Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“ The babies were reared in the warmer part of the country, and gradually acclimated to the cooler heights as they grew older.
Sturdy children of ten and twelve played in the snow as joyfully as ours do; there were continuous excursions of them, from one part of the land to another, so that to each child the whole country might be home.
It was all theirs, waiting for them to learn, to love, to use, to serve; as our own little boys plan to be "a big soldier," or "a cowboy," or whatever pleases their fancy; and our little girls plan for the kind of home they mean to have, or how many children ”

“ Surely we have noticed how children love to get up on something and walk along it! But we have never thought to provide that simple and inexhaustible form of amusement and physical education for the young.
Water they had, of course, and could swim even before they walked. If I feared at first the effects of a too intensive system of culture, that fear was dissipated by seeing the long sunny days of pure physical merriment and natural sleep in which these heavenly babies passed their first years. They never knew they were being educated. ”

“ The Herland child was born not only into a world carefully prepared, full of the most fascinating materials and opportunities to learn, but into the society of plentiful numbers of teachers, teachers born and trained, whose business it was to accompany the children along that, to us, impossible thing--the royal road to learning. ”

“ The years of pioneering lay far behind them. Theirs was a civilization in which the initial difficulties had long since been overcome. The untroubled peace, the unmeasured plenty, the steady health, the large good will and smooth management which ordered everything, left nothing to overcome. It was like a pleasant family in an old established, perfectly run country place. ”

“ The very babies joined in it. To see one of their great annual festivals, with the massed and marching stateliness of those great mothers, the young women brave and noble, beautiful and strong; and then the children, taking part as naturally as ours would frolic round a Christmas tree--it was overpowering in the impression of joyous, triumphant life. ”

“ We have assumed, as a matter of course, that women had none; that only the man, with his natural energy and impatience of restriction, would ever invent anything.
Here we found that the pressure of life upon the environment develops in the human mind its inventive reactions, regardless of sex ”

“ But when we began to talk about each couple having "homes" of our own, they could not understand it.
"Our work takes us all around the country," explained Celis. "We cannot live in one place all the time."
"We are together now," urged Alima, looking proudly at Terry's stalwart nearness. (This was one of the times when they were "on," though presently "off" again.)
"It's not the same thing at all," he insisted. "A man wants a home of his own, with his wife and family in it."
"Staying in it? All the time?" asked Ellador. ”

“ We spend our best efforts, all through childhood and youth, in developing these faculties, individual judgment and will."
"As part of your system of education, you mean?"
"Exactly. As the most valuable part. With the babies, as you may have noticed, we first provide an environment which feeds the mind without tiring it; all manner of simple and interesting things to do, as soon as they are old enough to do them; physical properties, of course, come first. ”

“ They had no theory of the essential opposition of good and evil; life to them was growth; their pleasure was in growing, and their duty also.
With this background, with their sublimated mother-love, expressed in terms of widest social activity, every phase of their work was modified by its effect on the national growth. The language itself they had deliberately clarified, simplified, made easy and beautiful, for the sake of the children. ”

“ As much as we know of the different sciences. We have, within our limits, a good deal of knowledge of anatomy, physiology, nutrition--all that pertains to a full and beautiful personal life. We have our botany and chemistry, and so on--very rudimentary, but interesting ”

“ The big difference was that whereas our children grow up in private homes and families, with every effort made to protect and seclude them from a dangerous world, here they grew up in a wide, friendly world, and knew it for theirs, from the first. ”

“ They found themselves in a big bright lovely world, full of the most interesting and enchanting things to learn about and to do. The people everywhere were friendly and polite. No Herland child ever met the overbearing rudeness we so commonly show to children. ”

“ We are at work, slowly and carefully, developing our whole people along these lines. It is glorious work--splendid! To see the thousands of babies improving, showing stronger clearer minds, sweeter dispositions, higher capacities-- don't you find it so in your country? ”

“ The other division is in arranging a properly graduated series of exercises which will best develop each mind; the common faculties we all have, and most carefully, the especial faculties some of us have. ”