In fact, the education of girls is even more important than that of boys, for in time these girls will become mothers, and, as mothers, they will be the first teachers of the next generation.

Children are like green and tender branches; if the early training is right they grow straight, and if it is wrong they grow crooked; and to the end of their lives they are affected by the training of their earliest years.

How important, then, that girls should be well and wisely educated! During His Western tours, 'Abdu'l-Baha had frequent occasion to explain the Baha'i teachings on this subject.

At a meeting of the Women's Freedom League in London in January 1913, He said:-- Humanity is like a bird with its two wings--the one is male, the other female.

Unless both wings are strong and impelled by some common force, the bird cannot fly heavenwards.