his mental or moral faculties."

"You have one great advantage," said Sir John, "and I thank God it is
the same in Cavendish-square, that you and Mrs. Stanley draw evenly
together. Nothing impedes domestic regulation so effectually as where
parents, from difference of sentiment, ill-humor, or bad judgment,
obstruct each other's plans, or where one parent makes the other
insignificant in the eyes of their children."

"Mr. Reynolds," replied Mr. Stanley, "a friend of mine in this
neighborhood, is in this very predicament. To the mother's weakness the
father's temperate discipline seems cruelty. She is perpetually blaming
him before the children for setting them to their books. Her attentions
are divided between their health, which is perfect, and their pleasure,
which is obstructed by her foolish zeal to promote it, far more than by
his prudent restrictions. Whatever the father helps them to at table,
the mother takes from them, lest it should make them sick. What he
forbids is always the very thing which is good for them. She is much
more afraid, however, of overloading their memories than their stomachs.
Reading, she says, will spoil the girls' eyes, stooping to write will
ruin their chests, and working will make them round-shouldered. If the
boys run, they will have fevers; if they jump, they will sprain their
ankles; if they play at cricket, a blow may kill them; if they swim,
they may be drowned; the shallowness of the stream is no argument of
safety.

"Poor Reynolds' life is one continued struggle between his sense of duty
to his children, and his complaisance to his wife. If he carries his
point, it is at the expense of his peace; if he relaxes, as he commonly
does, his children are the victims. He is at length brought to submit
his excellent judgment to her feeble mind, lest his opposition should
hurt her health; and he has the mortification of seeing his children
trained as if they had nothing but bodies.

"To the wretched education of Mrs. Reynolds herself, all this mischief
may be attributed; for she is not a bad, though an ignorant woman; and
having been harshly treated by her own parents, she fell into the vulgar
error of vulgar minds, that of supposing the opposite of wrong must
necessarily be right. As she found that being perpetually contradicted
had made herself miserable, she concluded that never being contradicted
at all would make her children happy. The event has answered as might
have been fores