For one thing, Lorrimer considered famine and war inevitable
scourges of the human race, necessary for the removal of the surplus
population, and useless to contend against, because destined to recur,
so long as there is a human race; but he would have limited
intellectual pursuits for women, because culture is held to prevent the
trouble for which the elder expedients only provided a cure--a point
upon which Ideala did not agree with him at all. "Nothing is more
disastrous to social prosperity," she held, "or more likely to add to
the criminal classes, than families which are too large for their
parents to bring up, and educate comfortably, in their own station. If
the higher education of women is a natural check on over-production of
that kind, then encourage it thankfully as a merciful dispensation of
providence for the prevention of much misery. I can see no reason in
nature or ethics for a teeming population only brought into existence
to be removed by famine and war. Why, this old green ball of an earth
would roll on just as merrily without any of us."
* * * * *
Lorrimer wrote to her at last.
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