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WOMEN ON SCHOOL BOARDS

Rev. Williams Says They Are Entitled to Representation.

In regard to the candidacy of Mrs. Peattie for member of the board of education, and the fight against her by those who say they oppose the entrance of women into politics, the following letter by Rev. John Williams, pastor of St. Barnabas Episcopal church, will prove interesting:

To the Editor of the World-Herald--It has been reported to me that many foreign born voters are going to vote against Mrs. Peattie, simply because they are opposed to the entrance of women into political life. If service on the school board meant, or if it ought to mean, political service I should be in fullest sympathy with the objection, and would most certainly vote against Mrs. Peattie, and against any other woman, even though she were more highly fitted still for the position.

But service on the school board means something higher and greater than mere political service. It means duty in the service of the higher life of the nation, in the sphere of its intellectual and moral life. From that duty surely women should not be shut out. If there is anything to which God calls womanhood surely it is to help train the young in purity and moral culture. Moreover, surely if women are to be the teachers of youth of both sexes in the class room, as they are to an undue excess, in my judgment, so far as boys are concerned, it is too late, yes, wrong to object to womanly oversight as to how that work is done, or how it may be best advanced by bright, true womanly women who would come into constant intercourse with the teachers, to learn the difficulties and dangers which beset mixed education in a large city like ours, and to take counsel with teachers in the startling problems which come before them for solution constantly.

It goes without saying that men cannot, at least they will not, give our school life the personal attention, which that life demands. When they are not too busy to perform to perform the puties of close personal supervision which the school committee of fifty, or even thirty, years ago used to give to the public schools under their charge, they are too indifferent to the matter to do it. Women, should they be chosen from the ranks of true womanhood, would attend to the duty of looking after the children, and the moral life of the schools; while the men attended to the politics of the janitors, and to the proper care of their "friends," the contractors and political workers.

Instead of one true woman, there ought to be at least five. If they ever became dangerously unruly, the men could outvote them two to one. Personally, I do not think that women on the school board would bring about the educational Millenium, any more than their presence brings about the millennium anywhere else. But on the school board women would be in their God-appointed sphere, looking after the training of the youth of the nation, sharing that duty on equal terms with men. Mrs. Peattie, if elected, would be the first woman on our school. Her election should be followed up next year by the election of two others, at least, and the next year by one, or more.

It would be well, doubtless, for business reasons, to let the preponderance of members remain in favor of men, but for moral reasons every school board should have one-third of its membership composed of women. I would not appeal to foreign-born citizens to vote for a woman were she a candidate for a political position, but this position is not political. I would not ask them, either, to vote for Mrs. Peattie for any sentimental or selfish reason, and yet, if there be an American born man or woman in this city who has been fairer or juster, or more generous to the foreign born than she, I do not know where the man or woman lives.

One objection more to Mrs. Peattie, let me notice. It has been said, and conscientiously enough, doubtless, and in a sense, truly, that Mrs. Peattie stands opposed to the Christian religion; and so it is said her influence would be dangerous on the school board. Well, sir, if we were in the habit of making Christian orthodoxy, or any religious character whatever, a test as to fitness for membership on the school board. I would sympathize with applying it to Mrs. Peattie. But if men are to go without application of the text, it seems worse than mean to apply it to a woman, whose life and character, apart from certain intellectual conceptions, or misconceptions of Christianity, is though and through Christian.

Intellectual Christianity is barred in the public schools. I wish it were not, but it is; but Christian morals are not barred, though they can be too largely ignored. It is because I would have the enforcing of the moral virtues of the Christian religion more fully provided for, that I would have women on the school board. To mould and teach the young in the moral virtues is woman's special province. Mrs. Peattie would seek to do that well and conscientiously; and so for the schools' sake her election should be assured by an all but unanimous vote, not for her sake, for it is an unpaid office, but for the sake of the young of the city.

JOHN WILLIAMS.