ndeavor to set
forth the influences that have shaped marriage, controlled fecundity,
determined the respective status of father, mother, child, attracted
relative and servant, influenced sexual morality and governed the
function of the family as an educational, economic, moral, and
spiritual institution as also its relation to state, industry, and
society in general in the matter of social control.

In this first volume of the series the effort is to show that the
American family is a product of European folkways, of the economic
transition to modern capitalism, and of the distinctive environment of
a virgin continent. How European customs brought to America underwent
modification in the new environment and how differences of population
in this country may be traced to geographical differences, constitute
an important part of this treatise. The reader is finally directed to
see the colonial family as a property institution dominated by middle
class standards and operating as an agency of social control in the
midst of the social order governed by the interests of a forceful
aristocracy, which shaped religion, education, politics, and all else
to its own profit.

On the whole this is a valuable work. When one has finished reading
this volume, however, he must get the impression that the life of the
slave attached to the colonial family has not been adequately treated.
Among the early colonists the African slave was connected with the
family after the manner of the bondmen of families in ancient
countries. The slaves, being few in number, maintained this relation
until the industrial revolution throughout the modern world changed
the institution from a patriarchal to an economic one. Prior to this
time the slaves were treated almost as well as the children of the
family. They lived under the same roof, worshipped at the same altar
and in some cases were taught in the same school. Care was taken so to
elevate the slave and keep him above corrupting influences as to make
him not merely a tool for exploitation but a decided asset in the
family economy of life. That the slave of this type had much to do
with the development of the colonial family no one will doubt.

In the chapter on servitude and sexuality in the South, the Negro
slave gets negative mention. The author says that the presence of
African slaves and Indians early gave rise to the problem of
miscegenation. He concedes that it took some time to develop in the