ty to write every day if you can, if not every other
day, at least twice a week.

Do not misunderstand me here. God knows I do not go in for the devoted
mother who thinks of nothing but her boys and to whom the whole world
besides is nothing but an empty flourish of the pen about their names.
Such mothers are like Chinese teacups, with no perspective and
everything out of proportion; where the Mandarin is as big as the
Pagoda, and suffers from a pathetic inability to get in at his own door.
You must see things in moral perspective in order to train character on
large and noble lines. And it is from the rough quarry of the outside
world, with its suffering and sin, that you must fetch the most precious
stones for the building up of true manhood or womanhood. The sooner
children are taught that their small concerns must be subordinated at
times to the needs of the sick, the poor, and the suffering, the better
for them. For a mother, therefore, to undertake _some_ outside work may
and will prove the best element in their education, enabling them in
their turn to live in relation with the world in which God has placed
them and do their part in the service of humanity.

All that I mean is, do not so crowd your life with outside work or
social engagements as to have no time to spare for this daily or at
least bi-weekly letter to the boys at school. Bear in mind that the most
important work you can do for the world is the formation of noble
character, building it up stone by stone as you alone can do. Do not be
too busy to make yourself your boy's friend and throw yourself heartily
into all that interests him. I have known philanthropic mothers to whom
cricket was nothing but an unmeaning scurrying backwards and forwards,
and who scarcely knew the stern of a boat from its bows!

And what a liberal education a mother's home-letters to her boys at
school might be made! The stirring incident in the newspapers, the fine
passage in the book, a verse or two of a noble poem, as well as all the
loving thought and prayer that is for ever flying like homing birds to
the dear absent lads, and the inculcation of all things lovely and pure
and manly, brightened by home jokes and the health of the last cherished
pet--all these things might go to make up the home letters. Above all,
what an opportunity it would give for pleading the cause of the little
chaps who, by some strange insanity working in the brain of the British
parent, are sent