bear the burden of the weaker, and not to prostitute that strength by
using it to master the weaker into bearing their loads. It is the man
who has to give himself for the woman, not the other way on, as we have
made it. Nay, this is no theory of mine; it is a truth implanted in the
very heart of every true man. "Every true man," as Milton says, "is born
a knight," diligently as we endeavor to stub up this royal root,
constantly, as from the very nursery, we endeavor to train it out of
him. You may deny the truth and go on some theory of your own in the
training of your boys, but the truth cannot deny itself. It is _there_,
whether you will have it or not, a root of the tree of life itself.

Now there is not a day that need pass without opportunities of training
your boys in this their true knightly attitude. You can see, as I have
already said, that they learn in relation to their own sisters what in
after years they have to practise towards all women alike. To give up
the comfortable easy-chair, the favorite book or toy, the warmest place
by the fire, to the little sister--this ought to become a second nature
to a well-trained boy. To carry a parcel for her, to jump up and fetch
anything she wants, to give in to her because he is a boy and the
stronger--all this ought to be a matter of course. As he grows older you
can place him in little positions of responsibility to his sisters,
sending them out on an expedition or to a party under his care. In a
thousand such ways you can see that your boy is not only born but grows
up a knight. I was once in a house where the master always brought up
the heavy evening water-cans and morning coal-scuttles for the maids.
And if these were placed at the foot of the stairs so as to involve no
running in and out of the kitchen, it might be no mean exercise for a
boy's muscles.

I was told only the other day of a little six-year-old boy whose mother