ationship of mother and child was able thus to
lead the way toward social organization for the common good is
obvious. The intimate physical tie, the easily understood claim of the
child upon its mother, the prolongation of human infancy instituting a
habit of continuous service of the young and hence a tendency toward a
settled home and peaceful industries, all made it easy for woman to
become care-taker of children. These also made it easy for the early
social order to hold mothers to the task and, in growing measure,
protect them in it. What have been the recognized essentials in that
care-taking of motherhood? What are the permanent elements in the
mother's devotion to offspring which persist under all changes in
social conditions?

=The Recognized Essentials in Child-care.=--The more important items
in a program of child-care may be summed up as follows:

First--Protection of infancy and childhood from threatening
dangers.

Second--Providing food, clothing, and shelter for the young.

Third--Drilling children in physical habits and manner of
personal behavior demanded by the family rule of time and
place of birth.

Fourth--Teaching the child to talk, to walk, to obey, to
imitate.

Fifth--Interpreting to each newcomer the group morals which
govern the family and the educational process in the
period and locality into which he is born.

Sixth--For ages untold, the more formal education of all girls
and of all little boys in the folk-lore, the vocational
skill, the ways of living together and the methods of
social arrangement both within and without the tribe or
state or nation into which they were born.

Are any of these essential elements of motherhood's ancient devotion
to child-life lifted wholly from her obligation? Careful study of the
family needs and conditions, and the effect upon them of modern social
control and social organization, indicates that not one of these
ancient obligations is taken bodily from the modern mother's service.

=The Protective Function.=--The protective function has indeed been
considered for many centuries peculiarly the father's duty. Ever since
man was bound to family obligations he has been charged with repelling
enemy attacks upon the group of which his own family was a part and
with the task of standing guard over wife and child as against all
p