120 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



two sexes should view its importance in different lights. 

 It may be right to impress on boys that their first duty 

 is to perform the tasks which have been placed upon 

 them from exterior sources, that school must be attended, 

 that lessons must be prepared, in spite of urgent calls 

 from parents and near relatives. It is an attitude 

 which will probably be essential to their success and 

 utility in after life. But the same obligations do not 

 apply in the case of girls ; and, if we accept the fact that, 

 for instance, one of the principal duties of womenkind 

 is to mind babies, then it is useless to expect an intelli- 

 gent girl of twelve to believe in the truth of our 

 doctrine, if she knows that the baby goes unminded at 

 home while she is committing to memory a list of the 

 capes of China, or is experimenting in the incorrect 

 use of the split infinitive. 



One of the most serious drawbacks to almost any 

 form of school training for girls even accepting the 

 possibility that they learn more in many directions 

 there than they would do in a well-regulated home 

 is the fact that it is essential to the discipline and 

 efficiency of a school that English grammar and physical 

 geography should be considered before spring cleaning 

 and jam-making, while it is even more essential to the 

 welfare of the homes of the nation that spring cleaning 

 and jam-making should, when the processes or their 

 equivalents become necessary, be given the position of 

 pre-eminence. 



A few years ago, one of our northern borough 

 education authorities solemnly passed two instructions 

 on the same day and at the same meeting. In the 

 first it forbade the parents to keep elder girls at home 



