Paradise, giving to each creature its name. His taste is catholic,
and while he delights in the humming birds, he does not therefore scorn
the less brilliant hippopotamus. He has no repugnance to an ugliness
that is only skin deep. He reserves his disapprobation for an ugliness
that seems to be a visible sign of inner ungraciousness. The small
monkeys he finds amusing; but he grows grave as he passes on to the
larger apes, and begins to detect in them a caricature of their
betters. When we reach the orang-outang he says, "Now let's go home."
Once outside the building, he remarks, "I don't like mans when they're
not made nice." I agree with him; for I myself am something of a
misanthropoidist.

There is nothing unusual about my Philosopher. He is not a prodigy or a
genius. He is what a normal human being is at the age of four, when he
is still in possession of all his faculties. Having eyes he sees with
them, and having ears he hears with them. Having a little mind of his
own, he uses it on whatever comes to hand, trying its edge on
everything, just as he would try a jackknife if I would let him. He
wants to cut into things and see what they are made of. He wants to try
experiments. He doesn't care how they come out; he knows they will come
out some way or other. Having an imagination, he imagines things, and
his imagination being healthy, the things he imagines are very pleasant.
In this way he comes to have a very good time with his own mind.
Moreover, he is a very little person in a very big world, and he is wise
enough to know it. So instead of confining himself to the things he
understands, which would not be enough to nourish his life, he manages
to get a good deal of pleasure out of the things he does not understand,
and so he has "an endless fountain of immortal drink."

What becomes of these imaginative, inquisitive, myth-making,
light-hearted, tender-hearted, and altogether charming young adventurers
who start out so gayly to explore the wonder-world?

The solemn answer comes, "They after a while are grown-up." Did you ever
meditate on that catastrophe which we speak of as being "grown-up"?
Habit has dulled our perception of the absurd anti-climax involved in
it. You have only to compare the two estates to see that something has
been lost.

You linger for a moment when the primary school has been dismissed. For
a little while the stream of youthful humanity flows sluggishly as
between the banks of a canal