ying of ignorance, prudery indeed is responsible for
the neglect of ignorance on the most important of all subjects. Let it
not be supposed for a moment that in this protest one desires, even for
the highest ends, to impart such knowledge as would involve sullying the
bloom of girlhood. It is not necessary to destroy the charm of innocence
in order to remedy certain kinds of ignorance; nor are prudery and
modesty identical. Whatever prudery may be when analyzed, it seems
perfectly fair to charge it as the substantial cause of the ignorance in
which the young generation grows up, as to matters which vitally concern
its health and that of future generations. Let us now observe in brief
the price of prudery thus arraigned.

There is, first, that large proportion of infant mortality which is due
to maternal ignorance, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter. At
present we may briefly remind ourselves that the nation has had the
young mother at school for many years; much devotion and money have been
spent upon her. Yet it is necessary to pass an Act insuring, if
possible, that when she is confronted with the great business of her
life--which is the care of a baby--within thirty-six hours the fact
shall be made known to some one who, racing for life against time, may
haply reach her soon enough to remedy the ignorance which would
otherwise very likely bury her baby. Prudery has decreed that while at
school she should learn nothing of such matters. For the matter of that
she may even have attended a three-year course in science or technology,
and be a miracle of information on the keeping of accounts, the testing
of drains, and the principles of child psychology, but it has not been
thought suitable to discuss with her the care of a baby. How could any
nice-minded teacher care to put such ideas into a girl's head? Never
having noticed a child with a doll, we have somehow failed to realize
that Nature, her Ancient Mother and ours, is not above putting into her
head, when she can scarcely toddle, the ideas at which we pretend to
blush. Prudery on this topic, and with such consequences, is not much
less than blasphemy against life and the most splendid purposes towards
which the individual, "but a wave of the wild sea," can be consecrated.

This question of the care of babies offers us much less excuse for its
neglect than do questions concerned with the circumstances antecedent to
the babies' appearance. Yet we are blameworthy,