The education and employment of women / by Josephine E. Butler.

  • Butler, Josephine Elizabeth Grey, 1828-1906.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The education and employment of women / by Josephine E. Butler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    “for one little year, and could feel the dreariness I speak of, “ feel too the intense longing to be up and doing, helping “in the world’s work which is God’s work, and know the “ depressing effect of that inaptitude, which is the want, not “ of capacity or of faculty, hut of training. The serious work “ of life needs all the help that women as well as men can “ bring to it, and for helpfulness something more than goodwill “ is needed. Always have my own ignorance and helplessness “ been the hindrances to that for which I would have freely “ given my life ; and I know that other women feel in just the “ same way : I have heard and known too much of thoughtful “ women not to he sure of this. Confessions of this kind, “ the simplest and frankest confessions of ignorance, and of “ why that ignorance is painful, have been made to me many a “ time by women whom the world pleases to think clever, hut “ who are too true-hearted to believe the world. “ It-is not as luxury that we crave knowledge, hut as bread “ of life for ourselves and others. We want it that we may “ distribute it to others, with helpful hands and words of “ blessing. We want it as the lever by which we may help to “raise the world. If we thought only of gratifying vanity, “ there are easier and shorter ways to that end. Whilst men “ are a little too apt to depreciate the intelligence of women as “ a class, they are apt to over-rate the intelligence of in- dividual women whom they may happen to know and esteem. “ Many a woman is credited with power merely because she “ has never been brought to the test of performance.” For the amelioration of the condition of female teachers two things are necessary : the first is to raise the intellectual status of qualified teachers, and to accord a juster social re- cognition to their profession ; the second is, to find other occupations for those who are unfit to teach, and only take to teaching because they can do nothing else.