Rome with such glory, brought up his own sons from the cradle,
and so carefully that he left everything to be present when their
nurse, that is to say their mother, bathed them; when we read
in Suetonius that Augustus, the master of the world which he had
conquered and which he himself governed, himself taught his grandsons
to write, to swim, to understand the beginnings of science, and that
he always had them with him, we cannot help smiling at the little
people of those days who amused themselves with such follies, and
who were too ignorant, no doubt, to attend to the great affairs
of the great people of our own time.] It is not surprising that
the man whose wife despises the duty of suckling her child should
despise its education. There is no more charming picture than
that of family life; but when one feature is wanting the whole is
marred. If the mother is too delicate to nurse her child, the father
will be too busy to teach him. Their children, scattered about
in schools, convents, and colleges, will find the home of their
affections elsewhere, or rather they will form the habit of oaring
for nothing. Brothers and sisters will scarcely know each other;
when they are together in company they will behave as strangers.
When there is no confidence between relations, when the family
society ceases to give savour to life, its place is soon usurped
by vice. Is there any man so stupid that he cannot see how all this
hangs together?

A father has done but a third of his task when he begets children
and provides a living for them. He owes men to humanity, citizens
to the state. A man who can pay this threefold debt and neglect to
do so is guilty, more guilty, perhaps, if he pays it in part than
when he neglects it entirely. He has no right to be a father if
he cannot fulfil a father's duties. Poverty, pressure of business,