The family and its members

by Anna Garlin Spencer

"Happy he with such a mother! Faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him, and though he trip and fall,
He shall not blind his soul with clay."
—Tennyson.

Antiquity of the Mother-instinct.—The mother-instinct of protection of offspring, of care of weakness and of sacrifice for the young, came to high power before the human was reached in the scale of beings. It must never be forgotten that humbler sisters set the fashion of motherhood's devotion too long ago to reckon the time and in types of organism too remote to be always recognized as kin to the human beings we know to-day. This is the greatest and most racially useful of all the biological assets stored up for us in the prehuman struggle toward what we now call civilization. Nor should we fail to give full value to the testimony of primitive human life that the mother and child formed the first social group within the loose association of the herd. It was the first group to develop, by virtue of its conscious relationship, the sense of trust and the habit of service of the stronger to the weaker, thus leading toward mutual aid within an area of affection and good-will. These facts give basic assurance that mother-love will last, no matter what changes in form of its expression may be called for by changes in social order.

The reason why the relationship of mother and child was able thus to lead the way toward social organization for the common good is obvious. The intimate physical tie, the easily understood claim of the child upon its mother, the prolongation of human infancy instituting a habit of continuous service of the young and hence a tendency toward a settled home and peaceful industries, all made it easy for woman to become care-taker of children. These also made it easy for the early social order to hold mothers to the task and, in growing measure, protect them in it. What have been the recognized essentials in that care-taking of motherhood? What are the permanent elements in the mother's devotion to offspring which persist under all changes in social conditions?

The Recognized Essentials in Child-care.—The more important items in a program of child-care may be summed up as follows:

First—Protection of infancy and childhood from threatening dangers.

Second—Providing food, clothing, and shelter for the young.

Third—Drilling children in physical habits and manner of personal behavior demanded by the family rule of time and place of birth.

Fourth—Teaching the child to talk, to walk, to obey, to imitate.

Fifth—Interpreting to each newcomer the group morals which govern the family and the educational process in the period and locality into which he is born.

Sixth—For ages untold, the more formal education of all girls and of all little boys in the folk-lore, the vocational skill, the ways of living together and the methods of social arrangement both within and without the tribe or state or nation into which they were born.