our women can do. Many will go
back to home work, of course; there are large numbers who are working
in our country, only while their husbands are away, and when they
return will find their work in their homes again.
We are offering special training opportunities to the young widow of
the soldier or officer.
In special branches of work our opportunities are very much greater
and better. Medicine is one of the professions in which women have
very specially made good. Better training opportunities have opened,
more funds have been raised to enable women of small means to get
medical education, and the Queen herself gave a portion of a gift of
money she received, for this purpose. Most medical appointments are
open to them now and they have been urged by the great medical bodies
to enter for training in still greater numbers in the different
Universities, and have done so.
More research is being done by them in every department. In
professions such as accountancy, architecture, analytical chemistry,
more and more women are entering. In the banking world women have done
very satisfactory work, and one London bank manager, asked to say what
he thought of prospects after the war, says he is very strongly of
opinion it will continue to be a profession for women after the war.
This manager thinks the question of higher administrative posts being
open to women will depend entirely on themselves and their work, and
what they prove capable of achieving and holding, they will certainly
have.
In the war, one profession, in particular, has come nearer to finding
its rightful place than ever before--the teaching profession. Their
salaries which, in too many cases, were disgracefully low, have been
raised. The woman teacher has shown her capacity in new fields of
work in the boys' schools, but it is in another sense that their
profession, both men and women, but very specially the women, have
achieved a very real gain in the war.
The teachers of the country have done a very great deal of war work
of every kind. The National Register of 1915 was largely done by their
labour. The War Savings Associations and Committees owe a great debt
to teachers and inspectors, who are the backbone of the movement,
headmistresses are asked constantly to help in securing trained women,
taught to work in Hospitals on their holidays, on land, in organizing
supplies and comforts in canteens and clubs, and more and more are put
on official Commi
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