l is little
more--the controllers say _no_. If this action is influenced by a
belief that women cannot control a school of boys, we hope that
the experience in the case of Mrs. McManus will dispel the
illusion, and the public can afford to await the result of the
trial. But if it is caused by a regard to tradition or precedent,
or because there never has yet been an instance of a woman being
a principal of a boys' grammar-school before this case of Mrs.
McManus, we hope that the controllers will soon see the error of
their course. The complaints from the sections are to the effect
that it is very difficult to get a competent male teacher to
remain principal of a boys' grammar-school for any length of
time. The salary attached to that position is inadequate,
according to the increased cost of living of the times. Gentlemen
who are competent to act as principals of the public schools find
that they can make more money by establishing private schools;
and hence they are uneasy and dissatisfied while in the public
service. A woman able to take charge of a boys' grammar-school
will be paid a more liberal salary (such is the injustice of our
social system in relation to female labor) in that position than
in any other connected with education that she can command, and
she will therefore be likely to be better satisfied with the
duties and to perform them more properly. That such advantage
ought to be held out to ladies competent to be teachers of the
highest grade, we firmly believe. The field of female avocations
should be extended in every legitimate direction; and it seems to
us, unless some reason can be given for the exception, which has
not yet been presented in the case of Mrs. McManus, that the
principalships of the boys' grammar-schools ought to be
accessible to ladies of the proper character and qualification,
without the imputation that by reason of their sex they must
necessarily be unfitted for such duties.

In preparing themselves for the medical profession, for which the
most conservative people now admit that women are peculiarly
adapted, students have encountered years of opposition, ridicule
and persecution. After a college for women was established in
Philadelphia,[259] there was another long struggle before their
right to attend the clinics in the hospi