WOMEN INSPECTORS.
rro THE EDITOR OF THE"SPECTATOR."]
Sm,—I am a woman, and have been for eight years at the head of a large school, and I read with much pain the letter of "A School-Board Mistress," in your impression of August 3rd. As she speaks not only for herself, but for many others, I should be glad, through your columns, to say one word for myself and many other teachers as to the opinions she expresses.
It is not at all surprising to me that the writer, with her views as to women, should object to women Inspectors. If women, as by her showing, are unjust, partial, small, interfering, and over-
bearing by nature, away with them, by all means, as inspectors. But can we stop here ? Let us be consistent. Can the unjust, the partial, the small, the interfering, and the overbearing by nature, be teachers ? I have, like your correspondent, been ' at the head of a large school for years, and if I have proved one thing more surely than another during those years of learning as well as teaching, it is that justice, impar- tiality, largeness of sympathies, and kindness of natureare the first elements of a noble teacher. Has "A School-Board Mistress" found all these in her women teachers, and does she yet believe them impossible in the woman inspector? Let me add that I have had my school examined both by men and women examiners, and while always receiving kindly and efficient help from the "stronger sex," the ability, thoroughness, and pains shown by one woman examiner have certainly never been surpassed, I might almost say, equalled.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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