including those
which ignore the facts of human nature, and, above all, those which
decry instead of seeking to deify the natural, would find no place in
this catalogue. It is possible, though I much doubt it, that there may
be many books unknown to me of the order and quality of "Richard
Feverel." At any rate, that represents in its perfection--save, perhaps,
for the unnecessary tragedy of its close, which the illustrious author
himself in conversation did not find it quite possible to defend--the
type of novel whose teaching the Eugenist and the Maternalist must
recommend for the nourishment of youth of both sexes.

As has been already hinted, discourses on how to wash a baby are less in
place here; and in the following chapter the argument will be set forth
in detail that the sequence of the common schemes for the education of
girlhood and womanhood is, in one essential respect, logically and
practically erroneous.

XIII

CHOOSING THE FATHERS OF THE FUTURE

We live in a social chaos of which the evolution into anything like a
cosmos is scarcely more than incipient. In such a case the reformer has
to do the best he may; in the only possible sense in which that phrase
can be defended, he has to take the world as he finds it. Heartless
heads will of course be found to comment upon the logical error of his
ways, to which his only reply is that, while they stand and comment,
what can be done he now will do.

In this whole matter of the care and culture of motherhood--which is,
verily, the prime condition, too often forgotten, of the care and
culture of childhood--we have to do what we can, when and as we can. We
live in a society where mankind, held individually responsible for all
other acts whatsoever, is held entirely irresponsible for the act of
parenthood which, being more momentous than any other, ought to be held
more responsible than any other. Marriage, the precedent condition of
most parenthood, is thus regarded as the concern of the individuals and
the present. Individuals and the present therefore decide what marriages
shall occur; but by some obscure fatality which no one had thought of,
the future appears upon the scene: and when it is actually present, or
rather not only present but visible, the responsibility for it is
recognized. We have not yet gone so far as to see that a girl may be a
good mother, in the highest sense, in her choice of a mate. But as
things are, it is agreed that we are t