10 COLORADO COLLEGE STUDIES. 



impossiljility. There are localities where this evil of impurity 

 is nothing more than a potential clanger; but there are very 

 many others where it is a real evil. On the part of teachers 

 there is a growing intelligence concerning it, and a greater 

 vigilance in guarding against it. Those who do realize its 

 enormity, and meet it aright, have secured results that ought 

 to encourage all others; but there should be a most stringent 

 requirement in this matter in defining the teacher's duties. 

 In some of the best normal schools the students have the 

 plainest and clearest instruction upon this subject. They 

 are told the habits for which they are to watch, and the best 

 ways to meet the evil of impurity in whatever form it is 

 present among children. But such preparation is far from 

 universal. Not many years ago, a graduate of one of these 

 schools said that the teacher who gave her class instruction 

 on this subject asked its members how many of them had 

 not known of at least the existence of a vile vocabulary 

 among their schoolmates. All but two of the large class re- 

 plied that during their early life in the public schools they 

 had heard what they could never forget, though no words 

 could express the longing they felt to blot it from their 

 memories; and in looking back from their more mature stand- 

 point, it seemed to them that the teachers must have felt no 

 special duty in the matter. These were young women from 

 the public schools of one of the older States. There is no 

 doubt, however, that each year our public school teachers 

 have an increasing sense of responsibility for purity in 

 thought and word of the children under their care. 



The difficulties with which they have to contend are very 

 great. The two or three children who, with an air of mys- 

 tery, bring information in regard to forms of impurity have 

 great power for mischief, especially when they put a base 

 interpretation upon things that are in themselves pure; and 

 the quick imagination of a child, together with the fact that 

 this information is not guarded, as it would be if it came 

 from an older and a wise person, makes it doubly dangerous. 

 The testimony of one teacher, which has been repeated by 

 many, is to the etfect that the large majority of children in 



