My parents’ studies in the upbringing of children. A successful instance of non-vaccination. Further example of my father’s consideration for others. My mother’s ill-health. My parents engage a charwoman. Her appearance and character. Physical characteristics of her son. Deplorable social result of the war. Continued presumption of charwoman’s son. I rebuff him. Affection for grey rabbit. Charwoman’s son’s cannon and the use made of it by him. Scenes of violence, and intervention of my father. Intervention of charwoman. A lethargic vicar. Was he also immoral? My father transfers his worship to St. James-the-Least-of-All. APART from the ill-health to which I have previously made reference, but which was punctuated with intervals of comparative well-being, I have always regarded my first five or six years as a particularly fruitful period. At my father’s desire, almost in this case a command, my mother began to study various books on childhood, such as Dr. Brewinson’s _Childish Complaints_, Mrs. Edward Podmere’s _Diet in Infancy_, the Reverend Ambrose Walker’s _First Steps in Religion_, Wilbur P. Nathan’s _The Babe and the Infinite_, Mrs. Wood-Mortimer’s _Clothes and the Young_, and Jonathan and Cornwall’s _Dictionary of Home Medicine_. Each of these, with the exception of the _Dictionary_, was borrowed in turn from the nearest public library, and it became my mother’s custom to consecrate her afternoon rest hour to the perusal of these volumes. According to an arrangement suggested by my father, she would study one chapter each afternoon, or alternatively three and a half pages of the _Dictionary of Home Medicine_. On his return from work, and after she had washed up the supper dishes—for my father at this time did not employ a domestic—he would put her through a searching examination upon what she had read earlier in the day. If, as was frequently the case, since my mother was not naturally scholastic, she failed to satisfy her examiner, he would playfully impose upon her the little penalty of again going through her task before she went to bed. And on such occasions, if he had not fallen asleep, he would re-examine her when she came to bid him good-night. If, on the other hand, her replies had been judged adequate, it was an understood thing that she might claim an extra kiss. So seriously, indeed, did my mother apply herself that she began to grow unattractively thin; and once, when she had failed in her examination on three successive nights, she actually burst into tears. For this feminine weakness, when she had asked his pardon, my father of course readily forgave her, merely pointing out that, with my future at stake, he was obviously unable to relax his standards.