d. The natural
joyous opening of a child's mind depends on its first intimate
relations. These are, as a rule, with the mother. It is the mother
who "takes an interest," who oftenest decides whether the new mind
shall open frankly and fearlessly. How she does her work, depends less
upon her ability to answer questions than her effort not to discourage
them; less upon her ability to lead authoritatively into great fields
than her efforts to push the child ahead into those which attract him.
To be responsive to his interests is the woman's greatest contribution
to the child's development.

I remember a call once made on me by two little girls when our time
was spent in an excited discussion of the parts of speech. They were
living facts to them, as real as if their discovery had been printed
that morning for the first time in the newspaper. I was interested to
find who it was that had been able to keep their minds so naturally
alive. I found that it came from the family habit of treating with
respect whatever each child turned up. Nothing was slurred over as if
it had no relation to life--not even the parts of speech! They were
not asked or forced to load themselves up with baggage in which they
soon discovered their parents had no interest. Everything was treated
as if it had a permanent place in the scheme to which they were being
introduced. It is only in some such relation that the natural bent of
most children can flower, that they can come early to themselves.
Where this warming, nourishing intimacy is wanting, where the child is
turned over to schools to be put through the mass drill which numbers
make imperative--it is impossible for the most intelligent teacher to
do a great deal to help the child to his own. What the Uneasy Woman
forgets is that no two children born were ever alike, and no two
children who grow to manhood and womanhood will ever live the same
life. The effort to make one child like another, to make him what his
parents want, not what he is born to be, is one of the most cruel and
wasteful in society. It is the woman's business to prevent this.

The Uneasy Woman tells you that this close attention to the child is
too confining, too narrowing. "I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness
of her task," says Chesterton; "I will never pity her for its
smallness." A woman never lived who did all she might have done to
open the mind of her child for its great adventure. It is an
exhaustless task. The wom