er, despair, and degradation might reappear as a result of
higher desires left unsatisfied? Such strife, anger, despair and
degradation we encounter continually in the children of to-day, who
are nevertheless well fed, well clothed and well warmed, in accordance
with the standards of perfected physical hygiene.

To respond to the intellectual needs of man in such a manner as to
satisfy them is to make an important contribution to morality. Indeed
our children, when they have been able to occupy themselves freely
with intelligent work, and have also been free to respond to their
internal wants, to occupy themselves for a long time with chosen
stimuli, to perform abstract operations when they were sufficiently
mature, to concentrate their minds in meditation, have shown that
order and serenity have been evolved within them; and after this,
grace of movement, the capacity for enjoyment of the beautiful,
sensibility to music, and finally, amenity in their relations to each
other, have sprung up like a jet of water from an internal fount.

All this has been a work of "liberation." We have not made our
children moral by any special means; we have not taught them to
"overcome their caprices" and to sit quietly at work; we have not
inculcated calm and order by exhorting them to follow the examples of
others, and explaining how necessary order is to man; we have not
lectured them on mutual courtesy, to instil the respect due to the
work of others, and the patience with which they should wait in order
not to infringe the rights of others. There has been none of all this;
we have merely set the child free, and helped him to "live." It is
_he_ who has taught _us_ "how" the child lives, and what other needs
he has besides his material wants.

Thereupon an activity formerly unknown among little children, together
with the virtues of industry, perseverance and patience, manifested
themselves amidst crises of joy, in an atmosphere of habitual
serenity. These children had entered upon the paths of peace. An
obstacle hitherto opposed to nature had been removed.

And just as men satisfied by nourishing food and removed from the
dangers of poisons, have grown calmer, and have shown themselves
capable of preferring the higher pleasures to base and degrading
indulgence, so the child, his internal needs satisfied, has entered
the sphere of serenity and has shown his tendency to ascend.

All this, however, has not touched the roots of the