So far even the best of children will go
upon, the dangerous path. If training has been good, and if the child
has responded well to it, he will go no further. Though he can hardly
be expected to refrain from constructing theories and from testing
them in the light of any chance information which may come his way, he
will instinctively feel that the subject is one best left alone. He
will not talk of it with other boys--not even with those who are older
than himself and whose superior knowledge in all other matters he is
accustomed to respect. We need not be surprised, however, that the
majority of children do not attain to this high standard of conduct,
and that the interest and excitement of exploring the unknown and the
forbidden proves too great. Children will consult with each other
about such matters, and knowledge of evil may spread rapidly from the
older to the younger. In some schools, as is well known, there may
grow up with deplorable facility an unhealthy interest in sexual
matters. On the surface of school life all may seem fair enough, but
beneath, hidden from all recognised authority, lies much that is
unspeakable. If the boy has not been taught to have clean thoughts
upon matters which are essentially clean, if he has not learned to
know evil that he may avoid it, he may not escape great harm. The
fault in us which kept him in ignorance will recoil upon our own
heads. He will maintain the barrier which was erected in the first
place by our own unhappy reticence, and we may find it a hard task to
penetrate behind it and prevent his constant return to secret thoughts
and imaginings or secret habits and practices. Certain physiological
processes come to have for him an unclean flavour which is yet
perniciously attractive. He knows little of the real meaning of sexual
processes or of the great purpose for which they are designed. It is
only that an unhealthy interest becomes attached to all subjects which
are scrupulously avoided in general conversation. In secret he
develops a wrong attitude to all these matters.

Oliver Wendell Holmes[4] tells us that in religion certain words and
ideas become "polarised," that is to say, charged with forces of
powerful suggestion, and must be "depolarised."

[Footnote 4: _The Professor at the Breakfast Table_, Oliver Wendell
Holmes.]

* * * * *

"I don't know what you mean by 'depolarising' an idea, said the
divinity-student.

"I will