SHORTER ARTICLES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 573 



SHORTER ARTICLES AXD DISCUSSION, 



DOES HIGHER EDUCATIOX VXFIT 

 WOMEN FOR MOTHERHOOD.' 



In a very interesting article in the 

 March number of the Popular Science 

 Monthly, Dr. Smith discusses a sub- 

 ject which is vital to the well-being of 

 our nation. The evils which he de- 

 plores are real and serious, but they are 

 caused, I would submit, not by excess 

 of education, as Dr. Smith has it, but 

 by excess of luxury and indolence. I 

 am inclined to agree with him that too 

 many of our young people have the 

 higher education bestowed on them, but 

 my reason for thinking so is, not that 

 their intellectuality and spirituality are 

 too highly cultivated and that their 

 ideals are consequently too high, but 

 that they are unworthy of the great 

 boon offered them and, not knowing 

 how to use it aright, are injured in- 

 stead of benefited : they leave college 

 without having become cultured or 

 intellectual. 



There can be no greater mistake than 

 to believe that intellectuality promotes 

 extravagance. Are our college pro- 

 fessors and men of science the extrava- 

 gant members of society? Literature, 

 botany, entomology — even music and 

 art — are inexpensive and healthful pur- 

 suits as compared with balls, recep- 

 tions, dinners and the whole round o'f 

 social functions. 



The most serious enemy to American 

 family life is society — in the narrower 

 meaning of the word. Xot only among 

 the wealthier classes do its functions 

 absorb enormous amounts of money 

 and time, but among the middle classes 

 also. Let any of our middle class 

 women who dare, sit down with paper 

 and pencil and write on one side the 

 amount of time given to calls, teas, 

 clubs, golf, dinners and the dress nec- 



essary for these functions, and in a 

 column opposite the time given to the 

 intellectual and spiritual welfare of her 

 children. Most of them would not like 

 to show, or look at, the balance sheet. 

 Many of them would say, if they were 

 frank, 'Oh, school takes care of my 

 children's intellects and Sunday-school 

 of their religion.' Too true. And here 

 lies one of the great evils of our mod- 

 ern primary education, to which I will 



I just allude in passing, as it is too vast 

 a subject to introduce here. The school 

 is trying to do mothers' work and nec- 



! essarily failing, but, owing to the time 

 devoted to this failure, the school is 

 prevented from doing the work which 

 it. should and could do and used to do. 

 I will just give one example and pass 

 to a more direct consideration of the 

 subject in hand. For twenty years 

 or more our schools have been trying 

 to instill a love of English literature 

 into their pupils. Can any one who 

 knows the results doubt the failure? 

 They are just launching out on what 

 many of us believe will be a similar 

 futile effort in regard to nature study. 

 A walk in the woods with a mother 

 or father who has an enthusiasm for 

 botany, entomology or mineralogy is 

 worth ten lessons in the class room or 

 even in the woods with a teacher and 

 forty other children. The book or the 

 poem that mother and child read 

 together because they love it and each 

 other, even if they do not know much 

 about the unities or the functions of 

 the various parts, is more likely to 

 stimulate a love of reading than the 

 most exhaustive and exhausting study 

 in the class room. 



Now, how are we to produce mothers 

 who will love this work and hug it to 

 themselves as their greatest blessing? 



