Nature is strong, and she manages to circumvent, to a certain extent, the obstructive devices of man. There are apparently many healthy children born of tightly corseted mothers. The outer flesh and blood of the child are made in the obscure laboratories of the body more easily than the later and highly refined fabrications of brain and nerve. Are the low average brain-power and the weak nerves of our people, leading in so many pitiable cases to moral and mental degeneracy, largely due to our criminal neglect of the conditions of free and splendid motherhood?
But, if we want to become a healthy and powerful people, what is more necessary for us than strong and healthy mothers?
The child should be taught that any tampering with health is immoral. The most conscientious observance of its laws should be impressed upon every boy and girl. Especially must we guard the health of our girls, for their function in the state is just now of vital moment, and yet it is not so much regarded apparently as that of their brothers.
CHAPTER VII
WORK AS A VITAL PART OF PATRIOTISM
Gurowski asked, "Where is the bog? I wish to earn money. I wish to dig peat." "Oh, no, sir, you cannot do such degrading work." "I cannot be degraded. I am Gurowski."—Emerson's Journals.
SOMETHING has been said of the estimation in which work and working for a living, are held in our country.
In an illuminating sermon, Dr. Lyman Abbott once treated of this subject. It was on the Fourth of July, and he began by saying that the most important result of the Civil War, as he viewed it, was one that he had never heard mentioned. Having thus enlisted the keenest attention of his hearers, he continued in nearly these words: