36o THE ASCENT OF MAN 



Strain, is the founding through the instrumentality 

 of the first savage Mother of a new and a beautiful 

 social state — Domesticity. While Man, restless, 

 eager, hungry, is a wanderer on the earth. Woman 

 makes a Home. And though this Home be but a 

 platform of sticks and leaves, such as th« gorilla 

 builds on a tree, it becomes the first great school- 

 room of the human race. For one day there 

 appears in this roofless room that which is to 

 teach the teachers of the world — a Little Child. 



No greater day ever dawned for Evolution than 

 this on which the first human child was born. For 

 there entered then into the world the one thing 

 wanting to complete the Ascent of Man — a tutor 

 for the affections. It may be that a Mother teaches 

 a Child, but in a far deeper sense it is the Child 

 who teaches the Mother. Millions of millions of 

 Mothers had lived in the world before this, but the 

 higher affections were unborn. Tenderness, gentle- 

 ness, unselfishness, love, care, self-sacrifice — these as 

 yet were not, or were only in the bud. Maternity 

 existed in humble forms, but not yet Motherhood. 

 To create Motherhood and all that enshrines itself 

 in that holy word required a human child. The 

 creation of the Mammalia established two schools 

 in the world — the two oldest and surest and best 

 equipped schools of Ethics that have ever been in 



