Page:Strindberg the Man (1920).djvu/18

We knew something about that school of suffering which Strindberg had passed through in his youth. This fact made him twice as dear to us. We sent our glowing hatred up to Stockholm, to its old fogies of the press who had received his youthful but manly words with the scoffs and sheers of impotence and had refused him that recognition which every promising young poet needs in order to grow big and strong and withstand the storms which are sure to rage about him upon the mountain top. And we placed ourselves wholly on his side when, after years of insidious persecution—during which he had been the cheerful, generous giver—he took up his position of defense and finally was forced to attack in person those who refused to recognize him.

What ecstasy did he not create in our young hearts when alone he attacked the generally unsatisfactory conditions round about us! This was something for a young generation to behold. To cut down the enemy that grew like weeds in the midst of our acres and to fight great battles with them, seemed to us of greater consequence than all the warring expeditions of the Gustavians on the plains of Germany or the pursuit of chimeras in the deserts of Russia.

The teacher who believes that the young accept without discrimination all the manipulated historical expositions with which they are to be educated so as to incline towards one side or the other, is thoroughly mistaken. The young on the contrary have a great intuitive ability to see through what is purposely falsified, and when their suspicion has once been awakened, they tear to shreds