“[T]he national subject, - the child, the American child. It is possible to 'converse' with any American on that subject; every one of you has something to say on it; and every one of you will listen eagerly to what any other person says on it [...] It may be because you do so much for children, in America. They are always on your mind; they are hardly ever out of your sight.” Elizabeth McCracken, The American Child (1913) / “Think of the children, Edna. Oh think of the children! Remember them!” (995) / The parting injunction made by Madame Ratignolle to Edna Pontellier at the close of The Awakening reverberated in the agitated conversations roused by Kate Chopin's book. Just as reviewers deplored Edna's neglect of her children, so references to the young and vulnerable featured in much of the lexicon of disapproval. The Awakening risked promoting 'unholy imaginations and unclean desires'; even admirers agreed, it was 'not for young people but for seasoned souls'. Similar allusions appeared again, in the New York Times, in July 1902, in a fresh controversy, roused by the Evanston Library, Illinois, and pursued by the Chicago Tribune. Headed by Jude the Obscure, the Library Board's list of books 'retired' from general circulation (or, in the words of the New York Times's report, its 'black list', 'relegated' to 'a dusty attic') included The Awakening and a dozen others, ranging from Boccaccio's Decameron to Gertrude Atherton's epistolary romance, The Aristocrats (1901). As with fears about the possible dangers of the Internet today, the safety of young people was quoted as of central importance on each side of the debate. The Library Board declared itself 'compelled to protect the public', in particular those parents ignorant of modern literature, who might inadvertently allow their son or daughter to encounter an 'indelicate or immoral' volume.