IS EDUCATION OPPOSED TO MOTHERHOOD? 755 



but there have been clear-headed women enough in all antiquity, 

 and there are too many well-developed minds among them to-day, 

 not to make them resent further tricking out with masculine 

 trappings. The wise old Greeks saw fit to personify mind in a 

 woman ; the moderns seem to be afraid of such a result. 



If education must be specialized, and women should be fitted 

 to become wise mothers, then, in all fairness, men should be 

 trained to become intelligent fathers. Their lack in this respect 

 is as palpable to any just mind as the failure of women in moth- 

 erhood. That there should be fathers, and good fathers, is no less 

 important, from a utilitarian standpoint, than that there should 

 be good mothers. Indeed, it may be questioned whether there 

 are not annually more children lost to the world through the 

 wickedness and ignorance of male parents * than would be gained 

 by the conversion of all " self-supporting spinsters " into model 

 matrons. It is not necessary to enter into detail here, but appall- 

 ing statistics are easily obtainable. Until no foundling hospital, 

 no abandoned family exists, it is ungenerous to reproach woman 

 with evading or " shirking " her natural duties. Postponement 

 of marriage by men results in another not inconsiderable evil, 

 false marriage f of many young women. Nature often revenges 

 herself here by a lack of mothers. The wiser plan would be to 

 follow the teaching of Nature and not dissociate the sexes, par- 

 ticularly during impressionable years. In study, work, or society, 

 do not bar them from each other ; then they will not form the 

 erroneous notions that taint maturity. Let them be " human, 

 instead of half -human." 



III. The most evident good of education to woman, aside from 

 the discipline of mind and development of power, is in its teach- 

 ing observation of nature and the intelligent use rather than the 

 repression of any instinct or force. Those who assert that these 

 influences " unsex " woman, render her " unwomanly/' should ex- 

 plain what is meant. She may lose some of the characteristics 

 that have distinguished her in the past, but while analytic or 

 radical minds call these characteristics local and temporary, con- 

 servatives cling to them as part of essential womanhood. It may 

 be observed that, although Mr. Allen holds fast to the term of 

 " radical," he agrees with our dear old great-grandmothers in this 

 apprehension that education % and independence unfit women to 

 become mothers. To these timid souls may be recommended a 



* Meaning the sex as a whole. The large class with which we are best acquainted 

 includes fathers whose fidelity to duty and patient toil equal, if they do not surpass, those 

 of the hardest-working mothers. 



f Marriage under coercion, or from social or ambitious motives, ignores natural selec- 

 tion, and is often unproductive. A striking example of this is given in France, where false 

 marriage prevails. 



% The same education as that given to man. 



