Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/1036

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
962
HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

acted in 1880 and applied to "school meetings," was re-enacted when the "town system' was established in 1892, and gave women the right to vote on school matters in the town meetings.

Office Holding: Since 1880 "women 21 years of age'" may be elected to the office of town clerk, and to all school offices.

In 1900 thirteen women were elected town clerks; six were serving as school directors, eighty-four as county superintendents and seventy-five as postmasters, according to the Vermont Register, which is not always complete.

Women sit on the State Board of Library Commissioners. In 1900 they were made eligible to serve as trustees of town libraries.

This year also a law making women eligible to the office of notary public was secured by Representative J. E. Buxton.

Occupations: No profession or occupation is legally forbidden to women.

Education: Equal advantages are accorded to both sexes in all the colleges, except that the State University, at Burlington, does not admit women to its Medical Department.

In 1888, Dr. E. R. Campbell, president of the society, reported as follows: "The Vermont Medical Society opens wide its doors to admit women, and bids them welcome to all its privileges and honors, on an equal basis with their brother physicians."

In the public schools there are 509 men and 3,289 women teachers. The average monthly salary of the men is $41.23; of the women, $25.04.

Progressive steps have been taken in the churches of most denominations. In 1892, for the first time, women were elected as delegates to the annual State Convention of the Congregational Churches. In 1900 there were fifteen accredited women delegates in the convention. The Domestic Missionary Society, an ally of this church, has employed sixteen women during the past year as "missionaries," to engage in evangelistic work in the State.

The Vermont Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, although it does not admit women to its membership, has passed resolutions five times in the last ten years, indorsing equal rights, and has petitioned the Legislature to grant them Municipal Suf-