Both sent their girls to the same school, where every accomplishment was taught and the highest tone prevailed that the masters could inculcate. The first mother showed deep interest in the holidays, in all her child's lessons, directed and encouraged her, opening her understanding and broadening her point of view, while she attended to every physical grace. She explained how her child should apply the knowledge she acquired during term, so that it should grow interesting, and as far as it lay in her power she endeavoured that her daughter should be fitted with every charm and attraction which could procure for her later on a larger selection from which to choose her partner in life. The other mother let her girl run wild during the holidays, and allowed her to feel that all she learned was just an irksome duty to be forgotten the moment school was over. Her appearance, her gentle manners, her refinement, her point of view, were all left to take their own chance, from the mistaken idea that it would encourage vanity and egotism in the girl to discuss these things with her--and that she, the mother, had done all that was required of her in simply providing a good education! This second mother had completely lost sight of the end, you see, and was unconsciously only thinking of herself and not of her child at all. And this--to think of the welfare of the child and allow no other point to obscure this--is the whole meaning of the responsibility of motherhood. VII THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MOTHERHOOD. SECOND PAPER What I always wish to impress upon the readers who are kind enough to be interested in the articles which I write is to keep the end aimed at in view. So in this second paper upon the responsibility of motherhood, I must begin by reiterating this necessity. No mother has a right to drift and trust to chance for the welfare of her children, and however they develop, for good or ill, she must in greater or lesser degree be held responsible. The period when animals cease all interest in and care for their offspring only commences when these latter can safely be left to look after themselves; and so it should be with human beings. But, judging the ages relatively of animals and mankind, numbers of human mothers entirely neglect their progeny long before they have come even to the fledgling stage! How often in society one sees women of forty-five and younger with daughters of fifteen to twenty, about whose real characters and souls they know nothing! They have always been too busy with their own personal interest to give the time and sympathy required for a real mother's understanding of her children. Servants and governesses have been the directors through the most critical period of the girls' lives, and it is merely a piece of luck if they have imbibed no ill from them.