“Why, no, I don’t; but tell me what great things a woman can do—things that are worth while, I mean; something besides keep house and take care of children. It seems to me that merely to be a cook and nurse girl is not a very high calling.”
“She might be a chemist,” suggested Mr. Wayne.
“Oh, yes, a few women might; but I mean something that I could be, or other girls like me who have no special talent.”
“There is a great need of scientific knowledge among women. Every housekeeper needs to know something of chemistry. The woman who knows the chemical action of acids and alkalies on each other will never use soda with sweet milk, nor make the mistake of using an excess of soda with sour milk. And every day, in a myriad of ways, her knowledge of chemistry will be called into use.”
“Then every woman should be a psychologist, most especially if she is to have the care of children.”
“O, father, you use such big words. Tell me just what you mean.”
“I mean that the office of nurse or mother demands the highest study of mental evolution. More big words, but I’ll try to make you understand.
“It seems to you that any one can take care of a baby. But what is a baby? Not just a helpless little animal, to be fed and clothed and kept warm. A baby is a spirit in the process of development. From the moment of birth it is being educated by everything around it; the very tones of voice used in speaking to it are educating it. It is a great thing to be President of the United States, but that president was once a baby. His life depended on the way he was fed and cared for; his character was largely created by the circumstances of his life; and his mental powers—which he inherited from both parents—were in his babyhood and early childhood largely under the training of some woman. That woman, whether mother or nurse, had the first chance to develop him, to make him worthy or unworthy. John Quincy Adams said, ‘All I am I owe to my mother,’ and that is the testimony of many of earth’s greatest men. Garfield’s first kiss after his inauguration was very justly given to his mother.
“God has entrusted mothers with life’s grandest work, the moulding of humanity in its plastic stage. You have done clay modelling in school, and you know that when the clay is fresh and 28 moist you can make of it almost anything you will, but when it has hardened it is past remodelling. It is just the same with humanity. In babyhood the mind is plastic; when one has grown to maturity, it is hard and unyielding. Man makes things; woman makes men. Which is the greater work?”