years, when she knows less of the world, less of the problems of the household, less of the outlook of the parents.  It must be remembered that the parents’ point of view is important if there is to be right co-operation between home and school.  To the teacher-mother there will come an altogether new power of understanding, which should ultimately compensate the school for broken time during the earlier years of the life of her children.  Provision for absence in these cases might well render more possible provision for a “rest-term” or a Wanderjahr, such as should be possible to all mistresses at intervals in their teaching career.  Mistresses are not as a rule aware that under most existing agreements they may claim to continue their work after marriage.  They would in a large number of cases be rendering a service to girls’ education by doing so.  Many secondary teachers will welcome the idea that they need not abandon either the career they have chosen or the prospect of their fullest development as women.  The teaching profession would thus retain many valuable members now lost to it on marriage, and the ranks of married women be recruited by many well suited to be the mothers of citizens.

The career of teaching adolescent girls gives to those following it, in the daily routine, many experiences which others seek for in leisure hours.  The woman among girls has the privilege of handing on to them the keys to the intellectual treasuries where she has enriched herself, of setting their feet in the paths which have led her to fruitful fields.  She may watch over the birth and growth of the reasoning powers of her pupils and guide them to their intellectual victories, initiating them into the great fellowship of workers for truth.  It is interesting but it is not easy work.  We have seen that the material recompense of the teacher is not great, and if she looks for other return she will too often be disappointed.  And yet there is compensation.  Here as elsewhere he that saveth his life shall lose it; but he that loseth his life shall indeed find it.

[Footnote 1:  “A secondary school ... is a school which provides a progressive course of general education suitable for pupils of an age-range at least as wide as from twelve to seventeen” (Board of Education, Circular 826).]

[Footnote 2:  Lecture on “The Life of a Teacher” given to the Fabian, Women’s Group, 1912.]

[Footnote 3:  Miss I.M.  Drummond, loc, cit.]

[Footnote 4:  By the Conditions of Registration issued November 1913, one year’s training will be required for all entering the profession after the end of 1918.]

[Footnote 5:  Miss I.M.  Drummond loc. cit. For example, a science graduate with special qualifications in geography, three years’ experience, and a training diploma has recently been appointed to a leading London High School at a salary of L110, with no agreement for yearly or other augmentation. [EDITOR].]