Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

Once more I ask you to consider how common it seems in human nature that people will give what they are asked for and bothered about, rather than what they can afford. However much this weakness may be taken advantage of in the charitable world, it is most desirable that it should be kept out of family life. Some people even put forward the objection that allowances check the growth of generosity. As a matter of fact, the very essence of generosity is to give what is your own, and, in the highest sense, there is no generosity without self- denial. Often no one appears so generous as the worldly spendthrift, who gives with a free hand what in fact he owes to his tradespeople. Another idea is that the independence resulting from freedom in money matters increases the difficulty of home life. This is markedly more the case in England than in other European countries. Nations are so unconsciously steeped in the atmosphere of their literature that I have often won- dered whether ' King Lear ' has helped to bring about the state of mind in parents who, though most anxious to leave money to their children after death, yet so grudgingly deal it out to them, either in allowance or capital, during their lifetime. One of the amusing anomalies of the new succession duties is that they have induced many parents, who have never thought of it before, to pay over while they are still alive a portion of their capital to their children. This gives a young man an experience in money management which he could not have gained while only receiving an allowance. A frequent mistake of parents, even when they think SONS 267 a great deal about their children, is the conviction that they know them so well. After a child grows up and his nature develops, his one idea is to go forth and make his own friends and start his own life ; and when he comes back to the home, however much his heart warms to it when he is away, he re-enters it with different eyes, and often with a critical spirit. This seems very hard to the parents, who have changed but little. The best way of making their love appreciated is not to exact more than they get. The real time of trial to parents is when their children are between seventeen and twenty-one. They would do well to realise how little they know of the change that is going on in their sons. They can only cultivate them, humour them, and, if possible, win them. Till this has been done, it is absolutely useless to expect their confidence or to resent the fact that it is withheld. The more openly a child has been brought up and encouraged to speak his mind, the more odious and critical his language will appear at this age to outsiders who do not realise how far better it is that he should express his views without reserve at home than that he should disguise his feelings there and speak openly abroad. It should only be impressed upon children that it is in better taste and more according to the rules of society to keep their criticisms for the privacy of family life.