tentially, he could not be sold as a slave, nor disinherited without just cause. It was a community interest that he be educated, fitted to live, and the state pressed its point by maintaining that unless he were so fitted he should be under no obligation to support his father in his old age. 14 Up to 16, however, he was under the control of his father. This was a transition time in the status of the child and the regulations bear the stamp of it. Between 16 and 18 the state dictated a two years' course of training in the gymnasia, and following this preliminary preparation for its service he was formally admitted to full citizenship, swearing fealty to it and to its religion, and receiving from it a shield and spear in token of his acceptance. And it was the father of the family ordinarily who presented him! 15

Among the Germanic tribes during the early Christian centuries there does not seem to have been the same extraordinary development of the power of the father over the child. The child was soon needed in the group and attained majority early. The family idea was strong, but in a militant group the need of the group for the sons would naturally curb the absolute power of the father. Yet among these peoples late into the Middle Ages the father's right to sell the child is recognized, although its exercise seems to have become obsolete. 16

The tendency thus far is clear; the social process is going on. The community feeling becomes larger than that of the family, and is based on common interest and protection rather than on kin. ship. The child in his training and correction belongs to the larger group, and though the father may have full control of him up to a certain age, or only nominally so long as he lives, yet in the exercise of his parental functions he is looked upon as a representative of the state. The laws of domestic relations, the laws of property, and the criminal laws begin to reflect it, indeed had done so in Solon's time. But that is another study. We may observe briefly this same tendency where the state gained a sense of its unity and responsibility over each member so early as to furnish us a spectacle of the state acting as parent to an extent to which we shall not approach so long as we hold our present views on the superiority of the family as a home for childhood and the inadequacy of any other institution to do its work.

In the preceding

3. The Child as a Member of the State. paragraph it is suggested that the power of the father over the child came to be exercised as a representative power-for the state. But nothing is so clear as that the patria potestas was ordinarily an institution operating in the interests of the father only or at most of the family. This is so true that it would be quite right to treat Sparta as an exception rather than as another rule. Sparta was a military camp during much of its comparatively brief existence, never embracing more than two-fifths of the peninsula "hollow, lovely

14 Lee, "Hist. Jurisprudence,” p. 173.

16 Hearn, "The Aryan Household," p. 93.

15 Hughs, "Ancient Civilization," ? 608.

Lacedæmon," as Homer wrote, shut in by the glorious mountains to her own narrow, intense self. Why should she not turn herself to the defense of her small world? and why should she not do her task invincibly? Why, if every Spartan were to be a hero on the battlefield, should not all interests be subordinated to those of the state, and the child trained with her future in view? Thus it was that the Spartan had to expose his feeble child on the hills for the state's benefit. The healthy child was left with his mother only until seven, then was placed in the common-school or gymnasium and kept at the expense of the state. The parents "had no part or voice in the education of their children, but assisted in persuading them to undergo the trials and hardships without flinching or whimpering." 17 Not only was the aim of the family and the state entirely one in regard to the child, but the co-operation was complete in training him. The modern state is Spartan in the social value it gives the child, and without bearing the burden of being essentially Spartan, is in many communities beginning to insist on an analogous right to superintend the fitting of the child for life in the group. Fortunately there exists the fundamental difference that now the task is mediated through the family where the family proves itself to be adequate. It has been worth the centuries it has required, to learn that it is not the child for the social body or the family, but the child for the social body through the family. The world preferred to stumble along laboriously into a more promising and satisfactory solution which should preserve its most sacred institution. Sparta was not followed because the typical Spartan was not the typical man. Let the dreamer of today who sets off the two institutions against each other take notice.

17 Hughs, "Ancient Civilization," 560.

CHAPTER III.

THE CHILD AMONG PRIMITIVE PEOPLES

It is plain, surely, that the status of the child depends very Margely on the standard the group sets for itself. That once well formulated, the methods through which conformity to it is demanded will work themselves out. Penalties for non-conformity and stimulations to conformity are in order. How the child stands in the group is the question to be answered in each case, and the ultimate aim is the determination of principles, based upon observation of both child and group-principles that will effectively aid us in preventing delinquency and promoting conformity in any group whatever.

The nearer we are to primitive life the more delinquency is couched in terms of failure to conform to a standard that is closely and immediately utilitarian. The highest morality is effectiveness in behalf of the tribe. To be a brave, uncowed man, a good hunter and warrior is the aim. Therefore what is most detested and condemned is cowardice or treachery, and a multitude of things which in a more civilized community would be subjects of legislation and not at all countenanced, are in a primitive group passed by as thoroughly incidental. Often there is no punishment for insolence, thievery, cheating or lying. The line of the great good is nearer to the instincts, especially those of gaming, hunting and fighting. 1

Thus, among the American Indians the notion has pretty generally existed that the boys, who were to be the warriors and providers of tomorrow, were to be permitted to do almost anything which roused the warrior spirit, and were to be subjected to nothing which served to dampen their ardor. The California Indian child was never flogged, "as it was thought to break his spirit." 2 The same has been observed in Mexico, (3) and of the Arawaks of South America. Among the latter a parent "will bear any insult or inconvenience from his child tamely rather than administer personal correction." 4 "He is very wicked" is the greatest praise to be accorded a parent concerning a child among the Dyaks of Borneo. 5

In many respects the power of the parent among primitive peoples is absolute. It is the common report of travelers that

I Ratzel, "Hist. of Mankind," vol. i, p. 441.

2 Bancroft, "Native Races of the Pacific States," i, 437.

3 Carl Lumholtz, "Unknown Mexico," 1902, vol. i, p. 247.

4 Hillhouse, J. R. G. S. ii, 229.

5 Roth, "The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo," 103.

18

infanticide is practised, (6) and that the sale of children is frequent. 7 The status of the child is determined by the group's manner of life, which is usually nomadic and on a war basis. Therefore we expect that the children will be in early years left largely with the women, to be instructed in the traditions of the tribe, in elementary woodcraft and in all the matters which are regarded as the special interest and function of that sex. 8 With the distinction between the sexes usually observed among primitive peoples we cannot but look for a time in the life of the boy when he shall leave one group for the other- -a time of great consequence to him and marked by ceremonies of initiation to manhood. 9, 10 It is not to be supposed that during early childhood the child had no communication of an intimate sort with the men of the tribe, nor that he received no instruction from his father or paternal relatives. The fact of his future vocation as a warrior and hunter guaranteed such oversight. But normally there was a definite time of transfer from maternal or family control to tribal membership and citizenship, just as there was among the Romans. "Every Australian native," say Spencer and Gillen, “so far as is known, has in the normal condition of the tribe to pass through certain ceremonies of initiation before he is admitted to the secrets of the tribe and is regarded as a fully developed member of it." 11 Then the absolute character of parental authority disappears; often the child is completely independent of the family and is subject only to tribal discipline. 12

It is evident that throughout the child's early life the standard of excellence in his group is held out to him, and everything is calculated to bring him into conformity with it. The function of the family with the child is in terms of the standard; the social body is conscious of its unity. The group is in general greater than the family.

In all this we see a simple group morality, to ignore which is to be delinquent; the family and the larger group co-operating in furthering conformity and discountenancing non-conformity, there being always a tendency to recognize the interdependence of all in the social body. This tendency most vitally affects the juvenile member of the group, his status, his training, his treatment in case of delinquency. The broadening vision of things reveals mutual responsibility. The child must obey the voice of the group; the latter must protect the former. Clearer and clearer the situation grows, here and there crystallizing into laws, everywhere promoting a higher ideal for the child, and always creating the machinery for more perfect harmony. The growth is slow; generations are days. But this tendency prophesies a time when the child shall have become a figure quite central in the consideration of the That time is here. But it is easier to learn that the Sabbath is made for man than that the group is created for the child.

6 Bancroft, "Native Races of the Pacific States," i, 169, 197, 242.

8 Eastman, "Indian Boyhood," loc. cit.

9 Featherman, "Social History of the Races of Mankind," ii, 303.

10 Bonwick, "The Daily Life of the Tasmanians," 60.

II "Native Tribes of Central Australia," 212.

12 Bancroft, "Native Races of the Pacific States," i:80, 412.

7 Ib. i, 219.