cause he serves. No indolent, superstitious, or ignorant family need
look for abiding happiness nor expect to be permanently useful.

Then unselfishness is essential to happy home life. It is a serious
matter for two persons, even when they are naturally mated, to undertake
to live together in peace and harmony. It is a more serious matter when
they are not naturally mated. It is more serious still when children
enter the home, for they bring with them conflicting tendencies,
dispositions, and wills. Often have we wondered how it is that families
get on as well together as they do when we have considered, what natural
differences exist between them, and what little teaching and discipline
have been used to harmonize these differences. An harmonious home is
truly begun in the parental homes of the husband and wife. Two persons
may be perfectly suited to one another, and yet they may be selfish in
wanting their own way. As one grows up, if he is allowed to have his
own way regardless of the rights and privileges of others, he becomes
a selfish person, and his parents are to blame. A selfish person in the
home plans for his own comfort, decides and acts as he wishes, and seeks
to satisfy his own desires. He does not take into consideration the
plans, wishes, and desires of other members of the family. It is
understood that his authority is supreme. Not one member of the family
dreams of expressing dissent to his dominion. A so-called peace of
this sort is not uncommon among families. This supreme authority may be
vested in husband, or wife, or in one or all of the children. A forced
peace of this kind is worse than rebellion and is as bad as open war.
How can any persons be so presumptuous as to think that any person, or
a number of persons, exist solely for his comfort and advantage! Let
two such selfish persons get together, a permanent riot is assured.
Unselfishness in the home means thoughtfulness, discipline,
self-control. Each child is taught the rights and privileges of others
as well as his own. When two unselfish persons join their lives there
begins a holy and beautiful rivalry in seeking the rights and privileges
of one another. The very atmosphere of such a home is deference,
respect, and love. As the stranger, the neighbor, the friend, comes and
goes, he catches the spirit of it and carries it with him into his own
and other homes. Children born into such a home early imbibe its spirit,
and, O, the inspiration