Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

in spite of either spoiling or neglect, over- or under- educating, how few belonging to the same class are really much better or much worse than their fellows — in fact, what an ordinary level they attain ! What marked differences do exist are due much more to individuality of character than to the various trainings they have undergone. Even the most earnest mothers have some- times to own that the children of parents who took no pains at all turn out quite as well as their own. I refer, of course, to what is called intellectual education, and not to the physical. I once more come back to saying that neglect of health and over-stimulating of the brain before the age, say, of fifteen in excitable, clever children are the only two things that really might work for evil on the future. No true opinion about the character of a child can be arrived at till the age of sixteen or seventeen, though guesses more or less correct may be made much earlier. The education of children depends so immensely on the gradual growth and development of the mother herself, and on the influences through which she passes. Those mothers most admired in their devotion to their babies have generally turned out, according to my ob- servation, the least satisfactory, and the least able to control and guide their children in later life. This is due, of course, to temperament and to the woman being one who is satisfied with the nursery, who never looks forward, who ceases to cultivate herself after marriage, and who, above all, does not keep pace with the generation which lies between herself and her children, this generation being the only one that will interpret her children to herself when they are grown up. A mother should be on her guard about changing her methods because some one else's children seem more or better instructed or prettier-mannered than her own. To be actively in- fluenced as regards your children by the comments of DAUGHTERS 323 others is, I think, a mistake. Take all the advice you can get all round, but never act upon it till you have thoroughly digested it and seriously considered whether it agrees with your general plan or not. Nothing is so easy as to train children like monkeys or dancing dogs ; nothing so difficult as to make that sort of show-training of the smallest use in the far more important factor of character development. Children who are brought up naturally must often be naughty and disagreeable in family meetings, which mortifies the mother, but is only an experience gained to the child. What hurts us is not so much that those we love should say what they think, as that they think what they say.