l8o ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



This point deserves practical emphasis. In choosing a wife 

 a man is selecting the mother of his children as well as a 

 companion for himself, and he should think as much and 

 more of those qualities that tend to make a good mother 

 as of those which will make an agreeable companion. A 

 woman in accepting the responsibilities of marriage should 

 look forward to her children's welfare and think as much of 

 the father she is giving to her children as of the husband she 

 is accepting for herself. I believe that love is the chief con- 

 sideration, and that it would be a serious misfortune to have 

 this relegated to the background, as it is among so many 

 peoples. Fortunately this seems unlikely ever to occur in 

 America. Yet all important as is love, the essential foun- 

 dation in marriage, it is not the only thing. The welfare 

 of the coming generation is bound up in the choices in 

 marriage of the present generation, and this fact should 

 never be forgotten. There are those who because of physi- 

 cal, intellectual, or moral disability should not be parents, 

 and there is need of a general public sentiment which will 

 recognize it as a sin against society for such to seek their 

 own happiness in marriage when unable properly to meet 

 the responsibilities of marriage, of which the bearing and 

 rearing of children are a vital part. In spite of the senti- 

 ment in much of our poetry, our novels, and the drama that 

 love is supreme and therefore all else should be sacrificed for 

 it, it is really selfish and evil to regard only present happi- 

 ness and forget the coming generation. 



I believe that gradually this ideal of responsibility to the 

 race will work its way more and more into the social mind, 

 and a larger thoughtfulness before entering into marriage 

 will result. It will come first in our great literature, but it 



