70 AMAND ROUTH, M.D., F.R.CiP., ON MOTHERHOOD. 



The S4&t^ has in recent years, through the National Insurance 

 Act, recognized the need of financial help for expectant mothers, 

 especially when incapacitated as a result of pregnancy, in 

 addition to the increased maternity benefit. The income-tax 

 allowances introduced last year for the domiciled wife and for 

 each child under sixteen years of age, or later if the child is 

 receiving full-time education, are also steps in the right direction. 



Education of Children apart from State Education. 



There are now ways by which the future education of children 

 can be insured by small annual premiums payable for a fixed 

 series of years, up to a stated age for each child. If such 

 premiums are begun soon after the birth of the children, the 

 policies for, say, £100 a year for each child will soon be coming 

 in, so that by the time that their elder children go to school 

 the parents will be receiving much more money for schooling 

 or apprenticeship, or for the advancement in life of their children, 

 than they are paying out in premiums for the younger children. 

 If any child dies the premiums already paid for that child are 

 returned. Such assured education is especially valuable where 

 the father is dead, or the parents are pensioners, or with fixed 

 incomes, and especially if they desire that their children should 

 adopt some profession or technical career, for which education 

 is expensive. 



In conclusion, I would remind you that though all these 

 questions concern the nation as a whole, they are of great personal 

 importance where they touch the individual citizen, and especially 

 the women of the nation. Women, now endowed with widely 

 extended opportunities in almost every profession and career, 

 should carefully study all the problems surrounding " Mother- 

 hood," so as to be able to influence legislation and civil adminis- 

 tration and philanthropic efiort. 



They should try to preserve motherhood, not only as an 

 honoured institution, pure and unsullied, but as an essential 

 national asset, by which our country may continue to rear such 

 men and women as fought and w^orked for us in the Great War, 

 and are now reconstructing our somewhat shattered organiza- 

 tions. 



