the industrial organization of society is still such that the father is at home a large part of the time.  The factories are few as yet; the store is usually not separate from the home, but a part of it, the front room of the house.  Family life is, therefore, much less broken in upon by the industrial necessities of civilization, and there are accordingly more opportunities for the manifestation of the father’s affection for the children.  Furthermore, the laboring-people in Japan live much on the street, and it is a common thing to see the father caring for children.  While I have seldom seen a father with an infant tied to his back, I have frequently seen them with their infant sons tucked into their bosoms, an interesting sight.  This custom gives a vivid impression of parental affection.  But, comparing the middle classes of Japan and the West, it is safe to say that, as a whole, the Western father has more to do by far in the care and education of the children than the Japanese father, and that there is no less of fondling and playing with children.  If we may judge the degree of affection by the signs of its demonstrations, we must pronounce the Occidental, with his habits of kissing and embracing, as far and away more affectionate than his Oriental cousin.  While the Occidental may not make so much of an occasion of the advent of a son as does the Oriental, he continues to remember the birthdays of all his children with joy and celebrations, as the Oriental does not.  Although the Japanese invariably say, when asked about it, that they celebrate their children’s birthdays, the uniform experience of the foreigner is that birthday celebrations play a very insignificant part in the joys and the social life of the home.

It is not difficult to understand why, apart from the question of affection, the Japanese should manifest special joy on the advent of sons, and particularly of a first son.  The Oriental system of ancestral worship, with the consequent need, both religious and political, of maintaining the family line, is quite enough to account for all the congratulatory ceremonies customary on the birth of sons.  The fact that special joy is felt and manifested on the birth of sons, and less on the birth of daughters, clearly shows that the dominant conceptions of the social order have an important place in determining even so fundamental a trait as affection for offspring.

Affection for children is, however, not limited to the day of their birth or the period of their infancy.  In judging of the relative possession by different races of affection for children, we must ask how the children are treated during all their succeeding years.  It must be confessed that the advantage is then entirely on the side of the Occidental.  Not only does this appear in the demonstrations of affection which are continued throughout childhood, often even throughout life, but more especially in the active parental solicitude for the children’s welfare, striving to fit them for life’s duties and watching carefully over their mental and moral education.  In these respects the average Occidental is far in advance of the average Oriental.