218 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



parent has an extremely taxing duty before him. 

 But if this be true of physical development, how 

 much more strongly does it apply to the intellectual, 

 aesthetic, and emotional side of the child's develop- 

 ment ! Here is an unending series of problems 

 calling for knowledge, devotion, tact, adaptability, 

 sympathy. With all these aids parents are sure to 

 fall far short of the highest reasonable ideal for the 

 psychical unfolding of their child; and the very 

 knowledge that this is so leads the best parents to 

 struggle unceasingly, and with the utmost earnestness, 

 toward the attainment of their ideal. Now it re- 

 quires little reflection to see that in an undertaking 

 so complex and subtle as the serious education of a 

 child, there is required the cooperation of both 

 parents. If each parent separately is capable of 

 doing real service to the child, it follows that their 

 united efforts must be far more effective than either 

 singly. The child should have the benefit of the 

 different point of view of father and of mother, 

 based on differences in temperament, experience, 

 and sex. The removal of the parent from the sphere 

 of influence upon the child, be it by illness, death, or 

 divorce, subjects it to an incalculable loss, opens 

 a chasm which can never be spanned by any substi- 

 tute. For every intelligent parent should have in 

 himself or in herself a wholly individual and pene- 

 trating action on the mind of the child, which no 

 other person, however well trained, can exert. This 

 power inheres in the biological relation between 



