And now we can turn to those proposals which have lately been revived by one or two popular writers in England, for the endowment of motherhood by the State, leaving the fathers in peace to spend their earnings as they please, whilst others support their children. Detailed criticism is not needed, for the details to criticize are not forthcoming, and the opinions on principles and on details of these imaginative writers are never twice the same. It suffices that proposals such as these, apart from their vagueness and their obvious impracticability in any form, are directly condemned by the fundamental principle that a man shall be responsible for his acts. The endowment of motherhood, as Mr. Wells means it, is simply a phrase for making men responsible for their neighbours' acts and for striking hard and true at the root principle of all marriage, human or sub-human, which is the common parental care of offspring. Reference is made to this proposal here, not that it really needs criticism, but in order that one may be clearly excluded from any participation in such proposals. The difference between such schemes for the endowment of motherhood and the proposal here advocated is that those seek to endow the mother by making the father less responsible--or, rather, wholly irresponsible--while this seeks to endow her by making the father more responsible. The whole verdict of the ages is, as we have seen, on the side of this principle. It has been practised for aeons, and it is the aim of sound legislation and practice everywhere to-day. As has been admitted, the more we express this principle, the lower will fall, not necessarily the marriage-rate, but the parent-rate; fewer men will become fathers, _but they will be fitter_. There will be fewer children born, but they will be children planned, desired and loved in anticipation, as every child should be, and will be in the golden future. These children will not die, but survive; nor will their development be injured by early malnutrition and neglect. The believer in births as births will not be gratified, but there will be abundance of gratification for the believer in births as means to ends. The practical working-out of our principle is no more difficult than might be expected if it be remembered that we are counselling nothing revolutionary nor even novel. The demand simply is that the practice which obtains among the more fortunate classes shall be made universal, and that the State shall see that all fathers who can, do their duty. The State will be quite busy and well employed in this task, which may legitimately be allotted to it even on the strictly individualist and Spencerian principles, that the maintenance of justice is alone the State's province. We allot a great function to the State, but deny that it can rightly or safely set the father aside and perform his duty for him.