She thought what her mission was.
To make a home; to be a good wife; to understand and teach little
children. And where do you find the new woman now? In the kindergarten
colleges; in university settlements; attending mothers' meetings;
teaching ignorant mothers how to understand the tender souls and
delicate bodies of the dear little creatures committed to their loving
but unwise care. You find them well prepared by a course of study to
accept the responsibilities of life when their time comes. Is _that_
trivial? Is _that_ a subject to sneer at or to jest about? Rather it
is the hope of the nation.
Legislation cannot satisfactorily restrict immigration. Laws do not
forbid the criminal from marrying and the insane from being born. All
the masculine wisdom in the world cannot prevent the State from
annually paying millions of dollars for the support of those who are
foredoomed through generations of ignorance and crime--crime which too
often comes only from ignorance--to fill your jails and asylums. Who
is doing anything to remedy? The men. Who is doing anything to
_prevent_? The women. The new woman, the sneered at, the ridiculed and
abused, caricatured by the cartoonist, derided by the press, is going
quietly to work with jail-schools, with free kindergartens in tenement
districts, with college settlements, to begin with the care of mothers
and children.
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