Self-defense, personal or national, will be imprinted on the child as the first of duties, not as it is represented in the commands of Christianity. Or to speak more accurately the child has this instinctive feeling; all that need be done is not to confuse this instinct. The child understands quite well, that evil men, when not resisted, become lords over the property of others. He knows that the low and the unrighteous get the victory, and that right-thinking and high-minded people are sacrificed by unrighteous and low-thinking people. The impulse to resistance is the first germ of the social feeling for righteousness, and by this feeling will the unreflecting judgment of the child be led also in the study of history. The child never doubts that William Tell was right, even when, in his instruction in religion, he has been definitely taught obedience to the powers that be, that come from God. Every straight childish soul applauds Andreas Hofer, despite his uncompromising conflict with lawful authority. With his natural directness the child cuts off all sophisms; at least all children do who are not irrevocably stupefied by Christian principles. To conclude what I have said against religious instruction, I will add a statement of a ten-year-old child, made after three years struggling with the catechism and biblical history: "I do not believe any of this, but I hope, when men are some day wise enough, each person may have his own belief, just as each one has his own face." This small philosopher in these words hit unconsciously upon the most serious spiritual injury done by religious instruction. It forces on man's mind a special view of the world, like a conventional mask on a man's face. But freedom and the rights of the soul's life can only be secured by its own reflections. The soul itself must work out that assurance of belief in which man can live and die. For generations the great spiritual dangers of mankind have been caused by looking backwards to find the ideal and the truth, by regarding both as once for all given, as absolutely limited. As soon as a child becomes conscious of himself he should feel that he is a discoverer with infinities before him. The king's son, in the realm of life, will no longer do menial service as a prodigal son in a foreign land. With the whole power of his will, he can repeat those old words, "I will arise and go to my father." When Jaquino di Fiori in the Middle Ages preached of the Kingdom of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, till his hair became as silvery grey as the leaves of the olive tree, he compared these three realms with the nettle, the rose, and the lily, the light of the stars, the sunlight, and the sun.