Not only is her salary low, but a mistress in a rural school often
has to live in a state of semi-isolation from social and intellectual
activities. It should excite no surprise, therefore, that mistresses
are reluctant to apply for such posts. This difficulty of shortage
of supply is having a sinister and subtle effect on the economic
interests of married women teachers, for, owing to the difficulty in
obtaining assistant teachers in rural districts, it frequently happens
that where the head teacher is a master, his wife, who may be a
fully qualified certificated teacher, has to act as his assistant and
receive the pay of a supplementary teacher.

During her years of service, each mistress in an elementary school
is required to contribute £2, 8s. per annum to the Government
Superannuation Fund. These contributions purchase a small annuity to
which the Government add a pension at the rate of 10s. for each year
of service. When she becomes qualified for a pension, the mistress
must surrender her certificate and cease to practise as a teacher,
so that, if we assume she has begun work at the age of twenty and
has continued teaching to the age of sixty-five, she will, after
forty-five years of recorded service, receive a pension of £22,
10s. per annum, plus the annuity which her contributions will have
purchased. It should, however, be mentioned that London and a few
other towns have established complementary schemes whereby teachers,
though contributing more, obtain pensions more commensurate with their
salaries. Under the Government scheme, the superannuation allowance
cannot become payable until the teacher has attained the age of
sixty-five years, and, even then, it can be obtained only by a teacher
whose years of recorded service are not less than half the number of
years which have elapsed since she became certificated; thus, if the
mistress, being certificated at the age of twenty, marries and, by the