have been trusted to let their children alone. Lamb was nine years old when Dr. Johnson died. He was twenty-seven when he hurled his impotent anathemas at the heads of "the cursed Barbauld crew," "blights and blasts of all that is human in man and child." By that time the educator's hand lay heavy on schoolroom and nursery. In France, Rousseau and Mme. de Genlis had succeeded in interesting parents so profoundly in their children that French babies led a vie de parade. Their toilets and their meals were as open to the public as were the toilets and the meals of royalty. Their bassinettes appeared in salons, and in private boxes at the playhouse; and it was an inspiring sight to behold a French mother fulfilling her sacred office while she enjoyed the spectacle on the stage. In England, the Edgeworths and Mr. Day had projected a system of education which isolated children from common currents of life, placed them at variance with the accepted usages of society, and denied them that wholesome neglect which is an important factor in self-development. The Edgeworthian child became the pivot of the household, which revolved
