The duty of the parents or their substitutes in the direction of gradually weaning the child from his initial condition of dependence has however received less adequate recognition nor has the difficult and delicate nature of this duty been sufficiently appreciated. On the economic and social sides indeed it is admitted that it is incumbent upon parents to provide their children with the means of earning their living and of taking their place generally among their social equals; though with regard to girls the views as to what was necessary as regards education for these purposes has, up till comparatively recently, often been lamentably narrow. In this country there is even now in many quarters a failure to realise the full nature of parental responsibilities with regard to daughters; much less financial provision being frequently made in their case, both for higher and professional education and for the expenses incidental to marriage, than in the case of sons; lack of adequate provision in these respects inevitably tending of course to produce an undue degree of dependence--economical and moral--on the parents. [Sidenote: especially as regards the psychological aspect of this tie] If, on the economic side, the duty of weaning children from their primitive dependence on the family is thus not yet always fully recognised, the recognition of the corresponding duties on the psychological side is still less complete. Parents are often unwilling to abandon the jurisdiction and control which they have been accustomed to exercise over their children and which may have become very pleasant to them, both as providing an agreeable source of interest and as ministering to their sense of power. Often too in the beginning it may be easier for them to help their children than to let the latter learn to help themselves. Not infrequently also they are directly or indirectly encouraged in this course by the children themselves, who, out of laziness or failure in initiative, prefer that their lives should be regulated by their parents rather than that they should make the effort and take on the responsibility of regulating it themselves. Sometimes, moreover, parents are unwilling to relinquish the management of their childrens' lives for fear of the disasters that may overtake these latter through ignorance and inexperience; or again because of an exaggerated tenderness which makes them loth to abandon those manifestations of affection which parental assistance may imply. It must be understood however that none of these motives--powerful though some of them may be--provide an adequate excuse for the omission to carry out the weaning process, which, as we have seen, is of such vast importance for the development of the full capacities of the individual. It can scarcely be too frequently emphasised that parents who bring their children up without regard to the necessity of this emancipation are guilty of a very serious neglect of their childrens'