146 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



among them to this condition of barbarism. 

 This is not to say that they are not attrac- 

 tive ; for they have the virtues as well as the 

 vices of a primitive people. It is held by 

 some naturalists that the child is only a 

 zoophyte, with a stomach, and feelers radiat- 

 ing from it in search of something to fill it. 

 It is true that a child is always hungry all 

 over; but he is also curious all over, and 

 his curiosity is excited about as early as his 

 hunger. He immediately begins to put out 

 his moral feelers into the unknown and the 

 infinite to discover what sort of an existence 

 this is into which he has come. His imagi- 

 nation is quite as hungry as his stomach. 

 And again and again it is stronger than his 

 other appetites. You can easily engage his 

 imagination in a story which will make him 

 forget his dinner. He is credulous and su- 

 perstitious, and open to all wonder. In this, 

 he is exactly like the savage races. Both 

 gorge themselves on the marvellous ; and al] 

 the unknown is marvellous to them. I know 

 the general impression is that children must 



