In this whole matter of the care and culture of motherhood--which is, verily, the prime condition, too often forgotten, of the care and culture of childhood--we have to do what we can, when and as we can. We live in a society where mankind, held individually responsible for all other acts whatsoever, is held entirely irresponsible for the act of parenthood which, being more momentous than any other, ought to be held more responsible than any other. Marriage, the precedent condition of most parenthood, is thus regarded as the concern of the individuals and the present. Individuals and the present therefore decide what marriages shall occur; but by some obscure fatality which no one had thought of, the future appears upon the scene: and when it is actually present, or rather not only present but visible, the responsibility for it is recognized. We have not yet gone so far as to see that a girl may be a good mother, in the highest sense, in her choice of a mate. But as things are, it is agreed that we are to act like blind automata, as improvident and irresponsible as the lower fishes, until the actual birth of the future. The philosophic truth that the future is nascent in the present--a truth so genuinely philosophic that it is also practical--is still hidden from us, and thus we are faced, in town and country alike, with ignorant motherhood, set to the most difficult, responsible, and expert of tasks--the right nurture of babyhood; babyhood, a ridiculous subject for grown men, yet somehow the condition of them and all their doings. In this state of affairs, those who began the modern campaign against infant mortality, or rather that small section of them who were not to be beguiled by secondaries, such as poverty, alcoholism, and the like, set to work to remedy maternal ignorance. Having been engaged in this campaign for many years, one is not likely to decry it now, nor is there any occasion to do so. The movement for the instruction of motherhood and for the instruction even of girls in the duties of actual motherhood, is now not only started but making real progress, and will assuredly prosper. But here our business is to think a little in front of action done and doing, and we shall very soon discover that there is more for public opinion yet to learn, while we may be very certain that this last lesson will be less easily learnt than the former was, for it is based upon evidence much less obvious. I have long maintained that the movement against infant mortality must precede in logic and in practice movements for the physical training of boys and girls, for the medical inspection and treatment of school children, and so forth. Relatively to these I have always asserted that the right care of babies has the immense superiority that it means beginning at the beginning, but I have always denied that it means beginning at the absolute beginning, if such a phrase be permitted.