You can be of no use whatever to psychologists--to say nothing of the actual damage you may be to the children--unless you _know your babies through and through_.

Especially the fathers! They are willing to study everything else.

They know every corner of the house familiarly, and what is done in it, except the nursery.

A man labours for his children ten hours a day, gets his life insured for their support after his death, and yet he lets their mental growth, the formation of their characters, the evolution of their personality, go on by absorption--if no worse--from common, vulgar, imported and changing, often immoral attendants! Plato said the state should train the children; and added that the wisest man should rule the state.

This is to say that the wisest man should tend his children! Hugo gives us, in Jean Valjean and Cosette, a picture of the true paternal relationship.