Explore "Little Girls" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Whether you frolic with comrade boys, / Or sit at your studies, or play with toys, / Whatever your station, or place, or sphere, / For just one purpose God sent you here; / And always and ever, you are to me- / Dear little Mothers, of Men to be.
So would I guard you from all mean things; / From the dwarfing of wealth, and from poverty's stings. / And from silly mothers of fuss and show, / And from dissolute fathers whose aims are low, / I would take you, and shield you, and set you free, / Dear little Mothers, of Men to be.
And then were the wish of my heart fulfilled, / Around about you, the world should build / A wall of Wisdom, with Truth for its Tower, / Where mind and body would wax in power, / Till the tender twig was a splendid tree- / Dear little Mothers, of Men to be.
It is only a dream; but the world grows wise, / And a mighty truth in the dream seed lies / That shall gladden the earth, in its time and place. / WE MUST BETTER THE MOTHERS TO BETTER THE RACE. / A dream? nay, a vision, which all must see, / Dear little Mothers, of Men to be.