DAUGHTERS 



339 



scientific voyage on the ' Beagle.' The father instantly 

 yielded to the opinion of his brother, and this perhaps 

 decided the whole of Darwin's life. 



When I say that it is wise to gather as many 

 opinions as we can, it must always be with the idea 

 of helping our own judgment, never as putting the 

 responsibility on to others of any important decision, 

 which ought to rest entirely with ourselves, and which, as 

 in the case of Darwin's father, we may entirely alter ; but 

 when we change, we equally accept the responsibility of 

 any important decision quite independently of the adviser. 



It stands to reason that when parents give their 

 children money to spend according to their own wishes 

 and tastes, they are acting a great deal more unselfishly 

 than when they spend on their children, however 

 lavishly, only to make them do what the parents con- 

 sider desirable. This giving freedom to children means 

 a good deal more self-sacrifice on the part of the parents, 

 and, as the unselfishness of one person is very apt to 

 produce the selfishness of another, it is a question for 

 each parent to decide whether the sacrifice had better 

 come from the old or from the young. It is an undeni- 

 able fact that the tastes of children are likely to be the 

 reverse, rather than a repetition, of the tastes of their 

 parents. In weighing these questions, however, you 

 must always cast into the scale the importance of a true 

 knowledge of the value of money, which nothing but 

 practical experience can give. 



Few things bring such ruin, in every sense of the 

 word, to the happiness of married life as the extravagant 

 wife the wife who runs up bills, and who amidst tears 

 and penitence and promises not to do the same again, 

 immediately does so. Can anything as much as this, 

 short of actual immorality, bring a respectable woman so 

 nearly to the level of the unrespectable ? 



z2 



