Is it a mistake in this study of child life to pay so much attention to the subjects of fatherhood and motherhood? Nowhere can we find the real remedy for the evils that degrade and debase and oppress and crush the sweet innocence and dependence of childhood unless we go back of the child to the very foundations of family life. Many great authorities in America and Europe, as well as those who have labored and studied in Oriental lands, will testify to the truth of this statement. Rev. J. Sadler of Amoy says, “You would be profoundly impressed if you could realize how the strength of heathenism is in the women. From earliest years they teach their children concerning demons, and to be early eager as to inheritance, and thus inspire selfish and quarrelsome ideas leading to divisions and life-long conflicts. The importance of women’s work cannot be estimated. The destiny of the country is largely in their hands.”[21] [Sidenote: Training Christian wives and mothers.] This is one side of the picture. The other is equally true. Dr. Daniel McGilvary, for half a century a missionary among the Siamese and Lao, tells of the wonderful result of a school for girls that provides Christian wives and mothers. Notwithstanding our disappointment in the delay of the school for boys, it proved a wise arrangement that the girls’ school was started first. A mission church is sure to be greatly handicapped whose young men must either remain single,--which they will not do,--or be compelled to take ignorant non-Christian wives.... After marriage the almost universal custom of the country has been that the husband lives with the wife’s family.... Where all the atmosphere of the family is strongly Buddhist, with daily offerings to the spirits and gala days at the temple, the current would be too strong for a father, with his secondary place in the family, to withstand. For a while it was feared that Christian girls would have difficulty in finding husbands. But, on the contrary, our educated girls become not only more intelligent, but more attractive in manners, dress, and character; and therefore, have been much sought after. The homes become Christian homes, and the children are reared in a Christian atmosphere. The result is that, instead of the wife’s dragging the husband down, she generally raises the husband up; and, as a general rule, the children early become Christians.[22] The Mohammedan girl educated in a Christian school, even though she must marry and live her life according to Mohammedan customs, takes with her to her father-in-law’s home new ideas and customs that are going far to break down the old walls of prejudice. Mrs. C. M. Wherry of India writes:--