544 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



anarchy abroad. Individualism running riot is like a frenzied run- 

 away horse that finally clears himself of every attachment. Before 

 the individual thus runs away with himself, it might be a good thing 

 in the United States, where there is such a general movement of lib- 

 eration, to return to the family as the social unit. That the lack of 

 individualism was the bane of the ancient family, and the excess of it 

 is the bane of the modern family, shows that in both family and state 

 " real liberty is neither found in despotism nor in the extremes of 

 democracy, but in moderate governments." 



There are those who think fewer marriages are due, among other 

 things, to the fact that so many women are embracing the " higher 

 education." It is true, such women are no longer satisfied with a hus- 

 band who is merely a " good provider " of material things. But this 

 is not ominous. Highly educated women crave companionship, but 

 such as includes the intellectual and moral. Family life needs the 

 leaven of a good intellectual heredity as well as physical. No amount 

 of education will ever destroy maternal or wifely love in a true 

 woman, illustrated in the case of George Eliot and our Margaret 

 Fuller, who was never happy until she became the " mia cara " of 

 Ossoli, and the mother of the blue-eyed Angelino. The man who, 

 like Helmar in Ibsen's Doll's House, wants in a wife only a lark to 

 sing for him, a doll in soft and silken gown to dress up his home with, 

 will still frown on the higher education for women. 



When one sees a bridegroom chewing gum during the entire 

 marriage ceremony, and discovers six months later that the bride (the 

 third wife) has secured a divorce, one concludes that quality of mar- 

 riage is more essential than quantity. I heard a gentleman say, not 

 long ago, that " one reason why more young men do not marry is 

 because fathers do not set us an example in family happiness, nor 

 look upon family happiness as a success to be won." False mar- 

 riages, like those of Dorothea and Casaubon, Gwendolyn and Grand- 

 court, Andrea del Sarto and Lucrezia, occur because the seriousness 

 of the marriage relation is not understood. 



When parents, by example and precept, teach their children the 

 sacredness of marriage, when clergymen are not so fast to tie the 

 knot, and lawyers to untie it, the foundation for the family will be 

 stronger. 



Arthur Fairbanks, in his recent book, reasons that the economic 

 problem concerns the family even to a greater extent than the divorce 

 problem. He thinks when a woman is obliged to go into the factory 

 or shop to eke out a husband's earnings, which have become smaller 

 and smaller because men have come into competition with women 

 willing to receive lower wages for the same work, the effect is dele- 

 terious upon the family. It is still more alarming when women, 



