the subject will be discussed more fully in Chapter XVI.
The Future Hope. Much has been said about the cure of a neurosis. There are enough people already in the maze of nervousness to warrant the setting up of numerous signs reading, "This way out." But after all, is not a blocking of the way in of vastly more importance? As it is always easier to prevent than to cure, so it is easier to train than to reform. If re-education is the cure, why is not education the ounce of prevention which shall settle the problem for all time?
If the general public understood what "nerves" are, it is hardly conceivable that there could be so many breakdowns as there are at present. If a man's family and friends, to say nothing of himself, understood what he is doing when he suddenly collapses and has to quit work, it is not likely that he would choose that way out of his difficulties.
Most important of all, when parents know that the foundation of nervousness is laid in childhood, they will see to it that their children are started right on the road to health. When fathers and mothers realize that an over-strong bond between parents and children is responsible for a large proportion of nervous troubles, most of them will make sure that such exaggeration is not allowed to develop.
And, finally, when parents are freed from their "conspiracy
of silence" by a reverent attitude toward the whole of life, their very saneness will impart to their children a wholesome respect for the reproductive instinct. There will then be found in the next generation fewer half-starved men and women carrying the burden of unnecessary repressions and the pain of unsatisfied yearnings.
Not that such a day will usher in the millennium. We are not suggesting a panacea for all the social ills. There is an inevitable conflict between the instinctive urge of the life-force and the demands of society, a conflict which makes men and women either finer or baser, according to the way they handle it. What is claimed is that the right kind of education—using the word in its largest, deepest sense—will remove the most fruitful cause of nervousness by taking away the extra burden of misconception and making it easier for people to be "content with being moral." [47]
[47] ] Frink: Morbid Fears and Compulsions.