WHICH KOAD? 201 



pression of the spiritual nature ; if they ignore the 

 fact of social inclination, physical activity, or even 

 sexual impulses, the danger is that their child will 

 develop, so far as their knowledge goes, a crust 

 of artificiality to which the real life within may 

 be unrelated. Know your children. Do not be 

 content with knowing only what you would like 

 them to be. Encourage them to open to you their 

 desires, their inclinations, their temptations, their 

 conflicts. Work from the vantage point of that 

 knowledge, however heartbreaking may be its rev- 

 elations. You can do more when you see than 

 when you do not. You can accomplish more when 

 using knowledge than when you are operating only 

 with ignorance as an instrument. How many 

 cases we have known where a continually pious 

 conversation of parents with their children caused 

 them to cultivate a suavity of manner, a guarded- 

 ness of expression, a piety of apparent belief and 

 life because they had learned that nothing else 

 was received without reproof or distaste! Such 

 children learn to be secretive, to live a life they 

 never reveal to their parents ; a life in which real 

 confidences are not given ; a veneer life ; an unreal 

 life the reason for which is not seated in convic- 

 tion nor anchored in resolution. This is a road 

 which many religious parents are tempted to 

 travel. The revelation of the reality underneath 

 after a while is a painful tragedy. 



In morals as in biology there is a law of the 

 ' ' Survival of the Fittest, ' ' It does not mean that 



