In answer to these objections: of course no sane person would hold _unqualified_ motherhood up to girls as their noblest ideal. Nor does any thoughtful individual believe that maternity is woman’s _only_ destiny. But as to _highest_ (_i.e._ most noble) destiny--if worthy motherhood (and by the word worthy I wish to imply all the fine qualities of body and mind that go to produce healthy, intelligent, and well-trained children) does not fulfil it, I should like to know what does? In answer to this question that naturally springs to the mind of every reader, Miss Meakin contents herself with the statement: ‘In Finland and Australia, as in America and Norway, the young girl is taught that woman’s highest destiny is within the reach of every woman; that her highest destiny and her highest ideals depend, not on some man who may or may not come her way, but on herself; and that the highest ideal of womanhood is to be a true woman.’ This is well enough, but it is far too vague to be held up as woman’s standard. We want a more definite ideal than this to aim at. What, for instance, _is_ a ‘true woman’ specifically? I should have thought the most essential part of such a one’s outfit was her potentialities for wifehood and motherhood. Miss Meakin blames teachers for inculcating the importance of motherhood into their pupils’ minds with the result that ‘other success in life has to take a second place.’ What then does this writer consider ought to take the first place? Does she seriously think the success of women in business or politics, as municipal councillors, as writers, artists, thinkers, is of more importance than the success of women as mothers? _Is it possible?_ . . . I recall a poem of W. E. Henley’s on the woman question, one line of which runs ‘God in the garden laughed outright.’ Surely there must often be uproarious laughter in heaven nowadays when the woman question is being discussed on earth! So much for abstract ideals, but when we come to facts I must admit the lady’s argument is sound. ‘In a country where there are a million and a half more women than men,’ she pertinently states, ‘it is worse than foolish to teach young girls that motherhood is their highest destiny. Such teaching, if persisted in, will lead to greater evils than we care to contemplate even at a distance.’ But what greater evil could there possibly be than the existence of 30,000 prostitutes in London alone, as is the case to-day? If every one of these unfortunate women had been made to believe firmly, as an article of faith, that worthy motherhood was her highest destiny, there might be a good many less noughts to this number.