If a lad is going into one of the learned professions it is necessary that he go to college, where the expenses all told cannot be less than 300_l._ a year, but before he does so his father should seriously tell him that whatever allowance he has is the extent of what he can give him, and that under no circumstances whatever will he be responsible for any debts of any sort or kind, and that doing what he is for him he is doing his utmost, and that he would rather see him go through the Bankruptcy Court than impoverish his sisters or his other brothers to pay his extravagant liabilities. Let this be well talked over at home in private, and I do not think the lad will place himself in the miserable and anxious position of many a young man who ladens himself with debt during his college life, which cripples all the best of his existence and embitters his days in more ways than one; but the boy must have parents on whom he can rely, and he must know that they mean absolutely what they say. There can be nothing more unfair than for the girls to be starved mentally and morally, and the younger lads badly educated, because a parent has to pay debts which ought never to have been contracted. Gambling debts should be utterly ignored by the parents, and gambling in every shape and form should be absolutely forbidden, the reasons thereof being plainly stated; and I think all parents should be more open about their circumstances than they are to their children, who often get a most erroneous impression about their people’s income, because of the manner in which they live. Why! because they have a carriage and a big house is the very reason why they can do no more, and why should the parents give up all they have justly earned because their children are extravagant? I see no reason myself, and I myself would certainly never do so to pay extravagant liabilities, or liabilities incurred on the gaming-table or on the racecourse. Give the boys a good education and a start in life, and provide the girls with 150_l._ a year, either when they marry or at your own death, and you have done your duty by your children. The girls cannot starve on that income, and neither would they be the prey of any fortune-hunter; but no one has a right to bring children into the world in the ranks of the upper middle-class and do less; misery will come of it if he does, be quite sure of that.