A child that is not in good health is likely to be possessed by his
fears much longer than one who is well. In the latter case there is
a fund of energy to go exploring, and the child thus becomes more
readily acquainted with his surroundings, and as his knowledge grows
his fears vanish. Again, the sickly child has not the energy to
fight his fears, as has the healthy child. Indeed, the high spirits
of the healthy child often lead him to seek the frightful, just for
the exhilaration he gets from the sensation.

The period of most intense fears is between the ages of five and
seven, and while imaginative children naturally suffer most, they
are also the ones that can call up bright fancies to cheer them.
Robert Louis Stevenson must have had a lovely time in the dark,
seeing circuses and things, as he tells us in his poem which begins:

All night long and every night
When my mamma puts out the light
I see the circus passing by
As plain as day before my eye, etc.

Although fear is a human instinct, it is not universal, and once in
a while we find a child who has no instinctive fear. If such a child
is not frightened he may remain quite ignorant of the feeling for
many years. I know a boy who, at the age of five, was unacquainted
with the sensation of fear, and, never having been frightened, also
did not know the meaning of the word "fear." He had heard it used by
other children and knew that it was something unpleasant, but when
one day at dinner he said to his mother, "You know, I think I am
afraid of spinach," meaning that he did not like it, it was evident