Boys and girls-The health question-Early independence-Public schools-Influence of parents-The management of money-Family life and its difficulties-Sir Henry Taylor-'Mothers and Sons'-The feeding of children-The abuse of athletics-Success in life-Spartan upbringing-Youth and age.

I feel sure you all, as my nieces, care enough for my views on most things to wish for a few remarks on the great question of how to bring up boys and girls. The opinion of anybody who has thought at all and who has lived a long life is worth having as the personal experience of one individual. Age is to life what distance is to landscape, it makes all things assume fairer proportions and embrace a larger horizon. We see more plainly the good and the bad in all systems, any convictions we may still have we hold conditionally, and we lose the confidence with which we stepped out when we knew less and felt more.

I had better begin first with the boys, and speak of the girls later on, which is certainly dealing with the matter in the old, conventional way.

It is a well-known fact that more boys are born into the world than girls, but they are more difficult to rear, which accounts for the greater preponderance of women in the end. I suppose I ought to have more to say about boys than girls, for, as you know, I have had only boys of my own. My mother used to say it was a merciful interposition of Providence that I had no girls, as I was totally unfit to bring them up. Naturally I do not agree with this, and should have liked immensely to have had three girls as well as three boys.

The health question from the very beginning is one of the greatest importance. In the case of boys, at any rate, it cannot come naturally to any young mother. Her knowledge and intelligence, however, should at least be sufficient to let her know when things are not going right. As a rule, children grow up as 'Topsy' did: "Specs I growed.' But every now and then terrible things happen which, with a little sense and knowledge of when to call in a specialist, are quite preventable. I pity the parent who has to say: 'Alas! I knew too late.'

One of the great difficulties in the emancipating of the children of the well-to-do-by which I mean helping them to learn independence, and to take care of themselves in early childhood-is the nervousness of mothers and nurses. If parents would only consider how sharp are the children of the London poor in looking after themselves, I think they would gain courage, and their children would profit. I know a child, the youngest of a family, a fine, plucky little fellow, whose whole nature was altered by being put out of frocks into knickerbockers and his hair cut short when very young. One day this child was taken by his father, at the age of four and a half, to the City, and sent back alone on the top of a 'bus that set him down at the end of the street in which he lived. He had been given sixpence to pay his fare, and, arriving at home safely, he proudly and triumphantly handed the change to his mother. This same child, at twelve years old, after leaving his private school, and before going to a public school, was sent to Paris to learn French. With a guide-book in one pocket and a map in the other, he found his way about alone all over the town. To my mind, precocity that comes from development of character and independence, or from the stimulus of ambition, is as desirable as that resulting from over-excitement or over-bookwork is the contrary.

As soon as children are no longer babies, it is very unwise to leave them much with servants. Little boys have no natural employments at home, especially in towns, when once they go to school. I should recommend parents who live in London to give up dining out during the winter holidays. It is only for four weeks, and the evenings at home with parents out are certainly dull for boys; this applies doubly where there are no sisters. I used to think the perfect education for boys was the foreign way, to live at home and attend a day school: but the universal condemnation of this system by young Englishmen has shaken me, and certainly we have hardly any machinery prepared for carrying it out. The public school system, therefore, seems to be the only one here. At any rate, boys are brought up at school in the mythologies of their time and country, as Huxley used to recommend; and on the whole that seems to answer best. The thing most to be avoided, it appears to me as I look back on life, is bringing up children on any sort of fad, however genuine the conviction of the parents that they are right and other people wrong. There is no mistaking the bitterness with which young men talk if they have been brought up in any way that alienates them from their generation. This applies equally to great and little things-from the training of the strict Anglican clergyman, or in the Agnostic's morality, to affectations in dress or peculiarities of diet.

It is important that parents should not be unduly elated by good school reports, for they mean but little. The typical top-of-the-class boy, a good plodding fellow who gives no trouble, is always a favourite with the master, but he hardly ever does anything in after-life.

An idle, naughty boy sometimes reaches the top out of sheer talent; but that is quite a different matter. These things always depend a good deal on temperament. If you are stupid, it is easier to become good than to become clever; and you must never forget that, for the tortoises to win the race, the hares must go to sleep-and that is just what does not happen in these days. The world of school is an immense experience in itself, but a world represented by one sex alone is apt to give only a narrow and one-sided training. The necessary discipline, too, by which a school is regulated gives but little scope for boys to learn how to take care of themselves in the everyday world outside of it. It is only in the holidays that they can gain any experience as to the management of their lives, or-and above all-the employment of their time independently of rule. I once asked a boy how he made up his mind at school about what was right and what was wrong. He looked up, and said without hesitation, 'I always try and think what father would say about it.'At school, morality and public opinion can be as little decided by hard-and-fast rules as in the world. There, as in after-life, always speaking the truth without reserve, especially when it concerns others, may resolve itself into being only a form of self-indulgence. A great many mothers recognise this when it is brought home to them that their boy has refused to speak the truth in a way that would implicate others. At the same time parents seldom put it plainly before a boy that there may be occasions when it is a far higher standard of morality to bear personal blame than to implicate others by speaking the truth. He ought not to have the additional pain of fearing he is doing that which would displease his parents, and is contrary to the principle of simple and direct truthfulness which has been inculcated at home. I hope nobody, on reading this, will imagine that I am advocating want of truthfulness as a principle, or that I doubt for a moment that the fact of speaking truth intentionally, even to the injury of self, is one of the most essential strengthened of man's moral nature. It does not always come naturally, however, as many imaginative children lie, and weaklings are sure to lie, hate it as they may, for it is the certain fruit of fear. Jean Paul Richter speaks of it in the following terms:-'Lying, that devouring cancer of the inner man, is more severely judged and denned by the feeling of nations than by philosophers. The Greeks, who suffered their gods to commit as many crimes with impunity as their present representatives, the gods of the earth, do yet condemn them for perjury-that root and quintessence of a lie-to pass a year of lifelessness under the ground in Tartarus, and then to endure nine years of torments. The ancient Persian taught his child nothing in the whole circle of morality but truthfulness.'