What is the preferred type of excellence in humanity according to our social instincts and to the measure of history? We began as savages, and the savage standard of ethics is easily grasped; we have progressed a long way beyond that savage standard; but ours is still well within the reach of common understanding. Without seeking for careful sequence let us enumerate our principal human virtues: Love; with derivatives of kindness, sympathy, courtesy, etc. Truth; with honesty, accuracy, etc. Courage; connects with strength and wisdom. Justice; with a right humility. Self-control; with endurance, patience, and again with courtesy; also with temperance and chastity. Honour; a high, inflexible standard of various virtues. These are arbitrary general types, but do fairly enough for this study. A human being possessed of these in high degree we should call "good." They all combine well with one another, and have many derivatives, some of which are above noted. Their common opposites are as easily given: Hate; unkindness, coldness, rudeness. Falsehood; lying, dishonesty, inaccuracy. Cowardice; connects with weakness and ignorance. Injustice; this allows pride--rests on ignorance. Self-indulgence; followed by intemperance, unchastity, impatience, and other vices. Dishonour; meaning a low standard of virtues in general. Man the savage had of these courage, in some lines; endurance and patience, in some lines; civilised man surpasses him in these, and has developed all the others. What are the conditions which have brought forth this degree of virtue in us, and how does the home rank among those conditions? Let us first do it full justice. Mother-love is the foundation and permanent force of home life; and, mother-love is, indeed, the parent of all the love we know. Altruism was born of babyhood. The continued existence of the child--of a succession of children; the permanent presence of helplessness and its irresistible demands for care; this forced us into a widening of the sympathies, a deepening of sensitiveness to others' needs; this laid the foundations of human love. In this sense, the home is the cradle of one of our very greatest virtues. Love began with the mother; but it should not stop with her. "Mother-love" is precisely limited to its own children. Few, indeed, are the mothers who love other women's children. As "mother" is a synonym for all kindness, so "stepmother" is a synonym for all unkindness. Folklore and fairy-tale indicate old fact. Infant helplessness and orphan need are not only what appeals to the mother--it is most the blood-tie, the physical relation. Civilisation and Christianity teach us to care for "the child," motherhood stops at "my child."