In Latin _mater,_ as does _mother_ with us, possessed a wide extent of meaning, "mother, parent, producer, nurse, preparer, cause, origin, source," etc. _Mater omnium artium necessitas,_ "Necessity is the mother of invention," and similar phrases were in common use, as they are also in the languages of to-day. Connected with _mater_ is _materia,_ "matter,"--_mother_-stuff, perhaps,--and from it is derived _matrimonium,_ which testifies concerning primitive Roman sociology, in which the mother-idea must have been prominent, something we cannot say of our word _marriage,_ derived ultimately from the Latin _mas,_ "a male." Westermarck notes the Nicaraguans, Dyaks, Minahassers, Andaman Islanders, Pádam, Munda Kols, Santals, Moors of the Western Soudan, Tuaregs, Teda, among the more or less primitive peoples with whom woman is held in considerable respect, and sometimes, as among the Munda Kols, bears the proud title "mistress of the house" (166. 500, 501). As Havelock Ellis remarks, women have shown themselves the equals of men as rulers, and most beneficial results have flowed from their exercise of the great political wisdom, and adaptation to statecraft which seems to belong especially to the female sex. The household has been a training-school for women in the more extended spheres of human administrative society. _Alma Mater._ The college graduate fondly calls the institution from which he has obtained his degree _Alma Mater_, "nourishing, fostering, cherishing mother," and he is her _alumnus_ (foster-child, nourished one). For long years the family of the benign and gracious mother, whose wisdom was lavished upon her children, consisted of sons alone, but now, with the advent of "sweeter manners, purer laws," daughters have come to her also, and the _alumnae_, "the sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair," share in the best gifts their parent can bestow. To Earth also, the term _Alma Mater_ has been applied, and the great nourishing mother of all was indeed the first teacher of man, the first university of the race. _Alma, alumnus, alumna_, are all derived from _alo_, "I nourish, support." From the radical _al_, following various trains of thought, have come: _alesco_, "I grow up"; _coalesco_, "I grow together"; _adolesco_, "I grow up,"--whence _adolescent_, etc.; _obsolesco_, "I wear out"; _alimentum_, "food"; _alimonium_, "support"; _altor, altrix_, "nourisher"; _altus_, "high, deep" (literally, "grown"); _elementum_, "first principle," etc. Connected With _adolesco_ is _adultus_, whence our _adult_, with the radical of which the English word _old_ (_eld_) is cognate. From the root _al_, "to grow, to make to grow, to nourish," spring also the Latin words _prôles_, "offspring," _suboles_, "offspring, sprout," _indôles_, "inborn or native quality." _"Mother's Son."_