spontaneous activity. It is they who act, they who
choose the objects, they who persevere in their work, they who seek to
win from their environment the possibility of concentrating their
minds upon it. Each one of them moves in obedience to the motor power
within him. They are not disturbed by a teacher, by a being obviously
superior to themselves, who intimidates the shrinking poverty of those
who are beginning life by her lofty intellectual riches, who darkens
rather than illuminates, who wearies rather than refreshes; but they
live in peace with her who, almost a priestess, is yet a servant. As
in some ideal convent, humility, simplicity, and work make up the
environment where he who meditates will some day feel within himself
the clearness of vision, the intuition, almost the sensibility, which
make one ready to receive the truth.

To a different end, but by the same road, amidst the silence, the
simplicity, and the humility of the monastery, the spirit prepares
itself to receive the faith at the outset of life.

Many years ago, when I first received the impression that our children
revealed general principles of life which in practise we are only
privileged to encounter among the intellectual and spiritual _elite_
of society, and that for this reason they were at the same time the
revealers of a form of unconscious oppression which weighed down
humanity, deforming the inner life, I spoke at length upon the matter
to an intellectual lady, who was much interested in my "theories,"
and very anxious that I should make them the subject of an elaborate
philosophical treatise; but she could not bring herself to accept the
idea that it was a question of an experimental process. When I spoke
of the children, she showed some impatience: "Oh, yes, I quite
understand all about these children; in intelligence they are so many
geniuses, and in goodness so many angels." But when, after some
persuasion, I succeeded in making her come and _see_ for herself, she
took my hands and looked earnestly in my face: "Have you never
thought," she asked, "that you may die at any moment?... Write at
once, anyhow, in all haste, as you would write a will, a simple
description of the facts, that you may not carry away this secret with
you to the grave."

Nevertheless, I was in excellent health.

* * * * *

If we examine the mental labors of men of genius to whom we owe
discoveries which have opened new paths to thought, an