f she believes in paying no heed to the conventional ideas of other
people, and is lacking in experience and knowledge of her own, she may
be very well pleased with herself for her daring. "Fools rush in where
angels fear to tread"--that is an old saying which suggests that
ignorant people, defying the counsels of experience, were known to exist
before now--only in the past they were called "fools," whereas to-day
they prefer to be considered "exponents of advanced thought," with a
superior point-of-view, inaugurating a new era of "emancipation."

It is not my purpose here to go on multiplying examples. I merely wished
to indicate as simply and clearly as possible an underlying, fundamental
principle. It is at work in countless ways, in everybody's life, nearly
all the time. Personal impulses and inclinations may be very
short-sighted, very unlovely, very unworthy. Greed, murder, arson, lust,
theft, lying, betrayal--are only a few samples of the variety of
impulses which may come and do come frequently to various individuals
upon occasion.

Our own limited experience and a little reason may be a sufficient guide
in many cases. They teach us to overrule certain inclinations, whose
consequences we understand and which we deem contrary to our interests.

In many other cases, the consequences may be just as contrary to our
interests, though they lie beyond our own experience and present
understanding. For that reason people have been taught throughout the
centuries to accept and be guided by the accumulated experience and
wisdom of those who have gone before. This accumulated experience has
been preserved and made available to each new generation, in many
ways--traditions, conventions, customs, familiar quotations, standard
books, the schools and the Bible. Most of all, it has been the special
care and function of parents to instill it into their children. For the
first ten or fifteen years of life, children are constantly being told
what to do and what not to do, in all sorts of contingencies. And what
they are told is the result of accumulated experience in crystallized
practical form.

In the days of obedience, discipline and fear of punishment, children
accepted and respected this guidance, as authoritative. They formed the
habit of doing not what they felt like, but what was considered right
and best for them. Very often the true reasons, the complicated motives
and remote consequences, involved in a question of con