And now we can state more exactly the nature of parental duty. It is the duty of the parent, remembering that he is the guardian of the permanent welfare of his child, to respect, to protect, to develop its individuality--above all, to discover its individual bent; for that is often latent, and requires to be persistently searched out. It is the duty and the privilege of the parent to put the child, as it were, in possession of its own soul. And upon this relationship filial reverence is founded, and from it the principal filial duties may be deduced. Because the child does not know what is best for it, in view of its destiny, as described above, it is bound to obey. Obedience is the first of the filial duties. Secondly, the child is bound to show gratitude for the benefits received at the hands of its parents. The teacher should discuss with his pupils the principal benefits conferred by parents. The parents supply the child with food, shelter, and raiment; they nurse it in sickness, often sacrificing sleep, comfort, and health for its sake. They toil in order that it may want nothing; they give it, in their fond affection, the sweet seasoning of all their other gifts. It is well to bring these facts distinctly before the pupil's mind. The teacher can do it with a better grace than the parent himself. The teacher can strengthen and deepen the home feeling, and it is his office to do so. The pupil should go home from his moral lesson in school and look upon his parents with a new realization of all that he owes them, with a new and deeper tenderness. But the duty of gratitude should be based, above all, upon the greatest gift which the child obtains from his parents, the help which it receives toward attaining the moral aim of its existence. I do not include the commandment "Love thy parents" among the rules of filial duty, for I do not think that love can be commanded. Love follows of itself if the right attitude of reverence, obedience, gratitude be observed. Love is the sense of union with another. And the peculiarity of filial love, whereby it is distinguished from other kinds of love, is that it springs from union with persons on whom we utterly depend, with moral superiors, to whom we owe the fostering of our spiritual as well as of our physical existence.