SONS 269 



philosophy I acquired in my youth I learnt from Sir 

 Henry. The ' Notes from Life ' are on Money, Humility 

 and Independence, Choice in Marriage, Wisdom, Children 

 The Life Poetic, and The Ways of the Eich and Great. 

 In spite of all that has been written on such subjects 

 since, I still think the book well worth reading. The 

 tone of the articles is more religious than would be the 

 case now if written by a man who held the same broad 

 and elastic views that he did. He belonged essentially to 

 that large band of good and wise men who never tell 

 their religion, but his language in these essays is that of 

 the fashion of his time. The essays called 'Money/ 

 * Marriage,' and ' Children ' seem to me now as interesting 

 and suggestive as when I first read them. 



In 1892 a little book was published called ' Mothers 

 and Sons.' It made some impression on a good many 

 mothers, and this is not surprising, as it was written by the 

 successful headmaster of a public school. I cannot but 

 differ widely from a book which, while it professes to 

 tea,ch a mother's duty to her son, ignores all reference to 

 the husband and father. The tact of mothers is dis- 

 puted in the introduction, and it cannot be denied that 

 women vary very much in their successful management 

 of children and servants, and these two go pretty much 

 together. But, however much a father may leave the 

 training and management of his sons to their mother, 

 his blood runs in their veins, his example is daily before 

 them, and what he is they will be, more or less. 

 Heredity, I admit, sometimes plays us strange pranks; 

 but I think, if people will honestly look round on the 

 circle of their acquaintances, they will find, in nine cases 

 out of ten, that the stamp of the children belongs to the 

 name they bear to the family of the father, not of the 

 mother. The tone of a child's mind, especially a boy's, is 

 very much what was represented in one of * Punch's* 



