Rigid truthfulness in adults towards children is, of course, absolutely indispensable if children are not to learn lying. Parents who teach that lying is a sin, and who nevertheless are known to lie by their children, naturally lose all moral authority. The idea of speaking the truth to children is entirely novel; hardly anybody did it before the present generation. I greatly doubt whether Eve told Cain and Abel the truth about apples; I am convinced that she told them she had never eaten anything that wasn’t good for her. It used to be the thing for parents to represent themselves as Olympians, immune from human passions and always actuated by pure reason. When they reproached the children, they did it more in sorrow than in anger; however they might scold, they were not “cross”, but talking to the children for their good. Parents did not realize that children are astonishingly clear-sighted: they do not understand all the solemn political reasons for humbug, but despise it straightforwardly and simply. Jealousies and envies of which you are unconscious will be evident to your child, who will discount all your fine moral talk about the wickedness of the objects of these passions. Never pretend to be faultless and inhuman; the child will not believe you, and would not like you any the better if he did. I remember vividly how, at a very early age, I saw through the Victorian humbug and hypocrisy with which I was surrounded, and vowed that, if I ever had children, I would not repeat the mistakes that were being made with me. To the best of my ability, I am keeping this vow.