child.  Although by dearly bought experience they learn wisdom in the management of their children, they nevertheless may not study the subject with the same care which they devote to matters of diet and hygiene.  It is the mother whose education and understanding best fits her for this task.  In this country a separate nursery and a separate nursery life for the children is found in nearly all households among the well-to-do, and the care for the physical needs of the children is largely taken off the mothers’ shoulders by nurses and nursemaids.  That this arrangement is advantageous on the whole cannot be doubted.  In America and on the Continent, where the children often mingle all day in the general life of the household, and occupy the ordinary living rooms, experience shows that nerve strain and its attendant evils are more common than with us.  Nevertheless, the arrangement of a separate nursery has its disadvantages.  Nurses are sometimes not sufficiently educated to have much appreciation of the mental processes of the child.  If the children are restless and nervous they are content to attribute this to naughtiness or to constipation, or to some other physical ailment.  Their time is usually so fully occupied that they cannot be expected to be very zealous in reading books on the management of children.  Nevertheless, in practical matters of detail a good nurse will learn rapidly from a mother who has given some attention to the subject, and who is able to give explicit instructions upon definite points.

It is right that mothers should appreciate the important part which the environment plays in all the mental processes of children, and in their physical condition as well; that they should understand that good temper and happiness mean a proper environment, and that constant crying and fretfulness, broken sleep, refusal of food, vomiting, undue thinness, and extreme timidity often indicate that something in this direction is at fault.

Nevertheless, we must be careful not to overstate our case.  We must remember how great is the diversity of temperament in children—­a diversity which is produced purely by hereditary factors.  The task of all mothers is by no means of equal difficulty.  There are children in whom quite gross faults in training produce but little permanent damage; there are others of so sensitive a nervous organisation that their environment requires the most delicate adjustment, and when matters have gone wrong, it may be very difficult to restore health of mind and body.  When a peculiarly nervous temperament is inherited, wisdom in the management of the child is essential, and may sometimes achieve the happiest results.  Heredity is so powerful a factor in the development of the nervous organisation of the child that, realising its importance, we should be sparing in our criticism of the results which the mothers who consult us achieve in the training of their children.  A sensitive, nervous organisation is