This is the period when ideals begin to give direction to the hitherto undirected activity of childhood and youth. Young people are idealists. They see no height too giddy, no task too hard, no dream too roseate, and no hope unattainable. If the times are out of joint they believe they were "born to set them right." Whatever is wrong or imperfect they would take a hand in setting it right. We know we felt that way, but we are loath to believe our children also cherish their high hopes. And so the tendency of the adult is to treat with cynicism the dreams of youth. Often we sedulously endeavor to pervert him to our blasé view of the world; we would have him believe it is a fated heap of cinders instead of an almost new thing to be formed and made perfect. In the home those ideals must be nourished and guided. See that at hand there are the songs and essays of the idealists. Give them Emerson and forget your Nietzsche. Renew your own youth. Get some of Isaiah's passion and let it breathe its fervor on them. Feed by poem, song, story, essay, and conversation the life of ideals. Stop long enough to see the life that like an engine with steam up is surely going somewhere and help it to find an engineer. We call this the period of sowing wild oats. Wild oats are simply energies invested in the wrong places. The dynamic of youth must go somewhere and do something. Fundamentally it would rather go to the good than the bad. We know that this was true of us at that time; why should we assume less of others? Hold to your faith in youth. Fathers who with open eyes and active minds--not with sleepy fatalism--believe in their boys, have boys who believe in them. They wait for leadership. If you have dropped into the easy slippers of indifference to social reform and other types of ideal service, get back into the fight again beside this new man of yours. They wait for friendship in this matter of their ideals and their service. At any cost keep open house of the heart.