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The School of the Future 267
such cases) ; the child then gets at this age an
impression for life that does not jjrcvent him
receiving from the same poem another im-
pression at twenty years, or again another at
thirty or forty years. The so-called dangers
in standard literature are, for the child, almost
nil. Incidents that excite adults, his calm feel-
ings pass over entirely. And even if children
reach the emotional period of youth, only
rarely does the plain downright expression of
a great mind about natural things stain the
imagination, falsify reality, and spoil taste.
It is the modern romance, women’s novels,
just as much as French novels, that do this.
Children cannot in these days, even if par-
ents are unreasonable enough to wish it, be
kept in ignorance. Crude or stolen impurity
gets a greater power over a mind that has not
absorbed respect for the absolute seriousness
of natural processes. This reverence is sure
to come from education, and through the im-
pressions of standard literature and first-class
art.
Veiling this subject is apt to lead astray and
to vulgarise. To those who can be harmed
in this way the Bible is as suggestive as any
of the crudities of modern literature. In the
temperament which quietly accepts natural
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