46 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



women as among a hundred women selected from any class, and does 

 the state lose by the elimination of all others? 



Alumna 's marriage, then, means that a mature, independent, trained 

 woman deliberately chooses to give the direction of her life to a man, 

 because she loves him well enough to find in so doing her greatest 

 happiness. Of such a mating are alumna's children born — of a 

 'selected' father, of a mother who has at least had an opportunity 

 for knowledge — born to a heritage of intelligent love and care. So 

 they ought to be a power for good, even though they are few. But 

 just because they are of such a quality, society wants more of them; 

 and it behooves the state to determine why their numbers are so few. 



Yesterday I received some evidence on this question which seemed 

 to me pertinent. I spent the day with a member of this group ' having 

 a lower birth rate than any other.' She had recently buried her only 

 child, hardly a month old. As I was on my way to her, my mind went 

 over her past year; her hope that she might at last be strong enough 

 to bear a well child, the months of illness, the forty-eight hours of 

 agony, the supreme joy so soon followed by anxiety, and the awful loss. 

 And when I saw her face I could not speak. But she spoke, and with 

 a smile : ' Don 't pity me so. It paid ! it pays ! ' During the hours I 

 spent with her she showed me two books of letters, mostly from col- 

 lege friends of ours. One collection was received when her baby came, 

 the other when he went. 'I am so happy to know that your life has 

 been made complete' — this thought was expressed over and over again 

 in the letters of congratulation. Mothers or childless, all these women 

 seemed to know that any woman's life is incomplete until she has 

 known motherhood. Of those notes that came at the little one's death 

 from childless women, married or single, all said, in one phrase or 

 another, 'how much sadder than yourself am I, who have no child to 

 die.' These letters inevitably suggest the question, why are so few of 

 these women mothers, when all of them speak of motherhood as life's 

 greatest good? It seemed to me a very solemn question, and I went 

 over the list of those whom I know best and found what seems to me 

 a suggestive unanimity. 



There is A, the brightest girl in our class, kept from the really 

 brilliant literary career of which she is capable by her physical weak- 

 ness. She loves a man who is her ideal mate and he returns her love, 

 but they live their lives apart. A short time ago I said something to 

 her about her being married. ' ' Be married I ' ' she said. ' ' What right 

 have I to be married? My physician tells me that I am no more a 

 woman physically than is a twelve-year-old girl. What right have I 

 to give to any man an invalid wife and take away from him his hope 

 of children ? I shall never be married ! ' ' 



B has just adopted a baby, 'because I may never hope to have one 



