Anna Dickinson Speeches and Writings File Speech File "Standard Bearers in the Teacher's Battle"
Standard Bearers
In The Teacher's Battle.
By
Anna E. Dickinson.

1
=Every person of intelligence
in the City of new York is
interested in the fight certain
of its Public School Teachers
are putting up for Honesty
and Justice.
=Every tax-payer
having contributed - with
good-will or perforce, - his
or her share to the General
School Venture, naturally
and inevitably keeps an eye
— and interest behind
the eye - to his investment.
= All people, all tax-payers
 - direct and2
indirect, - men and
women, - the unmarried, -
the married with progeny,
child - many - or childless, -
are tied in the web that
cannot be parted from the
woof without ruin of the pattern.
= heedless to argue
What all allow; that
public safety and general
welfare are superstructures
that can be securely
founded only on a base
of universal education.
=The abler the workman
the better the work.

3
= The better the work. the
more liberal should be the
pay.
= for level of performance
should be equality of
compensation.
=There being "self-evident
proportions", those who
assent to them have cause
to powder the reports. rife
in the Daily Paper that
a few days ago three hundred
teachers of New-York approved
the petition to be sent - to the
Board of Education asking
for equalization of salaries
on the ground that they[*4*]
have to take the same 
examination, hold the 
same certificates, and do 
the same quality of work 
as certain other teachers" -- 
not paid as they.
= A plaine statement 
of business common sense. 
A fair one of equity. One 
would surmise needing 
no argument, nor calling 
for controversy, but clearly 
enunciating that not 
reason, but "petition", --
entreaty, -- prayer is 
needed to elicit any 
response --- even that 
of refusal.

[*5*]
= What-, then, are these
"three hundred"-- and
others for whom they
speak?
= Criminals, released
from [Triton?] "on time" herechance?
--Felons with ["tickets?] of --
-leave" quitting their debts
to the Community they have
wronged by working for
half wage however
admirable the labor?
= Aliens and refugees--
perhaps of Mongolian
type and texture, loathed
as lepers of American
political economy yet (6
coveted by YNKEE thrift as 
treasure-houses of Oriental
learning?
=For effect there must
be cause.
=Even so.
=In their case, nature's 
own.  - Perverted.
=The "three hundred"
and others for whom these
 Voices speak are Flowers
of Civilization's garden.--
Lamps that burn perfumed
oil, emitting healthful
fragrance as well as 
vitalizing light.-- Models
for emulation by embryo

(7
citizens. --Epitomes of the
best traditions and the 
clearest foresights of American
spirit - and life.
= Good and gifted
women.
=And here we touch 
the Throne of the Democratic
Republic of the United-States
and find the Regality and 
Domination - not of the
Crown, - of the Robe, - of the
Bench, - of the Brain, - of
the Sword, - of the Arm, -
of the Skin: - none of these: -
- but just  of the Sex!(8
=Being as wise, as well
informed, and better
equipped by Nature than
man for this work is the
balance to be struck of 
legitimate superiority and
illegitimate authority with 
a result of sub-pay for
super-accomplishment?
=There have always 
been found in the ranks
of women, officers a plenty
for the training schools of
youth, — in these latter 
days, well disciplined
in technical methods of
College and Normal School.
Women with a "vocation"

(9
for their mental and moral
hygiene, regarding it as
a sort of duty to do that
they have such power to do
even against the temptation
of more facile success of work
elsewhere. - Women with
genius to educe - draw
out, _ the best and clearest
even of the brutal and
the dull.
=Many women used to
teach — need of bread
and shelter spurring their
footsteps school-ward —
because their task of necessity
was "genteel," --even "lady-like".
--Work of all kinds now(10
being tolerated, [even] nay more, accepted
as a rule the woman who in
this present time teaches &
follows the inclination of her
own will, and so, in the
majority of cases, from the
outset is the superior of her
masculine competitor.
= At the beginning she 
bests him with the solvent
of sympathy.  The difficulty
of understanding little
children is exceeded
only by its importance.  In
the masculine eagerness to
put-away "childish things"
forgetfulness is close at 
heel of how he "understood

(11
as a child, thought as a 
child, spake as a child", -with 
her, through the childlike
but "understanding" heart
she comprehends and reaches
the brain.
= She surpasses him in
adaptability: - temperaments,
fears, surrounding conditions,
she moulds her method to
these her environments, -
and, as Edward Everett
said, "in education, the
method - the method
is everything."
=At the end of a 
half Century the truth[*12*]
proclaimed by President
Wayland stands unimpeached
and doubly impregnable by 
the sifted and solidified
evidence of Time. "It is a 
rare thing", he asserted, 
"to find a man who has a
gift for teaching, and it
is an equally rare thing to 
find a woman who cannot 
teach well." - A man 
may keep a difficult
school by means of authority
and physical fitness. A
woman can do it only by
dignity of character, affection,
and such superiority in


[*13*]
attainment as is too
conspicuous to be questioned.

= Even if their dictum
of the learned and observing
one be disputed by rival
pedagogue or his admiring
satellite, we get back to the
original proposition of this
petition: - equal wages
for equal work.

= And to this there is
absolutely no reason to oppose
but greed, - selfishness, -
lack of prescription.

= "Cockroach can never
justify himself to hungry
chicken", says the Creole proverb.[*14*]
="It is not the Custom."
=Void even of the apology
of [selfishness?], -- "excuse me
but it is my need; == the
less for you, the more for me,"
--this being one of the fortunate
cases in which acquistion 
on one hand is not balanced
by any loss elsewhere, --
rather, profit.  [Since?] to gain
for herself is to gain for the 
[world?].
= Each age owes its
debt, payable by the present
to the future.  --All honor
to the Fathers for their noble
work in founding Public Schools

[*15*]
--even though they paid men
instructors librally at expense 
of semi-pauperized women
teachers.
=Doubtless many of
them were conscious of their
discrepency in abstract
rectitude but were bound
by the necessities of their time
to answer with Solon, asked
if he could formulate no
better laws, "that they were
not the best he could have
made, but the best the
Athenians would observe."
= Pioneers in a great march
in advance of their age, shall
be only kept abreast with
them that we may lag behind
our own?[*16*]
=There is a very simple
and easily applied remedy
for this wrong.  The ballot in 
a woman's hand would
even all scores.  --It is not
mercy, generosity, the
granting of a prayer, --it is 
justice of which she stands
in need.
= John Neal once said,
"The ballot is a dollar
additional every day to 
the working man." --that,
and more!  -- would
it be any less to the working
woman?
= Which did Stuart-Mill
and John Bright--: petition 
the Aristocracy to found
Charity Schools and Hospitals,

[*17*]
and comfortable almshouses?
--or demand that the workers
of England have the right
that makes them powerful
for their own support and
protection?
=In this, as in all
movements forward there
are those, however, who,
even while they desire to 
advance, prefer to give for
their actions all sorts of reasons
save the best: --that women
should have the right and
the power to vote their own
compensation --as men do--
at the polls.
=Still, for those who
need, if they can gain a part





(18
while they contend for the whole,
by any decent means - their
well-wishers will say, - so be
it! — and, God speed!
= A great French lawyer
reproached with having
insisted upon and magnified
arguments that were
manifestly trivial in the 
midst of apt and able
ones, defended the seeming
absurdity by the claim that
when one is pleading it is 
necessary to give bad
reasons with good.  There
is always among the jurors
a stupid mind that is
touched by the first alone!

(19
= Thus one might say: - "Women
should be paid as much
as men, when they do the
same work equally well, -
not because it is their right,
but because some other women
- and men - now treat 
"male" teachers as Professors
and "female" teachers as
laborers, - beings to be "looked
down" upon.  Paid equally
they will be equally
respected.  — Dollars
talk. — And are honored.
= Or, - "if they had larger 
means they would have 
more elegant adornings.(20
Fine clothes beautify.  -- Men 
are caught by eye-service. -
The becomingly arrayed maid
will have more, and more
eligible suitors than she
of plain simplicity.  - Can
have her choice, - Can, with
speed, accomplish her
"woman's destiny of husband
and home," and gladly
leave her place for others
in this charmed and 
charming succession!
= Or, "if we could see
that women had others to
care for # (Query: - is a man
paid less if he is a 

(21
bachelor? --or more, if he 
has wife, and Rooseveltian
family, with Mother-in law
included, — even with
Subtraction of alimony
for No. 1. -?) - as though
that touched the problem 
of Right.
="Women with no one
but themselves to support:"
--I have known many working 
women, of high and low
degree, and I have yet to
find one who had not others
than herself to aid or
sustain;  - Father or
mother, sister or brother,
husband or child.  The[*22*]
Children of others if she
has taught to old age - alone - 
because she never cared to
shirk the burthen that
selfishness, or helplessness,
or mortal loss, or love
and pity had bound
to the shoulders of her
body and her soul.
= I can tell of a strong-hearted 
woman who 
deprived herself of all the
frills and furbelows dear
to a girl's taste, that her
dead sister's boy might
find a place in school from
which to climb to greater
outlooks, who then was 

(23.
told by him that at the 
beginning of his career it was
fit that he should receive
the same salary as she at the 
close of eight years service,
for the unanswerable reason
that he was a man, and 
she a woman.  Further,
that he hoped she would
soon marry — if she could.
An elderly maiden teacher
grew disputatious, and
unlovable with years!
= It is well that the
newspapers, however meagrely,
— more anon — are 
recording these contests.  They[*24*]
cannot report without support,
since truth rests with
these women and their protest. - Napoleon
said ´´I fear three newspapers
more than a hundred 
thousand bayonets." 
= Spirit of the [press?],
let us have light -
and more light - on this
dark wrong! - Compel the
acting Present to marvel
as the enlightened future
surely will, at the hardness
of heart and density of
prejudice on this subject
as we in this day marvel at
the learned and conscientious
believers in

[*25*]
the probity of the law that
gave the bride's dower to an
impecunious husband.
Authorized him to add to
it in the sum of her earnings.
And accounted him
generous if at death he
denied her the interest of
this her own money -
- so long as she should
remain his widow!

= It is fine that these
women have enlisted for
honorable warfare.

= "Begin naught - win
naught."

= They have begun. They
will win.

= If the School Board[*26*]
does not grant our
request this time, we are
first going to keep on
fighting", says Miss
Katherine Hogan.
   = Good. They are in
to stay.
   = Every  great cause
has had its struggles, - its
wearisome marchings, - its
battles, - its defeats, and
has learned how to make
refusal itself. Vantage
ground for more complete
and perfect triumph.
= Progress is the mode

[*27*]
of man - and woman.
= These teachers in their
success will do their share
in the work - slowly
pushing to completion
of translating "liberty
and equality" out of a
"dead language" into
living speech and 
practice.