Books that foster the spirit of
rebellion, of doubt and discontent concerning the essentials and
inevitable elements of human life, that tend to sap the sense of
personal responsibility, and to disparage the cardinal virtues and the
duty of self-restraint as against impulse, are emphatically bad. They
are particularly bad for girls with their impressionable minds and
tendency to imitation, and inclination to be led on by the glamour of
the old temptation; "Your eyes shall be opened; you shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil."
To follow a doubt or a lie or a by-way of conduct with the curiosity to
see what comes of it in the end, is to prepare their own minds for
similar lines of thought and action, and in the crises of life, when
they have to choose for themselves, often unadvised and without time to
deliberate, they are more likely to fall by the doubt or the lie or the
spirit of revolt which has become familiar to them in thought and
sympathy.
CHAPTER IX.
MODERN LANGUAGES.
"All nations have their message from on high,
Each the messiah of some central thought,
For the fulfilment and delight of Man:
One has to teach that Labour is divine;
Another Freedom and another Mind;
And all, that God is open-eyed and just,
The happy centre and calm heart of all.
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