The Commonplace 9 



from school, but the high-school course of to- 

 day is more complex than was the college course 

 of fifty years ago. All this has a tendency to 

 lessen the years of free and joyous youth. 



You have only to see the faces of boys 

 and girls on your city streets, to discover 

 how old the young have grown to be. In 

 home and school our methods have been 

 largely those of repression : this is why the 

 natural buoyant outburst that I described for a 

 city thoroughfare challenged such instant atten- 

 tion and surprise. We need to emphasize the 

 youthful life ; and a man or woman may have 

 a youthful mind in an old body. 



The near-at-hand. 



Therefore, I preach the things that we 

 ourselves did not make ; for we are all 

 idolaters, the things of our hands we 

 worship. I preach the near-at-hand, how- 

 ever plain and ordinary, the cloud and the 

 sunshine ; the green pastures ; the bird on 

 its nest and the nest on its bough ; the 

 rough bark of trees ; the frost on bare thin 



