Unbridling the Tongues of Women - The University of Adelaide

Unbridling the tongues of women
England, and sanctioned by the laws of the creator. While she devoted one chapter
to trades unions and strikes, she was prepared to argue that workers in such essential
services as the post, telegraph, gas supply and the railway should not be allowed to
strike, and – taking a leaf from William Ellis’s book – she maintained that ‘As a general
rule, strikes, when they are successful, are a loss’. 34 Such views probably sounded
less conservative in 1880 than they do now; unionism was still a new growth in
Australia at that time, and Spence did make clear her approval for craft unionism.
She was criticised for covering too much ground: ‘political economy, trades unions,
insurance companies, and newspapers’, her detractors objected, ‘were outside the
scope of the laws we live under’, but Spence considered that ‘in a new State where
the optional duties of Government are so numerous, it was of great importance for
the young citizen to understand economic principles’. She was proud of the book,
and towards the end of her life, hoped that it had influenced the citizens of the day. 35
Jeanne Young remembered children wishing that Miss Spence could be left in the
cupboard. 36 Nevertheless, Spence’s book may have stirred some of the young women
who read it. In its first chapter she announced that
The progress of the world … depends on the character and conduct of its
women as much as on that of its men; and there can be no greater mistake
for girls to make than to suppose they have nothing to do with good
citizenship and good government. 37
By this time she was supporting, with active promotion, the advanced education of
girls.
Secondary education for boys had been available in South Australia, to those
who could afford it, since 1847 when wealthy Anglicans formed a proprietary school
that was to become St Peter’s School Collegiate. Other denominational and private
schools for boys followed. But while there were countless attempts to found private
secondary schools for girls, none had survived that offered an education comparable
with that provided at Melbourne’s Presbyterian Ladies’ College. 38 The question of
government-funded advanced education for girls gained considerable attention during
the 1870s, when the whole education system was under debate. Howard Clark
asked Spence to write some articles on the subject for the Register. Spence complied,
arguing first that changes in population growth and movement were forcing unprecedented
numbers of women into the paid labour force, and second, that industrialisation
of domestic produce was leaving housewives idle and frustrated. Both should
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