A Mother Organization in politics or administration might safely and appropriately adopt the following assumption and promise for its propaganda:
"Let us manage all of the institutions relative to child care and child training during the period of formation of child habits and character, and whatever means are necessary to maintain a perfect moral and social quarantine to supplement the family institution and furnish the requisite models of profitable suggestion, so that no child shall escape the best care known to the Science of Child-Life, and we will promise to save, within a single generation, one-fourth of the present cost of government, including the cost of our own branch, and add to the taxable effectiveness of production a measure that cannot be estimated. We will also immediately reach cases of shiftlessness and depravity that are a menace to the peace of the community and effect in them reforms that present methods cannot accomplish. We will also promise, through our unofficial Unsectarian Associated Charity Societies, intimately connected with our crèches and kindergartens, to search out cases of silent and modest distress, relieve them without an offensive show of patronage, and at the same time throw a search-light of enquiry upon perverse idleness and beggary that will render them impossible to flourish on the credulity of unorganized charity."
In suggesting a name for an organization to take charge of character institutions the word "Mother" seems to be the only one that suits the purpose and aims. It would escape the imputation of "old-womanishness" by the very wisdom of its purpose and aims, and it might appropriately include in its membership both men and women who approve of the proposed apportionment of woman's sphere in the division of government administration and recognize its civilizing mission, without breaking affiliation with chosen parties in the established lines of political competition or mission work.
And is there not good logic in the suggestion of a mother organization to manage an important branch of government, wherein woman has proven her superior wisdom and efficiency?
What has woman to do with war if not to furnish brave soldiers and an incentive to heroism?
What has woman to do with correction and punishment, if not to make them unnecessary by seeing that children are not bred to idleness and crime?
What has woman to do with vexed economic questions, if not to rear the sons of productive toil and furnish an incentive to civilized living?
What should woman have to do with politics, if not especially with that branch of administration which deals with training the tender shoots of humanity to be chivalrous, honorable, self-respecting and orderly as a foundation of good character on which to build a structure of good citizenship?
And, on the other hand, what has man to do in the sphere of mother efficiency, in keeping with the demands of a rational division of labor, than to furnish the support required, and, in himself, show a worthy example of the potency of mother influence?