ng
Colleges and subsidised secondary as well as elementary schools groan
under its tender mercies. The present forms taken by this control are
mostly obnoxious to all practical educationists. They arise from lack
of trust in the teaching profession on the part of administrators--a
mistrust which it is of primary importance to allay by increased
efficiency, independence, and organisation. Nationalisation of
the schools is necessary, if a real highway of education is to be
established: it must be obtained without irritating conditions which
make freedom, experiment, and progress too often impossible. The task
before the teaching profession is to retain full scope for initiative
and experiment, whilst working loyally under a public body. This
should be specially the work of the socialist teacher, while the
socialist administrator and legislator must see that their side of the
work leaves full room for individuality.

In the following section it is obviously impossible adequately to
consider all branches of the teaching profession, and it has therefore
been thought the wisest course to select the leading varieties of work
in which women teachers are engaged and to treat them in some detail.
The writers of the various articles express their own points of view,
gained by practical first-hand experience of the work they describe.
Allowance must, perhaps, in some cases be made for personal
enthusiasm, or for the depression that arises from thwarted efforts
and unfulfilled ideals. At any rate no attempt has been made to
co-ordinate the papers or to give them any particular tendency. As
a result, certain deductions may be made with some confidence. Women
teachers of experience are convinced of the manifold attractions of
their profession, and at the same time are alive to its disadvantages
as well as to its possibilities. Alike in University, secondary
school, and elementary school there is the joy of service, and the
power to train,

"To riper growth the mind and will.

"And what delights can equal those
That stir the spirit's inner deeps,
When one that loves, but knows not, reaps
A truth from one that loves and knows?"

Of all teachers, perhaps she who elects to work in an elementary
school is in this respect most fortunate and most rich in
opportunities, since, to many of her children, she is the one bright
spot in their lives, the one person who endeavours to understand and
to stimulate them to the effort whi