This watchfulness over the young child, by day and night, is the first duty to be universally inculcated. Two things are necessary in order to fulfil it--viz., a clear knowledge of the evils to which the child may be exposed, and tact to interpret the faintest indication of danger and to guard from it without allowing the child to be aware of the danger. Evils should never be presented to the young child’s mind. Habits must be formed from earliest infancy, but reasons for those habits should only be given much later. It is the parent’s intelligence which must act for the child during very early life. This unavoidable necessity is, at the same time, a cause of frequent failure in education, for the reason that parents, through ignorance or egotism, fail to see that they must study the nature of the child. The strong adult too often fails in insight, and imposes its own methods and conclusions upon a nature not susceptible of those methods and often not adapted to those conclusions. This is really spiritual tyranny, and destroys the providential relation which should exist between child and adult. The parent should become the first and truest friend of the child. This possibility and duty is a great parents’ privilege, too often unknown, and yet it affects the whole future of the child. It is through the love and confidence that exist between them that durable influence is exerted. If the child naturally confides its little joys and sorrows to the ever-ready and intelligent sympathy of the mother, if it grows up in the habit of turning to this warm and helpful influence, the youth will come as naturally with his experiences and plans to the parent as did the little child; the evils of life, which must be gradually known, will then be encountered with the aid of experience. The form of the relation between parent and child changes, not its essence. The essence of the relationship is trust: the fact that the parent’s presence will always be welcomed by the child; that in work or in play, in infancy or youth, the parent shall be the first natural friend. It is only then that wise, permanent influence can be exerted. It is not dogmatism, nor rigid laws, nor formal instruction, that is needed, but the formative power of loving insight and sympathy. It is only when this providential relation exists that the parent can understand the life of the child and exercise influence without harshness. With every step in life the child’s horizon enlarges, and opportunities of good or temptations to evil increase. The experiences of school-life, the companions selected, the studies pursued, and the books read, introduce the child into the wide world of practical life in miniature. All the circumstances of school-life are of serious importance--an importance not sufficiently realized in their bearing upon character, and in the responsibility which rests with parents themselves, to mould those circumstances. The