It is a very common impression among those who are practically unacquainted with children, that there is an immense deal of trouble incurred in their management. There is, no doubt, much trouble, but there is also much to alleviate it. Women, to whom, as mothers or as nurses, this trouble chiefly falls, are rarely heard to complain of it. The labour is either kindly and agreeable in itself, or it is rewarded by the generous pleasure of knowing that those are helped who cannot help themselves. There are few duties, it may be said, by which women appear to feel less oppressed, than the labour of managing children. What is very strange, it seems equally lightsome to the hired attendant as to the mother herself. There appears to be a general feeling among women that the neglect of, or the least cruelty, to a child, is the most monstrous offence in nature: it is the high treason of the sex. In the more refined circles of society, where it is convenient to employ deputies, this certain kindness of every female heart towards a child is very fortunate: in the lower circles it is still more so. _There_ many mothers are compelled to depend much upon the good-will of neighbours for the attentions necessary to their families. The infant is, indeed, in some measure the protegé of a little vicinity, rather than of any individual. It is handed about from one hand to another, and kept for a little by each, so as to enable the mother to attend to other duties that are still more indispensable—such as the preparation of her family meals, or, perhaps, the work necessary for obtaining them. There is in this no danger for the child, and not much obligation for the parents. The poor are in the constant practice of performing acts of kindness to each other: they are their own best friends; and their condition would be quite insupportable if it were otherwise. The attentions, therefore, which one neighbour bestows upon another’s child, are felt as a very slight burden by the particular party obliging, while the aggregate of many such little favours forms an immense relief to the mother. Then, every one knows that if the case were her own, as it perhaps may be, the individual whom she now obliges would be ready and glad to oblige her in turn. If the trouble of managing children had in it any thing really disagreeable, this universal system of mutual serviceableness could never obtain among the poor.