If all the children in all the nurseries are thereby helped to do other brave deeds when their turn comes, so much the better.  But when a great opportunity offers for direct aid to the world, we have no right to transfer that work to other hands—­not even to the hands of our own children.  We must do the work, and train the children besides.

I am willing to admit, therefore, that the work of education, in any form, is as great as any other work; but I fail to see why it should be greater.  Usefulness is usefulness:  there is no reason why it should be postponed from generation to generation, or why it is better to rear a serviceable human being than to be one in person.  Carry the theory consistently out:  if each mother must simply rear her daughter that she in turn may rear somebody else, then from each generation the work will devolve upon a succeeding generation, so that it will be only the last woman who will personally do any service, except that of motherhood; and when her time comes it will be too late for any service at all.

If it be said, “But some of these children will be men, who are necessarily of more use than women,” I deny the necessity.  If it be said, “The children may be many, and the mother, who is but one, may well be sacrificed,” it might be replied that, as one great act may be worth many smaller ones, so all the numerous children and grandchildren of a woman like Lucretia Mott may not collectively equal the usefulness of herself alone.  If she, like many women, had held it her duty to renounce all other duties and interests from the time her motherhood began, I think that the world, and even her children, would have lost more than could ever have been gained by her more complete absorption in the nursery.

The true theory seems a very simple one.  The very fact that during one half the years of a woman’s average life she is made incapable of child-bearing shows that there are, even for the most prolific and devoted mothers, duties other than the maternal.  Even during the most absorbing years of motherhood, the wisest women still try to keep up their interest in society, in literature, in the world’s affairs—­were it only for their children’s sake.  Multitudes of women will never be mothers; and those more fortunate may find even the usefulness of their motherhood surpassed by what they do in other ways.  If maternal duties interfere in some degree with all other functions, the same is true, though in a far less degree, of those of a father.  But there are those who combine both spheres.  The German poet Wieland claimed to be the parent of fourteen children and forty books; and who knows by which parentage he served the world the best?

A GERMAN POINT OF VIEW

Many Americans will remember the favorable impression made by Professor Christlieb of Germany, when he attended the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in New York some years ago.  His writings, like his presence, show a most liberal spirit; and perhaps no man has ever presented the more advanced evangelical theology of Germany in so attractive a light.  Yet I heard a story of him the other day, which either showed him in an aspect quite undesirable, or else gave an unpleasant view of the social position of women in Germany.