r of puberty, the individual passes into his second
phase of accomplishment. But there cannot be a perfect transition
unless all the activity is in full play in all the first four poles of
the psyche. Childhood is a chrysalis from which each must extricate
himself. And the struggling youth or maid cannot emerge unless by the
energy of all powers; he can never emerge if the whole mass of the
world and the tradition of love hold him back.

Now we come to the greater peril of our particular form of idealism.
It is the idealism of love and of the spirit: the idealism of
yearning, outgoing love, of pure sympathetic communion and
"understanding." And this idealism recognizes as the highest earthly
love, the love of mother and child.

And what does this mean? It means, for every delicately brought up
child, indeed for all the children who matter, a steady and
persistent pressure upon the upper sympathetic centers, and a steady
and persistent starving of the lower centers, particularly the great
voluntary center of the lower body. The center of sensual, manly
independence, of exultation in the sturdy, defiant self, willfulness
and masterfulness and pride, this center is steadily suppressed. The
warm, swift, sensual self is steadily and persistently denied, damped,
weakened, throughout all the period of childhood. And by sensual we do
not mean greedy or ugly, we mean the deeper, more impulsive reckless
nature. Life must be always refined and superior. Love and happiness
must be the watchword. The willful, critical element of the spiritual
mode is never absent, the silent, if forbearing disapproval and
distaste is always ready. Vile bullying forbearance.

With what result? The center of upper sympathy is abnormally, inflamedly
excited; and the centers of will are so deranged that they operate in
jerks and spasms. The true polarity of the sympathetic-voluntary system
within the child is so disturbed as to be almost deranged. Then we have
an exaggerated sensitiveness alternating with a sort of helpless fury:
and we have delicate frail children with nerves or with strange whims.
And we have the strange cold obstinacy of the spiritual will, cold as
hell, fixed in a child.

Then one parent, usually the mother, is the object of blind devotion,
whilst the other parent, usually the father, is an object of
resistance. The child is taught, however, that both parents should be
loved, and only loved: and that love, gentleness, pity, char