ELEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART XI 687 



The time seems to have come when not only the question of separate 

 institutes for women should bo considered, but that of a division of the 

 funds for institute work as well, so that a share shall be devoted to itin- 

 erant instruction for women and for the general uplifting of domestic 

 life in the country home equal to that which is now expended for the 

 improvement of men's work in the orchard, stable, and field. 



EDUCATED MOTHERHOOD. 



BEFORE MAHASKA COUNTY FARMERS' INSTITUTE, BY MRS. L. E. CORLETT,. 

 OSKALOOSA, IOWA. 



Our language teems with praises of motherhood. Poets have used 

 the theme for their sweetest strains. Orators, for their most pleasing 

 periods, ministers for their most stirring sermons. A mother is the com- 

 mon and crowning possession of all mankind. Great men of the world 

 have taken the laurel crowns from their own brow and brought them to 

 the feet of their mothers as the place where honor belongs. No office in 

 the world is so honorable as hers, no priesthood so holy, no influence so 

 sweet and strong. Whether educated or ignorant, cultured or crude, 

 free or fettered, refined or repulsive, a mother and a mother's love is the 

 crown of life. 



For the tremendous responsibility of motherhood — the bearing and 

 rearing children, the companion and mother of men — no woman' can be 

 too well equipped, too well prepared, mentally, morally and physically. 

 Women should aim at perfection. Education in the true sense, is to ob- 

 tain the qualifications for life — for living in the best, the broadest, the 

 highest, the deepest sense possible to the finite. The education of women 

 has passed beyond the experimental stage in this A. D. 1911. Education 

 has been the torch for the civilization of the world and more and more 

 do women borrow fire from this torch to shed light upon 'the duties be- 

 longing to their sex. 



It is a mistake to think that education is furnished alone by th& 

 schools. There are five great educational institutions, the home, th^ 

 school, the church, the social life and the state, though the two laas 

 might be classed as one. Each of these gives a kind of education pecuryw 

 to itself and all necessary for the perfection of the finished product — 

 an educated man or woman. 



The first and most important of these educative agents is the home, 

 and because "as is the mother so is the home" her attainments count so 

 greatly. If we are to enter more and more into an age of culture, rich 

 in arts and science we must have not only the man who knows but the 

 woman of wisdom also. Indeed the woman who has almost absolute con- 

 trol over the next generation needs more wisdom than does the man. 

 So long as the training of children centered in the slipper and the 

 switch, an ignorant mother was not at a great disadvantage — the mus- 

 cular development being the telling distinction. Nowadays the child of 

 the educated mother has an enormous advantage over the child of the 



