Women -- Employment -- United States; Women -- Social and moral questions; Women in politics -- United States
Every girl should be thoroughly trained in handling an income and in
spending money wisely. She should have a general knowledge of household
sanitation, of water-supply and sewage, of foods and their preparation.
She should know about clothes, their cost, wearing qualities and
decorative values. She should have a sense of the family and its
significance in life; of at least the social relations that husband and
wife must maintain toward each other if their partnership is to be happy
and effective. She should have the beginnings of a eugenic conscience
established in her, and she should know something of the care of
infancy. All this should be given in the school, if it is not definitely
given in the home, and no girl who goes through the eighth grade should
escape it. Before the girl is married, she should have wise counsel from
mature women who have lived and learned the art of living. Boys should,
of course, also be trained in comparable directions for this great part
of their lives.
Something is already being done in this direction through the
establishing of special courses in domestic science, and allied branches
in our schools. The fact that educational leaders are awake to the need
was shown by the applause that followed Superintendent Harvey's plea for
this training in his paper on the education of girls at the
Superintendents' Association in St. Louis in February, 1912.[58] The
leading educators of the country greeted his plea with an enthusiasm
called out by no other paper of the session.
[58] See _Report of the Department of Superintendence of the National
Education Association_, 1912.
Every woman, then, and every man, not debarred by disease or accident
and not specially dedicated to a work which precludes marriage, should
spend his life in a family group, not that the state may have more
soldiers, or factory employees, but that he may realize the deepest
significance of his life. In this life the woman should be as free as
the man, an equal financial partner, and should share in all the social
and political opportunities of the community. When she bears children,
she should have special protection, support and reverence; and support
should come from the father of her children. If he fails her, then the
group, in its capacity as a state, should care for her honorably. But to
justify this protection and reverence, she should bring to her special
functions as mother of the generations a strong body, an intelligent
mind, a eugenic conscience and an absolute devotion to the children born
of her love.
XI
Conclusion
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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