king on this subject
arouse curiosity in children who otherwise would not be curious?

The answer is that it does not arouse harmful curiosity. The right kind
of curiosity on any subject is of course good. Indeed without the desire
to question and investigate everything about him man would be yet a
savage living in a hole in the ground, and the starting-point of all the
child's after-knowledge is curiosity. There are two kinds of curiosity,
a good kind and a bad kind. The good kind is interested in finding out
things for the sake of understanding them; the bad kind serves a bad
end,--in connection with this subject it leads to investigations which
produce wrong thoughts and feelings, and is gratified for the sake of
producing those thoughts and feelings. The same subject may give rise to
either kind of curiosity, according as it is presented.

To-day we take every pains to stimulate the curiosity of our children.
We teach them to observe carefully the flowers, the insects, the
animals,--everything about them. We cannot expect them to exercise their
stimulated minds on all other subjects and turn blind eyes upon this one
which is obviously so important and so interesting. No, the more they
learn to look and ask about other things the more they will look and
wish to ask about this.

That children differ in curiosity is very true. Some children seem to
have very little curiosity about anything. Yet such children are sent to
school with as much care as are the children eager to know. A child
might show no interest in books, might find the reading lesson irksome;
but the mother would know he was learning to read for the use that
reading would be to him later, not for the sake of the things in the
reading-book. It is the same here, the child learns the facts for the
sake of his future. There are good reasons which will appear later why
every child should have the right information on this subject whether he
seeks it or not. If he is indifferent, one can be sure the proper kind
of information will not hurt him; if he is eager, one can be sure he
ought to be carefully and thoroughly instructed.

As a rule the most active and eager children and those with the quickest
minds are the ones most curious to understand the origin of life, though
there are exceptions. It is not legitimately gratified curiosity that
harms, but suppressed curiosity, which in this subject is almost sure to
result in the acquisition of wrong and often o