So the woman of the religious orders, when of scholarly achievement and of commanding intellect, showed these qualities in increasing example as she grew older and more experienced, and so worked to make a place for the older woman in every sphere of life.
Slowly it began to dawn upon the common consciousness that the individualistic family of one young couple and their children needed props from within if it had lost those from without--those ancient props which sustained as well as controlled young fathers and mothers in the collective family.

Hence grandmothers, and grandfathers, as well, became of recognized use in the care and upbringing of children.
The picture of the grandmother by the fireside holding the youngest baby and the grandfather coming in with a gift for the young mother, who is manifestly pleased, with the young father in the background delighted at the family welcome for his offspring, is not only old but the theme of many of the world's best-loved paintings and stories.
=To-day Comparatively Few Really Old at Seventy.=--To-day there has come about a wholly new condition in the most advanced centres of social life in respect to the aged.

In the first place, there are few "old" grandmothers left.

There are grandmothers, but they are sprightly and give little token of being passee or laid on the shelf.
There are few old men left.

There are those who have passed the allotted term of threescore years and ten, but they well know and make all others understand that this was a mistaken limit to human powers.
They look forward to usefulness until eighty, at least, and now are encouraged to feel that one hundred years is the natural span of life.
There are, it is true, few really important studies of how to keep people from growing senile and really old before the time now set for failure of powers.