incredibly stupid to use obsolete methods which can never obtain the desired end just because the dominion of custom is still strong upon us, and we have not been intelligent enough to grasp and benefit by the spirit of the age. For all mothers must realise that they can never dominate the spirit of the age, and must either make vain fights with it, and be conquered to their loss, or must make terms with it and use it in its brightest and best aspect. The spirit of this age is a totally different one to the spirit of their own childhood's age. It is shorn of reverence and unquestioning obedience to elders, and is an independent creature who will only obey through conviction of good or personal benefit. Children are unerring and pitiless judges of those placed over them, and how can a mother, just because she is a mother, expect respect and reverence in her children if she earns their contempt by her conduct and selfishness? It is the spiritual mother's duty to instil chivalry towards the other sex into her little sons from earliest years, by making them polite to herself and to their sisters. She should, before they go to school and when they return for the holidays, endeavour to influence them into liking cleanliness and care of their persons, especially when with ladies. She should try to make these little men so happy and contented, so certain of sympathy and understanding that home spells heaven for them and remains the dearest memory of their lives, and for her little girls, over whom she has a far vaster influence, she should polish their minds, explain all the true and pure principles of life--teach them the value of self-control and self-respect, and watch for and encourage all their graces, so that when they arrive at the ages of seventeen and eighteen they may be fitted in all points to shine in whatever world they belong to, and take their places among the best of their class. Space forbids me to go on longer, although the subject seems only just to have been begun, so large is its sphere of action, but I must give one last concrete example of two women's methods, to enforce my meaning of the importance of _the end_.