The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1910-02-18
SCHOOLS FOR MATRIMONY
Kansas Professor Says Men and Woman
Should be Graded for Higher Types

in all Kansas schools for higher educa-
ton.
Professor McKeever believes that
the working out of such a course and
intelligent consideration Of its expert
ments and work will practically re-
move all necessity for penal institutions
in the state and will tend to remove
the bad boys and girls from the COM
munity, not by law, but by raising the
standard OF men and women.
Professor McKeever gets out four
bulletins a year on problems of the
home and in this one he urges the
matrimonial schools as follows:
We have scientifically worked out
cards for the scoring Of cows, pigs and
chickens, but how about scoring young
men and women who are candidates
for marriage, instead Of prizes as per-
feet specimens OF breed? What are
the correct standards of form and SYM
metry OF the body? Of physical health?
OF knowledge as to the care and in
sruction Of infants? What are the
marks whereby a young woman whose
hand is sought in marriage may know
good man when she sees him, and
those whereby a young man may know
a good woman?
All these important matters are left
to chance and accident, because we
have been laboring under the foolish
belief that love is blind. Young men
fall in love with such superficial things
as a big basket-shaped hat or mincing
gait, and a young woman with f1ashy
neckties and glistening rings, partly
because they do not know from intelli-
gent instruction what to look for as
evidences of real worth in the opposite
sex.
I'VE provide courses of instruction
for those who would do well and i'm
prove the breed OF horses, cattle, hogs
and sheep, but we do nothing for a
course in training or any standard OF
requirement for those who are to en-
gage in the complex and difficult task
of raising children and improving the
race. The government is spending
vast sums in studying the antics OF the
sportive clam, but there is no public
support for the scientific study of the
interesting behavior of little children
playing around the family Preside. The
state and government are spending
thousands on scholarly dissertations on
how to develop kindness and good
will in the recreant mule and how to
bring up an orphan calf, but those in
charge of the rearing and development
of the human offspring must grope in
the dark for successful way.
There ought be instituted for pro-
spective parents a course in matri-
mony. Let there be obtained by care
full inquiry body OF information as to
what physical and mental and moral
qualities are most satisfactory promises
of efficient parenthood and what types
of temperament may be regarded as
compatible. Then teach these things
to young men and women and they
will be guided intelligently in search
for true and likewise intelligent COM
panion OF the soul.
I'VE often find boys, who, through
lack Of any well-planned exercise or
the experience of persistent work are
without the moral stamina necessary to
enable them to answer the many i'm
perative calls for well-disposed young
artists and artisans Girls, too, there
are, approaching the age Of grown-up
womanhood, whose minds are nour-
ished chiefly on the airy dreams OF
coming-out parties, pink teas and the
ultra-fashions in clothes.
This course in matrimony ought to
include, besides the experiences OF
thousands OF fathers and mothers in
child-rearing, complete course in the
psychology Of child culture. A course
would do more to save the boys and
girls than any other discipline that can
be offered. After we have worked out
a body OF scientific literature on meth
DDS OF rearing children, let every
human pair would receive license to