ABSTRACT
And one might have supposed that the experiences gained during the War would have led many thousands of young men and women, after living for a time an open-air life, to seek on their return to reform those unwholesome features of city life to which we alluded in Chapter IX. So far there has been little sign of eagerness for such reform. It would appear that life in tents and hutments has involved so much hardship
and drudgery (not to speak of discipline) that those who have suffered from it have returned to the comforts of civilized existence with little consciousness of the aid to their wellbeing afforded by manual labour and contact with the open air. These compensatory benefits are lost sight of, for the desire among most civilians who were engaged on active service is to forget the horrors of that colossal tragedy. The process is readily explained on the theory of suppression to which the new psychology has introduced us, for when a distasteful experience is suppressed, either deliberately inhibited or crowded out by the welcome of what is more congenial, much more is carried below the threshold along with the ideas and feelings which seek oblivion.
