Instead, it places in their hands the power to control this great force;
to use it, to direct it into channels in which it becomes the
energy enhancing their lives and increasing self-expression and
self-development. It awakens in women the consciousness of new glories
and new possibilities in motherhood. No longer the prostrate victim of
the blind play of instinct but the self-reliant mistress of her body and
her own will, the new mother finds in her child the fulfilment of her
own desires. In free instead of compulsory motherhood she finds the
avenue of her own development and expression. No longer bound by an
unending series of pregnancies, at liberty to safeguard the development
of her own children, she may now extend her beneficent influence beyond
her own home. In becoming thus intensified, motherhood may also broaden
and become more extensive as well. The mother sees that the welfare of
her own children is bound up with the welfare of all others. Not upon
the basis of sentimental charity or gratuitous "welfare-work" but upon
that of enlightened self-interest, such a mother may exert her influence
among the less fortunate and less enlightened.
Unless based upon this central knowledge of and power over her own body
and her own instincts, education for woman is valueless. As long as she
remains the plaything of strong, uncontrolled natural forces, as long as
she must docilely and humbly submit to the decisions of others, how
can woman every lay the foundations of self-respect, self-reliance
and independence? How can she make her own choice, exercise her own
discrimination, her own foresight?
In the exercise of these powers, in the building up and integration of
her own experience, in mastering her own environment the true education
of woman must be sought.
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