And a mother's care Is the first step toward friendly human life.

Interesting lesson in selective quoting.

I came across this couplet by Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman

Yet you are mothers! And a mother's care
Is the first step toward friendly human life.
Life where all nations in untroubled peace
Unite to raise the standard of the world
And make the happiness we seek in homes
Spread everywhere in strong and fruitful love

A sweet thought, the world raised by a mother's love. Not particularly original but clearly it is an extract of a longer poem. Where is the rest? Perhaps she develops the idea more creatively.

But in fact the longer poem, To the Indifferent Women, is quite the opposite. It is a shrill harangue against women who focus on their family and fail to devote themselves to the whole world and solving other people's problems for them.

To The Indifferent Women
by Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman

A Sestina

You who are happy in a thousand homes,
Or overworked therein, to a dumb peace;
Whose souls are wholly centered in the life
Of that small group you personally love;
Who told you that you need not know or care
About the sin and sorrow of the world?

Do you believe the sorrow of the world
Does not concern you in your little homes? —
That you are licensed to avoid the care
And toil for human progress, human peace,
And the enlargement of our power of love
Until it covers every field of life?

The one first duty of all human life
Is to promote the progress of the world
In righteousness, in wisdom, truth and love;
And you ignore it, hidden in your homes,
Content to keep them in uncertain peace,
Content to leave all else without your care.

Yet you are mothers! And a mother's care
Is the first step toward friendly human life.
Life where all nations in untroubled peace
Unite to raise the standard of the world
And make the happiness we seek in homes
Spread everywhere in strong and fruitful love.

You are content to keep that mighty love
In its first steps forever; the crude care
Of animals for mate and young and homes,
Instead of pouring it abroad in life,
Its mighty current feeding all the world
Till every human child can grow in peace.

You cannot keep your small domestic peace
Your little pool of undeveloped love,
While the neglected, starved, unmothered world
Struggles and fights for lack of mother's care,
And its tempestuous, bitter, broken life
Beats in upon you in your selfish homes.

We all may have our homes in joy and peace
When woman's life, in its rich power of love
Is joined with man's to care for all the world.

Ugh. Who is this utopian totalitarian who believes everyone should be forced to serve everyone else and is willing to shame them in to doing so?

According to Wikipedia, Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman was

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (/ˈɡɪlmən/; née Perkins; July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935), also known as Charlotte Perkins Stetson, her first married name, was a prominent American humanist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform. She was a utopian feminist and served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. She has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Her best remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", which she wrote after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis.

Less well known are Gilman's views on race. To solve the so-called "Negro Problem" in the United States in the early twentieth century, Gilman suggested a system of forced labor she called "enlistment".

Which is a little too kind. As you read the whole article, it is clear she was an intolerant anti-capitalist totalitarian racist socialist inspired by a utopian fervor based solely on her own will and happily ignoring the will of others. Her language was of coercion, obfuscation and euphemism.

A system of "enlistment"? She was advocating state sponsored slavery.

Humanist? I don't think so. Anti-human it seems more like.

That she is supposed be admired as an early feminist is somewhat appalling. But to be fair, socialism was just aborning. No one yet could know the tragedies and suffering it would inflict. Many, many public intellectuals were seduced by the emotional appeal of designing a new utopian world created by and managed by the (self) elect. We know now though.