The herald., 1894-03-18
HEAL TIL NECESSARY TO MOTHERS
Women Should Consider Their
Fitness to Marry.
Why SO Many Marriages Are
Failures.
Lady Cook GivorS Her Views on what
Woman should DO Before Mar
ryinK and Also Tells What
They should Think.

lBY LADY COOK, NEE TENNESSEE cLAFLIN.l ]
The position of q mother is so onerous
and entails go many high responsible
tiles. that no one should undertake it
without much thought and full assur-
ance OF being worthy and capable. No
other Office on earth is so sacred as this,
no calling involves so much. For she
has not only to build up and nurture
the highest organism. but she has also
to mold its character. Her physique
will control her Ghild's; her emotions
will be communicated to 1t; her mental
and moral capabilities will be largely
transferred. Her conduct will give a
perpetual bias to it's life. 1t 10 impos-
sible, therefore, to exaggerate the i'm
portance OF motner's influence.
An immense proportion of women,
however, undertake the duty without
the least forethought or consideration,
without weighing their own fitness for
mothers or that OF their husbands for
fathers. Hence arise much misery,
many unhappy homes, and wrecked
lives. Hence, too, weak progeny 10 to
be found in 30 many households; some
physically. some mentally, and others
morally deficient. Capacity for marriage
10 the last thing thought OF in entertain
ing it. Good looks. an amiable or
sprivhtly manner, q sufficient income,
etanG first. These are all we'll in their
way, but may be followed by the eyils
mentioned.
An idiot may beget child. an imbe-
cle may become a mother.
The function of reproduction is COM
mon to all forms OF life, to the lowest as
to the highest. But the most perfect of
each must be the fttest for the perpetu-
alton of their species. A well proper
toned body, free from organic and her
editary diseases, sound and well
balanced mind, q serene and generous
disposition combined with good moral
and mental training, go to make up the
requisites OF good mother.
Nisbet, in his work on Marriage and
Heredity, borrowing from Schopen-
hauer's Daphnis and Chloe, says
Probably the dialogue of the most ro-
divested of its hummery, would take the
following shape:
Hell want to be the father of fine
boy or girl, and think you can help me.
Will your
she-With all my heart.
He-You are plump and well proper
toned.
She-You have fine stature and mus
oulsr force.
He-You are healthy.
She-So are you.
Hsv-YaR. ara. tsire sartle.AHd trusting,
firm.
He-Your features show nobility and
pride.
She-Yours courage and goodness.
He-You have delicacy OF sentiment
and virtue.
She-You perception and honor.
He-You are very intelligent.
She-You are very clever.
He-All these qualities combined will
make very fine boy or girl, and that is
why prefer you to any other woman.
She-And that is precisely why pre-
fer you to any other man.
No mother can evade any of her res
possibilities without danger to her off.
spring. No part of them can be advan-
tageously delegated to another. So long
as she 10 true TO nature, nature is kind
to her and hers. But the universal
mother avenges herself on all who disre-
gard her laws-hrst by pain and after
wards by extinction.
In savage life, instinct will supply
almost all a mother requires, but in a
high state OF civilization like ours in.
ahnct must be supplemented by careful
training. The earliest civilized people
the ERyptianR-provided little girls with
dolls, just aH We do. But it 10 only re-
Gently they acquired that name. Not
many years ago they were called babies.
Every little girl, therefore, had her
baby, whom she handled and dressed.
iOndled and provided for, whom she
etill affects to regard as a living being.
The instlnct of maternity is thus exer-
eleed early. But when the dolls are put
aside, the free conversation with her
mother on marital topics which existed
formerly when she was old enough has
Become 'indellcale" in these later and
more tastldlous times. The daughter OF
the wealthy or high-born classes.
had first toster-mother whose milk
nourlshed her. Now rich and poor alike.
instead OF the mother or ioster-mother'
resort to acombination from COW or q
pump. The child of any class sees little
OF its mother. The nursery or the
street, the school or the workshop, keep
them apart. The daughters grow up to
early womanhood with too much knowl.
edge OF sexual matters or none at all.
And those who are accounted the best
mothers are those who withhold from
their young daughters all the Invaluable
stores OF information which their expe-
rience has provided ready to hand, and
which. if fdiscreetly communicated, would
save thousands of girls from ruin and
disgrace.
Practical philosophers have recon-
mended that women on the way to be
mothers should exercise the greatest
care, not only in what they eat and
drink, but also in what they feel and
think; that they should give way to no
excessive emotion, and should read
books OF history, or other lofty thought;
in word, that they should try to feel,
think, and do whatever is worthiest. Ii
is well known that children have been
born idiots through the mother having
used stinulants to excess that they
have been produced deiormed through
her having been ordinarily frightened,
and even with broken linn bs from the
fright OF thunder or a cannonade Her
emotions, therefore. are proved to affect
her unborn child more than herself.
Every mother who is able should
suckle her own child. The reasons for
this are too many to enumerate and
should be obvious to any intelligent