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WOMEN ON SCHOOL BOARDS

Rev. Williams say 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.

WOMEN ON SCHOOL BOARDS

Rev. Williams say 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.