ennel. I believe the greatest misery of children arises from their
being so culpably trusted to the care of servants. A fashionable mother
engages a head-nurse, who is well-mannered, respectful, and experienced,
and thereupon delivers over her children to her entire jurisdiction,
perfectly content if they appear before her, at stated periods, clean
and neat, with smiling faces. She little knows how (in the majority of
instances) the poor little creatures are coerced, by nursery discipline,
not to betray their real feelings for the woman who has them under her
influence day and night.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: And gives the reason why.]

At one time, when I walked daily in Hyde Park, I constantly met a nurse
whose behaviour to the children under her charge excited my greatest
indignation. If one of the little ones lagged behind with the nursemaid,
or whimpered, because it was cold or tired, the head-nurse would shake
it by the arm, or strike it across the head with such violence as to
upset its equilibrium, and her voice at all times was harsh and
repellent. I knew it would be useless to speak to her, but one day I
followed her home to a house in Park Lane, and, sending up my card,
asked if I could speak to the mistress of it. The flunky informed me she
was Lady--let us say, "the Lord knows who"--and I was presently admitted
to her presence. I did not stand on ceremony with "Lady the Lord knows
who." I told her I made no excuse for disturbing her, because if she
loved her children she would be very much obliged to me for telling her,
from my personal observation, that she had (unconsciously no doubt)
trusted them to the care of a woman who was not fit to take charge of a
dog. Her ladyship heard me to the end, and then, rising grandly, touched
the bell for her flunky and said, "Many thanks for the trouble you have
taken, but I have the utmost confidence in my attendants." And so I was
bowed out again. How many parents live with the little children they
have brought into the world? How many teach them, or explain to them,
all they want to know? It is too much trouble! All that sort of thing is
delegated to hirelings. How often has one heard an intelligent child
snubbed for the very questioning which should be encouraged! The bright,
eager little brain, just opening, as it were, to all the wonders of
living, is bursting to know the why and wherefore of everything it sees,
and for answer to its