be greater than the curate!" "You belong to an inferior race!" "You
haven't any energy!" This is what they tell the child, and as they
repeat it so often, it has perforce to become engraved on his mind
and thence mould and pervade all his actions. The child or youth
who tries to be anything else is blamed with vanity and presumption;
the curate ridicules him with cruel sarcasm, his relatives look upon
him with fear, strangers regard him with great compassion. No forward
movement! Get back in the ranks and keep in line!

With his spirit thus moulded the native falls into the most pernicious
of all routines: routine not planned, but imposed and forced. Note
that the native himself is not, naturally inclined to routine, but
his mind is disposed to accept all truths, just as his house is open
to all strangers. The good and the beautiful attract him, seduce and
captivate him, although, like the Japanese, he often exchanges the good
for the evil, if it appears to him garnished and gilded. What he lacks
is in the first place liberty to allow expansion to his adventuresome
spirit, and good examples, beautiful prospects for the future. It is
necessary that his spirit, although it may be dismayed and cowed by
the elements and the fearful manifestation of their mighty forces,
store up energy, seek high purposes, in order to struggle against
obstacles in the midst of unfavorable natural conditions. In order
that he may progress it is necessary that a revolutionary spirit,
so to speak, should boil in his veins, since progress necessarily
requires change; it implies the overthrow of the past, there deified,
by the present; the victory of new ideas over the ancient and accepted
ones. It will not be sufficient to speak to his fancy, to talk nicely
to him, nor that the light illuminate him like the ignis fatuus that
leads travelers astray at night; all the flattering promises of the
fairest hopes will not suffice, so long as his spirit is not free,