Truthfulness is so essential to moral superiority that any young man who consistently acts a part in life for ambitious or other reasons is very apt to become morally degenerate, and hardly able to distinguish between truth and falsehood. It is one of the things which, when discovered, is perhaps almost unduly punished by the contempt showered on it by contemporaries. It has been finely said, 'Principle is a passion for truth.'

While boys are still at school, is it not distinctly wrong for both parents to be away and out of easy reach at the same time ? Accidents so often happen, and school authorities, more especially school doctors and surgeons, are not to be depended upon, as they cannot give the time and attention which a boy naturally receives at home. If the eyes of love could be bought with money, love would not mean very much in the world; and it does mean a good deal, in spite of what many think, and, still more, of what many say.

The common attitude of mind of intelligent boys who have recently gone to school, is that they know everything about life, and that their mother understands nothing. The boy thinks his mother good, and that no good women know anything of life; and that settles the question. As he gets older, the mother must explain to him what she thinks proper. These matters, however, depend so much upon the character of the mother and son that it is impossible to generalise upon them. Mothers will, I think, rarely get much help from the fathers on the subject of school life. Most men have a wonderful knack of forgetting the difficulties of their own boyhood. The influence and example of the father in the home is immense. What he does, the boys will probably wish to do. Direct help in the difficulties of boy-life comes much more from the mother than from the father. For this reason I should say that the mother must take every pains to educate herself, and learn to understand as much about human nature as she possibly can. A course of French novel-reading-and, after all, a great many French novels are magnificent literature-is not otherwise than a harmless and yet useful way of eating of the tree of knowledge for a mother of five-and-thirty. The French have an extraordinarily honest way of facing the facts of life and the results of conduct, and they are far less sentimental than the English. This advice, of course, applies doubly to the woman who has not read French novels for her amusement in her youth. From the time a boy first goes to school, and still more, I think, when he is sixteen or seventeen, the mother should put a strong guard on herself not to worry him about his comings and goings, or in any way restrict his independence, as the sooner he learns to take care of himself the better. As regards the really serious things of life, you should not 'nag,' but up to a certain age you can forbid.

For a boy of seventeen, I believe it to be a very wise thing, as an introduction to life, that he should be given a latch-key. He is then proud of the privilege and much less likely to abuse it than if only given to him when he is much older. To deny it altogether to young men who are living at home seems to me both irritating and ridiculous. So many of the serious sorrows and troubles of life come from ignorance, rather than from wickedness, that it is advisable to send the boy of about this age to some friendly, worldly-wise, intelligent doctor, asking him beforehand to give the boy as much advice and instruction as a man of twenty-four might have learnt from bitter experience.

One of the most useful things a boy can be taught at home is the value of money. "With a well-trained, sensible boy a half-allowance for clothes should be begun at twelve years old (by a half-allowance I mean an allowance that includes pocket-money and is sufficient to buy every article of dress except cloth clothes), and at fourteen the allowance should cover all clothes and pocket-money. When allowances are first given, be sure that the boy starts fair with a sufficient stock of clothes, so that he should not be handicapped from the beginning. The best way to manage the allowance, having fixed the sum, is for the father or mother to be the banker. The amount of the yearly sum should be clearly made known to the boy, and he should draw the money himself when he requires it, as he would, later in life, from a real banker. This gives the parent a certain control over disproportionate expenditure. Accounts should not be insisted upon, nor even, I think, strongly urged, and, above all, never looked at. What is desirable is constantly to recommend the purchasing of useful things first, and to watch a little that everything is paid for with ready money, and the bills kept. So long as the world lasts, the prodigal by nature-not from mere want of training-and those who spend rather more money than they have, will always be more fascinating than the careful ones. The rash, the impetuous, and the thoughtlessly generous, must ever prove the heart-winners; and yet those who abet them are the first to turn on them 'when they are at the bottom of the hill or in a ditch by the roadside. Because of this, parents should force themselves to be more willing to kill the fatted calf for the saving child than for the prodigal. This should be impressed upon the sons from their earliest years. In the case of a parent really wishing to pay an extravagant son's bills, the hardship of it will be brought home to the son if the parent obliges himself to give an equal sum to the other children who have not got into debt. I am told that giving allowances to young boys is extremely rare. I consider it of fundamental importance in their education. Where it fails, it is an indication of character that is full of anxiety for the future, a serious evil to be faced, like hip-disease or a crooked spine. As a rule, everything is provided for boys till the most dangerous time in their lives, and then people are surprised that young men don't know how to proportion their expenditure to their means, which practice is the only wise one for rich or poor. Everyone is rich who has a margin, and everyone is poor who spends more than he has. To many people what I have just said will appear as giving a very undue preponderance to the management of money. Admitting the wisdom of what was said of old, 'The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,'it is equally true that the discreet management of money is the root of all kinds of good, especially with young people. Nothing is so selfish as extravagance. No one can doubt the truth, as put by the modern writer who says: 'Never treat money affairs with levity-money is character.' If you can say of your children, when they are twenty-one, that they have never been in debt and have never asked you for money, you have attained a satisfactory platform, which will enormously help the dignity of the situation. Such children's minds have not been pauperised, and the parent has not been put into the difficult and painful position of having to refuse or yield to a beggar. Children, on the other hand, should be helped to remember that, however free they may be left as regards the expenditure of their own allowances, no man, woman, or child is free while entirely dependent on money which they neither earn nor possess by inheritance. How often does a son, fresh from leaving school, who is dying to go for a visit or a holiday, or to buy a gun or a dog, go first to his mother, of whom he is not afraid, to plead his cause with his father for the money he wants! This is a distinctly wrong system, whether the father is rich or poor, an extravagant man himself, or the contrary. If the boy gets what he wants at once, he accepts it as a right, and is quite ready at Christmas to ask for more. If it is denied or grudgingly given, he resents it with irritation as a want of generosity and a needless check on his pleasures. Whereas, if the amount of the allowance is from the first proportioned to the income of the parents, it is brought home to their minds what the children are likely to cost them; while the boy is made to realise that, be the allowance large or small, his expenses must be proportioned to it. In the case of really poor parents it is especially necessary to impress upon the whole family that, with regard to pleasures, education, or even necessities, everything is subservient to the fact that money can only go as far as it will. Of course, if it were necessary, or even desirable, each member of a family might contribute what he or she can afford to the advantage of one member of it. Not a bad illustration of what I mean is touchingly told in the Life of Sir James Simpson, the famous Edinburgh doctor. All his elder brothers contributed to educate the clever youth, above their station in life, for a profession of which he became so distinguished an ornament.