insensibility,"--in other words, the senses become sodden and cannot
be lifted from the ground. It is this state of "esthetic
insensibility" into which we allow the youth to fall which is so
distressing and so unjustifiable. Sex impulse then becomes merely a
dumb and powerful instinct without in the least awakening the
imagination or the heart, nor does it overflow into neighboring fields
of consciousness. Every city contains hundreds of degenerates who have
been over-mastered and borne down by it; they fill the casual lodging
houses and the infirmaries. In many instances it has pushed men of
ability and promise to the bottom of the social scale. Warner, in his
_American Charities_, designates it as one of the steady forces making
for failure and poverty, and contends that "the inherent uncleanness
of their minds prevents many men from rising above the rank of day
laborers and finally incapacitates them even for that position." He
also suggests that the modern man has a stronger imagination than the
man of a few hundred years ago and that sensuality destroys him the
more rapidly.

It is difficult to state how much evil and distress might be averted
if the imagination were utilized in its higher capacities through the
historic paths. An English moralist has lately asserted that "much of
the evil of the time may be traced to outraged imagination. It is the
strongest quality of the brain and it is starved. Children, from
their earliest years, are hedged in with facts; they are not trained
to use their minds on the unseen."

In failing to diffuse and utilize this fundamental instinct of sex
through the imagination, we not only inadvertently foster vice and
enervation, but we throw away one of the most precious implements for
ministering to life's highest needs. There is no doubt that this ill