It is our first principle in this discussion that the individual exists for parenthood, being a natural invention for that purpose and no other. It has been shown further that this is more pre-eminently true of woman than of man, she being the more essential--if such a phrase can be used--for the continuance of the race. If these principles are valid they must indeed determine our course in the education of girls. Some incidental reference has already been made to this subject, but the matter must be more carefully gone into here. We have seen that there are right and wrong ways of conducting the physical training of girls, according as whether we are aiming at muscularity or motherhood. We have seen also that there is a thing called the higher education of women, apparently laudable and desirable in itself, which may yet have disastrous consequences for the individual and the race. In a book devoted to womanhood, and written at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the reader might well expect that what we call the higher education of women would be a subject treated at great length and with great respect. Such a reader, turning to the chapter that professedly deals with the subject, might well be offended by its brevity. It might be asked whether the writer was really aware of the importance of the subject--of its remarkable history, its extremely rapid growth, and its conspicuous success (in proving that women can be men if they please--but this is my comment, not the reader's). Nor can any one question that the so-called higher education of women is a very large and increasingly large fact in the history of womanhood during the last half century in the countries which lead the world--whither it were perhaps not too curious to consider. Further, this kind of education does in fact achieve what it aims at. Women are capable of profiting by the opportunities which it offers, as we say. This is itself a deeply interesting fact in natural history, refuting as it does the assertions of those who declared and still declare that women are incapable of "higher education," except in rare instances. It is important to know that women can become very good equivalents of men, if they please.