Race Improvement; or, Eugenics: A Little Book on a Great SubjectBaker, La Reine Helen McKenzie
Philosophy
Race Improvement; or, Eugenics: A Little Book on a Great Subject
Baker, La Reine Helen McKenzie
Eugenics
To prepare children for parenthood involves finding a reasonable regard
for fatherhood as well as for motherhood. No system of economics that
relegates fatherhood to unimportance is good for the State. The boy
must learn that the father has responsibilities, different from the
mother's but worthy of his own very best. Fortunately the pages of
history teem with illustrations of this theme for those who desire
examples and warnings from the past, it may even be necessary to point
out that the father's function has been over valued in our annals as
compared with that of the still more important but less praised mother.
Inasmuch, however, as the mother's function is so much more continuous
than the father's, the perpetuation of such degree of perfection as a
boy is endowed with must be secured by constant vigilance, lest he fail
in the one great act which earns the right of giving his name to his
offspring.
The Eugenic education of girls is generally easier than that of boys
for many reasons. Girls see more than boys of the management of a home,
they are used to children younger than themselves, they are fond of
babies and will nurse dolls for an amusement, deriving much pleasure
from a pastime fraught with Eugenic suggestiveness. Later on certain
signs of adolescence precipitate explanations and stimulate inquiry.
There is no need for any restrictions of the facilities women enjoy
educationally. As with boys the best education should be given to those
girls who show capacity for using it. It has never been claimed that
culture should be withheld from a man, as inconsistent with fatherhood;
motherhood must not be made an excuse for denying education. The safest
policy is to make preparations for Life independent of preparations
for a Career. The don and the bluestocking have to live, so have the
cowboy and the cook. All must have the universal knowledge whereby
they may serve their race as healthy parents of healthy children, even
though the college, the study, the ranch and the kitchen have their own
particular technicalities to be mastered by the interested individuals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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