The record-union., 1895-08-31
UNBORN POSTERITY.
Why Women Forsake the Home and
the Bassnet.
Influences Which Are at Work to Dis
courage the Hearing of
Children.

The higher education of woman and
the extension Of her bounds OF conven-
tional freedom are likely to have a
marked effect upon the human race. At
no period within our traditionary or his
torical knowledge have the same existing
conditions prevailed. There have been
epochs such as that represented by Rome
in the first two centuries of our era when
women were extraordinarily INDUCED in
their luxuries and caprices, but it was
unaccompanied by intellectual growth.
1t was period of mere sensuous lavish
ness and the license rather than the lib
erty OF action.
The result was then, as of all such full
ness of female epicurism, that the race
suffered. Marriage was a means only to
the end of enjoyment Of social pleasures,
domestic life was discredited and the
cares of maternity shirked.
Two Influences are for the first time
conformity at work on wOmanhood. On
the one hand the luXuriousness of Europe
is leading to a return of conditions which
must tend to the deterioration Of poster
lty IN those ranks where the indulgence
Is permitted, and on the other the higher
education of woman is tending to restrict
the number while it raises the quality OF
offspring. Statistics gathered with the
OBJECT OF demonstrating the beneficial
effects of advanced education on women,
indirectly, affords some information Of a
collateral but not less interesting charac-
ter. Returns from fifty institutions show
that the women of these colleges enjoy
better health than women i'll general and
that their death rate is very much less
than the death rate Of the community of
their sex or even the male students in
similar institutions. So far as general
health and occasional sickness are con-
cerned, they lose no more timo than do
men under the same circumstances. The
general conclusion. 80 far as hygienic
and sanitary considerations are con-
cerned, is that the higher education of
women is conducive to health, strength,
working power and longevity.
When it comes, however, to the ques-
ton OF woman's relation to domestic al
fections and RESPONSE bilities, the results
are sufficient 10 startle those who see in
the new order Of things a menace to the
theory that woman'S only mission is VILE
hood and motherhood. The average wo-
man marries at or near 20 years OF age;
college graduates average 2S years.
They seem to exercise more care in the
ScA6CilOH Ol HuSDduUS, however, II lnIS
is TO be judged by the fact that legal
separations and divorces are almost un-
known to the alumnae. They have much
smaller families, and IN many cases no
family at all, the college graduate aver
aging just half the usual number, as one
and half to three. But very satisfac-
tory general result is that those restricted
children are shown by mortuary tables
and physical examinations to be healthier.
OF fn inf ami l.,
troubles. How much Of that esult is due
to the late marriage and how much to
higher education must at present be left
open to Hypothetical speculation. Ii it be
due to higher education, 1t starts train
of thought which cannot be we'll folio wed
in the columns of a newspaper.
The advanced woman who makes no
claim to higher education, and pretends
to no exalted physiological or psyche
logical aspirations for more perfect pos
terity, is none the less directing her aim
toward diminished maternal cares. Her
theory is that woman has right to the
enjoyments OF life and freedom from tho
thraldom of family rearing. She rebels
against devOiing the best years OF her life
to domesticity and the nursery. She de-
nOunces the reckless fertility OF the un-
ceasing mother VINO, at 30 has lost her
youthful appreciation OF life's pleasures,
and halts only from repeated baby cares
to enter upon q life of preparation for her
children to begin similar round of
anxiety and training.
Some such women go no further than to
excuse themselves on the ground of
selfish participation OF pleasures reserved
to the unmarried or chlldless. Others
Justify il on the higher ground that
tecundity is an injustice to those of her
children to whom she is physically
capa bile of affordlng proper care, tender
ness aud other advantages.
If the smaller mum Der of children were
due to an increased sense of responsible
ity accompanied by conscientious self
denial in which she was Joined by her
husband, the world would be the gamer,
although the psychologist would have
difficult task in determining how near
moral restriction might be carried with
out merging into the physical repression
OF progeny, which civilization very prop
erly abhors.
The luXurlouSneSS of the wealthier
classes is not due apparently so much to
lasciviOusneSs as 1t was IN some OF the
well-marked periods when flush of riot
Gus pleasures was followed by national
decadence. The sensuousness is not of an
inter- sexual character but IS rather
craving for perpetual amusemeDts, social
activity, admiration and the less unre-
stricted occupations and independence
oil movement eUJOyeQ ny iUSu. ne
enlarged sphere of intellectual activity
attracts, no doubt, many women; but the
more radiant lights and richer perfumes
of the glitterng attractions held out by
the world, the flesh and the devil" form
the chief allurements which tempt
women to forsake the home fireside and
the baSsinet
II modern research is reliable, man has
existed on the earth since some time in
the Pleistocene period, not less than
$4,000 years ago, and it must be admitted
we have spent much of that time to little
purpose. We are as far from practical
knowledge of the duties and responsible
ties ofante- natal paternity as were Adam
and Eve when they were told in prophecy
''in sorrow thou shalt bring forth chill
dren." How far instinct is to be con-
trolled by will and judgment, whether
posterity has an illinitable right to all
the posi- bilities of procreation, how far
the rights of the born are TO restrict the
demand for life Of the unborn, are mys-
teries to which neither conscience nor
science can yet afford satisfactory re-
ply.-Seattle ePost-Intelligencer.
PAVEMENT ACCEPTED
Tho Cftv TrusteeS Satisfied With tho