Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 285, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1910 — BAN ON UNMARRIED WOMEN [ARTICLE]

BAN ON UNMARRIED WOMEN

Tufts’ President Says Middle-Aged Spinsters Should Be Banished as College Teachers. Medford, Mass.—President Frederick W. Hamilton of Tufts college has come out with the positive assertion that unmarried woman teachers should be barred from girls’ colleges because their influence is harmful. He says: “I do not believe that young girls who are just passing into young womanhood are in the proper environment when they are continually brought Into close personal touch with elderly unmarried women. “The larger proportion of women’s colleges are In the hands of woman teachers, however, and the educational atmosphere of the places Is feminine, the peculiar type of feminity developed by highly cultured, middleaged unmarried women. Now, while the type may be very fine individually, it Is not the proper one to create the atmosphere for girls at the formative period of their lives. “Girls just coming into womanhood are receiving their most valuable Impressions and their future attitude toward the questions of this time. Their outlook on life, which I believe Is the most important part of the college training, should be broad, and It cannot be so unless formed In an environment of breadth. “In the lower grades of the schools, too, and in preparatory schools the Influence of the unmarried, middleaged woman is counteracted by the dominating Influence of the home. I believe that an element of married teachers, widows, who were teachers before marriage, perhaps, would be beneficial. The relationship of these schools and their pupils is different, however, because the pupils live at home. The girls at college live a purely academic life. They are on their resources and they face problems that are quite new to them. They are to be trained to become competent and important parts of life, we hope. They need a large outlook and a broad viewpoint. The elements which go to give these must be brought Into their lives at this psychological time, and all elements that tend toward narrowness should be eliminated.”