We must have such courses all over the country. Every
father who can afford it must give his girls the incalculable benefit of
such opportunities. The girl thus educated will glory in her womanhood,
and will help to gain for it its right estimation and position in the
state.
But it is to be pointed out that such courses as these, admirable though
they be, are yet not everything. The influence of our great national
deity, which is Mrs. Grundy, is apparent still. It is not specifically
recognized that the highest destiny of a woman is motherhood, though in
such courses as this motherhood will doubtless be served directly and
indirectly in many ways. There is, nevertheless, required something
more--something indeed no less than conscious, purposeful education for
parenthood. The chief obstacle in the way of this ideal is Anglo-Saxon
prudery, and, perhaps, the reader will not be persuaded that education
for parenthood is our greatest educational need to-day, more especially
for girls, until he or she has been persuaded of the magnitude of the
preventable evils which flow from our present neglect of this matter. In
the following chapter, therefore, one may point out what prudery costs
us at present, and indeed, the reader may then be persuaded that
education for parenthood, or, as it may be called, eugenic education,
is, perhaps, the most important subject that can be discussed to-day in
any book on womanhood.
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