people concerned,
the union is now of importance to the State and to posterity, and
consequently a truly awful responsibility devolves on the parents. On
the physique, the character, the intelligence of each child the fate of
future generations may depend. If we do not feed our child properly he
may be rickety, and a future generation may be deformed for our
carelessness. If we do not teach him thoroughly the duty of self-control
he may become a drunkard or a libertine, and a thousand subsequent evils
may curse our grandchildren. 'The responsibilities of perpetuating the
existence of a race, with all its immeasurable possibilities of sin and
suffering, is one from which the boldest might recoil. But the only
effective way of improving the lot of man is to rear up a new generation
of better stock. For the reflecting to shirk parentage is to make over
the future to the spawn of unreflecting indulgence. In the world's great
field of battle no duty is higher than to keep the ranks of the forces
of Light well filled with recruits. It is to no holiday that our
offspring are called--rather it is to a combat long and stern, ending in
inevitable death.'[5]

[Footnote 5: W. T. Stead, _Review of Reviews_, January 1908.]

It has been truly said that children are the wealth of nations: if we
were to take our parenthood very seriously indeed--far, far more
seriously than we now do, surely this would prove the strongest defence
against the moral and physical decay of which we hear so much. I would
like to see parenthood elevated to the dignity of a great spiritual
ideal. Not that I advocate the ultra-glorification of mere procreation
in itself, though to bring fine and healthy children into the world is
an excellent service, and one that men and women ought to take the
highest pride in, but 'to summon an immortal soul into being--what act
is comparable to this?' To train the new-born spirit to grow towards the
sun, striving to develop in it the nobler possibilities of the complex
human organism and make of it an 'upright, heaven-facing speaker'--what
better lifework can a man or woman hope to achieve, what greater
monument to leave behind?

If parenthood were to become a great ideal, in time public opinion--that
mighty weapon--would grow so strong that unworthy parenthood would be
regarded with disfavour by all decent people. The unfit would not dare
to commit the crime of perpetuating their kind, and the stigma attached
to th