they be treated with the same consideration that would be given
to a stranger. When the parents do not meet these conditions
they themselves are the greater sufferers. It is very easy to
keep one's son from expressing his raw views, very easy to tear
a daughter away from her book and to bring her to a tea-party
by giving her unnecessary occupations; very easy by a scornful
word to repress some powerful emotion. A thousand similar
things occur every day in good families through the whole
world. But whenever we hear of young people speaking of their
intellectual homelessness and sadness, we begin to understand
why father and mother remain behind in homes from which the
daughters have hastened to depart; why children take their
cares, joys, and thoughts to strangers; why, in a word, the old
and the young generation are as mutually dependent as the roots
and flowers of plants, so often separate with mutual repulsion.

This is as true of highly cultivated fathers and mothers as of
simple bourgeois or peasant parents. Perhaps, indeed, it may be
truer of the first class, the latter torment their children in
a naive way, while the former are infinitely wise and
methodical in their stupidity. Rarely is a mother of the upper
class one of those artists of home life who through the
blitheness, the goodness, and joyousness of her character,
makes the rhythm of everyday life a dance, and holidays into
festivals. Such artists are often simple women who have passed
no examinations, founded no clubs, and written no books. The
highly cultivated mothers and the socially useful mothers on
the other hand are not seldom those who call forth criticism
from their sons. It seems almost an invariable rule that
mothers should make mistakes when they wish to act for the