it used to be--"Why need I interfere at all in a subject like this? Why
may I not leave it all to the boy's father? Why should it be my duty to
face a question which is very distasteful to me, and which I feel I had
much better let alone?"

I would answer at once, Because the evil is so rife, the dangers so
great and manifold, the temptations so strong and subtle, that your
influence must be united to that of the boy's father if you want to
safeguard him. Every influence you can lay hold of is needed here, and
will not prove more than enough. The influence of one parent alone is
not sufficient, more especially as there are potent lines of influence
open to you as a woman from which a man, from the very fact that he is a
man, is necessarily debarred.

You must bring the whole of that influence to bear for the following
considerations.

Let me take the lowest and simplest first. Even if you be indifferent
to your boy's moral welfare, you cannot be indifferent to his physical
well-being, nay, to his very existence. Here I necessarily cannot tell
you all I know; but I would ask you thoughtfully to study for yourself a
striking diagram which Dr. Carpenter, in one of our recognized medical
text-books, has reproduced from the well-known French statistician,
Quetelet, showing the comparative viability, or life value, of men and
women respectively at different ages.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM REPRESENTING THE COMPARATIVE VIABILITY OF THE
MALE AND FEMALE AT DIFFERENT AGES.]