duties towards others possess any significance and worth. In that sense,
it is true according to the familiar saying of Shakespeare,--though it was
only Polonius, the man of maxims, who voiced it,--that one cannot be true
to others unless one is first true to oneself, and that one can know
nothing of giving aught that is worthy to give unless one also knows how
to take.

We see that the problem of the place of parents in life, after their
function of parenthood has been adequately fulfilled, a problem which
offers no difficulties among most forms of life, has been found hard to
solve by Man. At some places and periods it has been considered most
merciful to put them, to death; at others they have been almost or quite
deified and allowed to regulate the whole lives of their descendants. Thus
in New Caledonia aged parents, it is said by Mrs. Hadfield, were formerly
taken up to a high mountain and left with enough food to last a few days;
there was at the same time great regard for the aged, as also among the
Hottentots who asked: "Can you see a parent or a relative shaking and
freezing under a cold, dreary, heavy, useless old age, and not think, in
pity of them, of putting an end to their misery?" It was generally the
opinion of the parents themselves, but in some countries the parents have
dominated and overawed their children to the time of their natural death
and even beyond, up to the point of ancestor worship, as in China, where
no man of any age can act for himself in the chief matters of life during
his parents' life-time, and to some extent in ancient Rome, whence an
influence in this direction which still exists in the laws and customs of
France.[4] Both extremes have proved compatible with a beautifully human
life. To steer midway between them seems to-day, however, the wisest
course. There ought to be no reason, and under happy conditions there is
no reason, why the relationship between parent and child, as one of mutual
affection and care, should ever cease to exist. But that the relationship