58 THE MISUSE OF METAPHORS 



The obligations of parentage will not be loosened on the 

 hearths of the respectable poor by any state regulations. A 

 working man's son may well believe that these obligations 

 are usually felt to be closer on such hearths than on any 

 others. The children of the poor are not made over to 

 the care of nurses, nor sent from home in order to be 

 educated. They are brought up around the mother's 

 knees, and learn early to bear their share in the daily cares 

 of the home, and to brighten it with their sunshine ; 

 and they are apt on that account to mean the more for their 

 father and mother. On the other hand, wherever the 

 obligations of the parents are easily loosened the conditions 

 are already so bad that it is time for the state to interfere 

 on behalf of its coming citizens. 



But even if the danger of State-interference were con- 

 siderable I should still say, after Plato and Aristotle, that 

 the first, the paramount care of the State, is to educate its 

 citizens, and that the State itself is, in the last resort, an 

 educational institution ; and I should give to ' ' Education " 

 their wide meaning. In performing this function towards 

 the children, it can afford jo run risks^Jor these risks are 

 run^_in_a. great cause. 



