66 MORAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



that his realm of existence is in another kingdom 

 of nature. ' ' 



The prolonged infancy of the child not only 

 means that he is born at the foot of the ladder 

 and ''crawls to maturity" at a far slower pace 

 than any of the animal species; but also that he 

 climbs so much higher. The lion is as old at three 

 and six years as man is at fifteen and twenty-five, 

 and yet it lives to half the total age of the man. 

 Its infancy is only one-fifth as long; its adulthood 

 is almost equal. Moreover, this prolonged infancy 

 belongs only to those races of men who achieve 

 the highest attainments of civilization. The Aleu- 

 tian boy is an independent hunter at ten, and may 

 marry. In Tahiti, children become practically 

 free from parental control at eight, and may set 

 up a sort of group life for themselves. (Cham- 

 berlain: "The Child," 53.) Says Tyler: "Man 

 is a being of extraordinary complexity and of in- 

 numerable possibilities. He can rise to the 

 heights of wisdom and power of which we as yet 

 have little conception, or he can sink lower than 

 any brute. He can press upward in the line of 

 progress, can stray or straggle from the line of 

 march, or stagnate or turn back. He has more 

 possibilities of failure than the lower animal, and 

 the attractions and allurements to stray from the 

 upward course are more numerous and more 

 powerful." ("Man in Evolution," 84.) 



Lessing said that "education was revelation 

 coming to the individual man. ' ' Spirit-formation, 



