For long we have been persistently assuming that the characteristics of the child at birth are genetic or hereditary and therefore can be but slightly affected by a favourable or an adverse nurture. This is a monstrous error. Very few indeed are the defects and the diseases that are inevitable and part of the birth-inheritance, rather they are traceable directly to malnutrition or poison in the mother, and by this means the fresh life is weakened or infected before it is born. So much the greater is the importance of ante-natal nurture. The child can be saved only through the mother. Inferior mothers must result in inferior children. And what we need now for the future maintenance and welfare of our race in adequate numbers and quality, is a speedy and practical recognition of the truth that nothing will avail us if we so educate, train, and work our women that as mothers they fail in their creative hour. Let us now consider briefly how these matters stand in our land at the present time, and let us examine them in the light of these facts we have established of an over-burdened and, therefore, unfit motherhood. And the first thing we find is that the special conditions brought about by the Great War have greatly increased the problem we have to solve. I have already referred to the Report issued by the Health of Munition Workers Committee on “Employment of Women” and “Hours of Work.” They give summary accounts of the conditions of women’s labour and what is actually going on. I confess that what is stated has filled me with the gravest fears. I will give a few of the facts as they are set down. “_The engagement of women in the manufacture of munitions presents many features of outstanding interest. Probably the most striking is the universal character of their response to the country’s call for help; but of equal social and industrial significance is the extension of the employment of married women, the extension of the employment of young girls and the revival of the employment of women at night._” With regard to the class of women employed we learn— “_The munition workers of to-day include dressmakers, laundry workers, shop assistants, university and art students, women and girls of every social grade and of no previous wage-earning experience, also, in large numbers, wives and widows of soldiers, many married women who had retired altogether from industrial life, and many again who had never entered it. In the character of the response lies largely the secret of its industrial success, which is remarkable. The fact that women and girls of all types and ages have pressed and are pressing into industry shows a spirit of patriotism which is as finely maintained as it was quickly shown._”