These facts explain why it is that local authorities, bent on
keeping down the rates, have been enabled to obtain the services of
certificated teachers at the scale of salaries which they advertise
for uncertificated teachers: in fact many fully qualified certificated
teachers have been forced to work for a rate of payment lower than
that received by an unskilled labourer; a natural corollary to this
condition of things is that many would-be teachers refuse to expend
time and money on training.

This state of affairs has had one other effect which is of vital
importance when the economic position of women teachers is being
considered, namely, that local authorities, in order to appease the
popular outcry against this apparently overstocked market, have been
led to sanction regulations for the compulsory retirement of women
teachers on marriage. Happily the London County Council has not
succumbed to this temptation, and there are other equally enlightened
authorities. But constant watchfulness is needed in order to prevent
retrogression in this matter. Young teachers, anxiously awaiting
promotion, sometimes foolishly resist the appointment or retention of
married women. This is a suicidal policy, to be resisted at all costs,
both in the interests of the teachers and of the children. Salaries
are bound to remain low, while women are forced to consider their
profession in the light of a stop-gap until marriage, and not as
a life-work. Moreover, there are real dangers in entrusting girls'
education entirely to unmarried women. The salaries of assistant
teachers vary very considerably. In no single instance is a woman
teacher paid the same rate of salary as a man of the same professional
status. This is true even when the work is identical in character, as
is the case in mixed schools and pupil teachers' centres. One of the
results of this inequality of payment is that women teachers are often