Assuming, however, that intuition is possible, it is evident that it should exist in children in an extremely pure, if not in its most potent state; and to deny it opportunity of development might fairly be called a barbarity. It will hardly be disputed that children are an important element in society. Without them we should lose the memory of our youth, and all opportunity for the exercise of unselfish and disinterested affection. Life would become arid and mechanical to a degree now scarcely conceivable; chastity and all the human virtues would cease to exist; marriage would be an aimless and absurd transaction; and the brotherhood of man, even in the nominal sense that it now exists, would speedily be abjured. Political economy and sociology neglect to make children an element in their arguments and deductions, and no small part of their error is attributable to that circumstance. But although children still are born, and all the world acknowledges their paramount moral and social value, the general tendency of what we are forced to call education at the present day is to shorten as much as possible the period of childhood. In America and Germany especially--but more in America than in Germany--children are urged and stimulated to "grow up" almost before they have been short-coated. That conceptions of order and discipline should be early instilled into them is proper enough; but no other order and discipline seems to be contemplated by educators than the forcing them to stand and be stuffed full of indigestible and incongruous knowledge, than which proceeding nothing more disorderly could be devised. It looks as if we felt the innocence and naturalness of our children to be a rebuke to us, and wished to do away with it in short order. There is something in the New Testament about offending the little ones, and the preferred alternative thereto; and really we are outraging not only the objective child, but the subjective one also--that in ourselves, namely, which is innocent and pure, and without which we had better not be at all. Now I do not mean to say that the only medicine that can cure this malady is legitimate children's literature; wise parents are also very useful, though not perhaps so generally available. My present contention is that the right sort of literature is an agent of great efficiency, and may be very easily come by. Children derive more genuine enjoyment and profit from a good book than most grown people are susceptible of: they see what is described, and themselves enact and perfect the characters of the story as it goes along.