DAUGHTERS 321 



duties of that life necessitate the consigning of their 

 children for a great part of the day to the care of others. 

 If there were no nurseries and no schoolrooms, there 

 would be no necessity for a ' children's hour ' at all, for 

 the children would share life with their mother from the 

 first, and she would derive her pleasure from taking care 

 of them. A serious difficulty for the mother is that she 

 has to compete with the devotion and constant attention 

 of the nurses and governesses. It is this which often 

 gives children the idea that it is only when with their 

 mother that they are duU, neglected, and expected to 

 occupy and amuse themselves ; and this is certainly an 

 undesirable impression to produce at an age when im- 

 pressions are strong and likely to be lasting. Every case 

 must be judged individually, and a woman must put to 

 herself how far it is necessary that she should separate 

 her life from the life of her children. As a matter of 

 fact, it ought to depend on what is her husband's social 

 position, or on what is his idea of her duties to him. In 

 the cases where it is most difficult for a woman to see 

 much of her children — let us say, in the large houses of 

 the rich in town or country — it is better that children and 

 governess should be turned into the hosts, and that the 

 parents and guests should go to them for tea, rather than 

 the usual arrangement of the children being brought into 

 the drawing-room. 



In speaking to young mothers who are inclined to be 

 over-anxious, and who begin worrying themselves over 

 details of their children's education, I always try and 

 remind them that no education really affects the character 

 very much before about twelve years old, so long as 

 attention is paid in every way to their health and to the 

 kind of nurses who are about them. As one gets old, 

 one remembers the numbers of children that were brought 

 up in totally different ways ; and yet, roughly speaking, 



