Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/535



HE book here presented does not belong among the vast throng of books of every kind, from those treating of philosophy and science to those treating of art and practical life, books which in differing words, in differing combinations and modifications, utter and reiterate the same familiar old commonplaces.

This book is one of those rare ones which treat, not of what every one is talking about and is necessary to no one, but of something which no one talks about, and is important and necessary to every one.

It is important for parents to know how to behave themselves so as, without excessive suffering, to bring into the world pure and healthy children and it is still more important for the prospective children themselves to be born under the best conditions,—as it says in one of the epigraphs of this book: To be well born is the right of every child.

This book is not one of those that are read merely so that no one may say, "I have not read it," but it is one of those the reading of which leaves something behind, compelling people to change their lives, to correct what was incorrect in them, or at least to think about it.

This book is entitled "Tokology," the science of the birth of children. There are all kinds of very strange sciences, but no such science as this; and yet, next to the science of how to live and how to die, this is the most important of sciences.

This book has had a great success in America, and has had a wide and important influence on American mothers and fathers. In Russia it ought to exert a still