320 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



the vocation of a governess to a far more competent 

 standard. 



How to gain the confidence of children — that is the 

 eternal problem. Broadly speaking, I believe no one 

 ever helps human nature, except by assuming it to be 

 higher and nobler than it is. It is humiliating to be 

 deceived, but it is better to be so a thousand times than 

 once to underrate a good quality or a good impulse, or 

 to give up hope and trust. It is difficult to see and to be 

 ■with our children enough, and the difficulty is not solved 

 even by the mother teaching the children their lessons 

 herself. Anybody, I am inclined to beUeve, does this 

 better than she can. No morning occupation or after- 

 noon class together does away with the necessity for 

 devoting to the children the all-important interval between 

 five o'clock and bed-time, which it is hard for some 

 mothers to give to them. In my opinion a wise 

 mother should give up her friends rather than her child- 

 ren at that hour. If the father can be at home then, 

 too, so much the better. At that time children are a 

 little tired and want amusing. I think this is far better 

 done by talking to them, and by playing the piano and 

 singing to them, or by teaching them how to play by 

 themselves some kind of semi-active game, than by 

 obliging them to employ themselves quietly, or by reading 

 to them. If they attend and listen, it is too tiring for 

 them ; and if they do not, it is a thorough waste of time. 

 A great many children, if encouraged to speak openly, 

 will tell you that they do not care about being read to, 

 unless it is some child's story which they almost know 

 by heart, and which is read to them over and over again, 

 as the nurses do. Of course, I am now only speaking of 

 children under eleven or twelve years old. 



A great drawback, not only to the children but to the 

 parents, in what is called upper-class life, is that the 



