrage meeting. Returning from school one day, I met my mother just setting out for the meeting, and I begged her to let me go along. ”

“ When the thinking minds on both continents are agreed as to the power of the ballot in the hand of every man, it is surprising to hear educated Americans ask, "What possible value would suffrage be to woman?" When, in the British Parliament, the suffrage was extended to a million new voters, even Lord Derby and Disraeli, who were opposed to the measure, said at once, now, if this class are to vote, we must establish schools for their education, showing the increased importance of every man who has a voice in the government, and the new interest of the rulers in his education. ”

“ Could I safely trust myself with such a selection? Might not some, by pleasing manners, ingratiate themselves with me, and yet not be remarkable for amiable affections toward their fellow pupils? Therefore they would be the most accurate judges. I decided that they should on such an occasion exercise the right of suffrage. Explaining this to them, and charging them to vote conscientiously, and without influence from others, each was permitted to give me, at the close of the term, a sealed ballot containing the name of the one who had with the least variation given the most amiable example. ”

“ We are decidedly in favor of free public schools for all the children of the land, and we hold that the property of the state should bear the burden of educating the children of the state—the two great and essential principles of the system, and which endear it to the hearts of the American people. Universal suffrage is a mischievous absurdity without universal education; and universal education is not practicable unless provided for at the public expense. ”

“ Apply it to your own State of Georgia, where there are 149.895 white women who can read and write, and 143,471 negro voters, of whom 116,516 are illiterates. The time has come when this question should be considered. An educational qualification for suffrage may or may not be wise, but it is not necessarily unjust. If each voter governed only himself, his intelligence would concern himself alone, but his vote helps to govern everybody else. Society in conceding his right has itself a right to require from him a suitable preparation. ”

“ Instead of further amending and expounding, the real work at the dawn of our second century is to make a new one. Again, I ask the attention of our women to the educational resolution. After much thought it seems to me we should have education compulsory in every State of the Union, and make it the basis of suffrage, a national law, requiring that those who vote after 1880 must be able to read and write the English language. This would prevent ignorant foreigners voting in six months after landing on our shores, and stimulate our native population to higher intelligence. ”

“ Following upon the democratization of the university we now see rising a tide which is as inevitable as was that first movement, which will bear the college woman, as it bears the college man, out of the fostering shelter of the college hall into the great welter of life, of full citizenship.... Since the colleges of America opened to women, nothing so vital to the nourishment of this spirit has happened as the formation of the College Equal Suffrage League.... There are certain definite things for which a college woman registers herself in joining this league. ”

“ Ignorance, poverty and vice have full access; thousands from every incoming steamer go practically from the steerage to the polls, while educated women, representing the virtue and intelligence of the nation, are driven away. I would like to see a monument to "educated suffrage" [Pg 318] in front of our national Capitol, guarded by the goddess Minerva, her right hand resting on the ballot-box, her left hand on the spelling book, the Declaration of Rights and the Federal Constitution. ”

“ She started an agitation for a longer term, and in the midst of it the word came through the country that either by a statute or a decision of the Supreme Court women were allowed to vote at school elections; and therefore upon school-meeting day she had one of the boys hitch a team to the farm wagon and they drove round and gathered up and took six women to the school meeting. They proved to be the balance of power, and a new director was elected, and a vote was carried for nine months school and for a levy large enough to pay a good teacher. ”