g expression; and here, in their budding, thrusting
life--for which we, by our choice of surroundings and influence, may
provide the objective--is the raw material out of which the spiritual
humanity of the future might be made. The child has already within it
the living seed wherein all human possibilities are contained; our part
is to give the right soil, the shelter, and the watering-can. Spiritual
education therefore does not consist in putting into the child something
which it has not; but in educing and sublimating that which it has--in
establishing habits, fostering a trend of growth which shall serve it
well in later years. Already, all the dynamic instincts are present, at
least in germ; asking for an outlet. The will and the emotions, ductile
as they will never be again, are ready to make full and ungraduated
response to any genuine appeal to enthusiasm. The imagination will
accept the food we give, if we give it in the right way. What an
opportunity! Nowhere else do we come into such direct contact with the
plastic stuff of life; never again shall we have at our disposal such a
fund of emotional energy.

In the child's dreams and fantasies, in its eager hero-worship--later,
in the adolescent's fervid friendships or devoted loyalty to an adored
leader--we see the search of the living growing creature for more life
and love, for an enduring object of devotion. Do we always manage or
even try to give it that enduring object, in a form it can accept? Yet
the responsibility of providing such a presentation of belief as shall
evoke the spontaneous reactions of faith and love--for no compulsory
idealism ever succeeds--is definitely laid on the parent and the
teacher. It is in the enthusiastic imitation of a beloved leader that
the child or adolescent learns best. Were the spiritual life the most
real of facts to us, did we believe in it as we variously believe in
athletics, physical science or the arts, surely we should spare no
effort to turn to its purposes these priceless qualities of youth? Were
the mind's communion with the Spirit of God generally regarded as its
natural privilege and therefore the first condition of its happiness and
health, the general method and tone of modern education would inevitably
differ considerably from that which we usually see: and if the life of
the Spirit is to come to fruition, here is one of the points at which
reformation must begin. When we look at the ordinary practice of mod