Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/226

 the same conditions as boys and men, and I can remember in my schooldays a tremendous pressure to show that girls could fulfil the same conditions as boys. The women of the future will claim freedom and endowment when they fulfil the conditions suitable for women and girls.

Girls, as well as boys, should, before puberty, be taught the simple facts of sex, and this should be done in connection with other simple science teaching. They will accept these facts quite serenely, if they are not greatly stressed and differentiated from other knowledge. They should not be troubled with pathology until they are full grown. Boys and girls should be brought up together, and the barrack system of living should be entirely abolished for both sexes. This does not mean that boys and girls should do all the same things, either in work or play; these should be adapted to the ascertained capacities of the individuals and not arranged on rigid a priori schemes. If the girl has grown to young womanhood with a healthy and active body and mind, she will have all the essentials for good motherhood, and if she wishes to learn the details of mothercraft, by all means give her opportunity to do so. But it is not necessary, or even desirable, to force every young woman to do this. If she is broadly developed as a human being, she can learn mothercraft when she is about to marry. Then, indeed, she should learn it, and the man who is about to marry should also study the duties of parentage.