I purposely chose this case as an illustration because it is simple, obvious, and quite typical of many marriages which are crippled through the neurosis of the wife. The cause of the unhappiness always lies in a too firm attachment to the parents. The infantile relationship has not been given up. We find here one of the most important tasks of pedagogy, namely, the solution of the problem how to free the growing individual from his unconscious attachments to the influences of the infantile milieu, in such a manner that he may retain whatever there is in it that is suitable and reject whatever is unsuitable. To solve this difficult question on the part of the child seems to me impossible at present. We know as yet too little about the child's emotional processes. The first and only real contribution to the literature on this subject has in fact appeared during the present year. It is the analysis of a five-year-old boy published by Freud. The difficulties on the part of the child are very great. They should not, however, be so great on the part of the parents. In many ways the parents could manage the love of children more carefully, more indulgently, and more intelligently. The sins committed against favourite children by the undue love of the parents could perhaps be avoided through a wider knowledge of the child's mind. For many reasons I find it impossible to say anything of general validity concerning the bringing up of children as it is affected by this problem. We are as yet very far from general prescriptions and rules; indeed we are still in the realm of casuistry. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the finer mental processes in the child is so meagre that we are not yet in any position to say where the greatest trouble lies, whether in the parents, in the child, or in the conception of the milieu. Only psychoanalyses of the kind that Professor Freud has published in the _Jahrbuch_, 1909,[141] will help us out of this difficulty. Such comprehensive and profound observations should act as a strong inducement to all teachers to occupy themselves with Freud's psychology. This psychology offers more values for practical pedagogy than the physiological psychology of the present. LECTURE III EXPERIENCES CONCERNING THE PSYCHIC LIFE OF THE CHILD[142]