ddition to society. Society sees therein the prospect of its
own perpetuity, of its own further development. It, therefore, also
realizes the duty of providing for the new being according to its best
powers. The first object of its attention must, consequently, be the one
that gives birth to the new being--the mother. A comfortable home;
agreeable surroundings and provisions of all sorts, requisite to this
stage of maternity; a careful nursing--such are the first requirements.
The mother's breast must be preserved for the child as long as possible
and necessary. This is obvious. Moleschott, Sonderegger, all hygienists
and physicians are agreed that nothing can fully substitute the mother's
nourishment.

People who, like Eugen Richter, indignate at the idea of a young mother
being placed in a lying-in establishment, where she is surrounded by all
that to-day is possible only to the very wealthiest, and which even
these cannot furnish in the fullness attainable at institutions
especially equipped for the purpose--such people we wish to remind of
the fact that, to-day, at least four-fifths of the population are born
under the most primitive circumstances and conditions, that are a
disgrace to our civilization. Of the remaining one-fifth of our mothers,
only a minority is able to enjoy the nursing and comforts that should be
bestowed upon a woman in that state. _The fact is that in cities with
excellent provisions for child-birth--Berlin for instance, and all
University cities--even to-day not a few women resort to such
institutions as soon as they feel their time approaching, and await
their delivery. Unfortunately, however, the expenses at such
institutions are so high, that but few women can use them, while others
are held back by prejudice._ Here again we have an instance of how
everywhere bourgeois society carries in its own lap the germ of the
future order.

For the rest, maternity among the rich has a unique taste; the maternal
duties are transferred as soon as possible to a _proletarian nurse_. As
is well known, the Wendt Lausitz (Spreewald) is the region that the
women of the Berlin bourgeoisie, who are unwilling or unable to nurse
their own babies, draw their wet-nurses from. The "cultivation of
nurses" is there carried on as a peculiar trade. It consists in the
girls of the district causing themselves to be impregnated, with the end
in view of being able, after the birth of their own children, to hire
themselve