ssors, we barbered ourselves as best we could. A close-trimmed beard is certai
" sneered Terry. Whereat Jeff pointed out that he never bef
men made them more feminine in t
. "A less feminine lot I never saw. A child apiece doesn
absorption of the mother in said baby or flock. A motherliness which dominated society, which influenced every art and industr
ts, they left nothing to be desired. That second garment was fairly quilted with pockets. They were most ingeniously arranged, so as to be conven
shown the action of a practical intelligence, coupled with fine artis
e as chummy as could be-the best of friends; but it was funny to watch Terry and Moadine. She was patient with him, and courteous, but it was like the patience and courtesy of some great man, say a skilled, experienced diplomat, with a schoolgirl. Her grave acquiesce
rity. When she dropped an argument he always thought he had s
w his failings, he was by no means an unusual type. We knew his virtues too, and they had always seemed more prominent than the faults. Measured among women-our women at home, I mean-he had always sto
of these women, with only that blessed Jeff and my inconspi
"females," he didn't; his intense masculinity seemed only fit compl
was as quietly watchful as a fencer's. She maintained a pleasant relation with
rong. Needless to say, he called Jeff's teacher "Java," and sometimes "Mocha," or plain "Coffee"; when specially misch
r we had been introduced to a whole group of them, all with
ed, or added to, in an unusually rich life. Such as our present Land Mother-what you call president or king, I believe. She was called Mera, even as a chil
ued Terry, with his somewhat pa
common source-all one 'family' in reality. You see, our comparat
r want her own child to
she? The chil
ation-so people will k
descent all the way back to our dear First Mother. There are many reasons for doing
fference between the purely maternal and the paternal attitude
Jeff. "Don't you sign your names t
work. You will find little names on the houses, on the furniture, on the dishes sometimes
e convenience of the consumer-not th
mel. "We have pride
in your childr
agnificently proud of
gn 'em?" said Te
speak of them, at times, as 'Essa's Lato,' or 'Novine's Amel'; but that is merely descriptive and conversational. In the records, of cour
enough to give a new
ve, for each liv
they wanted to know which method has been proved best-and we had to admit that so far as we knew there had been no attempt at comp
onableness. When I dug into the records to follow out any line of developmen
ds of minds-the critic and inventor. Those who showed an early tendency to observe, to discriminate, to suggest, were given special training for that funct
nd show need of alterations; and the whole corps of inventors was at hand to
ut first priming ourselves to answer questions about our own methods; so I kept rather qui
tion of the advantages of this strange country and its management. Terry rem
had begun to notice from that very first walk in the forest, the first partial view from
t-smothered flanks of those mighty mountains. They had a population of about three million-not a large one, but quality is something. Th
d be as alike as so many ants or aphids; he urged their vi
ross-fertilization, they attributed it partly to the careful education, which followed each slight tendency to differ,
ssive types. They were tall, strong, healthy, and beautiful as a race, but
ind your physical variation accompanied by a proportionate variation in ideas, feelings, and produc
nclined to hold that there was more chance o
grave initial misfortune to have lost half our little world. Perhaps
transmissible," Terry declare
absolute statements, o
e certainly have improved. It may be that all these higher qualities were latent in the original mother, that careful
nd in the amazing psychic growth you have made. We know very little
licate courtesy and were equally pleasant to live with, at least when they wore their "company manners," we had assumed that our companions were a carefully chosen few. Later we were more and more imp
of any single feature of Herland. We soon ceased to comment on this or other matters which to th
in that matter of food supply, wh
one would think that was all there was to be done. But they had not thought so. To them the country was a unit-it was theirs. They themselves were a unit, a conscious group; they thought in terms of the co
like a man's plowing up an inferior lawn and reseeding it. Now every tree bore fruit-edible fruit, that is. In the case of one tree, in which they took especial pride, it had originally no fruit at all-that is, n
ar less labor in tilling the soil, and bearing a larger amount of food f
ops, and their fruit and nuts, grains and
ow. Toward the south-eastern point, where there was a large valley with a lake whose outlet was subte
ong ago or reduced to an annual struggle for life. These careful culturists had worked out a perfect scheme of refeeding the soil with all that came out of it. All the scraps and leaving
ncreasingly valuable soil was being built, instead of the prog
sense should be praised; asked what our methods were; and we had some difficulty in-well, in diverting them, by
ly was child's play for those profound educators to work out a painfully accurate estimate of our conditions-in some lines. When a given line of observation seemed to lead to some very dreadful inference they always gave us the benefit of the doubt, leaving it open to fur
't understand a Man's World! They aren't human-they're just a pack of
our credit that we have muddled along with all our poverty and disease and the like? They ha
ense, we all three began to look for those faults of theirs. We had been very st
men only," Jeff had put it, over
to be given over to what we called "feminine vanity"-"frills and furbelows," and we found they had evolved a costume mo
daring social inventiveness far beyond our own, and a me
nsciousness besides which our nations looked lik
sisterly affection, a fair-minded intellig
nd vigor, a calmness of temper, to which the habit of prof
it, but he still insisted that we shou
natural condition's sure to have unnatural results. You'll find some awful characteristics-see if you don't! For instance-we don't
be something, so I took the bull by the ho
three million people have no faults. We are trying our best to understand and learn-would you mind he
ook out on one side over a stretch of open country, quietly rich and lovely; on the other, the garden, with tables here and there, far apart enough for privacy. Let
er elbow on the low wall beside her
more than we used to-that is, our standard of perfection seems to get farther and farth
cteristics of a long race-record behind her. And they cropped out from time to time-alarmi
st business to train out, to breed o
d. "How could you-w
nounce motherhood. Some of the few worst types were, fortunately, unable to reproduce. But if the fault was in a disprop
d then she would be likely to
llowed," answere
"Allowed a mother to r
mel, "unless she was fit
a blow to my pre
motherhood was
ear a child. But education is our highest
mean education. I mean by motherhood not
ucation, and is entrusted only
rror, something of Terry's feeling creeping over me, tha
te joy, a crowning honor, the most intimate, most personal, most precious thing. That is, the child-rearing has come to be with us a culture so profoundly stu
er's love-"
ying to work out a mean
aintly specialized persons who spend their lives filling little h
d, not getti
-with you-to fill their own ch
t is a highly specialized craft. Surely the c
he most highly competent fulfill that office; and a majority of
mother-bereave
is not the only one to care for it. There are others whom she knows to be wiser. She knows it because she has studied as they di
s was only hearsay; I had yet t