outworks, and work our way inwards to the shrine.

First, as to the all-important choice of a school, should the boy's
father decide, for reasons in which you concur to send him to a
boarding-school.

As to how to ascertain the real state of a school there is, of course,
considerable difficulty. I have always found the best way is through
mothers who have gained the confidence of their boys and who know
through them what really goes on. In this way, as mothers wake up to the
danger their boys run and to their own responsibility in guarding them,
we shall be able to help one another more and more. But make a point of
yourself, as well as the boy's father, personally seeing the master to
whom you think of entrusting your lad, and talking over the matter with
him. In this way you will not only satisfy yourself, but you will
strengthen his hands by making him feel how vital the whole question is
to your heart. What more than anything else weakens the high-minded men
who have the tuition of the young is the utter unconcern that is evinced
by the parents and the sense that, by the payment of a sum of money
down, they can compound with a master for the performance of their
inalienable duty of undertaking the moral education of their own
children.

Here let me give you two most earnest cautions. Do not attach too much
importance to mere mechanical arrangements as moral safeguards. One of
our most successful head-masters says:

"I would most seriously warn any parent anxious about the choice of
a school not to attach much weight to the apparent excellence of
arrangements. Some of the worst schools have these arrangements in