PREPARATION FOR MOTHERHOOD MOTHERHOOD A PROFESSION WHICH REQUIRES TRAINING—PRENATAL INFLUENCE AND HYGIENE—MATERNITY CLOTHES Maternity is woman’s exclusive profession, the only one of which progress and science cannot rob her. It is also her highest profession, for, compared to motherhood, art and science dwindle into insignificance. Successful motherhood, like genius in any art or profession, is founded on efficiency and joy in the chosen work, and the greater of these is joy. She who is merely efficient can reduce the mountains which rise in the pathway of the mother; joy in motherhood can remove them. For joy casts out doubt, fear, and all sense of burden. The woman who finds joy in maternity is absolute mistress of the domestic and social situation. Through it she commands the love and reverence of the husband to whose eyes she has opened the wonders and the mysteries of parenthood. For her the doors of the divorce court never yawn. For her motherhood entails no sacrifice. She has no regrets for a career cut short by marriage, because she finds in maternity the same supreme satisfaction of accomplishment which comes to the successful lawyer, financier, writer or artist. Motherhood, like any other profession, requires preparation. For many generations the world has held that the maternal instinct and the ability to rear children were born in woman. It has been discovered that the maternal instinct, like many others, needs encouragement, while the ability to bring up children requires development or practical training. The phrase, “a born mother,” has rather fallen into disrepute. We are beginning to realize that one “born mother” in a thousand is not enough to leaven the maternal mass. And out of this discovery has risen a demand, which comes largely from women themselves, for education in motherhood, practical, sincere preparation for woman’s exclusive profession. Perhaps the day will come when each college for women will have its endowed chair of motherhood, when the care and feeding of infants will be taught in our normal and high schools for girls. At present, certain colleges offer a course in psychology which prepares young women to guide, mentally and spiritually, the children they will some day bear. In a few city schools, particularly in the congested districts, girls are now taught how to bathe, dress and feed infants, largely for the purpose of having the message of sanitation and hygiene carried home to the tenement house mother.