It was appointed by Government that all persons should be taught the more important branches of this science in the public schools, as soon as they reached the age of twelve years together with the principles of social economy. It was considered a gross immorality on the part of parents to bring into existence a large family of children, whom they could not possibly rear with comfort to themselves, or with any degree of justice to their offspring. But over and above the personal inconvenience of poor people being overburdened with children, the disadvantage of giving birth to large families was recognised by all from an economic point of view: for the world was becoming so thickly populated that it appeared obvious a difficulty would arise in providing foodstuffs for so many millions of human beings, notwithstanding the very material assistance the science of chemistry afforded in feeding the multitude. All persons, therefore recognised the necessity of supporting legislative authority on this point, for being an intellectual people they saw it worked to their advantage from every point of view. Inordinate reproduction interfered with a wife’s ability to supplement her husband’s income by following her own profession, and thereby making a very narrow income into an easy one. In bygone days if the mistress of a public school entered the marriage state she entered the schoolroom no more; custom decreed that with marriage all bread winning ceased on her side, and her husband’s small income must suffice. Of course the _raison d’être_ of this custom was not far to seek, for her child-bearing duties, to which no limit was placed, would considerably interfere with those of her situation. But at this advanced period public opinion decreed that such a course was the outcome of brute ignorance; for physiological and psychological science taught that the position of parent was the most responsible in all creation, and to bring any number of children into the world until Nature refused to do more, was a condition of life in its wildest state; for man in every other form of life controls the exuberance of Nature, for wise purposes. As soon as a wife decided on becoming a mother,—and most women looked forward to that position with keen interest, for the love of children is ever paramount in the female breast,—she would brace herself to the fulfilment of the duties of this great responsibility. She realised that on herself alone rested, not only the building up of the physical frame of her unborn child, but also the formation of the pre-natal mind, with all its mental and moral capacities. She knew that every thought, impulse, and action of hers would leave their impress upon the brain of her child; for a stimulus would be given to the development of the faculties in those directions, according to the degree in which she exercised her own.