“But as yet only the people who have been trying for some time to think are absorbing the books which will help them to think. These books are beyond the masses. The authors of many of them are slaves to style and big-sounding words. The newspapers are the unthinking man’s school--and what a farce, what a seedbed of corruption they are! Reporters and editors must remain loyal to the policies of their papers, regardless of their own opinions. They who could help us to think are forbidden to do so on the penalty of losing their jobs. “And the children of this country, and doubtless every other so-called civilized country, must depend upon the schools to learn to think. And every thinking teacher who takes the rostrum is fired for his attempt to break down the walls of superstition and slash the hedges of tradition. But for all that, the youth of this country at least are gradually--no, pretty swiftly--breaking away. The world-old conflict between Age and Youth is at its hottest now. In the past thirty years the world has made revolutionary discoveries which are daily changing our lives and methods of thinking. All this came about after Age had settled down to an acceptance of life without any changes. At forty or fifty one does not readily change his views. The sutures of his skull are closed, and it is difficult for him to learn new ideas. He is beyond the plastic period, and his head is as hard as his arteries. He is entirely unable to accept the electron theory in the place of ‘in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.’ Simply because he never heard of the electron theory at the age when his brain was capable of accepting a new idea. It’s too late for him--he’s hopeless. But he’s dying off! To-morrow he won’t be running the world. His sons and his daughters will be in the saddle. “And they have come upon the earth and grown to young manhood and young womanhood while these radical changes were taking place. They are able to consider, even accept, the findings of modern science because they are presented to them while their brains are still in the receptive period of life. What seems most plausible to them they accept, and they naturally will laugh at the old traditions, superstitions, taboos, and beliefs that have come down to us from the days of savagery, and which were ingrained in the lives of their parents when _they_ were of a receptive age. Fifty years, I think, will show many a mossy institution crumbled to ashes. The Aged of to-day will be gone, without having been able to force their lifelong beliefs on Youth. Then Youth will become Old Age, and if we have progressed at all, the coming generation will refuse to accept what _their_ fathers and mothers believed in and made the ruling factor in their lives. So the conflict between Age and Youth, between conservatism and change, between receptive minds and locked minds, goes on to the end of time.”