As far as the children are concerned, she cannot but admit that the
immediate responsibility has nowhere else to rest but in her. If she
chooses to pass it over to a nurse or governess, that is her affair. It
is for her to engage or discharge the nurse and governess as she sees
fit. And it is rare indeed to find a mother anywhere who would think of
allowing any interference with what she considers her fundamental right.

If she neglects her responsibility, or fails in it, and the results are
more or less disastrous, it is a very feminine excuse, to argue that she
has a selfish and inconsiderate husband. The care of the children was
her affair, not his; both herself and nature agree upon insisting that
this should be so.

In this connection, therefore, it is to the mothers, principally, that
we should address ourselves. At some other time, we may, if we choose,
enter upon a discussion of that complex and much confused question of
husband and wife in their relation to each other.

Under present-day conditions, curiously enough, the first thing it seems
necessary to ask a mother is this:

Did you ever stop to reflect upon the tremendous and wonderful
importance which may attach to the bringing up of one single child? Even
if your heart feelings are rather anemic and your soul-feelings have
become so muddled and confused by practical considerations that you no
longer get any real message or inspiration from those two divine
sources, yet you still have left a modern and enlightened brain. Even
that is enough to make you almost dizzy at the thought of this thing,
if you will pause long enough to give it careful attention.

A modern battleship, or an airplane, or an automobile, is a vastly
complicated and efficient piece of machinery. If you, yourself, left to
your own resources, had the ability to turn out a complete battleship of
the most improved design, you would doubtless consider that you had
achieved something to be immensely proud of. But the greatest battleship
on earth is not one-hundredth part as complicated and efficient a piece
of machinery as your little son. And one of a dozen different faculties
with which your son is equipped--the power of memory, for instance--is
infinitely more intricate and more wonderful than anything and
everything about a battleship put together.

You might have an ambition to paint a beautiful picture, or compose
beautiful music, or write beautiful poetry, or do something else wi