Not have to work. Why not? Who gave
Free pass to you?
You're housed and fed and taught and dressed
By age-long labor of the rest—
Work other people do!
What do you give in honest pay
For clothes and food?
Then as a shield, defence, excuse,
She offers her exclusive use—
Her function—Motherhood!
Is motherhood a trade you make
A living by?
And does the wealth you so may use,
Squander, accumulate, abuse,
Show motherhood as high?
Or does the motherhood of those
Whose toil endures,
The farmers' and mechanics' wives,
Hard working servants all their lives—
Deserve less price than yours?
We're not exempt! Man's world runs on,
Motherless, wild;
Our servitude and long duress,
Our shameless, harem idleness,
Both fail to serve the child.
GENIUS, DOMESTIC AND MATERNAL
Most of us believe the human race to be the highest form of life—so far. Not all of us know why. Because we do not properly realize the causes of our superiority and swift advance, we do not take advantage of them as we should.
Among various causes of human supremacy, none counts more than our social gift of genius, the special power that is given to some more than others, as part of social specialization. In social life, which is organic, we do not find each one doing the same work, but some, especially fitted for one thing, doing that thing for the service of the others. No creature approaches us in the degree of our specialization, and the crowning power of individual genius.
Because of this power we, as a whole, have benefited by the "genius for mechanics," for invention, for discovery, for administration, and all the commoner lines of work, as well as in the fine arts and professions. The great surgeon is a genius as well as the great painter or poet, and the world profits by the mighty works of these specialized servants.
For the development of genius we must allow it to specialize, of course. The genius of Beethoven would have done us little good if he had passed his life as a bookkeeper or dealer in ironware. The greatest of poets could produce little poetry if he worked twelve hours a day in a rolling mill. Genius may overcome some forms of opposition, but it must be allowed to do the work it has a genius for—or none will be manifested.