ncluded many gifts to sisters, cousins, and nieces, and left
directions to the principal heirs to find out if there were any
relatives of the same nearness left out and if so to make them equal
sharers, is but a type of many who, with or without large means, share
generously with all their name and kin.

On the other hand, we have examples of those who, in the effort to
leave a large fortune for some specific object of education or of
public charity, wholly neglect, often with cruel indifference, the
needs of some member or members of their own family. One man of
conspicuous gift to education left a sister and her two daughters
without means for comfortable living while piling up money for his pet
scheme. Many men skimp themselves and also their wives, children, and
still more their parents and more remote kin, to hoard a monster sum
for some charity to be forever called by their name. These, however,
are unusual examples of losing sight of the near in the remote. The
average man and woman has in mind a series of concentric circles,
those nearest to be helped first, those next beyond to share next, and
the world outside to have what is left when these inner claims upon
love and generosity are fully met.

If it were not for this general tendency society-at-large would have
far more responsibility for all sorts of care of the aged, of the
incapable, of the unsuccessful, of the invalid, of the defective, of
the insane, of the "cranky" and of the lonely. Finally, without this
innate tendency to feel a sense of responsibility for those nearest
related by family ties much of the discipline toward social usefulness
would be lacking in the lives of average people. We learn the larger
duty through faithful response to the nearer and closer obligation.
For this reason the family holidays and reunions, the family birthday
celebrations which include all the relatives within reach, the
pressure of the law and of custom upon those able to care for those
less strong and competent within the kinship bond, are all socializing
influences which it is well to keep warm and consciously active.

The lovely spirit of Mrs. Hodgson Burnett's "Tembarom" when he finds a
"real relative" is duplicated by many immigrants who after years of
loneliness greet one of the family on the shores of the new country;
and the member of the eastern family "gone west" is the most
hospitable of all relatives to the visitor from the old home who has
the same fa