relegated to some phoenix of a tutor like Mr. Barlow, or that cock-sure experimentalist who mounts guard over "Émile," teaching him with elaborate artifice the simplest things of life. We know how Tommy Merton fell from grace when separated from Mr. Barlow; but what would have become of Émile if "Jean Jacques" had providentially broken his neck? What would have become of little Caroline and Mary in Mary Wollstonecraft's "Original Stories," if Mrs. Mason—who is Mr. Barlow in petticoats—had ceased for a short time "regulating the affections and forming the minds" of her helpless charges? All these young people are so scrutinized, directed, and controlled, that their personal responsibility has been minimized to the danger point. In the name of nature, in the name of democracy, in the name of morality, they are pushed aside from the blessed fellowship of childhood, and from the beaten paths of life.
That Mary Wollstonecraft should have written the most priggish little book of her day is one of those pleasant ironies which relieves the tenseness of our pity for her fate. Its publica-
