CHAPTER FIVE
OHIO WOMEN IN EDUCATION
Introduction By EVANGELINE LINDSLEY
(Executive Board Member, Ohio Education Association)
Teaching was the first professional occupation that took women of Ohio outside their homes. The first woman teacher of the state on record is BATH SHEBA ROUSE, daughter of John and Rebecca Rouse, who came from New Bedford, Mass. She taught at Belpre (a community which later became part of the state of Ohio) during the summer of 1790. For several subsequent summers she taught at Farmers Castle. Her schools included both boys and girls and the one at Belpre is believed to have been the first establishment for the edu- cation of white children within the present limits of Ohio. In the almost 150 years between then and now, 167,527 different women, it is estimated, have devoted a large part of their time, often their entire working lives, to the education of other women’s children. This estimate is derived from an aggregate of 1,675, 269 teacher years, by assuming that women teachers have averaged a service of ten years each. The figures include public and parochial schools, colleges and universities of the state. It is estimated that the number of different pupils educated in the schools of Ohio since the beginning of statehood totals 11,774,827. This is on the basis of 82,423,790 pupil years, divided by seven, on the assumption that pupils have averaged, during the entire period, about seven years in school. This average is regarded as probably a little high, so that this a conservative estimate of the total number of different children who have been educated in the schools of Ohio. Today we have 30,175 women employed in the public schools of Ohio, about 463 in private schools, about 3,642 in Catholic and other parochial and religious schools and approximately 862 in Ohio col- leges and universities. The modern school is no place for temporary workers. On the contrary, teaching is a highly specialized business for which years of
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