SEPTEMBER 15 



without immense benefit to themselves, self-sacrifice being 

 acknowledged by all moralists to be the greatest strength- 

 ener of human character. There is, however, the great 

 risk and danger of self-suppression. 



I continue my quotations : 



' You put the question of unselfishness in parents or 

 children as being a difficult one, but I have always felt that 

 to help each person to be as they ought to be, in the best 

 and highest way for their own characters, is the only right 

 love and influence that each can have for the other, no 

 matter in what relations of life. If you either spoil a child 

 or a parent or husband or wife, so that you make them 

 behave wrongly, you are sure to be distressed by their not 

 doing right, and other people feel the same.' Everyone 

 must agree that to make those we love behave well is the 

 object to be attained. The difficulty is the best method 

 of bringing it about. Is it by unselfish example or by exact- 

 ing unselfishness on the part of others ? Who can say ? 



Here is a severe condemnation from a father of several 

 children : ' I don't agree one bit with your theoretical 

 subordination of old to young. I think it innately ridicu- 

 lous, essentially false, and at once morbid, superficial, 

 and mischievous.' 



Nobody actually wrote it to me, but I heard it from 

 several people, that the advice about giving the latch-key 

 to very young boys harassed and worried a great number 

 of mothers. Why, I do not quite understand ; as showing 

 confidence in the boy seems to me the beginning of all 

 true relations between a mother and a gro wing-up son. 

 I still think that if boys are unfit to have a key at seven- 

 teen, or the recommended allowance at an earlier age, it 

 shows that their education has been somewhat defective 

 in fitting them, not for doing well at school, but for the 

 general struggle of life as they get older, which is learnt 

 so well by children in a lower class of life. There might, 



