ere the lessons are wholly unconscious; here they are
strengthened by the pleasurable emotions. It is a joy to be loyal to
those we love. Indeed, who can tell which comes first, the joy, the
loyalty, or the love?

The power of this small social group of the family to develop the
fundamental principle of loyalty, the root of all virtues, gives a
position of great importance to the affections in the family. We do well
to contend for the maintenance of conditions of family living which will
strengthen the ties of affection. If children could be thrust into the
care of the state, in large groups, separated from parental care and
oversight, it is difficult to see what emotional stimulus toward
affection would remain. The personal devotion to intimate adults would
in only the smallest degree compensate for the loss of father and
mother. We know nothing of such devotion arising to any large degree in
orphan asylums, still less in institutions under the cold and impersonal
care of the state. It has been urged that the affections of parents
stand in the way of a scientific regimen and education for small
children. The cold, passionless, automatic parent, then, would be the
ideal--a Mr. Dombey or a Mr. Feverel. Parents make many mistakes, but
these mistakes are not due to too much affection, but to untrained minds
and uneducated affections. It were better to save the values of their
affections and on them to build a wise discipline for childhood by
providing adequate training of parents for their duties.

Fifthly, there are some elements of the cost of family life, even its
apparently unnecessary sacrifice and pain, that we do well to seek to
keep. Character grows in paying the high price of maintaining a family.
It is the most expensive form of living for adults. Marriages are now
delayed because of the fear of the actual monetary cost; but far more
serious is the cost in care, in nerves, in patience, in all the great
elements of self-denial. No child ever knows what he has cost until he
has children of his own. But this discipline of self-denial is that
which saves us from selfishness. It is necessary to have some personal
objects for which to give our lives if they are to be saved from
centrifugation, from death through ingrowing affection. True, many
bachelors and spinsters have learned the way of self-denying,
fellow-serving love. But how can a true parent escape that lesson? Nor
does it stop with parents; as children grow