_She considereth a field and buyeth it. With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.--Solomon._ The wisdom of stateswomen and of statesmen should evolve a sure foundation-fund, whereby mothers shall have a solid financial basis for doing woman's work. Civilization has placed a ban upon motherhood. There is ever the stigma upon it which Moses placed there. It is hard, cruelly hard, to be a mother in the United States, this "land of the free." We anathematize and practically kill a mother who has not conformed to our laws, irrespective of what Nature has said about it. We take her child from her, hide it, falsify about it, and then disown the mother if she demands the inherent rights of a mother. We talk about the glory of motherhood, but we do not act to the glory of motherhood. The business of marriage is to develop citizens. The financial part of this partnership should receive the most careful attention of all people who are to marry. They should realize that they are assuming responsibilities great and unknown to them. They are leaving a simple life to enter into one vastly more complex. Woman is fast evolving a brain. And women are thinking. Brain, not sentiment, will be the directing power under which women live. Wisdom and judgment will guide them. They will not give the best in their lives to the work of rearing children, without reasonable, business assurance of funds with which to do their work. CITIZENS _It is true that I am an alien. But my son--my son is Themistocles.--Euterpe._ A citizen is one who has evolved from a condition where he was content to live alone, care for himself alone, into a state where he desires to live with others, and is interested in the welfare of others. Women were the first human beings to qualify as citizens. Their care for their children early extended their interest beyond their own welfare. From protecting and providing for her immediate family, the mother's interests naturally extended first to all children and then to all human beings who were in need of care. Women are potential mothers, and so are inherent citizens. Women are citizens by natural tendency. Men are citizens by education. The desire to co-operate is the natural desire of an evolving, sane people. Supremely selfish people, who care not at all for others, are either barbaric or insane. A city was the result of the citizen instinct. The mother's brain was evolved through her desire to benefit her children. She then saw that what was good for her own was good for her neighbor's family, and for all families. All manufactories, all industries, reforms and civic improvements have originated in woman's brain, evolved because of the mother-instinct of love. From the city, human interest extended into the state, from the state into the nation. From the limitation of belonging to a nation, we shall sometime become citizens of the world.