The problems of their physical and mental nurture attract more and more attention day by day. Eugenists, educationists, physicians, politicians, philanthropists, and even ordinary parents discuss and ponder, ponder and discuss, matters both great and small which have a bearing on the development of the child. By common consent the first seven years of life are regarded as the most critical. It is during these years that the foundations of the personality-to-be are laid--"well and truly" or otherwise. It is during these years that the deepest and most ineradicable impressions are made in the plastic constitution of the child, arresting or developing this or the other instinctive trend and fixing it, often for life. And it is during these years above all that the parents play the most important role in the inner history of the child's life, not so much by anything they directly teach through verbal exhortations, warnings, or commands, as by those subtler influences which are conveyed in gesture, tone, and facial expression. The younger the child, the more is it influenced through these more primitive modes of expression, and quite as much when they are not directed towards itself but are employed by the parents in their intimate relations with one another in the presence of their apparently unobserving child--the infant in its cot, the toddling baby by the hearth, the little child to all appearance absorbed in its picture book or toy. Is it not of the utmost importance that these earliest impressions should be of the finest nature? And should we not therefore welcome all that may help--as this book can--to make the living cradle of the next generation as full of beauty and harmony as love and mutual understanding can? The age-long conflict between the "lower" and the "higher" impulses, between the primitive animal nature and the specifically human developments of an altruistic and ethical order, are fought afresh in each soul and in every marriage. We need to realise more clearly that the lower is never--ought never to be--_eliminated_ but rather _subsumed by the higher_. No true harmony can be hoped for so long as one factor or the other is ignored or repressed. Dr. Stopes makes some very important biological suggestions which should not be lightly dismissed. Further observation is required to establish or disprove her theory of the normal sexual cycle in women, but my own observation certainly tends to confirm it. J. M. MURRAY. _Letter from_ Professor E. H. STARLING, M.D., B.S., F.R.S., _Professor of Physiology_, _University of London_. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, GOWER STREET, LONDON, W.C., November 23, 1917. DEAR DR. STOPES,--