The drama of disillusionment is never played upon this stage. Cynicism, depression, revolt, and either surly, regretful, or ghoulish acquiescence in mean ways of living, all are shoved aside, forgotten, made impossible when we sympathetically enter into the experiences and attitudes of dawning life. Spirits bruised by adult experience find healing in play with children; calloused minds recover their sensitiveness by merely watching them. If a small child is perceived to be in immediate peril, the most hardened adult will suddenly exhibit a glint of nobility. All this constitutes evidence with respect to the validity of the reasoning that is offered by the current disillusionment. Evidence, not merely incitement to change of mood; though such a change may itself be evidential in some conditions. Depression of spirit can disappear under the influence of children, or under the influence of alcohol. But the difference is twofold: Alcohol dulls the edge of judgment, and it introduces us to no fresh facts, whereas acquaintance with children does not impair the judgment, and it does introduce us to pertinent facts. The fact that when original nature displays its rudiments with frankness and unrestraint we do not find confirmation for a certain view of life, but on the whole find ourselves drifting in the opposite direction, is distinctly evidential. There is no need to be afraid that we shall yield too much to naïve impressions--at least no one who has lived through the child-study movement is likely to remain naïve. For a whole generation analytical study has consciously and of set purpose put aside the gush of parental impulse and the sentimentality of certain kindergarten traditions in a determination to be objective and to hitch up child-life with the scientific study of nature generally. Now, not only has the child-study movement not slurred over the unlovely traits of the young; it has actually picked out and emphasized every shred of evidence of irrationality, social insensitiveness, selfishness, cruelty, and whatever else might seem to reflect the drives of pre-human species.