These facts give basic assurance that mother-love will last, no matter what changes in form of its expression may be called for by changes in social order.
The reason why the relationship of mother and child was able thus to lead the way toward social organization for the common good is obvious.

The intimate physical tie, the easily understood claim of the child upon its mother, the prolongation of human infancy instituting a habit of continuous service of the young and hence a tendency toward a settled home and peaceful industries, all made it easy for woman to become care-taker of children.

These also made it easy for the early social order to hold mothers to the task and, in growing measure, protect them in it.

What have been the recognized essentials in that care-taking of motherhood?
What are the permanent elements in the mother's devotion to offspring which persist under all changes in social conditions?
=The Recognized Essentials in Child-care.=--The more important items in a program of child-care may be summed up as follows: First--Protection of infancy and childhood from threatening dangers.
Second--Providing food, clothing, and shelter for the young.
Third--Drilling children in physical habits and manner of personal behavior demanded by the family rule of time and place of birth.
Fourth--Teaching the child to talk, to walk, to obey, to imitate.
Fifth--Interpreting to each newcomer the group morals which govern the family and the educational process in the period and locality into which he is born.
Sixth--For ages untold, the more formal education of all girls and of all little boys in the folk-lore, the vocational skill, the ways of living together and the methods of social arrangement both within and without the tribe or state or nation into which they were born.
Are any of these essential elements of motherhood's ancient devotion to child-life lifted wholly from her obligation?
Careful study of the family needs and conditions, and the effect upon them of modern social control and social organization, indicates that not one of these ancient obligations is taken bodily from the modern mother's service.
=The Protective Function.=--The protective function has indeed been considered for many centuries peculiarly the father's duty.

Ever since man was bound to family obligations he has been charged with repelling enemy attacks upon the group of which his own family was a part and with the task of standing guard over wife and child as against all physical dangers.