The New Age of Innocence

Our first task is to teach it its place. It's an adult art, knowing how to place one fact next to another, draw connections and comparisons, attend to this reality and not that one, cast a skeptical eye on some claims to truth while embracing others with whole-hearted faith. What we call wisdom is just this intelligent and discriminating relationship to knowledge, a relationship that has its profound joys as well as its occasional burdens. Children taught this truth may come to regard adulthood not with anxiety, but with eager anticipation--to which we can say, wisely: wait 'til you're older.