that although we declare the home to be the foundation of society, we
do nothing to direct the force upon which the continuity of the home
depends. And yet to one who has lived for years in a crowded quarter
where men, women and children constantly jostle each other and press
upon every inch of space in shop, tenement and street, nothing is more
impressive than the strength, the continuity, the varied and powerful
manifestations, of family affection. It goes without saying that every
tenement house contains women who for years spend their hurried days
in preparing food and clothing and pass their sleepless nights in
tending and nursing their exigent children, with never one thought for
their own comfort or pleasure or development save as these may be
connected with the future of their families. We all know as a matter
of course that every shop is crowded with workingmen who year after
year spend all of their wages upon the nurture and education of their
children, reserving for themselves but the shabbiest clothing and a
crowded place at the family table.

"Bad weather for you to be out in," you remark on a February evening,
as you meet rheumatic Mr. S. hobbling home through the freezing sleet
without an overcoat. "Yes, it is bad," he assents: "but I've walked to
work all this last year. We've sent the oldest boy back to high
school, you know," and he moves on with no thought that he is doing
other than fulfilling the ordinary lot of the ordinary man.

These are the familiar and the constant manifestations of family
affection which are so intimate a part of life that we scarcely
observe them.

In addition to these we find peculiar manifestations of family
devotion exemplifying that touching affection which rises to unusual