Women Workers in Seven Professions | Page 7

cover or partially to cover college fees. In some counties only one or two such scholarships are given annually, and there is severe competition: in others they are comparatively easy to obtain, though there are never enough for all candidates who desire a University education. Most of these scholarships are not renewable for a fourth year of training--an extremely short-sighted policy on the part of the authorities.
At practically every University, entrance or other scholarships and exhibitions are awarded annually. Competition for these is usually very severe, and they are extremely difficult to gain. At Oxford and Cambridge only quite exceptional candidates can hope to secure scholarships at the women's colleges. Moreover, scholarships seldom cover the complete cost of maintenance and tuition; at Oxford and Cambridge they never do so.
Most secondary teachers, then, must incur liabilities varying from ��60 to ��350, apart from school, holiday, and personal expenses, before they obtain their first degree. On the other hand, a graduate with good testimonials can very often obtain her professional training at comparatively small cost by means of a bursary: with luck, she may get maintenance as well as free tuition. Every year, however, as training is more widely recognised as essential, the proportion of scholarships available becomes smaller. With the advent of the new Teachers' Register, which makes training indispensable after 1918, girls will more and more often be obliged to find means to pay for their own training. At present it is often possible to borrow for this purpose from loan societies specially formed to meet the needs of women preparing to enter professions.
The training for kindergarten and lower-form mistresses is less expensive, arduous, and lengthy. Students are required to give evidence of having received a good secondary education; they can then take their First Froebel Certificate after one year, and their Higher Froebel Certificate after about two years' training. The cost of such training varies from ��30 to ��58 non-resident; ��120 to ��150 resident. If they elect to go to the House of Education at Ambleside, the training is for two years, and is specially suited to those who wish to teach in private families. The cost amounts to ��90 a year, including residence, which is obligatory.
Kindergarten assistant-mistresses usually obtain from ��90 to ��100 salary for part-day work, while for whole-day work the rate is the same as that of their colleagues. Mistresses in charge of a large kindergarten department often receive additions to their stipend if they are willing to train student-mistresses for Froebel examinations.
The Ambleside students usually teach small private classes, or accept posts as resident governesses in families. Their remuneration varies in accordance with the work done, but it is usually about the same as that received by kindergarten and lower-form mistresses.
The stipends of other secondary teachers are considered in the article by Dr O'Brien Harris (see p. 32). It should be noted that in good private schools where the standard of teaching is equally high, the salaries are approximately on the same scale as in public schools. But private schools vary enormously in standing. When they are inferior, the teachers are paid miserable pittances, and are often worth no more than they receive. Such schools, however, are rapidly decreasing in number, since they cannot survive competition with public State-aided schools. The best private schools, on the other hand, supply a real need, and, as a large proportion of their pupils do not enter for public examinations, it is possible in them, to make valuable experiments which could not easily be tried in larger subsidised institutions.
In boarding-schools, the conditions do not markedly differ from those obtaining in day-schools. The chief danger is lest the teachers should suffer from the strain of supervision-duties in addition to their work in school. But in the better schools this is avoided by the appointment of house-mistresses, the teaching staff living apart from the girls, either in lodgings or in a hostel of their own. When they "live in," the value of their board for the school terms is usually reckoned at about ��40 a year, which is deducted from the ordinary salary of an assistant. The cost of living in a mistresses' house is usually higher, but there are many counterbalancing advantages, the chief of which is complete freedom when school duties are over.
It would not be surprising if all women who have incurred the heavy expenses of preparation for a teaching career, were dissatisfied with the very small return they may expect by way of salary. Certainly if we judged by the standard of payment, the profession might well appear unimportant. 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