A Word to Women

E-text prepared by Chris Curnow
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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A WORD
TO WOMEN

BY MRS. HUMPHRY
(“MADGE” OF “TRUTH”)
AUTHOR OF
“MANNERS FOR WOMEN,” “MANNERS
FOR MEN,” Etc.

London
JAMES BOWDEN
10, HENRIETTA STREET,
COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1898

PREFACE

CONTENTS.

A WORD TO WOMEN.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

There is a happy medium between narrowness and latitude; between the exiguity which confines the mind between canal-like borders and the broad, expansive amplitude which allows it to flow with the freedom of a great river, though within certain definite limits. The tendency of the moment is towards breadth and the enlarging of borders, the setting back of frontier lines, and even to ignoring them. “One must move with the times” is a phrase constantly heard and read. It is true enough. One would not willingly be left stranded on the shores of the past; but then, in the effort to avoid this, one need not shape a wild and devious course. There is always the golden mean attainable, though occasionally it needs some seeking to find it.

In nothing so much as the relations between mother and daughter is this modern tendency prolific of difficulty. For some generations the rule of severity that began with the Puritans has been gradually relaxing more and more, and now the spectacle of a harsh-voiced, domineering young woman, ordering her mother about, is by no means an infrequent one, detestable as it is. Nor does she always content herself by merely ordering. Sometimes she scolds as well! If the mother, in these revolutionary times, has any chance of maintaining her own position as the elder and the wiser of the two, she must keep her eyes open to the successive grooves of change down which the world is spinning. The daughter must not be permitted to suspect her of old-fashioned notions. That would be fatal!

When the bicycle craze began many mothers disapproved of the exercise for their girls. But with doctors recommending it, and the girls themselves looking radiantly bright and healthy after a few preliminary trials, what remained for the mother but to overcome her first dislike and do all she could to persuade the father to buy bicycles for all the girls? The next step was, often, to learn to ride herself, and to benefit enormously thereby. The mother who failed to follow her daughters’ lead in this particular, as in others, proved that she was too narrow to accept new ideas; just the sort of thing to give the daughters a lead in these century-end days. And of that one must beware! The poor mothers must not give a single inch, or they will find themselves mulcted in many an ell.

The old, strait-laced ideas about chaperons are now decidedly behind the times, and the parents and guardians who try to maintain them in all their rigid integrity will only find that the too-tightly-drawn bow will soon snap. Far better to accept changes as they come, taking the wide, enlarged view, and allowing the young creatures as much freedom of action as may be consistent with the social laws. The old parallel of the hen-mother and the young ducks would come in most usefully here, were it not so hackneyed. But think what sad deprivations of the joie de vivre the ducks would have suffered had it been in the power of the hen to enforce her objections. Think of this, oh ye nineteenth century mothers! What trepidations, what anxieties, what feverish fears, assail us when the young ones escape from the restrictions that bound ourselves when we were girls! The father laughs at our tremors, and proves, by doing so, what needs no proof, that the sense of responsibility is always deeper and keener in the mother, and that, therefore, she is more bound than he to exercise due caution. To combine the two with wide views is not always easy.

“These affectionate women,” said Sir Andrew Clarke, the eminent physician, “they make themselves miserable about things that may happen, and wear themselves out in anxieties for which there is little or no foundation.” And Jefferson says: “How much have cost us the evils that never happened!” True, indeed. But, also, how much have they cost to the objects of our care? Can any one reckon up that difficult sum? The timid, fearful mother has often ruined her boys out of pure anxiety to do her very (mistaken) best for them. And as to girls, they are not allowed to do the very things that would teach them self-reliance, make them vigorous in mind and body, and teach them that lore, not in any girls’ school curriculum, which is best expressed in the French idiom, “savoir faire.”

And all for want of width! What sort of life would a little chicken lead if it were for ever under the good old hen’s wing? Yet that is what some of us would prefer for the bright young things, whose very life is in change, variety, excitement, fun, laughter, and exercise of all kinds. Small wonder that some of them rebel, feeling tethered, with the inevitable longing for escape. Led with a silken string in wide ways of the great world, they would be contented and happy enough.

Every girl is a queen to some one at some time in her life. Was there ever a girl whom nobody loved? What would English homes be without their girls? Mothers of sons are proud indeed, but they often long for a daughter. Mothers and daughters.The tie between girl and mother is a wonderfully close one. They almost share each others’ thoughts, and the home life together becomes, as the girl grows up, a delicious duet. Sons, however affectionate and gentle, have always some part of their nature veiled away. They cannot tell all to a mother as a daughter can, with perfect open-mindedness, so that the page lies clear to the eye of affection, like a book in good, large print. And more particularly is this the case with an only daughter. Have you ever, dear reader, noticed how the tendrils of the growing vines twine round each other, at last becoming so inextricably close that they cannot be separated without breaking them? That is the way that many a mother and daughter whose lives are closely woven in with each other, forming a bond of strength that, with the flowing of the years, increases in power and influence.

And then comes some charming young man, with pretty eyes and a gentle manner, and oh! the loneliness of the poor mother when he carries off her girl to be the sunshine of his home, leaving hers in deepest shadow!

But mothers are unselfish and love to know their daughters happy, fulfilling their destiny in the good old womanly way as wife and mother. And the best way to make a girl a good wife is to train her to be a first-rate daughter.

A girl’s thoughts of usefulness sometimes begin a very long way off. They appear to her at a distance, as if she were looking through the small end of a telescope. “The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts,” and the girl’s idea of usefulness is to nurse the sick and wounded in war-time, to go out as a missionary among the heathen, to write books with great thoughts in them, to do noble deeds of tremendous self-sacrifice, to take up some great life-work. She looks so far afield that she cannot see the little duties lying to her hand, in the performance of which lies her best training for great and worthy deeds. Many a girl dreams of such an ideal as Florence Nightingale, and nevertheless shrieks and runs out of the room when her little brother cuts his hand with the carving-knife. What a scared, helpless creature she would be in a hospital! Another girl pictures herself a heroine of self-denial, giving up “all” for some one, while she is too lazy to run upstairs to fetch her mother’s gloves, or too self-indulgent to read the money article in The Times to her father. She is not “faithful in small things,” though she fully intends to excel in great. The ideal daughter.The ideal daughter is the unselfish, active, intelligent, and good-tempered girl, who thinks out what she can do to help her mother, to make life pleasanter for her father, and home happier for her brothers.

Many girls think self-culture the first and greatest duty of all, but in thinking so, and in acting on the thought, they turn their backs upon real self-culture. Doing something for others, when we would rather be doing something for ourselves, goes further towards self-culture, in its highest and best sense, than reading the cleverest book ever written, or practising the most difficult music. There have been girls who, thinking it their duty, have refused to leave their parents, even to marry the man they love. This is usually a mistaken notion of “fais ce que dois,” for it throws on the father and mother a terrible weight of obligation, never to be paid off, and even if they know nothing of the sacrifice at the time it is made, it is certain to come home to them sooner or later. Is it not Ruskin who declares that self-denial, when it is carried beyond the boundary of common sense, becomes an actual injury against those for whom it is practised? There is a deep truth in this.

Youth is not naturally self-denying. Human nature is strongly selfish, and when girls are young they have had little chance to oppose the strength of this inherent quality. Some girls, however, are much less selfish than others, while some are utterly spoilt! A doting mother is nothing more nor less than a selfish mother, who, to please herself, allows her daughter’s faults to grow up unchecked. She fears to be firm, lest she should lose some of the affection she prizes. Could she only know that the child, at a very early age, is distinctly aware of this weakness and despises it, she would plainly see the awful mistake she is making. Children love best the mothers who are both firm and gentle. By a sort of instinct the young ones seem to be aware of the true selflessness that actuates the parent who battles with their early faults. It is not the foolishly indulgent mothers who win the warmest love from their girls. It is those who can temper justice with love. Girls soon know whether the mother is swayed by selfishness or actuated by principle, and, with very few exceptions, they follow in her steps.

Could some of the happy lovers and happy husbands look back through the years at the long and patient training, the loving care, that has resulted in the complete realisation of their brightest dreams—“My queen! my queen!”—they would find in them a guarantee for the future. Girls who have not been spoiled by over-indulgence, and who have been taught to take a sane, calm, rational view of all life’s circumstances, are the best helpmeets that man can have. Such an one is a delightful companion, with her cultivated mind and her ready sympathies. She can enter into his outside troubles in the battle of life, and there is a fibre of strength in her on which he may safely lean in the day of disaster, should it come.

OUR SCHOOL-GIRLS.

Mothers of growing girls have many an anxious hour. The young things feel so bright, so strong, so full of energy, that it is difficult for them to listen to the voice of prudent counsel which bids them take care of themselves, and mothers often give in when a word of warning is received with laughing heedlessness. And how frequently they have to regret the giving in! When girls are growing very fast, even if they keep up their strength and look strong and well, there is much risk in any over-fatigue. The heart is sometimes outpaced by the rest of the frame, and if care be not taken there is a possibility of inducing strain, which may result in permanent mischief. Girls want to run, play sett after sett of tennis, or go on pulling a boat on the river when they are already hot and tired, and it is only natural that they should fancy that their capacity for enjoyment is as inexhaustible as their taste for it.

But the doctors will tell mothers to restrain the young creatures from damaging their health by over-exertion, and if we fail to do so we may some day feel agonies of remorse. It is easy enough to manage this so long as they are quite young and under our own eyes all day, but when school-time begins matters are very different. The spirit of emulation awakes, and the keenest anxiety to equal other girls in progress spurs on the young spirit. Teachers are anxious, too, and the mother often has to do battle on behalf of her daughter, not only with the school authorities, but with the girl herself. Firmness with both is the only method, and this in face of protests on one side and tears and expostulations on the other. The teachers think the mother “ridiculously fussy,” and condole with the girl, stirring her up to rebellion in a most injudicious way; but after all the mother is in the right and must be firm. What is the use of class successes if they are won at the expense of health? And though scholarships are very pleasant things in more ways than one, they may cost too dear. If the money they save has to go in doctors’ fees, of what earthly use are they?

At the same time mothers must not sacrifice the young ones to nervous or morbid fears, as some are inclined to do. The only way to be sure that precautions are really necessary is to have advice from a doctor, and if a girl is growing very quickly he is almost sure to say that she must not do too much. Too much study.As a rule girls spend far too many hours a day in study. School-days come just when they are very busy growing, and it is also the time when habits are formed. With all these contradictory considerations influencing the mother, she is often afraid to trust her own judgment as to whether this or that course shall be pursued. If the girl is worked too hard she may become nervous or anæmic, and if she is allowed to rest too much she may grow up lazy and self-indulgent. So what is one to do? With our limited powers all we can do is to watch the growing daughters from day to day, and if they show any signs of failing energies, or of weakening health, at once take steps to lessen the number of hours devoted to study. At each succeeding term the school programme should be carefully gone through, with a view to seeing if the lessons that follow consecutively may not be too trying, and, if so, arrangements should be made with the head of the school to spare the girl a long run of monotonous subjects.

The school authorities, naturally enough, arrange the hours to suit themselves and their teachers, and sometimes with the result that a girl has to rush back to school after a hasty meal, her food actually doing her harm instead of good in consequence. It is in cases like this that the mother comes in—not always, you may be very sure, to the unmitigated delight of the teachers, or even of the girl herself! In fact, the poor mother often gets blamed all round. The members of her own family are profuse in criticism, as a rule, of everything that she does in connection with her children. The best thing she can do is to ignore their opinion completely, for, whatever she does, she is sure to be blamed. If two diametrically opposite courses are open before her, whichever she chooses is sure to be condemned by somebody. It is the old story of the old man and his donkey. When it carried him the people found fault, and when he carried it they were as censorious as ever. We must just go the way our conscience points out, and present a stoical front to criticism. The philosophy embodied in the good old French motto comes to our aid: “Fais ce que dois advienne que pourra.”

It does wonders for a girl to lie down for even half an hour a day. But to lie sideways or crumpled up in the extraordinary fashion beloved of girls is of no use whatever. The shoulders must be flat, and the head not much raised. If a book is read the while it must be held so that the eyes are wide open in reading; the feet should be stretched out to their full length, so as to give as much rest to the muscles as possible. Girls run so tall nowadays that they need extra care, and it is the mothers who must see to it that they get it. On free mornings an extra half hour in bed will do no harm, but rather good; and it should be always understood that this is an indulgence to be accepted as a boon for which gratitude is to be felt and expressed. Expressing thanks.To encourage young people to express gratitude is good for them. It is strange, but true, that human nature is averse to express thanks with cordiality, and it is one of the marks of the well-bred girl that her thanks follow as naturally upon the act that elicits them as if the two were cause and effect.

Some of the high schools offer so many facilities in the various departments of education that the danger is of tremendously overworking the girls. One of whom I knew was at work from nine a.m. till half-past eight at night five days in the week, and from nine till two on Saturdays. The only exercise that she had was in her daily walk to and from school—once in the morning and again after lunch—and her only recreation was an occasional romp with her small brothers and sisters in the nursery. The girl broke down, as any one might safely have predicted that she would, and her costly education was entirely thrown away, for by the time that she was well enough to resume study she had forgotten all that she had learned.

There is another danger connected with overdoing study in the time of girlhood that must not be overlooked. It is that of wearying young people with books, and so tiring them that they never want to open one on a serious subject after they have left school-days behind them. To do this is to lose for them one of the greatest pleasures of life. Education, rightly understood, is a drawing out, not a crowding in. The best education consists in developing the powers and eliciting the bent of the mind, and laying a foundation for future culture. To speak of any girl’s education as being “finished” is tantamount to speaking of a scaffolding as being finished, preparatory to the real work being begun. In after life comes the true work, and circumstances have much to do in guiding it. There is, therefore, no reason that growing girls should be overburdened with ologies and isms. French and German they must learn; drawing, if they have a special taste for it, and the piano, on the same terms. It is utter waste to teach some girls to play on the piano, and the idea that it is a necessary part of polite education is now rapidly disappearing from the cultured classes of society. Simplification in every branch is one of the safest rules of life, and this applies as much to the programme of a girl’s existence as to that of her mother.

There is no doubt that, in a great degree, the improvement in the physique of English girls is largely due to the enlightened ideas of their parents on subjects connected with hygiene and sanitation. The nation is wonderfully improved on these matters, during the last fifteen years, and it is at last beginning to be understood that a perfectly sound body is necessary to a perfectly healthy and capable mind. If girls are encouraged to place the culture of the mind not only before, but in opposition to, that of the body, they must be consequent sufferers—if not in girlhood, at some later period; and may bequeath suffering to others. So, mothers, be advised in time, and let girlhood be the healthy, happy, sunny time that Nature intended it to be. Our girls are young but once, and it is not for long. The cares of life will soon enough cloud over their brightness. Do not allow overwork or long hours to shadow the irrecoverable springtime.

WHAT ABOUT SEWING?

Some of the very advanced and extremely superior women of the present day are strenuously opposed to the teaching of needlework in girls’ schools and colleges. A mere handicraft should be beneath the notice of highly intellectual human beings, and should be left to those whose intelligence is of a lower order. That is their creed. I am glad to see that one of the cleverest and most learned women of the time, Mrs. Bryant, D.Sc., advocates, though in a half-hearted and semi-apologetic fashion, the teaching of needlework to girls receiving the higher education. She thinks that, just as a man is a somewhat incomplete person if he cannot make himself useful with a hammer, a plane, and a saw, a woman who cannot sew is equally an anomaly. The man who wants a rent in his glove stitched would be likely to regard her as much more so. But I must not, from this, be understood as advocating the accomplishment of sewing merely with a view to the repair of men’s sartorial damages. This would be to invoke indeed the wrath of the superior woman, who thinks it degradation to stoop to all the sweet, old-fashioned, housewifely uses and despises her gentler sisters who delight in making home comfortable and life smooth for those who dwell with her.

One of the best and foremost reasons for teaching sewing to girls is the training it involves. Our wonderful finger-tips have within them possibilities which oftentimes lie dormant throughout a whole lifetime for the want of education. The Great Genius who made them gave them a capacity of delicate, sensitive touch, which is blurred and lost when not encouraged and promoted. The hands that can wield a needle with celerity and skill have necessarily received a training that tells for them in many another way besides mere sewing. The servant who sews well is the one who breaks fewest things. She has learned to use her finger-tips. The clumsy woman who uses brute force in dealing with the most delicate articles, and is constantly smashing and damaging something or other is she who has never been taught to sew, or in some way had manual training. Its moral value.The value of this development of finger-training is greater than at first sight might be imagined. Through the hands the mind and character are influenced. Patience progresses while the diligent little fingers of the child are at work, conquering difficulties gradually and achieving skill day after day with a continued progression towards perfection. The lesson in perseverance is a fine one, and no less valuable is the necessary exertion in self-control, which soon becomes a habit and works wonders in producing repose of manner. This last may not be a particularly valuable quality, but it is a delightful one in this restless age, when few people seem able to settle down for more than half an hour at a time, even to the agreeable occupation of reading.

It may seem exaggerated to attribute so much to the mere learning to sew; but a little examination into the matter will prove to the thoughtful that there is something in it. Any man, for instance, who has learned even a little carpentering, will admit that the effect on his mind and character of perfecting himself in any one of the necessary processes was distinctly good. It promotes clearness of thought, banishing that vague slovenliness of ideas which is analogous to the ragged edges of a frayed garment. To many an uneducated worker the acquirement of skill in some handicraft has brought with it an upward influence that has led him far in the direction of self-improvement.

But there must be moderation in it. Many an intellectual life has been killed by intemperate sewing. It was the creed of our grandmothers that everything else for girls was idling. Long seams were regarded as the business of young lives, and to be unable to sew well as a disgrace. Harriet Martineau tells us all about it in her “Household Education.” Harriet Martineau on overdoing it.She says, “I believe it is now generally agreed, among those who know best, that the practice of sewing has been carried much too far for health, even in houses where there is no poverty or pressure of any kind. No one can well be more fond of sewing than I am; and few, except professional sempstresses, have done more of it; and my testimony is that it is a most hurtful occupation, except where great moderation is observed. I think it is not so much the sitting and stooping posture as the incessant monotonous action and position of the arms that causes such wear and tear. Whatever it may be, there is something in prolonged sewing which is remarkably exhausting to the strength, and irritating beyond endurance to the nerves. The censorious gossip, during sewing, which was the bane of our youth,” she adds, “wasted more of our precious youthful powers and dispositions than any repentance and amendment in after life could repair.”

In the exhibition of “Fair Children,” held at the Grafton Gallery some seasons since, there was a whole case full of cruel samplers, which must have made many a young child miserable. Because, you know, it is not only the work that is visible that went into them! There were the tedious and endless unpickings when mistakes were made, causing bitter tears of woe to rise in childish eyes. “You shall stay in, Araminta, until you get it right.” And outside was the sun shining, the birds were singing, the meadows full of hay, and the other children romping and shouting. Poor Araminta.Poor Araminta! There was her name embroidered on one of the most barbarous of those dreadful samplers; one with a double border, the outer one in circles, the inner in vandykes. The stitches in each had to be counted, and every one crossed in the same direction. And Araminta was aged seven! There it was, at the end of her sampler, “Araminta Paget. Her sampler. Aged seven.” Composition ambiguous, but meaning clear. Well, perhaps Araminta learned to love her fine marking, and passed many a happy hour singing to herself over her embroidery frame; but it is good to remember that the old tyranny of the needle is past and gone. The invention of the sewing-machine has been to women one of the very greatest blessings of our dear Queen’s most beneficent reign. I am not sure that it was not the real means of introducing many others, legal and educational.

When Caddy Jellaby remarked, “Africa’s a beast!” she was but unconsciously paraphrasing an expression of opinion familiar enough to her contemporaries. How many thousands of girls in those old days have declared, “Berlin wool’s a bother!” And so, indeed, it was. To be able to do what was then called “fancy work” was almost sufficient accomplishment for the young women of the middle classes of those days. Cushions, chair furniture, slippers, and even pictures were produced in this despotic cross-stitch, varied occasionally by a finer and more difficult variety called tent-stitch; and so far from employing fancy or imagination, every row had to be diligently counted—so many brown stitches, so many green, so many red, &c. I have seen hearthrugs worked in this way with Berlin wool in impossibly huge flowers, and the fender-stool was a great favourite in those old days, often made prickly with white beads, in which recumbent lilies were delineated. Fire screens of the hanging banner pattern were esteemed as great ornaments, and I believe I once heard of a carpet worked in sections by an ambitious party of ladies, and afterwards joined together.

But who wastes time over fancy work now? Only a small minority of women, I fancy. There is a market for beautiful sewing and for fine embroideries, but as for futile and inartistic chairbacks and their tribe, their day is done. The exquisite Church embroideries bring in fair incomes to those skilled in that class of work; but there is no longer any demand for the home-made lace that occupied half the waking hours of many a woman’s life in the sixties and seventies. That nightmare is over. But let us hope that skill with the needle will never be despised among gentlewomen. To put it on the very lowest ground, it is a marvellous economy to be able to sew. The policy and sentiment of the matter.If one had to pay for every little repair in one’s garments, as men have, it would cost a large sum of money in every year, for our dresses are not so durable as men’s coats. And even the richest of women can never be absolutely certain that she will not one day be poor. “Nothing is certain except that nothing is certain,” and the changes of this troublesome world are capable of anything. But, apart from motives of policy, the accomplishment of sewing is a part of refined femininity. And think of the pleasure that women would lose without it. Think of the thoughts sewn into the beautiful little garments fashioned for the babies—the hopes and fears, the love and tenderness, and the far outlook into the future that comes with mother-love. All these are stitched in with the flying needle; and who would be without these long, long thoughts? To be able to sew is utilitarian. It is also conducive to happiness.

MOTHERS AND SONS.

A “Public Schoolman” once said, “If a mother would only harden her boys a little, send them away to a private school at ten and afterwards to a public school, there would then be no complaints of being teased.” There is no doubt that mothers do often err on the side of softness, as any one of us can see by the number of spoiled children we meet in any given twenty-four hours. Widows’ sons are only too often intolerably conceited, spoilt with indulgence, and apt to repay their mother’s tenderness by breaking her heart. She makes life so smooth for them that they can never refuse themselves anything, and sometimes their whole lives are spoiled by their mother’s weakness, which, in its turn, is only a form of self-indulgence. Such a boy, on entering a public school, meets with no mercy, but the discipline is just what he needs to knock the nonsense out of him and make him a man, not a namby-pamby noodle.

But, having acknowledged that the mother is often to blame, let us look at the other side of the shield. The boy of ten who is sent away from home to a private school finds that he has to take absolutely new views of life in almost every particular. Perplexed by the new horizon, the novel atmosphere, and with his young heart aching for home tenderness and affection, he is assisted in adjusting himself to his altered circumstances by bullying and sneers. The treatment is on all fours with that of “hitting a man when he is down,” a practice which is supposed to be repugnant to all British notions of honour and fair play. When a horse falls under a heavy load in the slippery streets, and the driver whips, slashes, and swears at the poor brute, a murmur of indignation goes up from the spectators. But no one sympathises with the boy, who dare not give the faintest sign of the suffering he feels. The injustice of it all is often what rankles most deeply. There are many mothers who train their boys to a fine sense of honour, derived from a much higher source than that which seems to inspire the average schoolboy, and the ordinary man of the world into whom the boy develops. His attitude to his fellow-creatures is one of comradeship, and kindly feeling, when he leaves his mother’s side. Who shall say what storms of rancorous hate and bitter loathing pass over the young soul in the boy’s first term at school? His sense of injustice becomes distorted for life, under such a system as that described in the following.

“The old régime when ‘kids’ blacked boots, cooked potatoes and pies, made coffee or cocoa for the bigger boys, when we had to ‘fag’ at the fives’ courts and cricket nets, and got ‘fives batted,’ or ‘cricket stumped,’ if we stopped the balls badly. We enjoyed the pleasures of being tossed in a blanket, or having our faces blackened with the bottom of a saucepan taken off the fire, and of having our trousers rolled above our knees and our calves roasted before the fire. We learnt by experience that, although the cricket ball chastised us with whips, W.’s hands chastised us with scorpions, and that W.’s little finger was thicker than the cricket ball. We played the old-fashioned Rugby: ‘hacked’ a fellow over instead of ‘collaring’ him when he ran, and, instead of ‘working out’ the ball in the scrimmage, we ‘hacked’ each other’s shins in what was then called the ‘gutter.’ Two or three days before the match we used to get the shoemaker to put new soles on our boots, and to make the toe points of the soles project, so that we might make our ‘hacks’ all the more stinging.”

This is a picture of public schools which must make many a mother’s heart ache for her boy. And are not mothers meant for softness and tenderness? That they sometimes let themselves fall into the extreme of weak and backboneless indulgence does not prove that mothers are not meant for gentleness and sympathy in the lives of their sons. They know well that school life is the only way of hardening boys against the time when they have to do battle with the world. But the hardening process need not, and should not, imply the coarsening and toughening of all that is meant to be delicately sensitive, sympathetic, and generously responsive.

It is true that some splendid men are turned out by public schools. The system is a good one, but it has been carried to a dangerous extreme. The fine fellows who have emerged unharmed are fine fellows in spite of all that was dangerous, not because of it. How many fine fellows has it ruined? Such treatment is destructive of candour, sincerity, frankness, generosity, simplicity, and often of truthfulness itself. The principle that might is right is dead against the law of the land, but it seems to rule in our public schools, where the big bully—usually a coward at heart—makes the lives of young boys wretched. The love of cruelty innate in such despotic natures is developed to the utmost degree by such favourable circumstances, and those over whom he tyrannises become sly, secretive, and hypocritical.