The more intimately we attach ourselves to Nature, the more she glows with beauty and returns us our affection.—Froebel.

NATURE does not seem to have expected man to get more than a primitive living. She has not changed Her methods at all.

Man has changed. He makes and directs machinery that earns for one man what fifty men can earn; so that one man is fifty times richer than a primitive man.

Nature uses no machinery.

It takes more than twenty years of the mother’s time to develop one citizen. There are no short cuts nor quick methods in woman’s special work.

The mother of a large family has given twenty-five of the best years of her life to the work which none but her can do.She has given to the state citizens.

This has cost her all her strength, all her time and the ambitions of a quarter of a century.

As our present civilization is, she has given her economic independence, her individual ambitions.

She pays dearly for the privilege of being mother to citizens. She is dependent upon one man for the maintenance of both herself and her children.

THE man, too, is blindfolded by Nature and is led where he knows not.

The desire to give all of his earnings to the development of citizens may never have been his. He may not know nor care about the welfare and perpetuation of the state.

But Nature has not bound him hand and foot to Her plans. When, or if, his affection ceases for this woman who is dependent upon him for food, shelter and clothing, he may use his own judgment about the woman’s and the children’s needs. So long as they escape the attention of the Humane Societies, the family is at his mercy. The woman and her work are dependent upon him just the same.

Unwilling money buys poor food, clothing and teaching. It has evolved bargain-days and cheap goods.