ndulge in it if it is
explained to them that smoking will stop their growth and make them
less likely to succeed in the cricket eleven, or, later, in the
college eight. At that period the mind cannot look into unseen worlds,
and is mainly occupied with realities from day to day, and therefore
is more likely to be influenced by a simple explanation of what
physical harm or what good in the immediate future will be the result
of actions.

The little girls' behaviour to their mother is really an example of
this same rule, only the principle for their action was not good,
being merely temporary and strictly limited gain, and not that they
should, as in the case of the boys, grow into fine, strong and healthy
people, more able to enjoy life in the future.

There is another statement which I have constantly made which possibly
might be twisted or misunderstood, and that is the one of the
importance of the end. There are people who would turn it into the
Jesuitical motto of "The end justifies the means." That is not what I
wished to convey at all, but that if an end is good--and the main
object, admittedly, is to obtain it--then there is no use in using
methods which once might have accomplished this, but which no longer
are practical because of the changed conditions, and if continued in
will only lose all possibility of success.

How many fathers and mothers in past days have driven their offspring
to disgrace and even death by adhering to harsh, Puritanical systems,
out of date even at that time! And how many more to-day let them slip
into the same abysses by their too indulgent rule!

As I have said, over and over again, the proof of any pudding is in
the eating of it; so let every mother _examine her methods with her
children by this standard: Are the children developing in moral and
physical welfare by those which she is using, or are they
retrogressing?_ Is she employing tact to guide their young fierce
spirits, or is she trying to crush them by old-fashioned rules?

Questions such as these ought to be honestly asked by each mother of
herself, and if the answer proves that retrogression is in progress,
then she should not be so incredibly stupid as to continue in her old
lines, but should examine herself and see how she can find the right
new ones for her particular cases. La Rochefoucauld was wise when he
said that vanity was at the root of most human mistakes. If a woman is
not willing to undertake the true resp