in his comprehension. A child's life moves through the
widening circles of mother-care, family group, neighborhood, school,
city, state, and nation into world-living. He must take the first steps
before he is able to take the next ones. He must learn to live with the
few as preparation for living with the many. In earliest infancy he
takes his first unconscious lessons in the fine art of living with other
folks as he relates himself to parents and to brothers and sisters.

Secondly, the family life affords the best agency for social training.
The family is the ideal democracy into which the child-life is born.
Here habits are formed, ideals are pictured, and life itself is
interpreted. It is an ideal democracy, first, because it is a social
organization existing for the sake of persons. The family comes nearer
to fulfilling the true ideal of a democratic social order than does any
other institution. It is founded to bring lives into this world; it is
maintained for the sake of those lives; all its life, its methods, and
standards are determined, ideally, by the needs of persons. It is an
ideal democracy, secondly, because its guiding principle is that the
greater lives must be devoted to the good of the lesser, the parent for
the little child, the older members for the younger, in an attempt to
extend to the very least the greatest good enjoyed by all. Thirdly,
ideally it is a true democracy in that it gives to each member a share
in its own affairs and develops the power to bear responsibilities and
to carry each his own load in life. Thus the family group is the best
possible training for the life and work of the larger group, the state,
and for world-living.[5] The maintenance of the ideals of the state, as
a democracy, depends on the continuance of this institution with its
peculiar power to train life in infancy and childhood for the life of
manhood in the state. Such training can be given only in the smaller
group that is governed by the motives peculiar to home and family life.
The power to impress these principles depends on the size of the group.
The small social organization, the family circle of from three members
to even a dozen, bound by ties of affection, is the one great, efficient
school, training youth to live in social terms.

Thirdly, the family sets spiritual values first. Our age especially
needs men and women who think in terms of spiritual values, who rise
above the measures of pounds and dollars