I shall not occupy your time further this morning. I only present
briefly the mother's claim, as it is so universally conceded. We
now have in our schools a very large majority of women teachers,
and it seems to me no one can but recognize the fact that mothers,
through their experience in the family, mothers who are at all
competent and fit to fulfill their position as mothers in the
family, are best fitted to understand the needs and at least
should have an equal voice in directing the management of the
schools, and also the management of penal and reformatory
institutions.

I was in hopes that Mrs. Wallace would give you the testimony she
gave us in the convention of the wonderful, amazing good that was
accomplished in a reformatory institution where an incorrigible
woman was taken from the men's prison and became not only very
tractable, but very helpful in an institution under the influence
and management of women. That reformatory institution is managed
wholly by women. There is not a man, Mrs. Wallace says, in the
building, except the engineer who controls the fire department.
Under a management wholly by women, the institution is a very
great success. We feel sure that in many ways the influence and
power that the mothers bring would tend to convert many conditions
that are now tending to destruction through vices, would tend
to elevate us morally, purify us, bring us still higher in the
standard of humanity, and make us what we ought to be, a holy as
well as a happy nation.



REMARKS BY MRS. SARA A. SPENCER, OF WASHINGTON.