e_, 1911.

[3] A.J. Todd, _Primitive Family and Education_, p. 21. A most valuable
and suggestive book.

[4] Cited by Todd, p. 21.

CHAPTER III

THE PERMANENT ELEMENTS IN FAMILY LIFE

Sec. 1. THE DOMINANT MOTIVE

The chief end of society is to improve the race, to develop the higher
and steadily improving type of human beings. We can test the life of the
family and determine the values of its elements by asking whether and in
what degree they minister to this end, the growth of better persons.
This is more than a theoretical aim or one conceived in a search for
ideals. It is written plain in our passions and strongest inclinations.
That which parents supremely desire for their children is that they may
become strong in body, capable and alert in mind, and animated by worthy
principles and ideals. The parent desires a good man, fit to take his
place, do his work, make his contribution to the social well-being, able
to live to the fulness of his powers, to take life in all its reaches of
meaning and heights of vision and beauty. In true parenthood all hopes
of success, of riches, fame, and ease, are seen but as avenues to this
end, as means of making the finer character, of growing the ideal
person. If we were compelled to choose for our children we should elect
poverty, pain, disgrace, toil, and suffering if we knew this was the
only highway to full manhood and womanhood, to completeness of
character. Indeed, we do constantly so choose, knowing that they must
endure hardness, bear the yoke in their youth, and learn that

Love and joy are torches lit
At altar fires of sacrifice.

With this dominating purpose clearly in mind we are prepared to ask,
What are the elements of family life which among the changes of today we
need most carefully to preserve in order to maintain efficiency in
character development? In days when the outer shell of domestic
arrangements changes, when readjustments are being made in the
organization of the family, what is there too precious to lose, so
worthy and essential that we waste no time when seeking to maintain it?

Sec. 2. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED--SOCIAL QUALITIES

The first great element to be preserved in all family life is that of
the power of the small group for purposes of character development. The
infant's earliest world is the mother's arms. In order to grow into a
man fitted for the wider world of social living, he must learn to live
in a world with