The new social "mores" accepted by the majority and supported by law and court may be directly opposed to the inherited ideal of right living of large numbers of people in any given locality, especially in the United States with our large immigrant population.
To have education so much a public concern seems to many to so minimize the mother's share in it that she is placed in the same general relation as the father to what was once her special duty.
Ideally, both parents are equally bound to decide all questions concerning the formal education of their children within the limits of personal choice made possible by the public provisions of which all parents may now take advantage.

In some favored families this really occurs.

Actually, however, in most families the mother has more leisure to learn of possible opportunities, to influence possible improvement, and, above all, to help to wise individual choice in the use by the family of these socially provided educational facilities than has the father.

She is also now more likely to belong to associations or clubs or classes for adult study in which educational problems are discussed than is he, and often more intimately acquainted with children's desires or needs in education.
=Women's Relation to Educational Agencies.=--A glance at the list of national and local associations for the study and application of educational science and art will show the vast majority of women over men (in the United States at least) who are trying to find out what real education in modern life should be and how to secure that best training for their own children and for the children of all.

The educational obligation is, therefore, not taken from the average mother's duty; it has changed its form only and often is the more difficult to meet successfully because of the high specialization of the teachers and the confusion of the school direction.