Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/188

174 for want of a mother, will not be born. She who should have been his mother will perhaps be a very distinguished collegian. That one truism says it all—women are made and meant to be, not men, but mothers of men. A noble mother, a noble wife—are not these the designations in which we find the highest ideal of noble womanhood? Woman was formed to be man's helpmate, not his rival; heart, not head; sustainer, not leader.

The ideal mother is undoubtedly a woman more placid than nervous in temperament, more energetic than restless in habits, and with more strength of character and general good sense than specialized intellectual acquirements. Strong emotions, strained nerves, excitement, anxiety, absorption, are all hurtful to the unborn child. They tend to bring on premature birth; and if not this, then they create sickly offspring, whom the mother can not nourish when they are born. And, speaking of this, I may as well state here that the number of women who can not nurse their own children is yearly increasing in the educated and well-conditioned classes; and that coincident with this special failure is the increase of uterine disease. This I have from one of our most famous specialists. The mental worries and the strain of attention inseparable from professional life make the worst possible conditions for satisfactory child-bearing; while the anxiety bound up with the interruption to her work, consequent on her health and changed condition, must tell heavily on the nerves and mind of the woman whose professional income counts in the family. Her physical troubles, of themselves quite enough to bear, have thus extra weight; and mind, nerves, work, and condition, act and react in a vicious circle all round. Even where her profession is one that does not take her out-of-doors, and does not involve any great personal fatigue—as literature or art—the anxiety of her work and the interruption which must needs result from her state are more disastrous to the unborn than to herself; and the child suffers as much from the relaxation as from the strain. As one of the wisest and best-trained women I know said to me the other day: "How much of all the grand force and nervous power, the steadiness and courage of Englishmen, may not be owing to the fact of the home-life and protection of women; and how much shall we not lose when the mothers of the race are rendered nervous, irritable, and overstrained by the exciting stimulus of education carried to excess, and the exhausting anxieties of professional competition!"

This does not say that only the "stupid women" are therefore to be wives and mothers. Specialized education does not necessarily create companionable nor even sensible women; else, by parity of reasoning, would all professional men be personally charming and delightful, which undoubtedly they all are not. A girl may be a sound Grecian, a brilliant mathematician, a sharp critic, a faultless grammarian, yet be wanting in all that personal tact and temper, clear observation, ready sympathy, and noble self-control which make a companionable wife and a valuable mother. Nor is unprofessional or unspecialized