To be young, really young, takes a very long time.
I've got a pretty good idea what children are, and we're not children. Children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares.
Dear, sweet, unforgettable childhood!
Try to remember the kind of September When life was slow and oh so mellow. Try to remember the kind of September When grass was green and grain was yellow. Try to remember the kind of September When you were a tender and callow fellow. Try to remember and if you remember then follow follow.
Alas! the slippery nature of tender youth.
We cannot know the consequences of suppressing a child's spontaneity when he is just beginning to be active. We may even suffocate life itself. That humanity which is revealed in all its intellectual splendor during the sweet and tender age of childhood should be respected with a kind of religious veneration. It is like the sun which appears at dawn or a flower just beginning to bloom. Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life.
Happy season of childhood! Kind Nature, that art to all a bountiful mother; that visitest the poor man's hut With auroral radiance; and for thy nursling hast provided a soft swathing of love and infinite hope wherein he waxes and slumbers, danced round by sweetest dreams!
Youth is no less vulnerable, by the very quality it has of making the heart ache that beholds and has lost it.
And the first step, as you know, is always what matters most, particularly when we are dealing with those who are young and tender. That is the time when they are taking shape and when any impression we choose to make leaves a permanent mark.
The beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken.
