The shortage of teachers in America's classrooms is reaching epidemic proportions. The National Education Association (2003) predicted that nearly one million veteran teachers will retire within the next decade, and reported that the number of classrooms without qualified teachers increases each year. In this article, the authors contend that a…

The author reviews the entry of women into the teaching profession in nineteenth-century America, noting that, while the primary motivation for encouraging women to teach was that they could be paid less than men, this economic justification was obscured by sentimental pronouncements about women's superior moral and nurturant power. (SJL)