SLljp Matifn mh % CHljttii 
 
 BY 
 
 Mwcm MottUBsmi, MM. 
 
 A Lecture by Doctor Montessori delivered 
 before the National Education Association 
 in August, I9f5> and .reprinted from \the. 
 Journal of the Assotidlidn/ hti], . . - 
 
 Reprinted by 
 
 THE HOUSE OF CHILDHOOD, INC. 
 
 225 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY 
 
 ikers and Sole Licencees of the Montessori Childhood Educational Apparatus 
 
BY 
 
 Maria ManUBBOxl M.B. 
 
 ^ 
 
 A Lecture by Doctor Montessoti delivered 
 before the National Education Association 
 in August, 1915, and reprinted from the 
 Journal of the Association, 1915. 
 
THE MOTHER AND tHE CHILD 
 Maria Montessori, M.D., Rome, Italy 
 
 The mothers of today take far more intelli- 
 gent care of their children than did the 
 mothers of the past, and this is not because 
 they love their children more but because the 
 science of medicine, by establishing rules for 
 child hygiene, has materially aided the mis- 
 sion of motherhood. Thus the treatment ac- 
 corded the child has brought great change to 
 the mission of motherhood. Above all, it has 
 vitally transformed some of the principles, 
 that is to say, some of the ideas as to the real 
 influence that we may have on a child as he 
 
 .develops. Let us rapidly survey these trans- 
 
 } formations. 
 
 What used to take place? Perhaps there 
 are some w^ho still remember having seen cer- 
 tain practices, considered a universal dogma at 
 one time. The child v^as v^rapped in sv^^addl- 
 ing clothes to avoid having crooked legs; his 
 N tongue had to be clipped so that he might 
 \ some day talk; he alw^ays w^ore a cap to keep 
 his ears from standing out; care was always 
 taken to lay the baby down in such positions 
 as not to run the risk of doing permanent in- 
 jury to his delicate head; the good mothers 
 
 ^C 
 
also rubbed the little newborn baby's nose so 
 
 ^ that it would grow long and slender and not 
 
 remain too short and stumpy; they even put 
 
 N^ gold ear-rings on him at birth because this 
 
 supposedly made his sight keener. 
 
 In some countries these practices are doubt- 
 less forgotten, but in some they are still in 
 use. Who does not remember the means used 
 to help the child in learning to walk? In the 
 first months — at a time of life when the nerve 
 paths are not yet developed and it is impossi- 
 ble for the child to co-ordinate his movements 
 — mothers would waste several half hours a 
 day trying to teach the child to walk. They 
 held the babe by his body and used the dis- 
 ordered movements of the little feet to delude 
 themselves into thinking that these were the 
 beginnings of walking, and because the child 
 began, little by little, to put one foot in front 
 of the other and to gain confidence in the use 
 of his feet, the mothers attributed all this pro- 
 gress to their previous efforts. 
 
 When the control of movement was some- 
 what established — but not equilibrium, or the 
 power of standing upon his feet — the mothers 
 used straps to support the baby body and thus 
 had him walk with them, or when they could 
 not spare the time, they would put the child 
 into an ambulator — which having a broad base 
 
 334869 
 
could not tip over — and there he stayed, his 
 arms hanging over the side, his little body 
 supported by the rim, and tho he did not 
 know how to stand still, he went forward by 
 moving his feet — that is, he walked. 
 
 \ What did science reveal when it entered the 
 > field of child welfare? Certainly it offered 
 no sure means of strengthening the nose and 
 ears, and it did not enlighten the mothers as 
 to the ways of teaching a child, even from 
 birth, how to walk. No, first of all, it uttered 
 the firm conviction that nature herself sees 
 to determining the shape of the head, nose, 
 and ears; that man will talk well without the 
 need of clipping his tongue ; that the legs 
 grow straight naturally; not only this, but 
 ^ the fact that the function of deambulation is 
 established of itself in nature and has no need 
 \ of assistance. Hence we must let nature act 
 ! of its own accord as freely as possible and 
 the more a child is left free to develop, the 
 sooner and the more perfectly will he attain 
 his higher forms and functions. Abolish then 
 the swathing-bands and recommend great 
 peace and comfort when he rests. The child, 
 with his limbs free, should be left lying 
 quietly, not tossed up and down or rocked as 
 many used to do, thinking they were amusing 
 
him ; neither should he be forced to walk be- 
 fore his time. When the hour comes he will 
 arise and walk. 
 
 Today almost everyone is convinced of 
 these facts, and swaddling clothes, girths, and 
 ambulators have almost disappeared from 
 sale. Children, therefore, have straighter legs 
 and walk better and at an earlier age than 
 formerly. 
 
 This fact is well established, and it is a 
 great relief, for in truth what a burden it was 
 to think that the straightness of the legs, the 
 form of the nose, of the ears, of the head, were 
 all the direct results of our care! What a 
 responsibility, for which all felt unfit! What 
 a joy to say, "It is nature's task. I will leave 
 the child free, I will watch him grow in 
 beauty, I will assist quietly at the miracle." 
 
 These new concepts have up to now been 
 confined to the body. As regards the inner 
 life of the child there has not been a like pro- 
 gress, for in this we are still in a stage similar 
 to that other which, by the help of science, 
 we have left behind. 
 
 Something of the kind is coming for the 
 child's inner life. Indeed, we are assailed with 
 questions. The character must be molded, the 
 intellect developed, the feelings guided, and 
 we ask ourselves. What shall we do? Here 
 
and there we touch the child's soul, or we 
 confine it more or less as the mothers did by 
 rubbing the child's nose or bandaging his ears. 
 We hide our anxiety behind a sort of medium 
 success, since men do grow up with character, 
 intellect, and feelings. When, however, all 
 these qualities are lacking, we are overcome. 
 What shall we do? Who can endow a degen- 
 erate with character, an idiot with intellect, a 
 moral degenerate with feelings? If, indeed, it 
 were by merely touching the soul here and 
 there that man gained all these qualities, then 
 it would suffice to touch a little more energeti- 
 cally him who was lacking. But such is not 
 \ the case. Hence we are no more creators of 
 the inner form than of the outer. 
 
 It is nature, it is creation, which directs all 
 these things. When once we are convinced 
 of this, there is born within us the principle of 
 the necessity of not putting obstacles in the 
 way of natural development, and instead of 
 so many different problems, such as what to 
 do to develop character, intellect, and feelings, 
 one problem only would present itself as the 
 V basis of all education — how to give the child 
 freedom. 
 
 In this freedom there must be included 
 principles analogous to those which science 
 dictated for the forms and functions of the 
 
body during the period of growth, a freedom 
 in which the head, nose, and ears became 
 more beautiful and deambulation the most 
 perfect possible, according to the congenital 
 forces of the individual. So here freedom as 
 the only means should carry the character, the 
 intellect, and the feelings to the highest point 
 of development possible to the individual, and 
 it should give to us, who are directing this 
 work, peace and the opportunity of contem- 
 plating the miracle of growth. 
 
 This freedom liberates us, too, from the 
 anxious burden of an imaginary responsibility 
 and a dangerous illusion. Woe to us if we 
 believe ourselves responsible for things which 
 do not concern us and delude ourselves into 
 thinking that we bring things to pass which, 
 on the contrary, take place without any refer- 
 ence to us. What, then, has become of our 
 real mission, of our real responsibility? What 
 w^rongs, what real sins are we committing? 
 
 The history of the child's physical redemp- 
 tion has for us a most interesting sequence. 
 It does seem strange to us today to consider 
 that at a time when infant diseases were a 
 scourge, it was not the death-rate which held 
 the attention, but the form of the nose or the 
 legs, whereas the vital question passed un- 
 noticed. The mortality statistics revealed 
 
such high figures that the phenomenon was 
 named the ''slaughter of the innocents." The 
 X famous statistics of Lexis, which do not refer 
 to any one country but to the average death- 
 rate of humanity in general, shows that this 
 terrifying truth was universal. It has two 
 factors : One undoubtedly is the character- 
 istic weakness of the child; the other, the 
 want of protection for his weakness, a lack 
 which was general among all peoples. 
 
 Certainly there was no want of good-will or 
 feeling of love toward the children, but a 
 something unknown was wanting: the means 
 of combating a dreadful peril which took 
 place all unnoticed. We know today that 
 infectious diseases, especially those of intes- 
 tinakorigin, were the cause of such great mor- 
 V tality. Intestinal diseases diminish nutrition 
 ^ or produce poisons at an age in which the 
 delicate tissues are most sensitive and they 
 were responsible for almost the entire 
 slaughter. 
 
 Then the wrongs which were being habit- 
 ually committed against infants stood forth, 
 wrongs comprised in a lack of cleanliness 
 which today would astound us and in an ab- 
 solute want of any rules as to the feeding of 
 babies. The soiled linens which enveloped the 
 child were often merely hung out to dry sev- 
 
eral times and used over again and again be- 
 fore being washed. No care was taken to 
 wash either the nipple or the baby's mouth, 
 in spite of the fact of fermentation so serious 
 to cause local sickness. The infant nursed 
 without any regularity ; night and day the 
 baby's cries governed the time of nursing 
 and the more indigestion and suffering in- 
 creased the more his feedings were increased, 
 thus aggravating his condition. 
 
 Science gave the simplest rules; it advised 
 the most perfect cleanliness possible and it 
 pointed out a principle so evident in itself 
 that it was amazing that everyone had not 
 understood it from the beginning, namely : A 
 baby, like an adult, must fast at times and can 
 N^take new food only after the preceding'^has 
 been digested, and so the nursing periods 
 should come at regular intervals, varying ac- 
 cording to age, following the modifications of 
 the physiological functions in their develop- 
 ment. Nor should crusts of bread be given 
 the child — as so many mothers do, especially 
 the very poor — to calm his crying, for he 
 ^ might swallow the hard particles before he 
 is able to digest them. 
 
 It was science which, redeeming the chil- 
 dren, brought about trained nurse girls, 
 cradles for all, rooms and proper clothing, and 
 
especially prepared foods made by great con- 
 cerns for the hygienic feeding of children after 
 weaning. Indeed, it created an entirely new 
 world for them — intelligent, clean, and pleas- 
 ing. The child became the new man, who has 
 wrested his rights from life and who has, 
 therefore, had to create an environment for 
 himself. Thus we see that infant mortality 
 diminishes in direct proportion to the diffusion 
 of the rules of child hygiene. 
 
 If, therefore, w^e say that spiritually also the 
 child should be left free because nature — and 
 not we — is the creator who molds him, we do 
 not mean by that to abandon him and leave 
 him to his own devices. 
 
 Perhaps, however, if we study the situation, 
 we will realize that, tho we may not be able 
 to act directly on the child's individual forms 
 of character, intellect, and feeling, which we 
 have overlooked and on which depend the life 
 and death of the spirit; yet there are a certain 
 series of obligations and a round of cares 
 which it is our duty to perform. 
 
 The criterion of liberty is not then one of 
 abandoning the child, but by leading us from 
 illusion to truth, it points the way to the posi- 
 tive and most efficacious manner of caring for 
 children. 
 
Freedom of the Child of Today Merely* a 
 
 Physical Freedom — Civil Rights of 
 
 Children in the Twentieth Century 
 
 Hygiene has freed the child's physical life. 
 The external proofs, which consist in the do- 
 ing away with the swaddling clothes, in the 
 open-air life, in giving sufficient rest, and the 
 like, are, in general, the most visible and 
 tangible part, but they constitute only a means 
 of attaining freedom. A far more important 
 step toward freedom has been that of remov- 
 ing from the path of life the dangers of dis- 
 ease and death. 
 
 As soon as the obstacle caused by some of 
 these fundamental errors was removed, not 
 only did the children survive in greater num- 
 bers, but it was proved that they grew better 
 and healthier. Was it really hygiene which 
 helped them to increase in weight, in stature, 
 in beauty, and also in general growth? Hy- 
 giene did not do all of this. The gospels say: 
 "Who is able to add one cubit to man's stat- 
 ure?'' Hygiene only freed the child's body 
 from the obstacles which were preventing his 
 growth. There were external bands that 
 hindered the growth and the entire natural 
 evolution of life. Hygiene broke these bands 
 
asunder and everybody realized that a libera- 
 tion had taken place. When this was an ac- 
 complished fact everyone said : "Children 
 must be free/' Now the direct relation be- 
 tween "attained conditions of physical life" 
 and "acquired freedom" is universally felt. 
 
 In that way the child is treated like a little 
 plant. For years plants in an orchard or a 
 garden were well kept; they had gained rights 
 and privileges which the child had only just 
 now attained — good food, oxygen, a suitable 
 temperature, and minute protection from the 
 parasites which cause plant disease. Today 
 the son of a prince can have as good care as 
 the most beautiful rosebud in a lovely villa. 
 
 The old saying, "A child is like a flower," 
 is what we hope today to make a reality, but 
 it is as yet a privilege accorded only to the 
 more fortunate children. But let us arouse 
 ourselves from so great a mistake. The child 
 is a man. What is enough for a plant is not 
 enough for a human being. We must always 
 hold before us the picture of the child as the 
 future man, we must see him in the bustling 
 humanity which seeks with such heroic efforts 
 to attain the goal of life. 
 
 What are the rights of children? Let us 
 consider them for a moment as a class in 
 society, a laboring class, for they do indeed 
 
labor to produce men. They are the future 
 generation. They labor and endure the hard- 
 ships of the physical and spiritual growth. 
 They are continuing the work performed for 
 a few months by their mothers, and to them 
 is left the performing of the more arduous, 
 more complex, and more difficult task. When 
 they are born they have naught but poten- 
 tiality, yet they must do everything in a world 
 which, even on the word of an adult, is full of 
 difficulties. What is done to aid these weak 
 pilgrims in an unknown world? They are 
 born weaker and more helpless than an ani- 
 mal, and they must in a few years become 
 men ; must be a part of an organized and com- 
 plicated society, built on the secular effort of 
 innumerable generations. At an age in which 
 civilization — that is to say the possibility of 
 living well — is based on rights acquired by 
 force and incorporated into laws, what are the 
 rights of him who comes among us without 
 strength and without thought? 
 
 Let us see how the laws of society receive 
 a child into the world. We are in the twen- 
 tieth century, yet in many civilized nations 
 foundling homes and the practice of using wet 
 nurses are still institutions. 
 
 What is this foundling home? It is a prison 
 in a dark dungeon, where all too often the 
 
prisoner finds death, as was the case in those 
 mediaeval dungeons where the victim, judged 
 in secret, disappeared unknown to anyone. He 
 will never see his own people, his family name 
 is blotted out of existence, his goods are con- 
 fiscated. Any malefactor whosoever has 
 greater rights than he, and yet no one could 
 better prove his innocence. 
 
 The maternal duty of nursing one's children 
 proclaimed by hygiene is founded on the 
 physiological fact that the mother's milk is 
 more nourishing than is any other milk. It 
 is true there is the law of property rights 
 which is final. One need only steal a roll, 
 starving tho he be, to become a thief, to be 
 punished by law and put outside the pale of 
 society. But as regards babies, what more 
 sacred right is there than that the baby shall 
 have its mother's milk? There is no doubt as 
 to the legality of his right; his only capital, 
 the milk, came into the world with him and 
 for him. All his wealth is there; his power 
 of life, of growth, of gaining strength depends 
 on that nourishment. If ever the defrauded 
 child were to be weak and have rickets, what 
 will become of him, condemned as he is by 
 poverty to a hard occupation? If some day 
 the child, having attained to manhood, should 
 present his case before society's court of 
 
justice, what a just cause he would have for 
 damages because of his inabiUty to work and 
 his permanent injuries ! 
 
 What distinguishes us from cannibals and 
 pirates is the fact that the rights of the adults 
 are recognized. Not so the child's rights. 
 What cowardliness to recognize the adult's 
 rights and not those of the child! Shall we 
 give justice only to those who can defend and 
 protect themselves and in all else remain bar- 
 barians? The peoples of today may have at- 
 tained a greater or less degree of evolution 
 from the standpoint of hygiene, but they all 
 belong to the same civilization, i.e., the rights 
 of the strong. 
 
 When we intend to consider seriously the 
 problem of the child's moral education, we 
 should glance around and at least be cog- 
 nizant of the world we have prepared for him. 
 Do we desire that, like ourselves, he may un- 
 heedingly trample on the weak? That he may 
 hold ideas of justice which halt before one 
 who cannot protest? Do we wish to make of 
 him a half-civilized man, when he meets his 
 equals, and a half-beast when he comes in 
 contact with the hosts of oppressed and inno- 
 cent? If we keep in our conscience facts of 
 such serious injustice, not to call them crimes. 
 
without ever being aware of them, what may 
 not be the lesser evils which will descend on 
 the child? 
 
 How We Receive the Children Who Come 
 Into the World 
 
 Until recently nothing was ready to receive 
 this wonderful guest. It is only recently that 
 little beds for children have been manufac- 
 tured. There used to be no washstands, no 
 armchairs, no little tables, no brushes. From 
 among so many houses, not one house for 
 them; only very rich and privileged children 
 have their own room, and it is almost a place 
 of exile. 
 
 Let us imagine enduring for a single day 
 the torment to which they are condemned. 
 
 Supposing that we should find ourselves 
 among a giant people, whose legs were ex- 
 ceedingly long in comparison with ours, whose 
 bodies were enormous, but who were very 
 quick as compared with us — an exceedingly 
 agile, intelligent people. If we wish to climb 
 their stairs, the steps are high, on a level with 
 our knee, and yet we have to try to climb up 
 with them. If we wish to sit down, the chair 
 reaches almost to our shoulders. Climbing 
 
up with difficulty, we finally succeed in perch- 
 ing ourselves on it. We would like to brush 
 our dress, but the big brushes are so heavy 
 that our hand cannot even grasp, much less 
 hold, them. For brushing our nails we are 
 given a clothes brush. We could easily take 
 a bath in the wash basin, but our arms would 
 not be strong enough to lift it. If we knew 
 that these giants were expecting us to do so, 
 we would say : "They have made no prepara- 
 tion to receive us, to make our visit comfort- 
 able." The child finds all that he could wish 
 for in the form of toys or dolls. The rich, 
 multiform, attractive environment was not 
 made for him, whereas dolls have houses, with 
 sitting-rooms, kitchens, and closets — every- 
 thing which the adult possesses is reproduced 
 in miniature for the doll. The child, however, 
 cannot actually live with all these things — he 
 can only play with them. The world has been 
 given to him as a joke, because as yet no one 
 has admitted that he is a living man. He 
 finds that society has prepared an ironical re- 
 ception for him. 
 
 The child really tries to live with all the 
 things that surround him. He would really 
 like to use a washstand by himself, to dress 
 himself, actually to comb the hair on a living 
 head, really to sweep the floors ; he. 
 
too, would like to possess chairs, tables, arm- 
 chairs, clothes hooks and closets. What 
 he wants is really to work, to attain an 
 intelligent end, to have the enjoyment of his 
 own life. Besides, he must not only act like 
 a man, but he must actually form the man; 
 this is the predominating tendency of his na- 
 ture, his mission. The smallest thing suffices 
 to make him happy — to hang his clothes on a 
 hook placed low on the wall within his reach, 
 to open a light door whose knob is in propor- 
 tion to his hand, silently and lightly to move 
 a chair whose weight is adapted to the 
 strength of his arms. It is a very simple mat- 
 ter to offer him an environment where every- 
 thing is built in proportion to his size, and 
 to let him live there. Then there develops 
 in him that active life which has caused so 
 much wonder, because we see in him the reve- 
 lation of a spiritual life. In that harmonious 
 environment we have seen the child concen- 
 trated on intellectual work, as a seed which 
 has taken root in the right ground, and from 
 that develop and grow by one means only — 
 prolonged constancy in each exercise. 
 
 When the little ones are seen acting in this 
 way, intent upon their work, slow in carrying 
 it out because of the immaturity of their con- 
 stitutions, as they are slow in walking, be- 
 
cause their legs are still short, one has the in- 
 tuitive feeling that they are perfecting their 
 lives, as a chrysalis slowly perfects the butter- 
 fly within its cocoon. To hinder their occu- 
 pations would be to commit violence against 
 their life. On the contrary, what is generally i, 
 done to children? We all interrupt them I 
 without the slightest regard, without the / 
 slightest respect, with the manners which j 
 were used by masters toward slaves who had ' 
 no human rights. To have the same regard 
 for a child as for an adult would seem ridic- 
 ulous to many people, and yet with what 
 severity we say to children ,"Do not interrupt 
 us." If the little one is doing something, for 
 example eating by himself, an adult comes 
 along and feeds him; if he is trying to put on 
 his apron, the adult runs to dress him ; all 
 brutally take his place, without the slightest 
 respect. And yet we are keenly aware of the 
 proprietorship of our work and whoever tries 
 to take our place offends us. 
 
 What would happen to us were we to become 
 slaves to a people incapable of comprehending 
 the sensitiveness of our feelings — a giant 
 people, stronger than ourselves? While we 
 are quietly eating our soup, relishing it, at 
 our pleasure (and we know what an enjoy- 
 ment is found in this freedom), a giant comes 
 
along and grabs the spoon from our hand and 
 makes us swallow so fast that we almost 
 choke. Our protest, "For goodness sake, 
 wait," would be accompanied by a contraction 
 of the heart and our digestion would be en- 
 dangered. If another time, while thinking of 
 something pleasant, we were slowly putting 
 on our coat with that satisfaction and that 
 liberty which we have in our own home, and 
 a giant should light upon us, and in the 
 twinkling of an eye, having dressed us, should 
 carry us bodily out of the door, we would feel 
 our dignity so belittled that the whole pleas- 
 ure of the walk would be lost. Our nourish- 
 ment does not come simply and purely from 
 the soup swallowed, and the well-being does 
 not come simply and purely from the walk, 
 but also from the freedom which accompanies 
 all these things. We would feel, rebellious 
 and offended, not certainly because of hatred 
 of these giants, but only because of the love 
 for an inner tendency to let our life function 
 freely. There is something within us that 
 man does not know, which, one might say, 
 with an expression easily understood, God 
 alone knows, and He is imperceptibly mani- 
 festing it to us that we fulfil it. It is this love 
 which more deeply nourishes and gives the 
 feeling of well-being to our life, even in its 
 
most minute acts. Because of this it is said 
 that ''Man does not live by bread alone." How 
 much more true is this in the case of the child, 
 where creation is at work? 
 
 Children must defend their little acquisi- 
 tions in the environment by struggles and re- 
 bellion. When they want to exercise the 
 senses, for instance that of touch, everyone 
 reprimands them, saying, "Don't touch!'' If 
 they try to take some object from the kitchen, 
 some leftovers to make a pie within a little 
 plate, they are chased away, they are merci- 
 lessly led back to their toys. How many times 
 one of those wonderful moments, in which 
 their attention is fixed, and that process of 
 organization which must develop them is 
 starting within them, has been brusquely in- 
 terrupted, as the spontaneous efforts of the 
 children are seeking blindly in the environ- 
 ment for those things with which to nourish 
 their intellect. Have we not all perhaps had 
 the feeling that something in our life has been 
 crushed forever? 
 
 Let us picture adults who were not settled 
 in life, as are most men, but were in a state 
 of inner autocreation like men of genius. Sup- 
 pose a writer to be under poetical inspiration, 
 and about to give to humanity a helpful and 
 inspiring message. Or let us take the mathe- 
 
matician who sights the solution of a great 
 problem whence would spring new principles 
 useful to humanity. Or take an artist whose 
 mind is conceiving the ideal image which 
 must be put on the canvas immediately so that 
 a masterpiece may not be lost. Imagine such 
 men at such psychological moments. Suppose 
 there came into their presence a cruel person 
 calling aloud to them to follow, and this per- 
 son should take them by the hand and then 
 push them out. To what purpose? To play 
 a game of chess. "Oh," they would say, "you 
 could not have done anything worse to us. 
 Our inspiration is lost, humanity will be de- 
 prived of a poem, a masterpiece, a useful dis- 
 covery, becatise of this foolishness.'' 
 
 But the child loses not only a product, but 
 himself as well, for the masterpiece which he 
 is creating in his immortal self is the new man. 
 And it is not only the soul which suffers, but 
 the body suffers too. For this is what char- 
 acterizes man — the influence that the spirit 
 has on his entire physical existence. 
 
 We deceive ourselves in thinking that we 
 give all to the child when we give him air 
 and. food. Indeed, we do not give even this ; 
 food and air are not enough for man's body; 
 all the physiological functions depend on the 
 
well-being, and that is the only key to the 
 whole of life. So, also, the child's body lives 
 by the freedom of the soul. 
 
 A new hour is about to strike for the rela- 
 tions between mother and child. The modern 
 mother who is prepared to care perfectly for 
 the physical life, and who for such a mission 
 has only yesterday opened her mind to new 
 studies and new ideas and has accepted new 
 responsibilities, is about to take a step for- 
 ward. Like care, dictated by science, will be 
 demanded of her tomorrow, for the intellectual 
 hygiene of the child and for the health of his 
 inner life. 
 
 No longer will medicine alone furnish her 
 the necessary teachings, but also a renewed 
 pedagogy based on the positive facts of 
 science. The girls who yesterday, in order to 
 be better mothers, took hospital training, will 
 tomorrow go to children's schools to learn the 
 art of protecting the new lives which are 
 about to be entrusted to them by nature. 
 Then the maternal mission will become com- 
 plete and woman will turn her steps toward 
 motherhood with open eyes and with the dig- 
 nity of one who is no longer only a creator 
 but also a protector of posterity, one who 
 guards and saves the body and mind of the 
 new humanity. 
 
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