Poetry Archives

(A by-law of the New York Board of Education says: “No married woman
shall be appointed to any teaching or supervising position in the New
York public schools unless her husband is mentally or physically
incapacitated to earn a living or has deserted her for a period of not
less than one year.”)


CHARACTERS

Board of Education.
       Three Would-Be Teachers.

Chorus by Board:
  Now please don’t waste
    Your time and ours
  By pleas all based
    On mental powers.
  She seems to us
    The proper stuff
  Who has a hus-
    Band bad enough.
  All other pleas appear to us
  Excessively superfluous.

1st Teacher:
  My husband is not really bad——

Board:
    How very sad, how very sad!

1st Teacher:
    He’s good, but hear my one excuse——

Board:
    Oh, what’s the use, oh, what’s the use?

1st Teacher:
    Last winter in a railroad wreck
    He lost an arm and broke his neck.
    He’s doomed, but lingers day by day.

Board:
    Her husband’s doomed! Hurray! hurray!

2nd Teacher:
    My husband’s kind and healthy, too——

Board:
    Why, then, of course, you will not do.

2nd Teacher:
    Just hear me out. You’ll find you’re wrong.
    It’s true his body’s good and strong;
    But, ah, his wits are all astray.

Board:
    Her husband’s mad. Hip, hip, hurray!

3rd Teacher:
  My husband’s wise and well—the creature!

Board:
  Then you can never be a teacher.

3rd Teacher:
  Wait. For I led him such a life
  He could not stand me as a wife;
  Last Michaelmas, he ran away.

Board:
  Her husband hates her, Hip, hurray!

Chorus by Board:
  Now we have found
    Without a doubt,
  By process sound
    And well thought out,
  Each candidate
    Is fit in truth
  To educate
    The mind of youth.
  No teacher need apply to us
  Whose married life’s harmonious.

         (Curtain.)