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d nothing concerning their sexual functions, nor of the consequences of these. At Zurich a school has been instituted for nurses and midwives which will soon give good results. This school is also open to young girls who, without becoming professional nurses, desire to learn how to take care of the sick in their own families, and especially the newly born. This is an experiment worthy of encouragement which should be extended universally. "The awkwardness, incapacity and ignorance of a young wife, when she starts housekeeping and has a baby, are astonishing. She often pays dearly for it, in spite of the instinct which is so much talked about. It is not the same as with animals, whose instincts are sufficient for the care of the young. "A lady doctor of Zurich, Madame Hilfiker, has lately developed a scheme of much greater importance, which will require a great effort on the part of women and the intervention of legislation, if it is to be realized. Men, she says, maintain their muscular strength by military service. Every young woman, who is not prevented by her occupation, should perform the equivalent of military service, from the age of eighteen, in obligatory service for a year, in hospitals, asylums, maternities, _creches_ (public nurseries) or public kitchens. Such training would be extremely useful for future wives, and would at the same time provide the institutions in question with useful workers. Why should men be the only ones to perform obligatory social service? I expect," says Madame Schmid, "many adverse criticisms on this proposal, one of which I will refute at once. The ladies of the middle classes will strongly object because their daughters will see and hear so many things which ought to be hidden till they marry! But why should they be hidden? In order to prepare our daughters for marriage, is it not logical to begin by telling them what it is, what it involves and what it exacts?" ("_L'Education sociale de nos filles_," 1904.) In neglecting this duty our parents and teachers commit a veritable crime. Does a normal man ever marry without knowing what he is doing? Yet our young girls are kept by their mothers in insensate and often dangerous ignorance of their whole future. Whoever invented this absurd and mischievous idea that a young girl should remain ignorant
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