erything naive and simple, not alone for the
innocent conceits that flutter round the curly heads of children, but
also for the legend, 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 infinite without which a man is like a bird deprived
of wings. Let us not wean the child from it, but let us guard in him the
faculty of rising above what is earthy, so that he may appreciate later
on those pure and moving symbols of vanished ages wherein human truth
has found forms of expression that our arid logic will never replace.

XIV

CONCLUSION

I think I have said enough of the spirit and manifestations of the
simple life, to make it evident that there is here a whole forgotten
world of strength and beauty. He can make conquest of it who has
sufficient energy to detach himself from the fatal rubbish that trammels
our days. It will not take him long to perceive that in renouncing some
surface satisfactions and childish ambitions, he increases his faculty
of happiness and his possibilities of right judgment.

These results concern as much the private as the public life. It is
incontestable that in striving against the feverish will to shine, in
ceasing to make the satisfaction of our desires the end of our activity,
in returning to modest tastes, to the true life, we shall labor for the
unity of the family. Another spirit will breath in our homes, creating
new customs and an atmosphere more favorable to the education of
children. Little by little our boys and girls will feel the enticement
of ideals at once higher and more realizable. And transformation of the
home will in time exercise its influence on public spirit. As the
solidity of a wall depends upon the grain of the stones and the
consistence of the cement which binds them together, so also the energy
of public life depends upon the individual value of men and their power
of cohesion. The great desideratum of our time is the culture of the
component parts of society, of the individual man. Everything in the
present social organism leads us back to this element. In neglecting it
we expose ourselves to the loss of the benefits of progress, even to
making our most persistent efforts turn to our own hurt. If in the midst
of means continually more and more perfected, the workman diminishes in
value, of what use are these fine tools at his disposal? By their very
excellence to m