ere and there in certain localities, is
fast passing away. The home, not the club, was its center; the family,
not each "new-hatched, unfledged comrade," its unit. The father was the
_head_ of the family, not the joint tenant with the wife of a house nor
the tenant at will of his wife. The wife and the mother was the queen of
the household, not merely a housekeeper for a husband and the family.
Obedience to those in authority was the first lesson exacted of the boy.
Inculcated with tenderness, it was enforced with severity, if need be,
until the word of the father or the expressed wish of the mother carried
with it the force of law as completely as the decree of a court or the
mandate of a king.

Reverence for superiors in age and deference to all, rather than
arrogant self-assertion, was magnified as a cardinal virtue, not as
teaching humility and enforcing a lack of proper self-respect, but
rather to exalt high ideals and stimulate an admiration for "the true,
the beautiful, and the good."

Fidelity to truth, the maintenance of personal honor, deference for the
opinions and feelings of others, without abating one's own or
aggressively thrusting them on others; a kindliness of manner to
dependents, a knightly courtesy to all, but with special and tender
regard in thought, word, and action toward woman, were in turn patiently
taught in all the lessons of the fireside and at the family altar, and
earnestly insisted upon in the formation of the character of a true
gentleman. "Any man will be polite to a beautiful young woman, but it
takes a gentleman to show the same respect to a homely old woman" was
the stinging rebuke of a father to his son who failed to remove his hat
in passing a forlorn old woman on the public highway.

The old-field school, the private tutor, the high school, whose
excellence in Virginia I can not praise too much, the college, the
university, led the young mind by easy stages to its full intellectual
maturity.

Nowhere was the principle "_Sana mens in sano corpore_" more
scrupulously taught than in Virginia. The rod and stream, the gun, the
"hounds and horns," the chase, with the music of the pack, the bounding
steed, all lent their ready aid in developing the physical manhood of
the boy. In the pure atmosphere of his country home, amid its broad
fields and virgin forests, contracted houses in narrow streets had no
charms for him. To join the chase was the first promotion to which the
boy look