inward.

To create the child's heart is to bring out the treasures that this heart contains; and to create the will is to prepare the victory over every ugliness among these varied treasures. This victory is the work of a whole lifetime, because of that contradiction in our nature:

"The evil that I hate, I do; and the good that I love, I do not."

The child, then, as we have already shown, is woman's greatest work; he alone shows the measure of his parents' heart and spirit.

To create the will, to create the heart, to create the spirit — that is Education in capital letters. And before we can educate, we

must begin by educating our own souls, by bettering ourselves day by day. These are the great psychological outlines of a mother's education.

The more we grasp the meaning of these words and their importance, the more we see how delicate this mission is.

To what degree are we prepared for this mission? Here there is no room for postponement; time presses in on us and forbids us to delay. For when the child comes — whether we wish it or not, from his very first days — our influence works upon him for good or for evil, whether to destroy or to build. And so the years pass on... This child whom we see today in the cradle is

the man of tomorrow. Let us be ready, then, from today, for this sacred duty — for tomorrow, perhaps, the sword will already have outrun reproach.

And to be ready means to direct our inner life toward God, so that we may be able to speak to our children of Him — not like those women who repeat, parrot-fashion, what they memo-rized yesterday, but with a spirit free of all deceit and an impulse above all reproach. And when we see with our own eyes the measure of our effort at personal education in its naked truth — then, and only then, shall we uproot from our hearts the spirit of selfishness that is sweeping the world, and make of our homes houses of work, houses of light.