Missouri Southern State University - Crossroads Yearbook (Joplin, MO)

Page 12 text:

“Youngsters are instinctive dramatists for purposes of self¬ protection. They have not yet fitted themselves to the exigencies—to them partially inexplicable—of a mature world. Moreover, their lives are complicated by human variables. They are told by one person that play¬ ing in the mud is permissible . . . .”

Page 11 text:

“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job ... In other words, I don’t improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.” «. Tf 7

Page 13 text:

“Another adult vetoes mud per se. The Ten Com¬ mandments are not carved on stone; they vary, and children are helplessly dependent on the caprice of those who give them birth and feed and clothe them. And tyrannize.” “From the standpoint of logic, a child is rather horribly perfect. A baby may be even more perfect but so alien to an adult that only superficial stan¬ dards of comparison apply. The thought processes of an infant are completely unimaginable. But babies think, even before birth ... We are con¬ ditioned to react rather peculiarly to the idea that a nearly-viable embryo may think. We are sur¬ prised, sh ocked into laughter, and repelled. Nothing human is alien.” —from “MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES by Lewis Padgett 9