“I daresay experienced people get to know all about it,” said Mrs. Clough; “but the mother of even two or three little ones has a sense of being at sea without rudder or compass. We know so little about children, or, indeed, about human beings at all! Parents before our time had something to go upon; and the young mother could ask counsel of her elders on all matters from ‘cinder tea’ to the choice of a school. But now science is abroad; many of the old wise saws turn out, not only mischievous, but ridiculous. We can’t keep hold of the old, we can’t get hold of the new, and there we are, like Mahomet’s coffin.” “You have described our quandary exactly, Mrs. Clough! And what you say accounts for many things. The older people complain that the children of these days are growing up lax, self-pleasing, disobedient, irreverent. Now, I think myself there is a great deal that’s fine in our children. They are much more of _persons_ than we were at their age; but that they do pretty much what is right in their own eyes, are neither obedient nor reverent, nor even respectful, is, I am afraid, a true bill. But don’t you see how it is? We are afraid of them. We feel as a navvy might, turned in to dust the drawing-room ornaments! The mere touch of his clumsy great fingers may be the ruin of some precious thing. We parents, no doubt, get tenderness and insight from above to enable us for our delicate work; so I suppose it is our own fault that the children are beyond us.” “How do you mean, Mrs. Meredith? And if you, mothers, don’t know what to do with the children, who does? The enlightened father lays himself out for a snub if he sets up for an authority at home.”