corrupt an atmosphere as prevailed in that
preparatory school, but of this I do not know.

But here let me guard myself from being misunderstood. I am not making
out that every schoolboy is exposed to these temptations; there are boys
so exceptionally endowed that they seem to spread a pure atmosphere
around them which is respected by even the coarsest and loosest boys in
the school. All I do maintain, with Dr. Butler, is that no school is
safe from this danger, that at any time it may prove an active one in
your boy's life, and that at the very least you have to guard him from
impure knowledge being thrust upon him before nature has developed the
instincts of manhood by which she guards her inner shrine.

And now I come to the question of day schools. As I have already said, I
cannot feel but they are more consonant with the order of our life as
giving the discipline and competition of numbers without removing the
boy from family life, nor do they lend themselves to some of the graver
evils of our boarding-schools. But, alas! in themselves they form no
panacea for the evils we are contemplating. On the contrary, I am told
on authority I cannot question that in some places this plague spot is
rife among them. In one case the evil had struck so wide and deep that
the school had to be temporarily closed. Here, again, the same lesson is
emphasized, viz.: that whatever is the form of the school, however
excellent the teacher, there is no substitute in the moral life for the
home teaching and training of mothers and fathers.

No mother can read these statements unmoved--statements, remember, not
my own, but made by men of the deepest and widest experience, and which,
therefore, you are bound to weigh, ponder, and carefully consider. I
know that straight from your heart again comes the cry, "What can I do?"

I am inclined to answer this cry in one word, "Everything,"--with God's
help.

I

And now let us enter into practical details. We will begin with the
outworks, and work our way inwards to the shrine.

First, as to the all-important choice of a school, should the boy's
father decide, for reasons in which you concur to send him to a
boarding-school.

As to how to ascertain the real state of a school there is, of course,
considerable difficulty. I have always found the best way is through
mothers who have gained the confidence of their boys and who know
through them what really goes on. In this way, as mothers wa