l affection which secures to
each child one adult person at least to whom he or she is supreme in
interest. Most normal women feel when they hear the cry of their own
new-born that all of life is justly tributary to that one priceless
creature who has come at their call out of the mystery of being to
travel the difficult road of the generations of mankind. Nor is this
inherited tendency toward partial affection a sign of undeveloped or
selfish quality in the woman of to-day. It is a provision of nature
still supremely useful in helping each tiny atom of the social whole
to find and keep its own place in a world of struggle and hardship.
The fear of defeat handicaps many a purpose before it is put to the
test. The sense of loneliness drives many to lower companionship when
higher is hard to attain. The lack of courage and the paralysis of
faith in one's self or in others makes invalid many a nature which
might otherwise achieve. To prevent such waste from inner weakness and
to "encourage excellence in each individual," to use Doctor Small's
fine phrase, we need a childhood saturated with the sense of personal
values on the plane of affection. Selfishness may indeed pollute this
mainspring of personal power, and selfishness sometimes reaches its
acme in motherhood's partiality for its own. The ideal of social
solidarity and the claim of all upon each one must never be absent
from the family influence if that influence is to be wholesome. The
family, however, exists to make a small spot in which there may be a
unity found nowhere else, and at the centre of the family life is
still the mother.

Says Schiller, "Knowledge and culture demand a blissful sky, much
careful nursing and a long number of springs." Who shall be able to
secure this for every son of man if no one stands at the door of young
life to make these the first demand upon time and strength and
devotion for every child in the interest of every child? "The
community" has been called "an endowment for human progress." Parental
love, so often supremely expressed by the mother, works still and in
any future in sight must work ever more devotedly and wisely to secure
for each child his rightful share in that endowment. The main business
of life is the carrying on of life, and in that business women were
drafted long ago for the heaviest end of service and with little
social permission to do their work by proxy. Many social helps in her
task now make possible leisur