Eugenics in race and state.

  • International Congress of Eugenics
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Eugenics in race and state. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    384 LOUIS I. DUBLIN students will have more opportunities to see family life in the vicinity of the college haUs and witness the actual success of women who are actively engaged in afíairs and who are, at the same time, wives and mothers. Such teachers would serve as living exponents of the attractiveness of family life. The added richness of experience which maternity brings greatly increases the insight and understanding of married teachers and they become an invaluable influence in determining the ideals of the young people. There is no better place than the faculty of a girls' college for this experiment to be tried out. The program we have outlined will not succeed if, in its emphasis on marriage and maternity, it attempts to hinder or even discourage educated women from pursuing professional work. CoUege women will insist to an ever greater degree on making themselves efficient professionally and independent economically. This tendency shoiild have public approval. But, two things should be kept in mind, both of which are too easily over¬ looked. First, home making must be recognized as an important pro¬ fession and one requiring long and arduous preparation. The successful management of a household has larger possibilities for personal development than most folks appreciate and its devotees deserve much more respect than they now receive. Second, when women have chosen other careers such as teaching, medicine, law, business, whatever it is, it shall not be assumed that this service is incompatible with married life. But we must educate public opinion to look with favor upon the continuation of married women in the many positions of responsibility they are now fiUing so capably. The public must meet the professional woman more than half way and encourage her through concessions of various kinds to marry and bear children, and practically demonstrate that marriage does not necessarily mean her withdrawal entirely from professional activity. Thus, the half million women who teach school, most of whom will remain unmarried under pres¬ ent conditions, should be actively encouraged to marry and should undergo no penalties for so doing. It should be thoroughly approved for married women to teach since the community vitally needs married women teachers. It needs them as mothers because they make good ones and because, as mothers, they make infinitely better teachers. The experience of maternity gives them a more S3anpathetic understanding of child nature, more patience and consideration in dealing with the intricacies of child psychology. Boards of Education should realize all of this and make every adjustment necessary to attract qualified married women to the educational field. Many accommodations wül have to be made on both sides to render such a plan practicable. There will be periods of absence during the childbearing