Looking Back: A Poem

414 IMPROVEMENT ERA

idealisms; we will let him see our own enthusiasm and beckon him to the strenuous quest. If at any moment he betrays a disposition to cunning, to trickery, to circumvention, we will assure him that an honorable career requires alertness, wit, ingenious adaptation of means to ends. * * * If he is persistent, we will not stay to call him obstinate; we will congratulate him on his possession of a quality which is proof of an inward stability.""

rx. friend of mine, a teacher and a psychologist, whose judgment I esteem very highly feels that the changes attributed to the child at this period are greatly exaggerated. He contends nnd finds some educators of eminence as authority for his contentions, that there are no new instincts or interests or capacities born at this period, except the awakening or birth of the sex nature. I do not deny this claim. But of this I feel quite sure: that often the mental and spiritual powers do grow, even as the body and its powers do, by leaps and bounds. Whether new capacities and interests are born, or wehther those already possessed suddenly burst into new life and power, I know not. But this I know, that the passion for life — the passion to dare and do, to love and create — is now intensified and glorified within the heart of boy and girl. They are born again. Born into the realm of manhood and womanhood. He is no longer a child. Their hopes and plans and dreams are the inspirations and aspirations of the man and woman now. So I close by venturing that this is a critical period. To the high school boy and girl we parents and teachers may be either priests of life or stumbling blocks just as we have vision of their possibilities and worth, or as we are blind to these glories of youth. (To be continued)

"Gould, Moral Instruction, pp. 85, 86.

Looking Back Beyond the river and streamlet, Where plain and forest meet, With the rugged mount for a background, And the mirrored lake before; With the city and town to the southward, And the dotted farms to the north; Stands the old rustic home of my childhood, The place that I adore. 'Twas the scene of many a pleasure, Through childhood's happy days, Whether the snow lay on the upland, Or the grass was green below; It mattered not in what season, For all was joy and peace, In that happy borne of my childhood, A paradise below. Logan, Utah. J. Q. Hogenson.