Let the justness of this subject be properly presented to them, and most men will be convinced of its truth. Men naturally reverence the maternal in woman, and if taught that continence serves the best interests of motherhood and posterity, will cheerfully accord their lives with it.
A principal of a high school in Iowa was a married man many years before he knew that the sexual relation was ever sustained during pregnancy. When he learned it, he asserted that his whole soul was filled with shame and disgust that his sex had no better knowledge of their protective duties relating to maternity.
Those desiring the best reproduction of themselves should learn:
That motherhood is the central fact of human life.
That the first right of a child is to be well born.
That every mother should be set apart during pregnancy for the ante-natal culture of her child.
That control of appetite is the first step in human culture.
That no man should become a father who can not and will not observe the demands of temperance in all things for the benefit of his child.
CHAPTER XII.
VENTILATION.—REST.
The pregnant woman breathes for two. While pure air is desirable for all persons under every condition, it is doubly so for her. Nothing is more essential to the healthful nourishment of the fetus than that the blood be thoroughly oxygenated. Otherwise the child may be weak and feeble, and liable to disease.