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THE MARKET TOR EDUCATED FEMALE LABOR. 14...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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¦ -^* I Have Been Asked To Prepare A Pap...
educated women , chiefly single or widowed , unsupported by their male relationsand in innumerable cases obliged to ort them .
But it may , be said , " Well , fifteen thousand is a supp large number ; but if an equivalent number of families require teachers , and can
afford to pay good salaries , it is mere sentimentality to regret that these ladies are forced to work . "
We can soon answer this supposition ; and here let me express hearty gratitude to the institution to which I have referred 9 for the
admirable and ample information which its printed reports bestow . I am acquainted with no such mass of statistics , no such resume
of facts regarding any class of our country-women , as are therein given to the world . If any one wants to learn the truth about the
condition of the educated Working woman in England , let him consult the reports of the Governesses' Benevolent Institution . It
is divided into several branches of usefulness . There is a Home for the disengaged at 66 , Harley-street , London , and an elaborate
system of Registration , by which last year fifteen hundred names were enteredand eleven hundred obtained situations . It may be
, recorded as a passing fact that the hall-book of the house _, where Home and Register are jointly locatedshould record the visitors
of one year as twenty-four thousand . There , is a Provident Fund for the securing of annuities , of which we are told that the first
payment , by a lady contracting for one of these annuities , was paid on the 20 th of June 1843 and that the amount now invested
is £ 177 , 292 10 s . 3 d . There , is , also a fund out of which Elective Annuities are createdand a system of temporary assistance
managed by a committe , e of ladies . The applications for this , in 1858 , were eight hundred and thirty-eight , and the grants four
hundred and ninety-three , to the extent of £ 1 , 346 8 s . 8 d . The total number of applications have been ten thousand three hundred
and thirty-four ; of grants , five thousand , iive hundred and seventythere one ; and is an the Asy total lum amount for Aged of Governesses gifts , £ 14 , 284 at Ken 12 s tish . 4 d . Town Lastl y it *
contains twenty-two apartments duly filled . ; My hearers will consider these statistics as a somewhat astounding
revelation of the need of assistance in which women stand . What should we think of educated men , who , after long lives of honest
and industrious labor , sank into such depths of poverty that they required wholesale help _Tby hundreds and thousands ; for the total
number of cases in nine years , to which the society has been useful , is twenty-six thousand Hve hundred and seventy-one .
Let us now see how and why these unhappy women endure such misery . We have roughly the means of ascertaining ; for every
May and every November an election occurs to tlie annuities , and I find one hundred and forty-five cases of candidates printed in the
list for last May , of whom some three or four only could receive an annuity . I take the first ten caseshap-hazardof those who have
, , in different years been elected ; they read in this wise : —
VOL . IV . M 2
The Market Tor Educated Female Labor. 14...
THE MARKET TOR EDUCATED FEMALE LABOR . 147
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1859, page 147, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111859/page/3/
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