human
,[40] herself made the fatal mistake of aiding and abetting the thraldom of the young girl. The education which Mary and Caroline receive is nothing but a dreary course of constant admonition, in which the word liberty would be utterly misplaced. She has entirely failed to catch the spirit of Rousseau's _Emile_, in which the instructor only prevents the pupil from hurting himself overmuch through his ignorance, leaving him otherwise free to draw the conclusions of awakening Reason, and above all allowing him to live out his life. Harry Sandford and Tommy Merton go together for long walks in the woods, get lost and owe their rescue to the lucky accident of meeting a boy who takes them to his home. When Mr. Barlow is informed that the boys have turned up, he goes to meet them on their way home and merely tells them to be more careful in future, availing himself of the incident to instil certain lessons in geography which smack of Rousseau. But their liberty is in no way cramped. With Mary Wollstonecraft, however, the case is entirely different. One wonders what sort of paragons Mrs. Mason was going to turn out. The chances would seem pretty even between prim old maids and confirmed young hypocrites, depending on those very innate tendencies she was fain to deny! She held that children should not be left too much freedom, because, the faculty of Reason being as yet insufficiently developed in them, they might make the wrong use of it. But the restrictions on their liberty should be such as to remain almost unnoticed by them. They should not have a variety of prohibitions imposed upon them, as was the case with Lady Kingsborough's children, whom she immediately restored to some degree of liberty. One cannot help thinking that theory and practice often clash, owing to the perpetual conflict between reason and the feelings. Granting, however, that Mrs. Mason had the best and most disinterested intentions, what, we may ask, can be left of liberty to children whom their monitress