The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-04

A too easy life brings with 1t sOr Of lassitude in vital energy. One be comes blase. disillusioned. an old younl
 gan, past being diverted. How man! young people are in this state Upol them have been deposited, hke a sor of mold, the traces of our decrepitude our skeptleism, our vices and the baC habits they have contracted In oul company. What reflections upon our selves these youths weary of life forc' us to makei What announcements ar' graven on their browsl
 These shadows say to us by contras that happiness lies in life true, ac tive, spontaneous, ungalled by the yoke of the passions, of unnatural needs. oi unhealthy stimulus, keeping intact thu physical faculty of enjoying the light of day and the air we breathe and fl the heart the capacity to thrill witl the love of all that Is generous, simple and fine.
 The artificial life engenders artificial thought and a speech little sure of it. self. Normal habits, deep impressions, the ordinary contact with reality, bring frankness with them. Falsehood is the vice of a slave, the refuge of the cow ardly and weak He who is free and strong is unfiinching in speech. We should encourage in our children the hardihood to speak frankly What do we ordinarily do? We trample on natural disposition, level 1t down to the uniformity which for the crowd is synonymous with good form. To think with ones own mind, feel with ones own heart, express ones own person ality-how unconventional, how rustic! Oh, the atrocity of an education which consists in the perpetual muzzling of the only thing that gives any of us his reason for being! Of how many soul murders do we become guilty Some are struck down with bludgeons, others gently smothered with pillowsl Every thing conspires against independence of chara cter When we are little, people wish us to be dolls or graven images; when we grow up they approve of us on condition that we are like all the AODt OL lA4C AOAlQ NANAA you have seen one of them you've seen them all So the lack of originality and initiative is upon us, and platitude and monotony are the distinctions of today. Truth can free us from this bondage. Let our children be taught to be themselves to ring clear, with out crack or muffle. Make loyalty a need to them and in their gravest fail ures. if only they acknowledge them, account it for merit that they have not covered their sin.
 To frankness let us add ingenious ness in our solicitude as educators. Let us have for this comrade of childhood a trifie uneivilized, it is true, but so gracious and friendly-all possible re- gard. We must not frighten 1t away. When 1t has once fled 1t so rarely comes backl Ingenuousness is not sim ply the sister of truth, the guardian of the individual qualities of each of us; it is besides a great informing and edu- eating force. I see among us too many practical people, so called, who go about armed with terrifying spectacles and huge shears to ferret out naive things and clip their wings They up- root ingenuousness from life, from thought, from education, and pursue 1t even to the region of dreams Under pretext of making men of their chil- dren they prevent their being children at all; as if before the ripe fruit of au- tumn, flowers did not have to be, and perfumes, and songs of birds and all the fairy springtime.
 ask indulgence for everything naive and simple-not alone for the innocent conceits that fiutter round the curly heads of children, but also for the leg end, the folk song, the tales of the world of marvel and mystery. The sense of the marvellous is in the child the first form of that sense of the in- finite without which man is like a bird deprived of wings. Let us not wean the child from 1t, but let us guard in him the faculty of rising above what is earthly, so that he may appre- ciate later on those pure and moving symbols of vanished ages wherein hu- man truth has found forms of expression that our arid logic will never replace.