ingenuity will not come to a standstill with Socialism, but will, on the contrary, be given a stronger impetus, people will go on discovering, inventing and improving the methods of production, and so the socially necessary workday may be shortened further still. But even assuming five hours to be the time every woman will have to give to her trade or profession, six days out of seven, the fact still remains that no mother will have to be separated from her children any longer than we are separated from our children to-day while they are at school. In present-day society mothers of the working class are often separated from their babies for nine and ten hours daily, and no social provision is made to care for their babies during their absence. They must either depend upon the untrained, unreliable care of neighbors or older children, or they must appeal to charity. In Socialistic society there will be no charity babies, no pale, tired little mothers, and no high infant mortality as a result of ignorance and neglect. Neither will there be little children cared for privately by ignorant servants while their idle mothers play bridge. Responsibility toward childhood will be collectively taught and collectively practiced. Every girl will learn the proper care of infants and small children as a part of her public school education, so that every baby will be given a chance to develop healthfully and normally, at home as well as in the nursery.
Although Socialism will extend and increase social responsibility toward childhood, it will not diminish the responsibilty of individual parents. Good parents are not less conscious of their duties to-day, because their home education of their children is supplemented by a public school system. On the contrary, public enlightenment on the subject of education makes individual parents regard their personal responsibilities more seriously. Children of the present day have better, wiser, more enlightened parents than children of centuries ago, before there was any public system of education, and children of the future, brought up under a more extensive system of public education, will have better, wiser, more enlightened parents still. Young men and women will be taught to prepare for parenthood. They will be taught to be healthy, strong
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