§ 6. EARLY TENDENCIES

But it is wise to inquire as to those manifestations of a pure and
spiritual life which will earliest appear. One does not need to look far
for the answer. Children are always affectionate; they manifest the
possibilities of love. True, this affection is rooted in physiological
experience, based on relations to the mother and on daily propinquity to
the rest of the family, but it is that which may be colored by devotion,
elevated by unselfish service, and may become the first great, ideal
loyalty of the child's life. Little boys will fight and girls will
quarrel more readily over the question of the merits of their respective
parents than over any other issue. Almost as soon as a child can talk he
boasts of the valor of his father, the beauty of his mother. Here is
loyalty at work. He stands for them; he resents the least doubt as to
their superiority, not because they give him food and shelter, but
because they are his, because to him they are worthy; in all things they
have the worth, the highest good; they are, in person, the virtue of
life. Therefore in fighting for the reputation of his parents he is
practicing loyalty to an ideal.

The principle of loyalty is the life-force of virtue; it is like the
power that sends the tree toward the heavens, the upthrust of life. It
may be cultivated in a thousand ways. Provided there is the outreach and
upreach of loyalty within and that there is furnished without the worthy
object, ideal, and aim, the life will grow upward and increase in
character, beauty, and strength.

Next to the affectionate idealization of parents and home-folk one of