The love, however, awakened by these means will be not weakened nor endangered, but immensely strengthened and confirmed, by the exercise on her part of a just and equable, but firm and absolute, authority.

This must always be true so long as a feeling of respect for the object of affection tends to strengthen, and not to weaken, the sentiment of love.

The mother who does not govern her children is bringing them up not to love her, but to despise her.
_Effect of Authority._ If, besides being their playmate, their companion, and friend, indulgent in respect to all their harmless fancies, and patient and forbearing with their childish faults and foolishness, she also exercises in cases requiring it an authority over them which, though just and gentle, is yet absolute and supreme, she rises to a very exalted position in their view.
Their affection for her has infused into it an element which greatly aggrandizes and ennobles it--an element somewhat analogous to that sentiment of lofty devotion which a loyal subject feels for his queen.
_Effect of the Want of Authority._ On the other hand, if she is inconsiderate enough to attempt to win a place in her children's hearts by the sacrifice of her maternal authority, she will never succeed in securing a place there that is worth possessing.
The children will all, girls and boys alike, see and understand her weakness, and they will soon learn to look down upon her, instead of looking up to her, as they ought.

As they grow older they will all become more and more unmanageable.

The insubordination of the girls must generally be endured, but that of the boys will in time grow to be intolerable, and it will become necessary to send them away to school, or to adopt some other plan for ridding the house of their turbulence, and relieving the poor mother's heart of the insupportable burden she has to bear in finding herself contemned and trampled upon by her own children.