er its mothers' children is reducing philanthropy to absurdity. It
is easy to realize this if we consider the inevitable course of
circumstances under a system of "State-nurseries." The child would be
removed from its natural mother at the earliest age, but some one has to
perform the mother's duties; the substitute must therefore be properly
trained for such duties; and in exercising them under favorable
circumstances a maternal relationship is developed between the child and
the "mother," who doubtless possesses natural maternal instincts but has
no natural maternal bond to the child she is mothering. Such a
relationship tends to become on both sides practically and emotionally the
real relationship. We very often have opportunity of seeing how
unsatisfactory such a relationship becomes. The artificial mother is
deprived of a child she had begun to feel her own; the child's emotional
relationships are upset, split and distorted; the real mother has the
bitterness of feeling that for her child she is not the real mother. Would
it not have been much better for all if the State had encouraged the vast
army of women it had trained for the position of mothering other women's
children, to have, instead, children of their own? The women who are
incapable of mothering their own children could then be trained to refrain
from bearing them.

Ellen Key (in her _Century of the Child_, and elsewhere) has
advocated for all young women a year of compulsory "service,"
analogous to the compulsory military service imposed in most
countries on young men. During this period the girl would be
trained in rational housekeeping, in the principles of hygiene,
in the care of the sick, and especially in the care of infants
and all that concerns the physical and psychic development of
children. The principle of this proposal has since been widely
accepted. Marie von Schmid (in her _Mutterdienst_, 1907) goes so
far as to advocate a general training of young women in such
duties, carried on in a kind of enlarged and improved midwifery
school. The service would last a year, and the young woman would
then be for three years in the reserves, and liable to be called
up for duty. There is certainly much to be said for such a
proposal, considerably more than is to be said for compulsory
military service. For while it is very doubtful whether a man
will ever be called on to fight, most wo