IS EDUCATION OPPOSED TO MOTHERHOOD? 751 

 IS EDUCATION OPPOSED TO MOTHERHOOD ? 



By ALICE B. TWEEDY. 



IF, as Max Muller asserts, the first duty of honest philosophers 

 is definition, there can be no doubt that in following it many- 

 clouds of discussion may be swept away. Definitions are contin- 

 ually assumed, and we clothe our creeds in wordy obscurity that 

 totally hides their nature. No subject suffers more from this 

 error than the woman question. If debated words were rigidly 

 defined, and results placed barely before us, many sentimental 

 arguments would fail in foundation. 



In " Plain Words on the Woman Question," * Mr. Grant Allen 

 discusses a topic which, he thinks, is " too much overlooked by 

 modern lady writers." It is the continuation of the human race. 

 Intrenched behind population and marriage statistics, he opens 

 fire upon feminine reformers from a quarter where they have 

 made little defense. His text is if a race will continue, it must 

 reproduce itself. His argument may be briefly given as follows : 



I. Marriages are decreasing in England and America. 



II. Women of the cultivated classes are becoming unfitted for 

 motherhood. 



III. The movement which demands the independence and 

 higher education of women is responsible for this it creates 

 a "spiritless epicene automaton" and the "self-supporting 

 spinster." 



IV. The emancipation of women, especially from Mrs. Grundy, 

 is desirable ; but it must not conflict with the existence of mothers 

 who are necessary to the race. 



Mr. Allen states the needful conditions of a stationary popula- 

 tion in this manner : A father and mother are exactly represented 

 in another generation by two children, a boy and a girl. But, in 

 order that two may attain maturity, four \ must be born ; so that 

 either every woman must have four children, or those who do 

 marry must have more than four to make up the requisite num- 

 ber. From this he deduces: " The best ordered community will be 

 one where as large a proportion of women as possible marry. 

 Where many marriages and small families are the rule, the chil- 

 dren will on the average be born healthier, be better fed, and be 

 launched more fairly on the world in the end." 



After clearly stating and carefully explaining these indisputa- 

 ble facts, Mr. Allen startles us by acknowledging that " it may be 

 brutal and unmanly to admit or insist upon them," as he has been 



* " Popular Science Monthly," December, 1889. 



f This number is based upon the present proportion of children who become healthy 

 adults, statistics which ought to be materially altered for the better. 



