charm of early childhood. It is the charm of all genius as well. Turn
to Shelley's "Skylark." The student of Child Psychology never found more
images chasing one another through the mind. The fancies follow one
another as rapidly as if Shelley had been only four years old. Frank's
father would have been troubled at the lack of business-like grasp of
the subject. What was the skylark like? It was

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

Then again, it was

Like a star of heaven
In the broad daylight.

It was

Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought.

It was like a high-born maiden, like a rose, like a glow-worm, like
vernal showers. The mind wanders off and sees visions of purple
evenings and golden lightnings and white dawns and rain-awakened
flowers. These were but hints of the reality of feeling, for

All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

We know of religion--or at least we have often been told--that it is
found in the purest form in the heart of a child, and that it consists
in nurture and development of this early grace through all the years
that may be allotted. The same thing is true of all that concerns the
ideal life. The artist, the reformer, the inventor, the poet, the man of
pure science, the really fruitful and original man of affairs,--these
are the incorrigibles. They refuse to accept the hard-and-fast rules
that are laid down for them. They insist upon finding time and room for
activities that are not conceived of as tasks, but as the glorious play
of their own faculties. They are full of a great, joyous impulse, and
their work is but the expression of this impulse. They somehow have time
for the unexpected. They see that which

Gives to seas and sunset skies
The unspent beauty of surprise.

The world is in their eyes ever fresh and sparkling. Life is full of
possibilities. They see no reason to give up the habit of wonder. They
never outgrow the need of asking questions, though the final answers do
not come.

When to a person of this temper you repeat the hard maxims of workaday
wisdom, he escapes from you with the smiling audacity of a truant boy.
He is one who has awakened right early on a wonderful morning. There is
a spectacle to be seen by those who have eyes for it. He is not willing
out of respect for you to miss it. He hears the music, and he follows
it. It