CORRESPONDENCE

Otago Witness, Issue 2901, 20 October 1909, Page 69

CORRESPONDENCE

We regret that owing to the Conference of the Society in Wellington this vve«lc ths;e has been no time to reply to "Biter."' Tn?

subject is one of such importance that it

cannot be dismissed i% a few lines. PARENTHOOD AND RACE CULTURE

The following extracts from " Parenthood

and Race Culture," by Dx- C W Saleaby. I which was published during the presenr year, 'are of pu-amount imporcance: — j Our prime assumption from lx?ginn.ing to end is that "there is ho wealth but lie." | ... We have beer considering man from •the point of view of what is traji-- { mitted to offspring by parents Bui a

word lxiuet be said as to ths olhsr factor

I whirih, - with hcredit3-, determines tho ;• character "of- the individual — and that factor [ is the I wish merely to r.ote : 'the most important aspect of the onvii-on-ment or Ssupjar beings, and to observe th.-it liisferilms hitherto have wholly ignored it ; yet its influence -is incaJt-uiabie. - 1 refer"to

MOTHERHOOD HEREDITY GIVES POTENTIALITIES

ENVIRONMENT DEVELOPS THESE"

POTENTIALITIES AND TURNS THEM TO GOOD OR EVIL ACCOUNT. , One might have the most psrfect system of selection of tha finest and highest individuals for parenthood ; but the babies whose potentialities — .heredity gives no more— are so splendid are always, will be always, dependent upon motherhcod. What

was the state of motherhood during the decline and fall of tho Roman Empire? This factor counts in history, and always will count so long as, three times in every century, the only wealth of liations is reduced to dust, and is raifed again, from helpless infancy. As to Rome, we know little, whatever may -be suspected ; but we know that here in the heart of the greatest - Empire in history — and it is at the heart that Empires rot — thousands of mothers go out every day to tend dead machines, whilst their' own flesh anc 1 blcod, with whom lies the Imperial destiny, are tended anyhow or not at all. It may yet be said by some enlightened historian of the future that the living wealth of this people in the twentieth century began to be eaten away by the cancer wh:o'i we call " m.-n-riod women's labour," and that, as will be evident to that historian's renders, its damnation was sure. ' * THE DESTINY OF THE RACE IN THE HANDS OF ITS MOTHERS. -

To-day our historians and politicians think in terms of" regiments and tariffs and Dreadnoughts ; the' tim.3 will come when they must think in terms of babies and motherhood. We must think in such terms too if we w.ish Great Britain to be much

longer great.

Meanwhile some of us see

the perennial slaughter of babies in this land, and the deterioration of many for every one killed outright, tbs waste oT mothers' travail and tears, and we recall Ruakin's words: — Nevertheless, it is open, 3 repeat, to serious question, which I leave to tit" reader's pondering, w hether, among national manufactures, that ol Souls of a good quality may not at last turn out a quite leadingly lucrative one? Nay, n some far-away and yet undreamt-of hour I can even imagine that England may cast all thoughts of possessive wealth back

to the barbaric nations among whom

they first arose: ; and that while the sands * of the Indus and adamant of Goleonda may yet stiffen the housings of the charger, and flash from the turban of the slave, she, as a Christian mother, may at last attain to the virtues and the treasures of a Heathen or.p, and be able to lead forth her Sons, sajing: '" These arc MY Jewels."

Had all Roman mothers been Corenelias would Rome have fallen? Consider the imitation mothers — to longer mammalia — to be found in certain classes to-day — mothere who should bs ashamed to look any tabby-cat in the face: consider the ignorant and downtrodden .mothers amongst our lower classes, and ask whether these things are not making history. Gibbon does not enlighten us much on such vital matteits, but my attention has been calkd to the following passage, not irrelevant here. It is fiom the " Attic Nights" of Aulus Gellius. Book x ; i, chap, i, written about a.t». 150 A ROMAN ON MOTHERHOOD.

"Once when I was with the philosophpr Favorinus word was brought to him that the wife of one of his disc-iples had ju^t given birth to a son. " Let us go," ->iiicl he, "to inquire after Ihe mother and to congratulate the father." The" latter was a noble of .Senatorial rank All of u3 who were piesent accompanied him to the house, and went in with him

Meeting the father ii> the hall hs embraced and congratulated him, and, sitting down, inquired Low his- wife had come through the ordeal. Arc! when ho heard that the young motiioi, ovoitome with Fatisrue, was now sleeping, ha began to t>p»ak more

freely "Of co'u-o." 'aid hf. ".-lie will buokl? tno child her-elf." Ai.<i «' l ion tho girl' 5 mother sa'fl ihar hci daughter must bo >pa>-od, and mif.-ci obtained ir order v tluf the hcavv .sirain of iun~ing the child <=hou!d not b? add-ed to what she had already go'ie through, : I b<?e: of you, dear lady." said tic, "to allow her to be a whole mother to her child. Is it not agafn-t Nature, an<J being only half a mother, to ehe bir f h to » child, and then -A ones to 6end him away— to have nourished with her own blcod ai.d ir> tier own body a something that fcho had ns\or s?<?a, and then to refuse it lier own mijk now that shs sees it living, a human being, demanding a mother's care? Or are you one of those who think that Nature- gave a woman broa--t=s, not that >he might feed her children, but as pretty little hillocks to give her bust a pleasing contour? Many indeed of our present-day ladiet— whom you are far [rom resembling— do try to dry up and

repress that sacred fount of the body, the nourisher of the human race, even at the risk they run from turning back and cor- . rupting their milk, lest it should tafee ofH from the charm of their beauty. In doing this they act with the same Tolly as those who, by the use of drugs and so forth, cndoavDur to destroy the very embryo in their bodies lest a furrow should mar the smoothness of their skin and they Should spoil their fig-urcs in becoming mothers. If the destruction of a human bc.ng in it* first inception, whilst it is being formed, whilst it is yet coming to life, and is still in the hands of its artificer, Nature, be deserving of public detestation aftd horror, is it not nearly as bad to deprive tho child cf his proper and congenial nutriment to which be is accustomed now that he is perfected, is born into the world, is- a child?

'■ But it makes no difference — for as they say — so long as the child is nourished and li\«s, with whose jnilk it is done.

■' Why dees he who says this, since be ;s; s so dull ir understanding Nature, think --t also of no consequenoe in whose womb and fiom whose blood the child is formed and fashioned? For is there not now in the breasts the sa.m-c blocd— whitened, it is | tru-e, by agratio-n ar.d heat — -B'hioh was bo- 1 fore in the woiftb? And is not the ,w;edoni -j of Nature fo be seen in this, tha-t as soon as the .blood .has don-e its work of forming th& body down below, arid the ' turW "of ' birth has come, it betakes, itself to the uppex part? of, the bedy, and is ready- Mo - cherish* the spank 'of- hfe -ami -light- by ■furnishing 'ttftho jicWbtrn •bab^'hes known, and accustomed focd?- And so it b not an idle belief -that, just as the (strength -and character of. th» seed have tbeif influence' in determining the likeness of the body an<3 mind, so do the patu.rs ard properties of tho milk do their part in effecting t'.:e Game results. And this has been - noticed - not in man. alone, but in cattle as w«H. - For if kid« are brought- up or the milk. of ewes, or lambs on that of goats, jt is agreed that the latter have stiffer wool. th« former softer hair. In the case of timber and fruit tree*:, too, the qualities of the water and soil from which they draw their nourishment have more infiu- ! ence in 6tunting or .augmenting" their growth than those of the 6eed which is sown, and often yon may see a vigorous and healthy troo when transplanted into, another place perish owing to the poverty of the soil.

"Is it, then, a reasonable thing, to corrupt the fine qualities of the new-born man, well endowed as to botti body and mind 6o far as parentage is concern ed. with the unsuitable nourishment >f degenerate and foreign milk?

" . . And bssides these eons!dera- , tions, who car* afford to ignore or belitth the fact that those who desert their offspring' and 6erd them away from them- I e-ol"v-etf= ? a.n>cl make tli-em o\-e-i- "to others to nurse, cut, or at least loosen and weaken, that chain and connsction of mind and aff<?r-tion by which Nature attaches children to theic parents! For wh-en the child, sant elsewhere, is- away from sight the vigour' of the maternal solicitude little by little'! dies away, and the call of motherly .instinct I grows silent, «and forgetfuln-ess of a child 1 sent away to nurse is not much less com--! plete than that of one lesfc by de-ith.

" A child's thoughts and the love he is ever ready to give are occupied, moreover, wib'i her alone from whom h-e derives his food, and soon he has h-eitber feeling nor affection for the mother wno bcre himThe foundations of the filial feelings with which we are born being- thus sapped and undermined, whatever affection children thus brought up may &esm to have for father and mother for the most part •» not natural kne, but the rc6ult of social convention.''