should continue to exist as a tie is unnatural and tends to be harmful. At
a certain stage in the development of the child the physical tie with the
parent is severed, and the umbilical cord cut. At a later stage in
development, when puberty is attained and adolescence is feeling its way
towards a complete adult maturity, the spiritual tie must be severed. It
is absolutely essential that the young spirit should begin to essay its
own wings. If its energy is not equal to this adventure, then it is the
part of a truly loving parent to push it over the edge of the nest. Of
course there are dangers and risks. But the worst dangers and risks come
of the failure to adventure, of the refusal to face the tasks of the world
and to assume the full function of life. All that Freud has told of the
paralysing and maiming influence of infantile arrest or regression is here
profitable to consider. In order, moreover, that the relationship between
parents and children may retain its early beauty and love, it is essential
that it shall adapt itself to adult conditions and the absence of ties so
rendered necessary. Otherwise there is little likelihood of anything but
friction and pain on one side or the other, and perhaps on both sides.

[4] The varying customs of different peoples in this matter are set
forth by Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_,
Ch. XXV.

The parents have not only to train their children: it is of at least equal
importance that they should train themselves. It is desirable that
children, as they grow up, should be alive to this necessity, and
consciously assist in the process, since they are in closer touch with a
new world of activities to which their more lethargic parents are often
blind and deaf. For every fresh stage in our lives we need a fresh
education, and there is no stage for which so little educational
preparation is made as that which follows the reproductive period. Yet at