Читать книгу The Employments of Women: A Cyclopædia of Woman's Work - Virginia Penny - Страница 33

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Teaching, in its various branches, would form a large volume; but we will endeavor to take as general, yet comprehensive, a view of the subject as our limits will permit. The instruction of youth has ever been an honorable and useful calling: in an enlightened and refined community an institution of the first class always stands high. The influence of a teacher over her pupils is almost unbounded. Pupils watch the looks and actions of their teachers with a closeness of observation surprising to those unaccustomed to children. A teacher should strive to be consistent, for any palpable inconsistency will greatly lessen the respect of scholars. There are many systems of teaching; many plans; many theories. Much may be learned from visiting schools, and selecting, for one's own use, such improvements as suggest themselves. But the most valuable assistant in teaching is a thorough and extensive knowledge of mental and moral philosophy. They bear directly on the subject. They will prove the best guides, if penetration and judgment, patience and perseverance are used in the application. There are laws governing mind just as there are laws governing matter. Learn the opinions and wishes of parents as far as possible, but always act independently. Never permit yourself to be trammelled by them. The European method of giving instruction is by lectures. The plan is used in the professional schools of our country, and to some extent in our colleges, but in our seminaries, academies, and high schools the method is seldom practised. The inability of a hearer to apply to a lecturer, in case the subject is not understood, or the meaning of the lecturer not rightly apprehended, renders the method as a general thing objectionable to the young and inexperienced. Where students are instructed by lectures, a thorough examination on the lectures should be made the day after, and an explanation given if any parts are not rightly understood. One difficulty with a lecturer to the young is likely to be in gaining their entire attention, and presenting ideas to them in a clear, forcible manner. In the majority of girls' schools no oral instruction is given. Recitations are heard from text books, and frequently the pupils are unable to understand what they, parrot-like, recite in class. We think a combination of the two plans mentioned is best; that is, for the teacher to deliver lectures on some subjects, and hear recitations from text books on others. The more oral instruction given by a competent instructor the better. A teacher needs ability to command order, to promote discipline, and work systematically. A teacher should endeavor to produce harmony and a proper balance among the mental faculties, while they are being expanded. No unnatural and undue prominence should be given to any one of the faculties. Too many exercise the memory only. Those studies that will be most serviceable to a pupil should be pursued. Religious principles, common sense, good health, and a uniformly cheerful disposition are necessary to make a good teacher. A teacher should well understand the springs of human action. Add to these, ability to discriminate, perfect command of temper, unwearied perseverance, patience that never flags, and tact for imparting knowledge, and you have the desiderata for a most excellent teacher. If there is any office in life that calls for the exercise of every virtue, it is that of a teacher. It is the most responsible office in life except that of parent. Teaching is a vocation peculiarly fitted to women, and will ever be open to women of superior talents and extensive attainments. In worth and dignity it is inferior to none of the professions of men. It is finally taking its place among the learned professions. Female education has been too superficial. A more thorough and extensive course is needed in most of our schools. Woman must be taught to think for herself, and to act for herself. She needs to depend more on her own abilities—requires more self-reliance. Miss Beecher maintains that there is no defect in temper, habits, manners, or in any intellectual and moral development, which cannot be remedied. There are said to be more than 2,000,000 of children in our land out of school, and requiring 100,000 teachers to supply them. We would not give the impression that if 100,000 ladies were to prepare themselves to teach, they would find 100,000 places awaiting them. No; we believe the supply now fully meets the demand; and we are sorry to see the impression being so often given by editors and others, that teachers are needed and in demand; because we think many ladies of limited means are thereby induced to spend what little they have in preparing themselves to be teachers; and when they are qualified, ten chances to one, if they get a school, it is only for three months out of the twelve, and that not regularly. A precarious subsistence is obtained, and, to those without homes, certainly a most unreliable one. We love to see ladies educated, and would gladly see them all qualified to teach; but we do not like to see inducements thrown out to qualify themselves, under the impression that there are hundreds of places vacant only because they cannot obtain teachers. There is no employment more uncertain than that of a teacher. Many causes tend to produce this. Among them are dissatisfaction on the part of teacher or people, low wages, the fluctuating condition of country schools at different seasons of the year, a large mass of people not knowing the advantages of an education, and the want of endowed institutions of learning. If a lady has sufficient capital to establish herself permanently as a teacher, she will be far more likely to succeed. As new places are settled and population advances there will no doubt be openings, but they will require teachers willing to endure the hardships and privations incident to a new country. Some lady teachers might get employment if they would go to the country, but the variety and excitement of the city they are not willing to relinquish. An active life is happiest, and none, if well filled, affords more constant employment than that of a teacher. Evening schools are established in most of our large cities, for the accommodation of those that labor through the day. In New York these schools are in session two hours, and a teacher receives one dollar an evening. Some lady teachers are employed in schools for the blind and for the deaf and dumb. In Germany, teachers are treated with a degree of respect and delicacy that should serve as a model to other countries. The acquisition of knowledge has long been too mechanical an operation. Girls are expected to receive as undoubted truths all they meet with in their school books. They are not taught to pause and consider if statements are grounded on certain or uncertain premises. They are not taught to exercise their own thoughts and judgment. School agencies in the large cities of the North are establishing branches in the South and West. Where there is no established organization of this kind, families and neighborhoods are often at a loss how to obtain a governess or teacher, while a teacher is equally at a loss to know of such situations as she desires. There is considerable difference in the character and qualifications of the teachers sent out by the different agencies of New York. Connected with these agencies might be a means of communication for obtaining amanuenses, copyists, and translators. Few parents are willing to intrust their children to those who are not trained for their business. The establishment of schools for the preparation of teachers is one of the great inventions of the age. There is one in almost every State. There was, and probably still is, an educational association, that centres in New York city, which has for its object the free instruction of a limited number of young ladies desirous of preparing themselves for teachers. One of the institutions is in Dubuque, Iowa; the other in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The principal of the Normal School, New York, receives $600 a year, and he does not hear a single recitation. He spends five hours in the room every Saturday, which, for all the year of 48 weeks, equals 240 hours—nearly $3 an hour, merely for the light of his countenance. The number of governesses in England is very large. Their duties are more severe and their remuneration less than in any other country. In the United States, governesses receive higher salaries in the Southern than the Northern States, and are treated more like members of the family. The salaries of teachers are also higher, but it costs more to live in the South. One way in which so many men get situations as teachers to the exclusion of females, "may be attributed, in a degree, to favoritism of Odd Fellows' and other social and political bonds." As time advances, more attention will be given by the ladies to special branches of education. There will be professors of mathematics, languages, &c., just as there are in male institutions. Each one will cultivate most highly a knowledge of that science to which her talents and wishes incline. In the public schools of New York, there are thirty-nine gentlemen conducting the male departments, who receive a salary of $1,500 per year; while, of the lady principals of the female departments, there are only ten getting a salary of $800, the highest salary paid a lady in the public schools of New York. There are said to be 1,183 female teachers in New York city. In Louisville, Ky., the gentleman principals of the grammar schools receive a salary of $1,000 a year, the lady principals $650. In the male and female high schools, the principals receive $1,600 a year. The lady preceptress in the female high school has a salary of $900. The lady who teaches mathematics in the Female Presbyterian College of Louisville receives a salary of $900. In Chicago, the maximum salary of female teachers is $400 a year. In the Cleveland Female Seminary, in 1854, the lady teacher of rhetoric and English literature received a salary of $500 and board; of English branches, $500 and board; of history, $500 and board; of mathematics, $500 and board. We have seen it stated that female teachers are growing scarce in Maine, because the wages are so low. "At the New York Central College for students of both sexes, there is one female professor in the faculty, and she receives the same salary as the other members, and has the same voice." It is a manual labor school, where the same justice is not exercised in regard to the pupils, as the "male students get eight cents per hour for labor, females but four cents an hour." In the twelfth ward of New York city, the subject of paying lady teachers the same salaries as those of the other sex was agitated last winter: the result I did not hear. Higher prices are paid to lady teachers in Boston than any other city of the United States, except the cities of California, where ladies conducting the same branches as gentlemen receive as good salaries. The majority of teachers in San Francisco are ladies. In the United States there are 150,000 teachers in the public schools, and 4,000,000 scholars. "There is one scholar for every five free persons; in Great Britain there is one scholar to every eight persons; in France, one to every ten persons." According to an estimate made by Rev. T. W. Higginson, there are in fourteen of the United States, in all schools, both public and private, 152,339 male teachers, and 162,687 female teachers. In the New England States, according to his estimate, there are 45,619 male teachers, and 87,645 female teachers. In the Western States, settled mostly by New Englanders, we find the proportion of lady teachers greatest. We hope the number of lady teachers may increase in the different States in proportion to the increase of the population. In Brooklyn, L. I., there is a female seminary endowed by Mrs. Packer, which usually, we believe, has an attendance of between 300 and 400 pupils. "Matthew Vassar, Esq., of Poughkeepsie, it is said, has devoted a sum which will soon amount to $400,000 to the endowment of a college for girls in that city. He hopes to make it a rival of Yale, Brown, and Harvard. It is not to be free, but the tuition rates will be very low. In the plan provision is made for a library, cabinets, apparatus, galleries of art, botanical gardens, and the like. If well carried out, this institution may be a lasting monument to the wisdom and benevolence of Mr. Vassar."