282 THE EVOLUTION OF A MOTHER. 



education thus prolonged. Many creatures were al- 

 lowed to stay at school for a few days or wrecks, but 

 to one only was given a curriculum complete enough 

 to accomplish its exalted end. Watch two of the 

 highest organisms during their earliest youth, and 

 observe the striking contrast in the time they are made 

 to remain at their Mother's side. The first is a human 

 infant ; the second, born, let us suppose, on the same 

 day, is a baby monkey. In a few days or weeks the 

 baby monkey is almost able to leave its Mother. Al- 

 ready it can climb, and eat, and chatter like its 

 parents ; and in a few weeks more the creature is as 

 independent of them as the winged-seed is of the 

 parent tree. Meantime, and for many months to come, 

 its little twin is unable to feed itself, or clothe itself, 

 or protect itself ; it is a mere semi-unconscious chattel, 

 a sprawling ball of helplessness, the world's one type 

 of impotence. The body is there in all its parts, bone 

 for bone and muscle for muscle, like the other. But 

 somehow this body will not do its work. Something 

 as yet hangs fire. The body has eyes but they see not, 

 ears but they hear not, limbs but they walk not. This 

 body is a failure. Why does the human infant lie like 

 a log on the forest-bed while its nimble prototype 

 mocks it from the bough above ? Why did that which 

 is not human step out into life so long before that 

 which is ? 



The question has been answered for us by Mr. John 

 Fiske, and the world here owes to him one of the most 

 beautiful contributions ever made to the Evolution of 

 Man. We know what this delay means ethically — it 

 was necessary for moral training that the human child 

 should have the longest possible time by its Mother's 



