ND MOTHERHOOD.--Any plan or scheme which has for its object race
regeneration must concern itself with the health, the education, and the
psychology of woman; the environment which shall surround her period of
motherhood, and her selection of the fathers of the future. Society must
safeguard her in all her relations. The race to-morrow are the babies of
to-day. The wealth of a nation therefore is the type of baby that will
constitute its civilization from generation to generation, and absolutely
nothing else counts. We hear much about race suicide, but is it not
monstrous to cry for more babies when we do not know how to keep alive
those we have? It is a fact that everywhere the birth rate of the Caucasian
people is on the decline. Our birth rate as a whole, however, is ample;[17]
it is the death rate that is significant and appalling. When we remember
that one-third of all the babies born die before they reach the age of five
years; and that the deaths of babies under one year of age comprise about
one-fourth of the total death-roll; and that fully one-half of all these
deaths are needless and unnecessary, wherein is the wisdom of working for a
higher birth rate if it is merely that more may die?

The majority of babies are born physically healthy, but because of our
destructive process, we proceed to annihilate hundreds of thousands of them
yearly, and because of defective environment and education we render
thousands of others, including the fit and unfit, inefficient and
incompetent as propagating factors. It is to remove this disastrous stigma
on our intelligence that we have been forced to study the conditions which
the eugenic idea represents. When these principles are understood and
believed, and when they are acted upon, infant mortality will cease to
exist.

It was the design of the Creator that human motherhood should be an exalted
occupation. He placed in her care to nurture and to love, the most helpless
living thing. Few have regarded a baby from this viewpoint and fewer still
understand its supreme significance. That it is the most utterly helpless
thing possessing life is a self-evident fact, and that it should be
destined to be King of all mammalian tribes as well as Lord of all the
earth is a superlative paradox. Because of its utter inability to care for
itself it is more in need of care than any other representative of the
animal world. It is not only in need of immediate care, but it demands care
lo