The power of this small social group of the family to develop the fundamental principle of loyalty, the root of all virtues, gives a position of great importance to the affections in the family.  We do well to contend for the maintenance of conditions of family living which will strengthen the ties of affection.  If children could be thrust into the care of the state, in large groups, separated from parental care and oversight, it is difficult to see what emotional stimulus toward affection would remain.  The personal devotion to intimate adults would in only the smallest degree compensate for the loss of father and mother.  We know nothing of such devotion arising to any large degree in orphan asylums, still less in institutions under the cold and impersonal care of the state.  It has been urged that the affections of parents stand in the way of a scientific regimen and education for small children.  The cold, passionless, automatic parent, then, would be the ideal—­a Mr. Dombey or a Mr. Feverel.  Parents make many mistakes, but these mistakes are not due to too much affection, but to untrained minds and uneducated affections.  It were better to save the values of their affections and on them to build a wise discipline for childhood by providing adequate training of parents for their duties.

Fifthly, there are some elements of the cost of family life, even its apparently unnecessary sacrifice and pain, that we do well to seek to keep.  Character grows in paying the high price of maintaining a family.  It is the most expensive form of living for adults.  Marriages are now delayed because of the fear of the actual monetary cost; but far more serious is the cost in care, in nerves, in patience, in all the great elements of self-denial.  No child ever knows what he has cost until he has children of his own.  But this discipline of self-denial is that which saves us from selfishness.  It is necessary to have some personal objects for which to give our lives if they are to be saved from centrifugation, from death through ingrowing affection.  True, many bachelors and spinsters have learned the way of self-denying, fellow-serving love.  But how can a true parent escape that lesson?  Nor does it stop with parents; as children grow up together they, too, must learn mutual forbearance, conciliation, and, soon, the joy of service.  One sees selfishness in the little child gradually fading in the practice of family service, helpfulness, consideration for others.  The single child in a family misses something more important than playmates; he misses all the education of play and service.  But who cannot remember many families that have grown to beauty of character under the discipline of home life, and especially when this has involved real sacrifices?  The stories in the Pepper books illustrate the spirit that blossoms under the trials and hardships of the struggle of a family for a livelihood and for the maintenance of a home.