of the newly stimulated imagination. They do no harm, and are a safety
valve which should be understood. Honest sympathy, where sympathy is
merited, will give weight to warning and disapproval, which would have
no weight at all if the whole fabric of the imagination, which is so
real and so precious to the imaginer, were condemned without
discrimination. These dreams of youth are often the real stuff out of
which the fabric of life is later to be woven, taking new forms it may
be, but getting their inception there. Some one has said that if the
facts could be known, the thought germs whence finally came the steam
engine and the electric telegraph were probably conceived in the brain
of an adolescent; and we know that poets are born at that age.

Many of the dreams of the youth may seem fantastic and ridiculous, but
if the adult can only remember that they are not so to the dreamer and
that this is a phase through which he is passing,--a phase which in most
cases will pass entirely, leaving only, so to speak, a glow behind,--he
will be more sympathetic and thus more helpful. If he can also realize
that these dreams of the youth are an expression on the highest plane of
the creative instinct which is in a sense controlling his body, mind,
and soul, these vagaries, far from being ridiculous, will be recognized
as worthy of the deepest respect. Now, too, the parent who has won the
full confidence of the child through confidential talks on sex matters
can without difficulty instruct him in the meaning and control of the
new forces that are at work upon him.

The whole subject now changes. It becomes personal, and his thoughts are
clouded by new problems and by the imperious demands of the body.
According to the nature, inheritance, and previous habits of the youth
these demands assert themselves. And now is the time of greatest danger
from ignorance. Even though the boy has been well taught up to this age,
if he is cast adrift now on the turbulent sea of desire and allowed to
gather information from the sources all too available, there may occur a
split between the thought of his childhood on this subject and the
thought of his adulthood. If he is not allowed to drift, however, but
given a chart and compass, the knowledge he has already of how to sail
his ship will enable him to make straight for the right port, which he
will have a good chance of reaching, no matter how stormy the seas he
may have to traverse. With the ri