idence goes, that the fathers of our eminent persons have been
predominantly middle-aged and to a marked extent elderly at the
time of the distinguished son's birth; while the mothers have been
predominantly at the period of greatest vigor and maturity and to
a somewhat unusual extent elderly. There has been a notable
deficiency of young fathers and, still more notably, of young
mothers."

And did you ever see the study which Mr. R. S. Holway made for the
Department of Education of Leland Stanford University on "The Age of
Parents: Its Effects upon Children"? His conclusions are:

"In most physical qualities the children of mature parents tend to
come out best.

"In mental ability the children of young parents show best at an early
age but rapidly lose their precocity.

"The elder children who show best tend to be the children of mature
and old parents.

"The children of elderly mothers show a tendency to superiority
throughout."

Mary did not know about all this, but she had a very strong opinion to
the effect that, in so far as the quality of her children could be
affected by their home training, she was glad she had spent at least a
few years earning her living.

"Every woman," said Mary, "ought to have some little time for
developing into an individual. Home won't do it altogether. Not
nowadays. The colonial home did, being part of the working world. But
what is the modern home? It is a nest, an eddy, a shelf, a nook. It's
something apart from the world. If a woman is going to prepare her son
for a knowledge of the real world, if she's going to be able to give
him a training which has in it an understanding and an appreciation of
the real world, if she's going to be able to educate him into real
living, she must nowadays and increasingly in the future have some
experience of her own on her own account in the real world before she
becomes a mother. There's no getting away from that. A reasonable
postponement of motherhood till the future mother becomes a competent
individual will hereafter be urged, not opposed."

"The trouble about that," said John, "is that it makes you too
independent of me. Your proposition is to start in and earn your
living till you're pretty good at it. That is, you wouldn't marry me
till you were sure you could chuck me. How about that?"

Well, it has that side. But it has its other side, too.

Isn't there, after all, something rather pleasant for John in knowing,
_knowing_, tha