ties, to combining of two
or three married women in positions that might be filled by one
spinster, and to other social expedients favorable to married life;
and that all that is needed is good sense and some skill of
administrative adjustment to keep the larger majority of good teachers
in the field after they are wives and mothers.

Moreover, from the point of view of the family, it is injurious for
social practice to keep women who have the qualities of good teachers
from marrying lest they lose their beloved profession. It is one of
the best, although one of the least tried, ways of bringing the school
and the home together by giving a good many teachers a clearer idea
from personal experience of what the home needs from the school, and
giving mothers a clearer idea of the reasons for school rules by
having them serve in both capacities. The normal school education of
women was obtained by appeals based on the fact of the first half of
the nineteenth century that unless women teachers were secured and
trained for the task the elementary school could never be enabled to
fill the need of the public school system. The fact of the early part
of the twentieth century should be as deeply pressed, the fact that
there are not enough women teachers of education and character for
elementary school service unless we mix teaching and marriage for many
of them. This fact should make a social appeal to-day equal to that of
Horace Mann's great mission.

If we are to have enough elementary school teachers and continue to
increase the number from the most fit women for the task, we must also
institute a new social backing for the profession. In this connection
one is obliged to deal with the disrespect shown the average teacher
of little children and even of the high school and college instructor
as compared with leaders in other professions. The teacher of little
children is most often a woman, and if a woman away from home and
especially in some rural communities is very nearly a social outcast.
The "teacherage" is just beginning to be called for as the suitable
home for the teachers of a school; a "teacherage" which can become a
social centre if near the school building, and thus be uniquely
useful. The jointure of all the best homes in a community with all the
wisest teachers in that community, not alone for the occasional
discussion of "School Problems" or "Home Problems," but for some
common public work which will link both