"My babies must have discipline, system, frugality, and leisure for
individual development drilled into them. I do not wish them to be
ignorant of one single modern grace and accomplishment; mind and
body must be trained together like a pair of Morgan colts.

"But I will not have them victims of pedagogy; I will not have them
masters of their time and money until they are of age; I will not
permit them to choose companions or pursuits for their leisure until
they are fitted to do so.

"If there is in them, latent, any propensity toward viciousness--any
unawakened desire for that which has been my failing--hard work from
dawn till dark is the antidote. An exhausted child is beyond
temptation.

"If I pass forward, Tappan, before you--and it is likely because I
am twenty years older and I have lived unwisely--I shall arrange
matters in such shape that you can carry out something of what I
have tried to begin, far better than I, old friend; for I am strong
in theory and very weak in practice; they are such dear little
things! And when they cry to be taken up--and a modern trained
nurse says 'No! let them cry!' good God! Remsen, I sometimes sneak
into their thoroughly modern and scientifically arranged nursery,
which resembles an operating room in a brand-new hospital, and I
take up my babies and rock them in my arms, terrified lest that
modern and highly trained nurse discover my infraction of sanitary
rule and precept.

"I don't know; babies were born, and survived cradles and mothers'