Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/182

Counter-Currents intelligent, but badly behaved. It seems to be a trifle hard to bring the right kind of a child into the world. Twenty-seven is, in this eugenist's opinion, the best age for parentage; but how bend all the complicated conditions of life to meet an arbitrary date; and how remain twenty-seven long enough to insure satisfactory results? The vast majority of babies will have to put up with being born when their time comes, and make the best of it. This is the first, but by no means the worst, disadvantage of compulsory birth; and compulsory birth is the original evil which scientists and philanthropists are equally powerless to avert.

If parents do not know by this time how to bring up their children, it is not for lack of instruction. A few generations ago, Solomon was the only writer on child-study who enjoyed any vogue. Now his precepts, the acrid fruits of experience, have been superseded by more genial, but more importunate counsel. 166