ession where such unsolved problems exist, for individual
cases, and we teachers are thus but a part of a noble army of
professional workers, so we take heart of grace, and are not ashamed.

But the fact remains to be considered that the work of school education
is, as the result of unavoidable destiny, in America, passing very
rapidly into the hands of women. We may deplore this, but we cannot
prevent it. The last census showed that the number of women teachers in
the United States stands already to that of the men as 123,980 to
78,709, and the ratio is daily increasing. There is no other country in
the world, then, where it is so all important that the girls should
receive a complete education. In one view, this tendency of the times is
of great value. The years spent in teaching are often the most valuable
training for the work of the mother. No other employment calls for a
greater exercise, and hence, a greater development, of the directive
power, and of the knowledge of human nature which will enable her well
and wisely to direct her children, successfully to grapple with the
"servant problem," and to sweep a large circle of details within the
compass of generalized rules. She has learned what industry means, not,
as was said by a Christian writer of the thirteenth century, only "to
pray to God, to love man, to knit and to sew." She has not
"everlastingly something in her hand, though no one profits by her
labor, and she is reduced to look for her sole reward in civil speeches
made for useless gifts, or insincere praise of household ornaments that
are in everybody's way," covers, and covers for covers, and covers for
covers of covers.

Many women "are busy, very busy; they have hardly time to do this thing,
because they really wish, or ought to do that, but with all their
driving, their energy is entirely dissipated, and nothing comes from
their countless labors," and I ask, in the words of a Russian woman, "Is
it not a great loss to the economy of society when such an amount of
strength is wasted and leaves behind it no good work!"

But many persons continually pursue self-contradictory ends, simply for
the reason that their education has been so narrow and limited that they
are not able to see these ends as self-contradictory.

Indeed, there are other disabilities than the physical for the duty of a
mother. "The want of self-control that comes of an objectless life, the
uninquiring habit of frivolous employmen