Page:Women of distinction.djvu/390

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WOMEN OF DISTINCTION.

which, founded and mainly supported by missionary benevolence, have so materially contributed to the development of the South; and when we consider that the majority of the women who make up this percentage work for less wages than skilled nurses receive, and that often they walk miles, through mud, wet and cold, to buildings called school-houses that will barely afford shelter to beasts of the field; when we find them continuing in this work vear after vear more from a desire to advance the race than from any pecuniary advantage derived from teaching; when we realize that the children who sit daily under their loving and watchful care have also often walked miles with scarcely any protection from the inclemency of the weather (for we do not find the South one long summer day during the Northern winter months), and with little food to satisfy the appetite of youths, we begin to know something of the innate heroism of our race.

The Rev. A. D. Mayo, that well-known benefactor of humanity, who in discussing any phase of educational work speaks from years of experience, has recently issued a book of three hundred pages, entitled "Southern Women in the Educational Movement in the South." Referring to the education of the colored race he says:

And especially is the colored woman teacher—competent in acquirement, character, professional ability, religious consecration, womanly tact and practical, patient industry—such a benediction to her people as nobody can understand unless, like myself, he has seen year after year the development of this class of the teaching body in the border cities and through all the Southern States.

There are probably 8,000 colored women teaching school, the great majority of them in the common schools. Of course too many of