He is educated by the
parent. In a few formative and receptive years he gains from the
parent the results of centuries of human experience. The process is
thus cumulative, the investment bears compound interest. And yet
this is peculiar to man only in degree. Have you never watched a
cat train her kittens? And the education of the child in the savage
family is very incomplete.
The family is the first and fundamental of all higher social and
political unities. And without the persistence of the family the
larger social unit would become an inert mass. All the individual
ambition, all desire for family advancement, must be retained as
still a motive for energetic advance. And all the training which
social life can give reaches the individual most effectively, or
solely, through the family. Society without the family would be like
an army without company or regimental organization. Thus the very
existence, not only of training in love and mutual helpfulness, but
even of society itself as a mere organization, depends upon the
existence and improvement of family life. And as so much depended
upon and resulted from it, it could not but be fostered and improved
by natural selection. The tribe or race with the best family life
has apparently survived. But all social animals have some means of
communicating very simple thoughts or perceptions.
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