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diff --git a/old/7yuth10.txt b/old/7yuth10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..946ccee --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7yuth10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13102 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene +by G. Stanley Hall + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene + +Author: G. Stanley Hall + +Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9173] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on September 10, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION *** + + + + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Shawn Wheeler and Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +YOUTH + +ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE + + +BY +G. STANLEY HALL, Ph.D., LL.D. +President of Clark University and +Professor of Psychology +And Pedagogy + + + +PREFACE + + +I have often been asked to select and epitomize the practical and +especially the pedagogical conclusions of my large volumes on +Adolescence, published in 1904, in such form that they may be +available at a minimum cost to parents, teachers, reading circles, +normal schools, and college classes, by whom even the larger volumes +have been often used. This, with the cooeperation of the publishers and +with the valuable aid of Superintendent C.N. Kendall of Indianapolis, +I have tried to do, following in the main the original text, with only +such minor changes and additions as were necessary to bring the topics +up to date, and adding a new chapter on moral and religions education. +For the scientific justification of my educational conclusions I must, +of course, refer to the larger volumes. The last chapter is not in +"Adolescence," but is revised from a paper printed elsewhere. I am +indebted to Dr. Theodore L. Smith of Clark University for verification +of all references, proof-reading, and many minor changes. + +G. STANLEY HALL. + + + +CONTENTS + + +I.--PRE-ADOLESCENCE + +Introduction: Characterization of the age from eight to twelve--The +era of recapitulating the stages of primitive human development--Life +close to nature--The age also for drill, habituation, memory work, and +regermination--Adolescence superposed upon this stage of life, but +very distinct from it + + +II.--THE MUSCLES AND MOTOR POWERS IN GENERAL + +Muscles as organs of the will, of character, and even of thought--The +muscular virtues--Fundamental and accessory muscles and functions--The +development of the mind and of the upright position--Small muscles as +organs of thought--School lays too much stress upon these--Chorea--Vast +numbers of automatic movements in children--Great variety of +spontaneous activities--Poise, control, and spurtiness--Pen and tongue +wagging--Sedentary school life vs. free out-of-door activities--Modern +decay of muscles, especially in girls--Plasticity of motor habits at +puberty + + +III.--INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. + +Trade classes and schools, their importance in the international +market--Our dangers and the superiority of German workmen--The effects +of a tariff--Description of schools between the kindergarten and the +industrial school--Equal salaries for teachers in France--Dangers from +machinery--The advantages of life on the old New England farm--Its +resemblance to the education we now give negroes and Indians--Its +advantage for all-sided muscular development + + +IV.--MANUAL TRAINING AND SLOYD. + +History of the movement--Its philosophy--The value of hand training in +the development of the brain and its significance in the making of +man--A grammar of our many industries hard--The best we do can reach +but few--Very great defects in manual training methods which do not +base on science and make nothing salable--The Leipzig system--Sloyd is +hypermethodic--These crude peasant industries can never satisfy +educational needs--The gospel of work; William Morris and the arts and +crafts movement--Its spirit desirable--The magic effects of a brief +period of intense work--The natural development of the drawing +instinct in the child + + +V.--GYMNASTICS + +The story of Jahn and the Turners--The enthusiasm which this movement +generated in Germany--The ideal of bringing out latent powers--The +concept of more perfect voluntary control--Swedish gymnastics--Doing +everything possible for the body as a machine--Liberal physical +culture--Ling's orthogenic scheme of economic postures and movements +and correcting defects--The ideal of symmetry and prescribing +exercises to bring the body to a standard--Lamentable lack of +correlation between these four systems--Illustrations of the great +good that a systematic training can effect--Athletic records--Greek +physical training + + +VI.--PLAY, SPORTS, AND GAMES + +The view of Groos partial, and a better explanation of play proposed +as rehearsing ancestral activities--The glory of Greek physical +training, its ideals and results--The first spontaneous movements of +infancy as keys to the past--Necessity of developing basal powers +before those that are later and peculiar to the individual--Plays that +interest due to their antiquity--Play with dolls--Play distinguished +by age--Play preferences of children and their reasons--The profound +significance of rhythm--The value of dancing and also its +significance, history, and the desirability of reintroducing +it--Fighting--Boxing--Wrestling--Bushido--Foot-ball--Military +ideals--Showing off--Cold baths--Hill climbing--The playground +movement--The psychology of play--Its relation to work + + +VII.--FAULTS, LIES, AND CRIMES. + +Classification of children's faults--Peculiar children--Real fault as +distinguished from interference with the teacher's ease--Truancy, its +nature and effects--The genesis of crime--The lie, its classes and +relations to imagination--Predatory activities--Gangs--Causes of +crime--The effects of stories of crime--Temibility--Juvenile crime and +its treatment + + +VIII.--BIOGRAPHIES OF YOUTH. + +Knightly ideals and honor--Thirty adolescents from +Shakespeare--Goethe--C.D. Warner--Aldrich--The fugitive nature of +adolescent experience--Extravagance of autobiographies--Stories that +attach to great names--Some typical crazes--Illustrations from George +Eliot, Edison, Chatterton, Hawthorne, Whittier, Spencer, Huxley, +Lyell, Byron, Heine, Napoleon, Darwin, Martineau, Agassiz, Madame +Roland, Louisa Alcott, F.H. Burnett, Helen Keller, Marie Bashkirtseff, +Mary MacLane, Ada Negri, De Quincey, Stuart Mill, Jefferies, and +scores of others + + +IX.--THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL IDEALS. + +Change from childish to adult friends--Influence of favorite +teachers--What children wish or plan to do or be--Property and the +money sense--Social judgments--The only child--First social +organizations--Student life--Associations for youth controlled by +adults + + +X.--INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION AND SCHOOL WORK. + +The general change and plasticity at puberty--English teaching--Causes +of its failure, (1) too much time to other languages, (2) +subordination of literary content to form, (3) too early stress on eye +and hand instead of ear and mouth, (4) excessive use of concrete +words--Children's interest in words--Their favorites--Slang--Story +telling--Age of reading crazes--What to read--The historic +sense--Growth of memory span + + +XI.--THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS. + +Equal opportunities of higher education now open--Brings new dangers +to women--Ineradicable sex differences begin at puberty, when the +sexes should and do diverge--Different interests--Sex tension--Girls +more mature than boys at the same age--Radical psychic and +physiological differences between the sexes--The bachelor women--Needed +reconstruction--Food--Sleep--Regimen--Manners--Religion--Regularity-- +The topics for a girls' curriculum--The eternally womanly + + +XII.--MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING. + +Dangers of muscular degeneration and overstimulus of +brain--Difficulties in teaching morals--Methods in Europe--Obedience +to commands--Good habits should be mechanized--Value of scolding--How +to flog aright--Its dangers--Moral precepts and +proverbs--Habituation--Training will through +intellect--Examinations--Concentration--Originality--Froebel and the +naive--First ideas of God--Conscience--Importance of Old and New +Testaments--Sex dangers--Love and religion--Conversion + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +PRE-ADOLESCENCE + + +Introduction: Characterization of the age from eight to twelve--The +era of recapitulating the stages of primitive human development--Life +close to nature--The age also for drill, habituation, memory, work and +regermination--Adolescence superposed upon this stage of life, but +very distinct from it. + +The years from about eight to twelve constitute a unique period of +human life. The acute stage of teething is passing, the brain has +acquired nearly its adult size and weight, health is almost at its +best, activity is greater and more varied than it ever was before or +ever will be again, and there is peculiar endurance, vitality, and +resistance to fatigue. The child develops a life of its own outside +the home circle, and its natural interests are never so independent of +adult influence. Perception is very acute, and there is great immunity +to exposure, danger, accident, as well as to temptation. Reason, true +morality, religion, sympathy, love, and esthetic enjoyment are but +very slightly developed. + +Everything, in short, suggests that this period may represent in the +individual what was once for a very protracted and relatively +stationary period an age of maturity in the remote ancestors of our +race, when the young of our species, who were perhaps pygmoid, shifted +for themselves independently of further parental aid. The qualities +developed during pre-adolescence are, in the evolutionary history of +the race, far older than hereditary traits of body and mind which +develop later and which may be compared to a new and higher story +built upon our primal nature. Heredity is so far both more stable and +more secure. The elements of personality are few, but are well +organised on a simple, effective plan. The momentum of these traits +inherited from our indefinitely remote ancestors is great, and they +are often clearly distinguishable from those to be added later. Thus +the boy is father of the man in a new sense, in that his qualities are +indefinitely older and existed, well compacted, untold ages before the +more distinctly human attributes were developed. Indeed there are a +few faint indications of an earlier age node, at about the age of six, +as if amid the instabilities of health we could detect signs that this +may have been the age of puberty in remote ages of the past. I have +also given reasons that lead me to the conclusion that, despite its +dominance, the function of sexual maturity and procreative power is +peculiarly mobile up and down the age-line independently of many of +the qualities usually so closely associated with it, so that much that +sex created in the phylum now precedes it in the individual. + +Rousseau would leave prepubescent years to nature and to these primal +hereditary impulsions and allow the fundamental traits of savagery +their fling till twelve. Biological psychology finds many and cogent +reasons to confirm this view _if only a proper environment could be +provided_. The child revels in savagery; and if its tribal, predatory, +hunting, fishing, fighting, roving, idle, playing proclivities could +be indulged in the country and under conditions that now, alas! seem +hopelessly ideal, they could conceivably be so organized and directed +as to be far more truly humanistic and liberal than all that the best +modern school can provide. Rudimentary organs of the soul, now +suppressed, perverted, or delayed, to crop out in menacing forms +later, would be developed in their season so that we should be immune +to them in maturer years, on the principle of the Aristotelian +catharsis for which I have tried to suggest a far broader application +than the Stagirite could see in his day. + +These inborn and more or less savage instincts can and should be +allowed some scope. The deep and strong cravings in the individual for +those primitive experiences and occupations in which his ancestors +became skilful through the pressure of necessity should not be +ignored, but can and should be, at least partially, satisfied in a +vicarious way, by tales from literature, history, and tradition which +present the crude and primitive virtues of the heroes of the world's +childhood. In this way, aided by his vivid visual imagination, the +child may enter upon his heritage from the past, live out each stage +of life to its fullest and realize in himself all its manifold +tendencies. Echoes only of the vaster, richer life of the remote past +of the race they must remain, but just these are the murmurings of the +only muse that can save from the omnipresent dangers of precocity. +Thus we not only rescue from the danger of loss, but utilize for +further psychic growth the results of the higher heredity, which are +the most precious and potential things on earth. So, too, in our +urbanized hothouse life, that tends to ripen everything before its +time, we must teach nature, although the very phrase is ominous. But +we must not, in so doing, wean still more from, but perpetually incite +to visit, field, forest, hill, shore, the water, flowers, animals, the +true homes of childhood in this wild, undomesticated stage from which +modern conditions have kidnapped and transported him. Books and +reading are distasteful, for the very soul and body cry out for a more +active, objective life, and to know nature and man at first hand. +These two staples, stories and nature, by these informal methods of +the home and the environment, constitute fundamental education. + +But now another remove from nature seems to be made necessary by the +manifold knowledges and skills of our highly complex civilization. We +should transplant the human sapling, I concede reluctantly, as early +as eight, but not before, to the schoolhouse with its imperfect +lighting, ventilation, temperature. We must shut out nature and open +books. The child must sit on unhygienic benches and work the tiny +muscles that wag the tongue and pen, and let all the others, which +constitute nearly half its weight, decay. Even if it be prematurely, +he must be subjected to special disciplines and be apprenticed to the +higher qualities of adulthood; for he is not only a product of nature, +but a candidate for a highly developed humanity. To many, if not most, +of the influences here there can be at first but little inner +response. Insight, understanding, interest, sentiment, are for the +most part only nascent; and most that pertains to the true kingdom of +mature manhood is embryonic. The wisest requirements seem to the child +more or less alien, arbitrary, heteronomous, artificial, falsetto. +There is much passivity, often active resistance and evasion, and +perhaps spasms of obstinacy, to it all. But the senses are keen and +alert, reactions immediate and vigorous; and the memory is quick, sure +and lasting; and ideas of space, time, and physical causation, and of +many a moral and social licit and non-licit, are rapidly unfolding. +Never again will there be such susceptibility to drill and discipline, +such plasticity to habituation, or such ready adjustment to new +conditions. It is the age of external and mechanical training. +Reading, writing, drawing, manual training, musical technic, foreign +tongues and their pronunciations, the manipulation of numbers and of +geometrical elements, and many kinds of skill have now their golden +hour; and if it passes unimproved, all these can never be acquired +later without a heavy handicap of disadvantage and loss. These +necessities may be hard for the health of body, sense, mind, as well +as for morals; and pedagogic art consists in breaking the child into +them betimes as intensely and as quickly as possible with minimal +strain and with the least amount of explanation or coquetting for +natural interest, and in calling medicine confectionery. This is not +teaching in its true sense so much as it is drill, inculcation, and +regimentation. The method should be mechanical, repetitive, +authoritative, dogmatic. The automatic powers are now at their very +apex, and they can do and bear more than our degenerate pedagogy knows +or dreams of. Here we have something to learn from the schoolmasters +of the past back to the middle ages, and even from the ancients. The +greatest stress, with short periods and few hours, incessant +insistence, incitement, and little reliance upon interest, reason or +work done without the presence of the teacher, should be the guiding +principles for pressure in these essentially formal and, to the child, +contentless elements of knowledge. These should be sharply +distinguished from the indigenous, evoking, and more truly educational +factors described in the last paragraph, which are meaty, +content-full, and relatively formless as to time of day, method, +spirit, and perhaps environment and personnel of teacher, and possibly +somewhat in season of the year, almost as sharply as work differs from +play, or perhaps as the virility of man that loves to command a +phalanx, be a martinet and drill-master, differs from femininity which +excels in persuasion, sympathetic insight, story-telling, and in the +tact that discerns and utilizes spontaneous interests in the young. + +Adolescence is a new birth, for the higher and more completely human +traits are now born. The qualities of body and soul that now emerge +are far newer. The child comes from and harks back to a remoter past; +the adolescent is neo-atavistic, and in him the later acquisitions of +the race slowly become prepotent. Development is less gradual and more +saltatory, suggestive of some ancient period of storm and stress when +old moorings were broken and a higher level attained. The annual rate +of growth in height, weight, and strength is increased and often +doubled, and even more. Important functions, previously non-existent, +arise. Growth of parts and organs loses its former proportions, some +permanently and some for a season. Some of these are still growing in +old age and others are soon arrested and atrophy. The old measures of +dimensions become obsolete, and old harmonies are broken. The range of +individual differences and average errors in all physical measurements +and all psychic tests increases. Some linger long in the childish +stage and advance late or slowly, while others push on with a sudden +outburst of impulsion to early maturity. Bones and muscles lead all +other tissues, as if they vied with each other; and there is frequent +flabbiness or tension as one or the other leads. Nature arms youth for +conflict with all the resources at her command--speed, power of +shoulder, biceps, back, leg, jaw--strengthens and enlarges skull, +thorax, hips, makes man aggressive and prepares woman's frame for +maternity. + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE MUSCLES AND MOTOR POWERS IN GENERAL + + +Muscles as organs of the will, of character and even of thought--The +muscular virtues--Fundamental and accessory muscles and functions--The +development of the mind and of the upright position--Small +muscles as organs of thought--School lays too much stress upon +these--Chorea--vast numbers of automatic movements in children--Great +variety of spontaneous activities--Poise, control and spurtiness--Pen +and tongue wagging--Sedentary school life _vs_ free out-of-door +activities--Modern decay of muscles, especially in girls--Plasticity +of motor habits at puberty. + +The muscles are by weight about forty-three per cent. of the average +adult male human body. They expend a large fraction of all the kinetic +energy of the adult body, which a recent estimate places as high as +one-fifth. The cortical centers for the voluntary muscles extend over +most of the lateral psychic zones of the brain, so that their culture +is brain building. In a sense they are organs of digestion, for which +function they play a very important role. Muscles are in a most +intimate and peculiar sense the organs of the will. They have built +all the roads, cities, and machines in the world, written all the +books, spoken all the words, and, in fact, done everything that man +has accomplished with matter. If they are undeveloped or grow relaxed +and flabby, the dreadful chasm between good intentions and their +execution is liable to appear and widen. Character might be in a sense +defined as a plexus of motor habits. To call conduct three-fourths of +life, with Matthew Arnold; to describe man as one-third intellect and +two-thirds will, with Schopenhauer; to urge that man is what he does +or that he is the sum of his movements, with F.W. Robertson; that +character is simply muscle habits, with Maudsley; that the age of art +is now slowly superseding the age of science, and that the artist will +drive out with the professor, with the anonymous author of "Rembrandt +als Erzicher";[1] that history is consciously willed movements, with +Bluntschli; or that we could form no conception of force or energy in +the world but for our own muscular effort; to hold that most thought +involves change of muscle tension as more or less integral to it--all +this shows how we have modified the antique Ciceronian conception +_vivere est cogitari_, [To live is to think] to _vivere est velle_, +[To live is to will] and gives us a new sense of the importance of +muscular development and regimen.[2] + +Modern psychology thus sees in muscles organs of expression for all +efferent processes. Beyond all their demonstrable functions, every +change of attention and of psychic states generally plays upon them +unconsciously, modifying their tension in subtle ways so that they may +be called organs of thought and feeling as well as of will, in which +some now see the true Kantian thing-in-itself the real substance of +the world, in the anthropomorphism of force. Habits even determine the +deeper strata of belief; thought is repressed action; and deeds, not +words, are the language of complete men. The motor areas are closely +related and largely identical with the psychic, and muscle culture +develops brain-centers as nothing else yet demonstrably does. Muscles +are the vehicles of habituation, imitation, obedience, character, and +even of manners and customs. For the young, motor education is +cardinal, and is now coming to due recognition; and, for all, +education is incomplete without a motor side. Skill, endurance, and +perseverance may almost be called muscular virtues; and fatigue, +velleity, caprice, _ennui_, restlessness, lack of control and poise, +muscular faults. + +To understand the momentous changes of motor functions that +characterize adolescence we must consider other than the measurable +aspects of the subject. Perhaps the best scale on which to measure all +normal growth of muscle structure and functions is found in the +progress from fundamental to accessory. The former designates the +muscles and movements of the trunk and large joints, neck, back, hips, +shoulders, knees, and elbows, sometimes called central, and which in +general man has in common with the higher and larger animals. Their +activities are few, mostly simultaneous, alternating and rhythmic, as +of the legs in walking, and predominate in hard-working men and women +with little culture or intelligence, and often in idiots. The latter +or accessory movements are those of the hand, tongue, face, and +articulatory organs, and these may be connected into a long and +greatly diversified series, as those used in writing, talking, +piano-playing. They are represented by smaller and more numerous +muscles, whose functions develop later in life and represent a higher +standpoint of evolution. These smaller muscles for finer movements +come into function later and are chiefly associated with psychic +activity, which plays upon them by incessantly changing their +tensions, if not causing actual movement. It is these that are so +liable to disorder in the many automatisms and choreic tics we see in +school children, especially if excited or fatigued. General paralysis +usually begins in the higher levels by breaking these down, so that +the first symptom of its insidious and never interrupted progress is +inability to execute the more exact and delicate movements of tongue +or hand, or both. Starting with the latest evolutionary level, it is a +devolution that may work downward till very many of the fundamental +activities are lost before death. + +Nothing better illustrates this distinction than the difference +between the fore foot of animals and the human hand. The first begins +as a fin or paddle or is armed with a hoof, and is used solely for +locomotion. Some carnivora with claws use the fore limb also for +holding well as tearing, and others for digging. Arboreal life seems +to have almost created the simian hand and to have wrought a +revolution in the form and use of the forearm and its accessory +organs, the fingers. Apes and other tree-climbing creatures must not +only adjust their prehensile organ to a wide variety of distances and +sizes of branches, but must use the hands more or less freely for +picking, transporting, and eating fruit; and this has probably been a +prime factor in lifting man to the erect position, without which human +intelligence as we know it could have hardly been possible. "When we +attempt to measure the gap between man and the lower animals in terms +of the form of movement, the wonder is no less great than when we use +the term of mentality."[3] The degree of approximation to human +intelligence in anthropoid animals follows very closely the degree of +approximation to human movements. + +The gradual acquirement of the erect position by the human infant +admirably repeats this long phylogenetic evolution.[4] At first the +limbs are of almost no use in locomotion, but the fundamental trunk +muscles with those that move the large joints are more or less +spasmodically active. Then comes creeping, with use of the hip +muscles, while all below the knee is useless, as also are the fingers. +Slowly the leg and foot are degraded to locomotion, slowly the great +toe becomes more limited in its action, the thumb increases in +flexibility and strength of opposition, and the fingers grow more +mobile and controllable. As the body slowly assumes the vertical +attitude, the form of the chest changes till its greatest diameter is +transverse instead of from front to back. The shoulder-blades are less +parallel than in quadrupeds, and spread out till they approximate the +same plane. This gives the arm freedom of movement laterally, so that +it can be rotated one hundred and eighty degrees in man as contrasted +to one hundred degrees in apes, thus giving man the command of almost +any point within a sphere of which the two arms are radii. The power +of grasping was partly developed from and partly added to the old +locomotor function of the fore limbs; the jerky aimless automatisms, +as well as the slow rhythmic flexion and extension of the fingers and +hand, movements which are perhaps survivals of arboreal or of even +earlier aquatic life, are cooerdinated; and the bilateral and +simultaneous rhythmic movements of the heavier muscles are +supplemented by the more finely adjusted and specialized activities +which as the end of the growth period is approached are determined +less by heredity and more by environment. In a sense, a child or a man +is the sum total of his movements or tendencies to move; and nature +and instinct chiefly determine the basal, and education the accessory +parts of our activities. + +The entire accessory system is thus of vital importance for the +development of all of the arts of expression. These smaller muscles +might almost be called organs of thought. Their tension is modified +with the faintest change of soul, such as is seen in accent, +inflection, facial expressions, handwriting, and many forms of +so-called mind-reading, which, in fact, is always muscle-reading. The +day-laborer of low intelligence, with a practical vocabulary of not +over five hundred words, who can hardly move each of his fingers +without moving others or all of them, who can not move his brows or +corrugate his forehead at will, and whose inflection is very +monotonous, illustrates a condition of arrest or atrophy of this +later, finer, accessory system of muscles. On the other hand, the +child, precocious in any or all of these later respects, is very +liable to be undeveloped in the larger and more fundamental parts and +functions. The full unfoldment of each is, in fact, an inexorable +condition precedent for the normal development to full and abiding +maturity of the higher and more refined muscularity, just as +conversely the awkwardness and clumsiness of adolescence mark a +temporary loss of balance in the opposite direction. If this general +conception be correct, then nature does not finish the basis of her +pyramid in the way Ross, Mercier, and others have assumed, but lays a +part of the foundation and, after carrying it to an apex, normally +goes back and adds to the foundation to carry up the apex still higher +and, if prevented from so doing, expends her energy in building the +apex up at a sharper angle till instability results. School and +kindergarten often lay a disproportionate strain on the tiny accessory +muscles, weighing altogether but a few ounces, that wag the tongue, +move the pen, and do fine work requiring accuracy. But still at this +stage prolonged work requiring great accuracy is irksome and brings +dangers homologous to those caused by too much fine work in the +kindergarten before the first adjustment of large to small muscles, +which lasts until adolescence, is established. Then disproportion +between function and growth often causes symptoms of chorea. The chief +danger is arrest of the development and control of the smaller +muscles. Many occupations and forms of athletics, on the contrary, +place the stress mainly upon groups of fundamental muscles to the +neglect of finer motor possibilities. Some who excel in heavy +athletics no doubt coarsen their motor reactions, become not only +inexact and heavy but unresponsive to finer stimuli, as if the large +muscles were hypertrophied and the small ones arrested. On the other +hand, many young men, and probably more young women, expend too little +of their available active energy upon basal and massive muscle work, +and cultivate too much, and above all too early, the delicate +responsive work. This is, perhaps, the best physiological +characterization of precocity and issues in excessive nervous and +muscular irritability. The great influx of muscular vigor that unfolds +during adolescent years and which was originally not only necessary to +successful propagation, but expressive of virility, seems to be a very +plastic quantity, so that motor regimen and exercise at this stage is +probably more important and all-conditioning for mentality, sexuality, +and health than at any other period of life. Intensity, and for a time +a spurty diathesis, is as instinctive and desirable as are the copious +minor automatisms which spontaneously give the alphabet out of which +complex and finer motor series are later spelled by the conscious +will. Mercier and others have pointed out that, as most skilled labor, +so school work and modern activities in civilized life generally lay +premature and disproportionate strains upon those kinds of movement +requiring exactness. Stress upon basal movements is not only +compensating but is of higher therapeutic value against the disorders +of the accessory system; it constitutes the best core or prophylactic +for fidgets and tense states, and directly develops poise, control, +and psycho-physical equilibrium. Even when contractions reach choreic +intensity the best treatment is to throw activities down the scale +that measures the difference between primary and secondary movements +and to make the former predominate. + +The number of movements, the frequency with which they are repeated, +their diversity, the number of combinations, and their total kinetic +quantum in young children, whether we consider movements of the body +as a whole, fundamental movements of large limbs, or finer accessory +motions, is amazing. Nearly every external stimulus is answered by a +motor response. Dresslar[5] observed a thirteen months' old baby for +four hours, and found, to follow Preyer's classification, impulsive or +spontaneous, reflex, instinctive, imitative, inhibitive, expressive, +and even deliberative movements, with marked satisfaction in rhythm, +attempts to do almost anything which appealed to him, and almost +inexhaustible efferent resources. A friend has tried to record every +word uttered by a four-year-old girl during a portion of a day, and +finds nothing less than verbigerations. A teacher noted the activities +of a fourteen-year-old boy during the study time of a single school +day[6], with similar results. + +Lindley[7] studied 897 common motor automatisms in children, which he +divided into 92 classes: 45 in the region of the head, 20 in the feet +and legs, 19 in the hands and fingers. Arranged in the order of +frequency with which each was found, the list stood as follows: +fingers, feet, lips, tongue, head, body, hands, mouth, eyes, jaws, +legs, forehead, face, arms, ears. In the last five alone adolescents +exceeded children, the latter excelling the former most in those of +head, mouth, legs, and tongue, in this order. The writer believes that +there are many more automatisms than appeared in his returns. + +School life, especially in the lower grades, is a rich field for the +study of these activities. They are familiar, as licking things, +clicking with the tongue, grinding the teeth, scratching, tapping, +twirling a lock of hair or chewing it, biting the nails (Berillon's +onychophagia), shrugging, corrugating, pulling buttons or twisting +garments, strings, etc., twirling pencils, thumbs, rotating, nodding +and shaking the head, squinting and winking, swaying, pouting and +grimacing, scraping the floor, rubbing hands, stroking, patting, +flicking the fingers, wagging, snapping the fingers, muffling, +squinting, picking the face, interlacing the fingers, cracking the +joints, finger plays, biting and nibbling, trotting the leg, sucking +things, etc. + +The average number of automatisms per 100 persons Smith found to be in +children 176, in adolescents 110. Swaying is chiefly with children; +playing and drumming with the fingers is more common among +adolescents; the movements of fingers and feet decline little with +age, and those of eyes and forehead increase, which is significant for +the development of attention. Girls excel greatly in swaying, and +also, although less, in finger automatism; and boys lead in movements +of tongue, feet, and hands. Such movements increase, with too much +sitting, intensity of effort, such as to fix attention, and vary with +the nature of the activity willed, but involve few muscles directly +used in a given task. They increase up the kindergarten grades and +fall off rapidly in the primary grades; are greater with tasks +requiring fine and exact movements than with those involving large +movements. Automatisms are often a sign of the difficulty of tasks. +The restlessness that they often express is one of the commonest signs +of fatigue. They are mostly in the accessory muscles, while those of +the fundamental muscles (body, legs, and arms) disappear rapidly with +age; those of eye, brow, and jaw show greatest increase with age, but +their frequency in general declines with growing maturity, although +there is increased frequency of certain specialized contractions, +which indicate the gradual settling of expression in the face. + +Often such movements pass over by insensible gradation into the morbid +automatism of chorea, and in yet lower levels of decay we see them in +the aimless picking and plucking movements of the fingers of the sick. +In idiots[8] arrest of higher powers often goes with hypertrophy of +these movements, as seen in head-beaters (as if, just as nature impels +those partially blind to rub the eyes for "light-hunger," so it +prompts the feeble-minded to strike the head for cerebrations), +rockers, rackers, shakers, biters, etc. Movements often pass to fixed +attitudes and postures of limbs or body, disturbing the normal balance +between flexors and extensors, the significance of which as nerve +signs or exponents of habitual brain states and tensions Warner has so +admirably shown. + +Abundance and vigor of automatic movements are desirable, and even a +considerable degree of restlessness is a good sign in young children. +Many of what are now often called nerve signs and even choreic +symptoms, the fidgetiness in school on cloudy days and often after a +vacation, the motor superfluities of awkwardness, embarrassment, +extreme effort, excitement, fatigue, sleepiness, etc., are simply the +forms in which we receive the full momentum of heredity and mark a +natural richness of the raw material of intellect, feeling, and +especially of will. Hence they must be abundant. All parts should act +in all possible ways at first and untrammeled by the activity of all +other parts and functions. Some of these activities are more essential +for growth in size than are later and more conscious movements. Here +as everywhere the rule holds that powers themselves must be unfolded +before the ability to check or even to use them can develop. All +movements arising from spontaneous activity of nerve cells or centers +must be made in order even to avoid the atrophy of disease. Not only +so, but this purer kind of innateness must often be helped out to some +extent in some children by stimulating reflexes; a rich and wide +repertory of sensation must be made familiar; more or less and very +guarded, watched and limited experiences of hunger, thirst, cold, +heat, tastes, sounds, smells, colors, brightnesses, tactile +irritations, and perhaps even occasional tickling and pain to play off +the vastly complex function of laughing, crying, etc., may in some +cases be judicious. Conscious and unconscious imitation or repetition +of every sort of copy may also help to establish the immediate and +low-level connection between afferent and efferent processes that +brings the organism into direct _rapport_ and harmony with the whole +world of sense. Perhaps the more rankly and independently they are +developed to full functional integrity, each in its season, if we only +knew that season, the better. Premature control by higher centers, or +cooerdination into higher compounds of habits and ordered serial +activities, is repressive and wasteful, and the mature will of which +they are components, or which must at least domesticate them, is +stronger and more forcible if this serial stage is not unduly +abridged. + +But, secondly, many, if not most, of these activities when developed a +little, group after group, as they arise, must be controlled, checked, +and organized into higher and often more serial compounds. The +inhibiting functions are at first hard. In trying to sit still the +child sets its teeth, holds the breath, clenches its fists and perhaps +makes every muscle tense with a great effort that very soon exhausts. +This repressive function is probably not worked from special nervous +centers, nor can we speak with confidence of collisions with "sums of +arrest" in a sense analogous to that of Herbart, or of stimuli that +normally cause catabolic molecular processes in the cell, being +mysteriously diverted to produce increased instability or anabolic +lability in the sense of Wundt's _Mechanik der Nerven_. The concept +now suggested by many facts is that inhibition is irradiation or long +circuiting to higher and more complex brain areas, so that the energy, +whether spontaneous or reflex, is diverted to be used elsewhere. These +combinations are of a higher order, more remote from reflex action, +and modified by some Jacksonian third level.[9] Action is now not from +independent centers, but these are slowly associated, so that +excitation may flow off from one point to any other and any reaction +may result from any stimulus. + +The more unified the brain the less it suffers from localization, and +the lower is the level to which any one function can exhaust the +whole. The tendency of each group of cells to discharge or overflow +into those of lower tension than themselves increases as +correspondence in time and space widens. The more one of a number of +activities gains in power to draw on all the brain, or the more +readily the active parts are fed at cost of the resting parts, the +less is rest to be found in change from one of these activities to +another, and the less do concentration and specialization prove to be +dangerous. Before, the aim was to wake all parts to function; now it +is to connect them. Intensity of this cross-section activity now tends +to unity, so that all parts of the brain energize together. In a brain +with this switchboard function well organized, each reaction has grown +independent of its own stimulus and may result from any stimulation, +and each act, e.g., a finger movement of a peculiar nature, may tire +the whole brain. This helps us to understand why brain-workers so +often excel laborers not only in sudden dynamometric strength test, +but in sustained and long-enduring effort. In a good brain or in a +good machine, power may thus be developed over a large surface, and +all of it applied to a small one, and hence the dangers of +specialization are lessened in exact proportion as the elements of our +ego are thus compacted together. It is in the variety and delicacy of +these combinations and all that they imply, far more than in the +elements of which they are composed, that man rises farthest above the +higher animals; and of these powers later adolescence is the golden +age. The aimless and archaic movements of infancy, whether massive and +complex or in the form of isolated automatic tweaks or twinges, are +thus, by slow processes of combined analysis and synthesis, involving +changes as radical as any in all the world of growth, made over into +habits and conduct that fit the world of present environment. + +But, thirdly, this long process carried out with all degrees of +completeness may be arrested at any unfinished stage. Some automatisms +refuse to be controlled by the will, and both they and it are often +overworked. Here we must distinguish constantly between (1) those +growing rankly in order to be later organized under the will, and (2) +those that have become feral after this domestication of them has lost +power from disease or fatigue, and (3) those that have never been +subjugated because the central power that should have used them to +weave the texture of willed action--the proper language of complete +manhood--was itself arrested or degenerate. With regard to many of +these movements these distinctions can be made with confidence, and in +some children more certainly than in others. In childhood, before +twelve, the efferent patterns should be developed into many more or +less indelible habits, and their colors set fast. Motor specialties +requiring exactness and grace like piano-playing, drawing, writing, +pronunciation of a foreign tongue, dancing, acting, singing, and a +host of virtuosities, must be well begun before the relative arrest of +accessory growth at the dawn of the ephebic regeneration and before +its great afflux of strength. The facts seem to show that children of +this age, such as Hancock[10] described, who could not stand with feet +close together and eyes closed without swaying much, could not walk +backward, sit still half a minute, dress alone, tie two ends of a +string together, interlace slats, wind thread, spin a top, stand on +toes or heels, hop on each foot, drive a nail, roll a hoop, skate, hit +fingers together rapidly in succession beginning at the little finger +and then reversing, etc., are the very ones in whom automatisms are +most marked or else they are those constitutionally inert, dull, or +uneducable. + +In children these motor residua may persist as characteristic features +of inflection, accent, or manners; automatisms may become morbid in +stammering or stuttering, or they may be seen in gait, handwriting, +tics or tweaks, etc. Instead of disappearing with age, as they should, +they are seen in the blind as facial grimaces uncorrected by the +mirror or facial consciousness, in the deaf as inarticulate noises; +and they may tend to grow monstrous with age as if they were +disintegrated fragments of our personality, split off and aborted, or +motor parasites leaving our psycho-physic ego poorer in energy and +plasticity of adaptation, till the distraction and anarchy of the +individual nature becomes conspicuous and pathetic. + +At puberty, however, when muscle habits are so plastic, when there is +a new relation between quantity or volume of motor energy and +qualitative differentiation, and between volitional control and reflex +activities, these kinetic remnants strongly tend to shoot together +into wrong aggregates if right ones are not formed. Good manners and +correct motor form generally, as well as skill, are the most economic +ways of doing things; but this is the age of wasteful ways, +awkwardness mannerisms, tensions that are a constant leakage of vital +energy, perhaps semi-imperative acts, contortions, quaint movements, +more elaborated than in childhood and often highly anesthetic and +disagreeable, motor cooerdinations that will need laborious +decomposition later. The avoidable factor in their causation is, with +some modification, not unlike that of the simpler feral movements and +faulty attitudes, carriage, and postures in children; viz., some form +of overpressure or misfit between environment and nature. As during +the years from four to eight there is great danger that overemphasis +of the activities of the accessory muscles will sow the seeds of +chorea, or aggravate predispositions to it, now again comes a greatly +increased danger, hardly existing from eight to twelve, that +overprecision, especially if fundamental activities are neglected, +will bring nervous strain and stunting precocity. This is again the +age of the basal, e.g., hill-climbing muscle, of leg and back and +shoulder work, and of the yet more fundamental heart, lung, and chest +muscles. Now again, the study of a book, under the usual conditions of +sitting in a closed space and using pen, tongue, and eye combined, has +a tendency to overstimulate the accessory muscles. This is especially +harmful for city children who are too prone to the distraction of +overmobility at an age especially exposed to maladjustment of motor +income and expenditure; and it constitutes not a liberal or +power-generating, but a highly and prematurely specialized, narrowing, +and weakening education unless offset by safeguards better than any +system of gymnastics, which is at best artificial and exaggerated. + +As Bryan well says, "The efficiency of a machine depends so far as we +know upon the maximum force, rate, amplitude, and variety of direction +of its movements and upon the exactness with which below these maxima +the force, rate, amplitude, and direction of the movements can be +controlled." The motor efficiency of a man depends upon his ability in +all these respects. Moreover, the education of the small muscles and +fine adjustments of larger ones is as near mental training as physical +culture can get; for these are the thought-muscles and movements, and +their perfected function is to reflect and express by slight +modifications of tension and tone every psychic change. Only the brain +itself is more closely and immediately an organ of thought than are +these muscles and their activity, reflex, spontaneous, or imitative in +origin. Whether any of them are of value, as Lindley thinks, in +arousing the brain to activity, or as Mueller suggests, in drawing off +sensations or venting efferent impulses that would otherwise distract, +we need not here discuss. If so, this is, of course, a secondary and +late function--nature's way of making the best of things and utilizing +remnants. + +With these facts and their implications in mind we can next pass to +consider the conditions under which the adolescent muscles best +develop. Here we confront one of the greatest and most difficult +problems of our age. Changes in modern motor life have been so vast +and sudden as to present some of the most comprehensive and +all-conditioning dangers that threaten civilized races. Not only have +the forms of labor been radically changed within a generation or two, +but the basal activities that shaped the body of primitive man have +been suddenly swept away by the new methods of modern industry. Even +popular sports, games, and recreations, so abundant in the early life +of all progressive peoples, have been reduced and transformed; and the +play age, that once extended on to middle life and often old age, has +been restricted. Sedentary life in schools and offices, as we have +seen, is reducing the vigor and size of our lower limbs. Our industry +is no longer under hygienic conditions; and instead of being out of +doors, in the country, or of highly diversified kinds, it is now +specialized, monotonous, carried on in closed spaces, bad air, and +perhaps poor light, especially in cities. The diseases and arrest bred +in the young by life in shops, offices, factories, and schools +increase. Work is rigidly bound to fixed hours, uniform standards, +stints and piece-products; and instead of a finished article, each +individual now achieves a part of a single process and knows little of +those that precede or follow. Machinery has relieved the large basal +muscles and laid more stress upon fine and exact movements that +involve nerve strain. The coarser forms of work that involve hard +lifting, carrying, digging, etc., are themselves specialized, and +skilled labor requires more and more brain-work. It has been estimated +that "the diminution of manual labor required to do a given quantity +of work in 1884 as compared with 1870 is no less than 70 per +cent."[11] Personal interest in and the old native sense of +responsibility for results, ownership and use of the finished +products, which have been the inspiration and soul of work in all the +past, are in more and more fields gone. Those who realize how small a +proportion of the young male population train or even engage in +amateur sports with zest and regularity, how very few and picked men +strive for records, and how immediate and amazing are the results of +judicious training, can best understand how far below his +possibilities as a motor being the average modern man goes through +life, and how far short in this respect he falls from fulfilling +nature's design for him. + +For unnumbered generations primitive man in the nomad age wandered, +made perhaps annual migrations, and bore heavy burdens, while we ride +relatively unencumbered. He tilled the reluctant soil, digging with +rude implements where we use machines of many man-power. In the stone, +iron, and bronze age, he shaped stone and metals, and wrought with +infinite pains and effort, products that we buy without even knowledge +of the processes by which they are made. As hunter he followed game, +which, when found, he chased, fought, and overcame in a struggle +perhaps desperate, while we shoot it at a distance with little risk or +effort. In warfare he fought hand to hand and eye to eye, while we +kill "with as much black powder as can be put in a woman's thimble." +He caught and domesticated scores of species of wild animals and +taught them to serve him; fished with patience and skill that +compensated his crude tools, weapons, implements, and tackle; danced +to exhaustion in the service of his gods or in memory of his forebears +imitating every animal, rehearsing all his own activities in mimic +form to the point of exhaustion, while we move through a few figures +in closed spaces. He dressed hides, wove baskets which we can not +reproduce, and fabrics which we only poorly imitate by machinery, made +pottery which set our fashions, played games that invigorated body and +soul. His courtship was with feats of prowess and skill, and meant +physical effort and endurance. + +Adolescent girls, especially in the middle classes, in upper grammar +and high school grades, during the golden age for nascent muscular +development, suffer perhaps most of all in this respect. Grave as are +the evils of child labor, I believe far more pubescents in this +country now suffer from too little than from too much physical +exercise, while most who suffer from work do so because it is too +uniform, one-sided, accessory, or performed under unwholesome +conditions, and not because it is excessive in amount. Modern industry +has thus largely ceased to be a means of physical development and +needs to be offset by compensating modes of activity. Many +labor-saving devices increase neural strain, so that one of the +problems of our time is how to preserve and restore nerve energy. +Under present industrial systems this must grow worse and not better +in the future. Healthy natural industries will be less and less open +to the young. This is the new situation that now confronts those +concerned for motor education, if they would only make good what is +lost. + +Some of the results of these conditions are seen in average +measurements of dimensions, proportions, strength, skill, and control. +Despite the excellence of the few, the testimony of those most +familiar with the bodies of children and adults, and their physical +powers, gives evidence of the ravages of modern modes of life that, +without a wide-spread motor revival, can bode only degeneration for +our nation and our race. The number of common things that can not be +done at all; the large proportion of our youth who must be exempted +from any kinds of activity or a great amount of any; the thin limbs, +collapsed shoulders or chests, the bilateral asymmetry, weak hearts, +lungs, eyes, puny and bad muddy or pallid complexions, tired ways, +automatism, dyspeptic stomachs, the effects of youthful error or of +impoverished heredity, delicate and tender nurture, often, alas, only +too necessary, show the lamentable and cumulative effects of long +neglect of the motor abilities, the most educable of all man's powers, +and perhaps the most important for his well-being. If the unfaithful +stewards of these puny and shameful bodies had again, as in Sparta, to +strip and stand before stern judges and render them account, and be +smitten with a conviction of their weakness, guilty deformity, and +arrest of growth; if they were brought to realize how they are fallen +beings, as weak as stern theologians once deemed them depraved, and +how great their need of physical salvation, we might hope again for a +physical renaissance. Such a rebirth the world has seen but twice or +perhaps thrice, and each was followed by the two or three of the +brightest culture periods of history, and formed an epoch in the +advancement of the kingdom of man. A vast body of evidence could be +collected from the writings of anthropologists showing how superior +unspoiled savages are to civilized man in correct or esthetic +proportions of body, in many forms of endurance of fatigue, hardship, +and power to bear exposure, in the development and preservation of +teeth and hair, in keenness of senses, absence of deformities, as well +as immunity to many of our diseases. Their women are stronger and bear +hardship and exposure, monthly periods and childbirth, better. +Civilization is so hard on the body that some have called it a +disease, despite the arts that keep puny bodies alive to a greater +average age, and our greater protection from contagious and germ +diseases. + +The progressive realization of these tendencies has prompted most of +the best recent and great changes motor-ward in education and also in +personal regimen. Health- and strength-giving agencies have put to +school the large motor areas of the brain, so long neglected, and have +vastly enlarged their scope. Thousands of youth are now inspired with +new enthusiasm for physical development; and new institutions of many +kinds and grades have arisen, with a voluminous literature, unnumbered +specialists, specialties, new apparatus, tests, movements, methods, +and theories; and the press, the public, and the church are awakened +to a fresh interest in the body and its powers. All this is +magnificent, but sadly inadequate to cope with the new needs and +dangers, which are vastly greater. + +[Footnote 1: Dieterich. Goettingen, 1886.] + +[Footnote 2: See Chap. xii.] + +[Footnote 3: F. Burk in From Fundamental to Accessory. Pedagogical +Seminary, Oct., 1898, vol. 6, pp. 5-64.] + +[Footnote 4: Creeping and Walking, by A.W. Trettien. American Journal +of Psychology, October, 1900, vol. 12, pp. 1-57.] + +[Footnote 5: A Morning Observation of a Baby. Pedagogical Seminary, +December 1901, vol. 8, pp. 469-481.] + +[Footnote 6: Kate Carman. Notes on School Activity. Pedagogical +Seminary, March, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 106-117.] + +[Footnote 7: A Preliminary Study of Some of the Motor Phenomena of +Mental Effort. American Journal of Psychology, July, 1896, vol. 7, pp. +491-517.] + +[Footnote 8: G.E. Johnson. Psychology and Pegagogy of Feeble-Minded +Children. Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1895, vol. 3, pp. 246-301.] + +[Footnote 9: Dr. Hughlings Jackson, the eminent English pathologist, +was the first to make practical application of the evolutionary theory +of the nervous system to the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsies and +mental diseases. The practical success of this application was so +great that the Hughlings-Jackson "three-level theory" is now the +established basis of English diagnosis. He conceived the nervous +mechanism as composed of three systems, arranged in the form of a +hierarchy, the higher including the lower, and yet each having a +certain degree of independence. The first level represents the type of +simplest reflex and involuntary movement and is localized in the gray +matter of the spinal cord, medulla, and pons. The second, or middle +level, comprises those structures which receive sensory impulses from +the cells of the lowest level instead of directly from the periphery +or the non-nervous tissues. The motor cells of this middle level also +discharge into the motor mechanisms of the lowest level. Jackson +located these middle level structures in the cortex of the central +convolutions, the basal ganglia and the centers of the special senses +in the cortex. The highest level bears the same relation to the middle +level that it bears to the lowest i.e., no continuous connection +between the highest and the lowest is assumed; the structures of the +middle level mediate between them as a system of relays. According to +this hierarchical arrangement of the nervous system, the lowest level +which is the simplest and oldest "contains the mechanism for the +simple fundamental movements in reflexes and involuntary reactions. +The second level regroups these simple movements by combinations and +associations of cortical structure in wider, more complex mechanisms, +producing a higher class of movements. The highest level unifies the +whole nervous system and, according to Jackson, is the anatomical +basis of mind." + +For a fuller account of this theory see Burk: From Fundamental to +Accessory in the Nervous System and of Movements. Pedagogical +Seminary, October, 1898, vol. 6, pp. 17-23.] + +[Footnote 10: A Preliminary Study of Some of the Motor Phenomena of +Mental Effort. American Journal of Psychology, July, 1896, vol. 7, pp. +491-517.] + +[Footnote 11: Encyclopedia of Social Reform, Funk and Wagnalls, 1896, +p. 1095] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION + + +Trade classes and schools, their importance in the international +market--Our dangers and the superiority of German workmen--The effects +of a tariff--Description of schools between the kindergarten and the +industrial school--Equal salaries for teachers in France--Dangers from +machinery--The advantages of life on the old New England farm--Its +resemblance to the education we now give negroes and Indians--Its +advantage for all-sided muscular development. + +We must glance at a few of the best and most typical methods of +muscular development, following the order: industrial education, +manual training, gymnastics, and play, sports, and games. + +Industrial education is now imperative for every nation that would +excel in agriculture, manufacture, and trade, not only because of the +growing intensity of competition, but because of the decline of the +apprentice system and the growing intricacy of processes, requiring +only the skill needed for livelihood. Thousands of our youth of late +have been diverted from secondary schools to the monotechnic or trade +classes now established for horology, glass-work, brick-laying, +carpentry, forging, dressmaking, cooking, typesetting, bookbinding, +brewing, seamanship, work in leather, rubber, horticulture, gardening, +photography, basketry, stock-raising, typewriting, stenography and +bookkeeping, elementary commercial training for practical preparation +for clerkships, etc. In this work not only is Boston, our most +advanced city, as President Pritchett[1] has shown in detail, far +behind Berlin, but German workmen and shopmen a slowly taking the best +places even in England; and but for a high tariff, which protects our +inferiority, the competitive pressure would be still greater. In +Germany, especially, this training is far more diversified than here, +always being colored if not determined by the prevalent industry of +the region and more specialised and helped out by evening and even +Sunday classes in the school buildings, and by the still strong +apprentice system. Froebelian influence in manual training reaches +through the eight school years and is in some respects better than +ours in lower grades, but is very rarely coeducational, girls' work of +sewing, knitting, crocheting, weaving, etc., not being considered +manual training. There are now over 1,500 schools and workshops in +Germany where manual training is taught; twenty-five of these are +independent schools. The work really began in 1875 with v. Kass, and +is promoted by the great Society for Boys' Handwork. Much stress is +laid on paper and pasteboard work in lower grades, under the influence +of Kurufa of Darmstadt. Many objects for illustrating science are +made, and one course embraces the Seyner water-wheel.[2] + +In France it is made more effective by the equal salaries of teachers +everywhere, thus securing better instruction in the country. +Adolescence is the golden period for acquiring the skill that comes by +practice, so essential in the struggle for survival. In general this +kind of motor education is least of all free, but subservient to the +tool, machine, process, finished product, or end in view; and to these +health and development are subordinated, so that they tend to be ever +more narrow and special. The standard here is maximal efficiency of +the capacities that earn. It may favor bad habitual attitudes, +muscular development of but one part, excessive large or small +muscles, involve too much time or effort, unhealthful conditions, +etc., but it has the great advantage of utility, which is the +mainspring of all industry. In a very few departments and places this +training has felt the influence of the arts and crafts movement and +has been faintly touched with the inspiration of beauty. While such +courses give those who follow them marked advantage over those who do +not, they are chiefly utilitarian and do little to mature or unfold +the physical powers, and may involve arrest or degeneration. + +Where not one but several or many professes are taught, the case is +far better. Of all work-schools, a good farm is probably the best for +motor development. This is due to its great variety of occupations, +healthful conditions, and the incalculable phyletic reenforcement from +immemorial times. I have computed some three-score industries[3] as +the census now classifies them; that were more or less generally known +and practiced sixty years ago in a little township, which not only in +this but in other respects has many features of an ideal educational +environment for adolescent boys, combining as it does not only +physical and industrial, but civil and religious elements in wise +proportions and with pedagogic objectivity, and representing the ideal +of such a state of intelligent citizen voters as was contemplated by +the framers of our Constitution. + +Contrast this life with that of a "hand" in a modern shoe factory, who +does all day but one of the eighty-one stages or processes from a +tanned hide to a finished shoe, or of a man in a shirt shop who is one +of thirty-nine, each of whom does as piece-work a single step +requiring great exactness, speed, and skill, and who never knows how a +whole shirt is made, and we shall see that the present beginning of a +revival of interest in muscular development comes none too early. So +liberal is muscular education of this kind that its work in somewhat +primitive form has been restored and copied many features by many +educational institutions for adolescents, of the Abbotsholme type and +grade, and several others, whose purpose is to train for primitive +conditions of colonial life. Thousands of school gardens have also +been lately developed for lower grades, which have given a new impetus +to the study of nature. Farm training at its best instills love of +country, ruralizes taste, borrows some of its ideals from Goethe's +pedagogic province, and perhaps even from Gilman's pie-shaped +communities, with villages at the center irradiating to farms in all +directions. In England, where by the law of primogeniture holdings are +large and in few hands, this training has never flourished, as it has +greatly in France, where nearly every adult male may own land and a +large proportion will come to do so. So of processes. As a student in +Germany I took a few lessons each of a bookbinder, a glassblower, a +shoemaker, a plumber, and a blacksmith, and here I have learned in a +crude way the technique of the gold-beater and old-fashioned +broom-maker, etc., none of which come amiss in the laboratory; and I +am proud that I can still mow and keep my scythe sharp, chop, plow, +milk, churn, make cheese and soap, braid a palm-leaf hat complete, +knit, spin and even "put in a piece" in an old-fashioned hand loom, +and weave frocking. But thus pride bows low before the pupils of our +best institutions for negroes, Indians, and juvenile delinquents, +whose training is often in more than a score of industries and who +to-day in my judgment receive the best training in the land, if judged +by the annual growth in mind, morals, health, physique, ability, and +knowledge, all taken together. Instead of seeking soft, ready-made +places near home, such education impels to the frontier, to strike out +new careers, to start at the bottom and rise by merit, beginning so +low that every change must be a rise. Wherever youth thus trained are +thrown, they land like a cat on all-fours and are armed _cap-a-pie_ +for the struggle of life. Agriculture, manufacture, and commerce are +the bases of national prosperity; and on them all professions, +institutions, and even culture, are more and more dependent, while the +old ideals of mere study and brain-work are fast becoming obsolete. We +really retain only the knowledge we apply. We should get up interest +in new processes like that of a naturalist in new species. Those who +leave school at any age or stage should be best fitted to take up +their life work instead of leaving unfitted for it, aimless and +discouraged. Instead of dropping out limp and disheartened, we should +train "struggle-for-lifeurs," in Daudet's phrase, and that betimes, so +that the young come back to it not too late for securing the best +benefits, after having wasted the years best fitted for it in +profitless studies or in the hard school of failure. By such methods +many of our flabby, undeveloped, anemic, easy-living city youth would +be regenerated in body and spirit. Some of the now oldest, richest, +and most famous schools of the world were at first established by +charity for poor boys who worked their way, and such institutions have +an undreamed-of future. No others so well fit for a life of +respectable and successful muscle work, and perhaps this should be +central for all at this stage. This diversity of training develops the +muscular activities rendered necessary by man's early development, +which were so largely concerned with food, shelter, clothing, making +and selling commodities necessary for life, comfort and safety. The +natural state of man is not war, hot peace; and perhaps Dawson[4] is +right in thinking that three-fourths of man's physical activities in +the past have gone into such vocations. Industry has determined the +nature and trend of muscular development; and youth, who have pets, +till the soil, build, manufacture, use tools, and master elementary +processes and skills, are most truly repeating the history of the +race. This, too, lays the best foundation for intellectual careers. +The study of pure science, as well as its higher technology, follows +rather than precedes this. In the largest sense this is the order of +nature, from fundamental and generalized to finer accessory and +specialized organs and functions; and such a sequence best weeds out +and subordinates automatisms. The age of stress in most of these kinds +of training is that of most rapid increment of muscular power, as we +have seen in the middle and later teens rather than childhood, as some +recent methods have mistakenly assumed; and this prepolytechnic work, +wherever and in whatever degree it is possible, is a better adjunct of +secondary courses than manual training, the sad fact being that, +according to the best estimates, only a fraction of one per cent of +those who need this training in this country are now receiving it. + +[Footnote 1: The Place of Industrial and Technical Training in Public +Education. Technology Review, January, 1902, vol. 4, pp. 10-37.] + +[Footnote 2: See an article by Dr. H.E. Kock, Education, December, +1902, vol. 23, pp. 193-203.] + +[Footnote 3: See my Boy Life in a Massachusetts Country Town Forty +Years Ago. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1906, vol. 13, pp. 192-207.] + +[Footnote 4: The Muscular Activities Rendered Necessary by Man's Early +Environment, American Physical Education Review, June, 1902, vol. 7, +pp. 80-85.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +MANUAL TRAINING AND SLOYD + + +History of the movement--Its philosophy--The value of hand training in +the development of the brain and its significance in the making of +man--A grammar of our many industries hard--The best we do can reach +but few--Very great defects in our manual training methods which do +not base on science and make nothing salable--The Leipzig +system--Sloyd is hypermethodic--These crude peasant industries can +never satisfy educational needs--The gospel of work, William Morris +and the arts and crafts movement--Its spirit desirable--The magic +effects of a brief period of intense work--The natural development of +the drawing instinct in the child. + +Manual training has many origins; but in its now most widely accepted +form it came to us more than a generation ago from Moscow, and has its +best representation here in our new and often magnificent +manual-training high schools and in many courses in other public +schools. This work meets the growing demand of the country for a more +practical education, a demand which often greatly exceeds the +accommodations. The philosophy, if such it may be called, that +underlies the movement, is simple, forcible, and sound, and not unlike +Pestalozzi's "_keine Kentnisse ohne Fertigkeiten_," [No knowledge +without skill] in that it lessens the interval between thinking and +doing; helps to give control, dexterity, and skill an industrial trend +to taste; interests many not successful in ordinary school; tends to +the better appreciation of good, honest work; imparts new zest for +some studies; adds somewhat to the average length of the school +period; gives a sense of capacity and effectiveness, and is a useful +preparation for a number of vocations. These claims are all well +founded, and this work is a valuable addition to the pedagogic +agencies of any country or state. As man excels the higher anthropoids +perhaps almost as much in hand power as in mind, and since the manual +areas of the brain are wide near the psychic zones, and the cortical +centers are thus directly developed, the hand is a potent instrument +in opening the intellect as well as in training sense and will. It is +no reproach to these schools that, full as they are, they provide for +but an insignificant fraction of the nearly sixteen millions or twenty +per cent of the young people of the country between fifteen and +twenty-four. + +When we turn to the needs of these pupils, the errors and limitations +of the method are painful to contemplate. The work is essentially +manual and offers little for the legs, where most of the muscular +tissues of the body lie, those which respond most to training and are +now most in danger of degeneration at this age; the back and trunk +also are little trained. Consideration of proportion and bilateral +asymmetry are practically ignored. Almost in proportion as these +schools have multiplied, the rage for uniformity, together with +motives of economy and administrative efficiency on account of +overcrowding, have made them rigid and inflexible, on the principle +that as the line lengthens the stake must be strengthened. This is a +double misfortune; for the courses were not sufficiently considered at +first and the plastic stage of adaptation was too short, while the +methods of industry have undergone vast changes since they were given +shape. There are now between three and four hundred occupations in the +census, more than half of these involving manual work, so that never +perhaps was there so great a pedagogic problem as to make these +natural developments into conscious art, to extract what may be called +basal types. This requires an effort not without analogy to +Aristotle's attempt to extract from the topics of the marketplace the +underlying categories eternally conditioning all thought, or to +construct a grammar of speech. Hardly an attempt worthy the name, not +even the very inadequate one of a committee, has been made in this +field to study the conditions and to meet them. Like Froebel's gifts +and occupations, deemed by their author the very roots of human +occupations in infant form, the processes selected are underived and +find their justification rather in their logical sequence and +coherence than in being true norms of work. If these latter be +attainable at all, it is not likely that they will fit so snugly in a +brief curriculum, so that its simplicity is suspicious. The wards of +the keys that lock the secrets of nature and human life are more +intricate and mazy. As H.T. Bailey well puts it in substance, a master +in any art-craft must have a fourfold equipment: 1. Ability to grasp +an idea and embody it. 2. Power to utilize all nerve, and a wide +repertory of methods, devices, recipes, discoveries, machines, etc. 3. +Knowledge of the history of the craft. 4. Skill in technical +processes. American schools emphasize chiefly only the last. + +The actual result is thus a course rich in details representing wood +and iron chiefly, and mostly ignoring other materials; the part of the +course treating of the former, wooden in its teachings and distinctly +tending to make joiners, carpenters, and cabinet-makers; that of the +latter, iron in its rigidity and an excellent school for smiths, +mechanics, and machinists. These courses are not liberal because they +hardly touch science, which is rapidly becoming the real basis of +every industry. Almost nothing that can be called scientific knowledge +is required or even much favored, save some geometrical and mechanical +drawing and its implicates. These schools instinctively fear and +repudiate plain and direct utility, or suspect its educational value +or repute in the community because of this strong bias toward a few +trades. This tendency also they even fear, less often because +unfortunately trade-unions in this country sometimes jealously suspect +it and might vote down supplies, than because the teachers in these +schools were generally trained in older scholastic and even classic +methods and matter. Industry is everywhere and always for the sake of +the product, and to cut loose from this as if it were a contamination +is a fatal mistake. To focus on process only, with no reference to the +object made, is here an almost tragic case of the sacrifice of content +to form, which in all history has been the chief stigma of +degeneration in education. Man is a tool-using animal; but tools are +always only a means to an end, the latter prompting even their +invention. Hence a course in tool manipulation only, with persistent +refusal to consider the product lest features of trade-schools be +introduced, has made most of our manual-training high schools ghastly, +hollow, artificial institutions. Instead of making in the lower grades +certain toys which are masterpieces of mechanical simplification, as +tops and kites, and introducing such processes as glass-making and +photography, and in higher grades making simple scientific apparatus +more generic than machines, to open the great principles of the +material universe, all is sacrificed to supernormalized method. + +As in all hypermethodic schemes, the thought side is feeble. There is +no control of the work of these schools by the higher technical +institutions such as the college exercises over the high school, so +that few of them do work that fits for advanced training or is thought +best by technical faculties. In most of its current narrow forms, +manual training will prove to be historically, as it is educationally, +extemporized and tentative, and will soon be superseded by broader +methods and be forgotten and obsolete, or cited only as a low point of +departure from which future progress will loom up. + +Indeed in more progressive centers, many new departures are now in the +experimental stage. Goetze at Leipzig, as a result of long and +original studies and trials, has developed courses in which pasteboard +work and modeling are made of equal rank with wood and iron, and he +has connected them even with the kindergarten below. In general the +whole industrial life of our day is being slowly explored in the quest +of new educational elements; and rubber, lead, glass, textiles, +metallurgical operations, agriculture, every tool and many machines, +etc., are sure to contribute their choicest pedagogical factors to the +final result. In every detail the prime consideration should be the +nature and needs of the youthful body and will at each age, their +hygiene and fullest development; and next, the closest connection with +science at every point should do the same for the intellect. Each +operation and each tool--the saw, knife, plane, screw, hammer, chisel, +draw-shave, sandpaper, lathe--will be studied with reference to its +orthopedic value, bilateral asymmetry, the muscles it develops, and +the attitudes and motor habits it favors; and uniformity, which in +France often requires classes to saw, strike, plane up, down, right, +left, all together, upon count and command, will give place to +individuality. + +Sloyd has certain special features and claims. The word means skilful, +deft. The movement was organised in Sweden a quarter of a century ago +as an effort to prevent the extinction by machinery of peasant home +industry during the long winter night. Home sloyd was installed in an +institution of its own for training teachers at Naeaes. It works in wood +only, with little machinery, and is best developed for children of +from eleven to fifteen. It no longer aims to make artisans; but its +manipulations are meant to be developmental, to teach both sexes not +only to be useful but self-active and self-respecting, and to revere +exactness as a form of truthfulness. It assumes that all and +especially the motor-minded can really understand only what they make, +and that one can work like a peasant and think like a philosopher. It +aims to produce wholes rather than parts like the Russian system, and +to be so essentially educational that, as a leading exponent says, its +best effects would be conserved if the hands were cut off. This change +of its original utilitarianism from the lower to the liberal motor +development of the middle and upper classes and from the land where it +originated to another, has not eliminated the dominant marks of its +origin in its models, the Penates of the sloyd household, the unique +features of which persist like a national school of art, despite +transplantation and transformation.[1] + +Sloyd at its best tries to correlate several series, viz., exercises, +tools, drawing, and models. Each must be progressive, so that every +new step in each series involves a new and next developmental step in +all the others, and all together, it is claimed, fit the order and +degree of development of each power appealed to in the child. Yet +there has been hardly an attempt to justify either the physiological +or the psychological reason of a single step in any of these series, +and the cooerdination of the series even with each other, to say +nothing of their adaptation to the stages of the child's development. +This, if as pat and complete as is urged, would indeed constitute on +the whole a paragon of all the harmony, beauty, totality in variety, +etc., which make it so magnificent in the admirer's eyes. But the "45 +tools, 72 exercises, 31 models, 15 of which are joints," all learned +by teachers in one school year of daily work and by pupils in four +years, are overmethodic; and such correlation is impossible in so many +series at once. Every dual order, even of work and unfoldment of +powers, is hard enough, since the fall lost us Eden; and woodwork, +could it be upon that of the tree of knowledge itself, incompatible +with enjoying its fruit. Although a philosopher may see the whole +universe in its smallest part, all his theory can not reproduce +educational wholes from fragments of it. The real merits of sloyd have +caused its enthusiastic leaders to magnify its scope and claims far +beyond their modest bounds; and although its field covers the great +transition from childhood to youth, one searches in vain both its +literature and practise for the slightest recognition of the new +motives and methods that puberty suggests. Especially in its partially +acclimatized forms to American conditions, it is all adult and almost +scholastic; and as the most elaborate machinery may sometimes be run +by a poor power-wheel, if the stream be swift and copious enough, so +the mighty rent that sets toward motor education would give it some +degree of success were it worse and less economic of pedagogic +momentum than it is. It holds singularly aloof from other methods of +efferent training and resists cooerdination with them, and its +provisions for other than hand development are slight. It will be one +of the last to accept its true but modest place as contributing +certain few but precious elements in the greater synthesis that +impends. Indian industries, basketry, pottery, bead, leather, bows and +arrows, bark, etc., which our civilization is making lost arts by +forcing the white man's industries upon red men at reservation schools +and elsewhere, need only a small part of the systemization that +Swedish peasant work has received to develop even greater educational +values; and the same is true of the indigenous household work of the +old New England farm, the real worth and possibilities of which are +only now, and perhaps too late, beginning to be seen by a few +educators. + +This brings us to the arts and crafts movement, originating with +Carlyle's gospel of work and Ruskin's medievalism, developed by +William Morris and his disciples at the Red House, checked awhile by +the ridicule of the comic opera "Patience," and lately revived in some +of its features by Cobden-Sanderson, and of late to some extent in +various centers in this country. Its ideal was to restore the day of +the seven ancient guilds and of Hans Sachs, the poet cobbler, when +conscience and beauty inspired work, and the hand did what machines +only imitate and vulgarize. In the past, which this school of motor +culture harks back to, work, for which our degenerate age lacks even +respect, was indeed praise. Refined men and women have remembered +these early days, when their race was in its prime, as a lost paradise +which they would regain by designing and even weaving tapestries and +muslins; experimenting in vats with dyes to rival Tyrian purple; +printing and binding by hand books that surpass the best of the +Aldine, and Elzevirs; carving in old oak; hammering brass; forging +locks, irons, and candlesticks; becoming artists in burned wood and +leather; seeking old effects of simplicity and solidity in furniture +and decoration, as well as architecture, stained glass, and to some +extent in dress and manners; and all this toil and moil was _ad +majorem gloriam hominis_ [To the greater glory of man] in a new +socialistic state, where the artist, and even the artisan, should take +his rightful place above the man who merely knows. The day of the mere +professor, who deals in knowledge, is gone; and the day of the doer, +who creates, has come. The brain and the hand, too long divorced and +each weak and mean without the other; use and beauty, each alone +vulgar; letters and labor, each soulless without the other, are +henceforth to be one and inseparable; and this union will lift man to +a higher level. The workman in his apron and paper hat, inspired by +the new socialism and the old spirit of chivalry as revived by Scott, +revering Wagner's revival of the old _Deutschenthum_ that was to +conquer _Christenthum_, or Tennyson's Arthurian cycle--this was its +ideal; even as the Jews rekindled their loyalty to the ancient +traditions of their race and made their Bible under Ezra; as we begin +to revere the day of the farmer-citizen, who made our institutions, or +as some of us would revive his vanishing industrial life for the red +man. + +Although this movement was by older men and women and had in it +something of the longing regret of senescence for days that are no +more, it shows us the glory which invests racial adolescence when it +is recalled in maturity, the time when the soul can best appreciate +the value of its creations and its possibilities, and really lives +again in its glamour and finds in it its greatest inspiration. Hence +it has its lessons for us here. A touch, but not too much of it, +should be felt in all manual education, which is just as capable of +idealism as literary education. This gives soul, interest, content, +beauty, taste. If not a polyphrastic philosophy seeking to dignify the +occupation of the workshop by a pretentious Volapuek of reasons and +abstract theories, we have here the pregnant suggestion of a +psychological quarry of motives and spirit opened and ready to be +worked. Thus the best forces from the past should be turned on to +shape and reinforce the best tendencies of the present. The writings +of the above gospelers of work not only could and should, but will be +used to inspire manual-training high schools, sloyd and even some of +the less scholastic industrial courses; but each is incomplete without +the other. These books and those that breathe their spirit should be +the mental workshop of all who do tool, lathe, and forge work; who +design and draw patterns, carve or mold; or of those who study how to +shape matter for human uses, and whose aim is to obtain diplomas or +certificates of fitness to teach all such things. The muse of art and +even of music will have some voice in the great synthesis which is to +gather up the scattered, hence ineffective, elements of secondary +motor training, in forms which shall represent all the needs of +adolescents in the order and proportion that nature and growth stages +indicate, drawing, with this end supreme, upon all the resources that +history and reform offer to our selection. All this can never make +work become play. Indeed it will and should make work harder and more +unlike play and of another genus, because the former is thus given its +own proper soul and leads its own distinct, but richer, and more +abounding life. + +I must not close this section without brief mention of two important +studies that have supplied each a new and important determination +concerning laws of work peculiar to adolescence. + +The main telegraphic line requires a speed of over seventy letters per +minute of all whom they will employ. As a sending rate this is not +very difficult and is often attained after two months' practise. This +standard for a receiving rate is harder and later, and inquiry at +schools where it is taught shows that about seventy-five per cent of +those who begin the study fail to reach this speed and so are not +employed. Bryan and Harter[2] explained the rate of improvement in +both sending and receiving, with results represented for one typical +subject in the curve on the following page. + +From the first, sending improves most rapidly and crosses the +dead-line a few months before the receiving rate, which may fall +short. Curves 1 and 2 represent the same student. I have added line 3 +to illustrate the three-fourths who fail. Receiving is far less +pleasant than sending, and years of daily practise at ordinary rates +will not bring a man to his maximum rate; he remains on the low +plateau with no progress beyond a certain point. If forced by stress +of work, danger of being dropped, or by will power to make a prolonged +and intense effort, he breaks through his hidebound rate and +permanently attains a faster pace. This is true at each step, and +every advance seems to cost even more intensive effort than the former +one. At length, for those who go on, the rate of receiving, which is a +more complex process, exceeds that of sending; and the curves of the +above figure would cross if prolonged. The expert receives so much +faster than he sends that abbreviated codes are used, and he may take +eighty to eighty-five words a minute on a typewriter in correct form. + +[Illustration: Letters per Minute x Weeks of Practice.] + +The motor curve seems to asymptotically approach a perhaps +physiological limit, which the receiving curve does not suggest. This +seems a special case of a general though not yet explained law. In +learning a foreign language, speaking is first and easiest, and +hearing takes a late but often sudden start to independence. Perhaps +this holds of every ability. To Bryan this suggests as a hierarchy of +habits, the plateau of little or no improvement, meaning that lower +order habits are approaching their maximum but are not yet automatic +enough to leave the attention free to attack higher order habits. The +second ascent from drudgery to freedom, which comes through +automatism, is often as sudden as the first ascent. One stroke of +attention comes to do what once took many. To attain such effective +speed is not dependent on reaction time. This shooting together of +units distinguishes the master from the man, the genius from the hack. +In many, if not all, skills where expertness is sought, there is a +long discouraging level, and then for the best a sudden ascent, as if +here, too, as we have reason to think in the growth of both the body +as a whole and in that of its parts, nature does make leaps and +attains her ends by alternate rests and rushes. Youth lives along on a +low level of interest and accomplishment and then starts onward, is +transformed, converted; the hard becomes easy; the old life sinks to a +lower stratum; and a new and higher order, perhaps a higher brain +level and functions, is evolved. The practical implication here of the +necessity of hard concentrative effort as a condition of advancement +is re-enforced by a quotation from Senator Stanford on the effect of +early and rather intensive work at not too long periods in training +colts for racing. Let-ups are especially dangerous. He says, "It is +the supreme effort that develops." This, I may add, suggests what is +developed elsewhere, that truly spontaneous attention is conditioned +by spontaneous muscle tension, which is a function of growth, and that +muscles are thus organs of the mind; and also that even voluntary +attention is motivated by the same nisus of development even in its +most adult form, and that the products of science, invention, +discovery, as well as the association plexus of all that was +originally determined in the form of consciousness, are made by +rhythmic alternation of attack, as it moves from point to point +creating diversions and recurrence. + +The other study, although quite independent, is part a special +application and illustration of the same principle. + +At the age of four or five, when they can do little more than +scribble, children's chief interest in pictures is as finished +products; but in the second period, which Lange calls that of artistic +illusion, the child sees in his own work not merely what it +represents, but an image of fancy back of it. This, then, is the +golden period for the development of power to create artistically. The +child loves to draw everything with the pleasure chiefly in the act, +and he cares little for the finished picture. He draws out of his own +head, and not from copy before his eye. Anything and everything is +attempted in bold lines in this golden age of drawing. If he followed +the teacher, looked carefully and drew what he saw, he would be +abashed at his production. Indians, conflagrations, games, brownies, +trains, pageants, battles--everything is graphically portrayed; but +only the little artist himself sees the full meaning of his lines. +Criticism or drawing strictly after nature breaks this charm, since it +gives place to mechanical reproduction in which the child has little +interest. Thus awakens him from his dream to a realization that he can +not draw, and from ten to fifteen his power of perceiving things +steadily increases and he makes almost no progress in drawing. +Adolescence arouses the creative faculty and the desire and ability to +draw are checked and decline after thirteen or fourteen. The curve is +the plateau which Barnes has described. The child has measured his own +productions upon the object they reproduced and found them wanting, is +discouraged and dislikes drawing. From twelve on, Barnes found drawing +more and more distasteful; and this, too, Lukens found to be the +opinion of our art teachers. The pupils may draw very properly and +improve in technique, but the interest is gone. This is the condition +in which most men remain all their lives. Their power to appreciate +steadily increases. Only a few gifted adolescents about this age begin +a to develop a new zest in production, rivaling that of the period +from five to ten, when their satisfaction is again chiefly in +creation. These are the artists whose active powers dominate. + +Lukens[3] finds in his studies of drawing, that in what he calls his +fourth period of artistic development, there are those "who during +adolescence experience a rebirth of creative power." Zest in creation +then often becomes a stronger incentive to work than any pleasure or +profit to be derived from the finished product, so that in this the +propitious conditions of the first golden age of childhood are +repeated and the deepest satisfaction is again found in the work +itself. At about fourteen or fifteen, which is the transition period, +nascent faculties sometimes develop very rapidly. Lukens[4] draws the +interesting curve shown on the following page. + +[Illustration: Motor, creative or productive power. Sensory or +receptive interest in the finished product.] + +The reciprocity between the power to produce and that to appreciate, +roughly represented in the above curve, likely is true also in the +domain of music, and may be, perhaps, a general law of development. +Certain it is that the adolescent power to apperceive and appreciate +never so far outstrips his power to produce or reproduce as about +midway in the teens. Now impressions sink deepest. The greatest +artists are usually those who paint later, when the expressive powers +are developed, what they have felt most deeply and known best at this +age, and not those who in the late twenties, or still later, have gone +to new environments and sought to depict them. All young people draw +best those objects they love most, and their proficiency should be +some test of the contents of their minds. They must put their own +consciousness into a picture. At the dawn of this stage of +appreciation the esthetic tastes should be stimulated by exposure to, +and instructed in feeling for, the subject-matter of masterpieces; and +instruction in technique, detail, criticism, and learned +discrimination of schools of painting should be given intermittently. +Art should not now be for art's sake, but for the sake of feeling and +character, life, and conduct; it should be adjunct to morals, history, +and literature; and in all, edification should be the goal; and +personal interest, and not that of the teacher, should be the guide. +Insistence on production should be eased, and the receptive +imagination, now so hungry, should be fed and reinforced by story and +all other accessories. By such a curriculum, potential creativeness, +if it exists, will surely be evoked in its own good time. It will, at +first, attempt no commonplace drawing-master themes, but will essay +the highest that the imagination can bode forth. It may be crude and +lame in execution, but it will be lofty, perhaps grand; and if it is +original in consciousness, it will be in effect. Most creative +painters before twenty have grappled with the greatest scenes in +literature or turning points in history, representations of the +loftiest truths, embodiments of the most inspiring ideals. None who +deserve the name of artist copy anything now, and least of all with +objective fidelity to nature; and the teacher that represses or +criticizes this first point of genius, or who can not pardon the grave +faults of technique inevitable at this age when ambition ought to be +too great for power, is not an educator but a repressor, a pedagogic +Philistine committing, like so many of his calling in other fields, +the unpardonable sin against budding promise, always at this age so +easily blighted. Just as the child of six or seven should be +encouraged in his strong instinct to draw the most complex scenes of +his daily life, so now the inner life should find graphic utterance in +all its intricacy up to the full limit of unrepressed courage. For the +great majority, on the other hand, who only appreciate and will never +create, the mind, if it have its rights, will be stored with the best +images and sentiments of art; for at this time they are best +remembered and sink deepest into heart and life. Now, although the +hand may refuse, the fancy paints the world in brightest hues and +fairest forms; and such an opportunity for infecting the soul with +vaccine of ideality, hope, optimism, and courage in adversity, will +never come again. I believe that in few departments are current +educational theories and practises so hard on youth of superior gifts, +just at the age when all become geniuses for a season, very brief for +most, prolonged for some, and permanent for the best. We do not know +how to teach to, see, hear, and feel when the sense centers are most +indelibly impressible, and to give relative rest to the hand during +the years when its power of accuracy is abated and when all that is +good is idealized furthest, and confidence in ability to produce is at +its lowest ebb. + +Finally, our divorce between industrial and manual training is +abnormal, and higher technical education is the chief sufferer. +Professor Thurston, of Cornell, who has lately returned from a tour of +inspection abroad, reported that to equal Germany we now need: "1. +Twenty technical universities, having in their schools of engineering +50 instructors and 500 students each. 2. Two thousand technical high +schools or manual-training schools, each having not less than 200 +students and 10 instructors." If we have elementary trade-schools, +this would mean technical high schools enough to accommodate 700,000 +students, served by 20,000 teachers. With the strong economic +arguments in this direction we are not here concerned; but that there +are tendencies to unfit youth for life by educational method and +matter shown in strong relief from this standpoint, we shall point out +in a later chapter. + +[Footnote 1: This I have elsewhere tried to show in detail. Criticisms +of High School Physics and Manual Training and Mechanic Arts in High +Schools. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 193-204.] + +[Footnote 2: Studies in the Physiology and Psychology of the +Telegraphic Language. Psychological Review, January, 1897, vol. 4, pp. +27-53, and July, 1899, vol. 6, pp. 344-375.] + +[Footnote 3: A Study of Children's Drawings in the Early Years. +Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1896, vol. 4, pp. 79-101. See also +Drawing in the Early Years, Proceedings of the National Educational +Association, 1899, pp. 946-953. Das Kind als Kuenstler, von C. Goetze. +Hamburg, 1898. The Genetic _vs._ the Logical Order in Drawing, by F. +Burk. Pedagogical Seminary, September, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 296-323.] + +[Footnote 4: Die Entwickelungsstufen beim Zeichnen. Die Kinderfehler, +September, 1897, vol. 2, pp. 166-179.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +GYMNASTICS + + +The story of Jahn and the Turners--The enthusiasm which this movement +generated in Germany--The ideal of bringing out latent powers--The +concept of more perfect voluntary control--Swedish gymnastics--Doing +everything possible for the body as a machine--Liberal physical +culture--Ling's orthogenic scheme of economic postures and movements +and correcting defects--The ideal of symmetry and prescribing +exercises to bring the body to a standard--Lamentable lack of +correlation between these four systems--Illustrations of the great +good that a systematic training can effect--Athletic records--Greek +physical training. + +Under the term gymnastics, literally naked exercises, we here include +those denuded of all utilities or ulterior ends save those of physical +culture. This is essentially modern and was unknown in antiquity, +where training was for games, for war, etc. Several ideals underlie +this movement, which although closely related are distinct and as yet +by no means entirely harmonized. These may be described as follows: + +A. One aim of Jahn, more developed by Spiess, and their successors, +was to do everything physically possible for the body as a mechanism. +Many postures and attitudes are assumed and many movements made that +are never called for in life. Some of these are so novel that a great +variety of new apparatus had to be devised to bring them out; and Jahn +invented many new names, some of them without etymologies, to +designate the repertory of his discoveries and inventions that +extended the range of motor life. Common movements, industries, and +even games, train only a limited number of muscles, activities, and +cooerdinations, and leave more or less unused groups and combinations, +so that many latent possibilities slumber, and powers slowly lapse +through disuse. Not only must these be rescued, but the new nascent +possibilities of modern progressive man must be addressed and +developed. Even the common things that the average untrained youth can +not do are legion, and each of these should be a new incentive to the +trainer as he realizes how very far below their motor possibilities +meet men live. The man of the future may, and even must, do things +impossible in the past and acquire new motor variations not given by +heredity. Our somatic frame and its powers must therefore be carefully +studied, inventoried, and assessed afresh, and a kind and amount of +exercise required that is exactly proportioned, not perhaps to the +size but to the capability of each voluntary muscle. Thus only can we +have a truly humanistic physical development, analogous to the +training of all the powers of the mind in a broad, truly liberal, and +non-professional or non-vocational educational curriculum. The body +will thus have its rightful share in the pedagogic traditions and +inspirations of the renaissance. Thus only can we have a true scale of +standardised culture values for efferent processes; and from this we +can measure the degrees of departure, both in the direction of excess +and defect, of each form of work, motor habit; and even play. Many +modern Epigoni in the wake of this great ideal, where its momentum was +early spent, feeling that new activities might be discovered with +virtues hitherto undreamed of, have almost made fetiches of special +disciplines, both developmental and corrective, that are pictured and +landed in scores of manuals. Others have had expectations no less +excessive in the opposite direction and have argued that the greatest +possible variety of movements best developed the greatest total of +motor energy. Jahn especially thus made gymnastics a special art and +inspired great enthusiasm of humanity, and the songs of his pupils +were of a better race of man and a greater and united fatherland. It +was this feature that made his work unique in the world, and his +disciples are fond of reminding us of the fact that it was just about +one generation of men after the acme of influence of his system that, +in 1870, Germany showed herself the greatest military power since +ancient Rome, and took the acknowledged leadership of the world both +in education and science. + +These theorizations even in their extreme forms have been not only +highly suggestive but have brought great and new enthusiasms and +ideals into the educational world that admirably fit adolescence. The +motive of bringing out latent, decaying, or even new powers, skills, +knacks, and feats, is full of inspiration. Patriotism is aroused, for +thus the country can be better served; thus the German Fatherland was +to be restored and unified after the dark days that followed the +humiliation of Jena. Now the ideals of religion are invoked that the +soul may have a better and regenerated somatic organism with which to +serve Jesus and the Church. Exercise is made a form of praise to God +and of service to man, and these motives are reenforced by those of +the new hygiene which strives for a new wholeness-holiness, and would +purify the body as the temple of the Holy Ghost. Thus in Young Men's +Christian Association training schools and gymnasiums the gospel of +Christianity is preached anew and seeks to bring salvation to man's +physical frame, which the still lingering effects of asceticism have +caused to be too long neglected in its progressive degeneration. As +the Greek games were in honor of the gods, so now the body is trained +to better glorify God; and regimen, chastity, and temperance are given +a new momentum. The physical salvation thus wrought will be, when +adequately written, one of the most splendid chapters in the modern +history of Christianity. Military ideals have been revived in cult and +song to hearten the warfare against evil within and without. Strength +is prayed for as well as worked for, and consecrated to the highest +uses. Last but not least, power thus developed over a large surface +may be applied to athletic contests in the field, and victories here +are valuable as fore-gleams of how sweet the glory of achievements in +higher moral and spiritual tasks will taste later. + +The dangers and sources of error in this ideal of all-sided training +are, alas, only too obvious, although they only qualify its paramount +good. First, it is impossible thus to measure the quanta of training +needed so as rightly to assign to each its modicum and best modality +of training. Indeed no method of doing this has ever been attempted, +but the assessments have been arbitrary and conjectural, probably +right in some and wrong in other respects, with no adequate criterion +or test for either save only empirical experience. Secondly, heredity, +which lays its heavy ictus upon some neglected forms of activity and +fails of all support for others, has been ignored. As we shall see +later, one of the best norms here is phyletic emphasis, and what lacks +this must at best be feeble; and if new powers are unfolding, their +growth must be very slow and they must be nurtured as tender buds for +generations. Thirdly, too little regard is had for the vast +differences in individuals, most of whom need much personal +prescription. + +B. In practise the above ideal is never isolated from others. Perhaps +the most closely associated with it is that of increased volitional +control. Man is largely a creature of habit, and many of his +activities are more or less automatic reflexes from the stimuli of his +environment. Every new power of controlling these by the will frees +man from slavery and widens the field of freedom. To acquire the power +of doing all with consciousness and volition mentalizes the body, +gives control over to higher brain levels, and develops them by +rescuing activities from the dominance of lower centers. Thus _mens +agitat molem._ [Footnote: Mind rules the body.] This end is favored by +the Swedish _commando_ exercises, which require great alertness of +attention to translate instantly a verbal order into an act and also, +although in somewhat less degree, by quick imitation of a leader. The +stimulus of music and rhythm are excluded because thought to interfere +with this end. A somewhat sophisticated form of this goal is sought by +several Delsartian schemes of relaxation, decomposition, and +recomposition of movements. To do all things with consciousness and to +encroach on the field of instinct involves new and more vivid sense +impressions, the range of which is increased directly as that of +motion, the more closely it approaches the focus of attention. By thus +analyzing settled and established cooerdinations, their elements are +set free and may be organized into new combinations, so that the +former is the first stage toward becoming a virtuoso with new special +skills. This is the road to inner secrets or intellectual rules of +professional and expert successes, such as older athletes often rely +upon when their strength begins to wane. Every untrained automatism +must be domesticated, and every striated muscle capable of direct +muscular control must be dominated by volition. Thus tensions and +incipient contractures that drain off energy can be relaxed by fiat. +Sandow's "muscle dance," the differentiation of movements of the +right and left hand--one, e.g., writing a French madrigal while the +other is drawing a picture of a country dance, or each playing +tunes of disparate rhythm and character simultaneously on the +piano--controlling heart rate, moving the ears, crying, laughing, +blushing, moving the bowels, etc., at will, feats of inhibition of +reflexes, stunts of all kinds, proficiency with many tools, deftness +in sports--these altogether would mark the extremes in this direction. + +This, too, has its inspiration for youth. To be a universal adept like +Hippias suggests Diderot and the encyclopedists in the intellectual +realm. To do all with consciousness is a means to both remedial and +expert ends. Motor life often needs to be made over to a greater or +less extent; and that possibilities of vastly greater accomplishments +exist than are at present realized, is undoubted, even in manners and +morals, which are both at root only motor habits. Indeed consciousness +itself is largely and perhaps wholly corrective in its very essence +and origin. Thus life is adjusted to new environments; and if the +Platonic postulate be correct, that untaught virtues that come by +nature and instinct are no virtues, but must be made products of +reflection and reason, the sphere and need of this principle is great +indeed. But this implies a distrust of physical human nature as +deep-seated and radical as that of Calvinism for the unregenerate +heart, against which modern common sense, so often the best muse of +both psychophysics and pedagogy, protests. Individual prescription is +here as imperative as it is difficult. Wonders that now seem to be +most incredible, both of hurt and help, can undoubtedly be wrought, +but analysis should always be for the sake of synthesis and never be +beyond its need and assured completion. No thoughtful student fully +informed of the facts and tentatives in this field can doubt that here +lies one of the most promising fields of future development, full of +far-reaching and rich results for those, as yet far too few, experts +in physical training, who have philosophic minds, command the facts of +modern psychology, and whom the world awaits now as never before. + +C. Another yet closely correlated ideal is that of economic postures +and movements. The system of Ling is less orthopedic than orthogenic, +although he sought primarily to correct bad attitudes and perverted +growth. Starting from the respiratory and proceeding to the muscular +system, he and his immediate pupils were content to refer to the +ill-shapen bodies of most men about them. One of their important aims +was to relax the flexor and tone up the extensor muscles and to open +the human form into postures as opposite as possible to those of the +embryo, which it tends so persistently to approximate in sitting, and +in fatigue and collapse attitudes generally. The head must balance on +the cervical vertebra and not call upon the muscles of the neck to +keep it from rolling off; the weight of the shoulders must be thrown +back off the thorax; the spine be erect to allow the abdomen free +action; the joints of the thigh extended; the hand and arm supinated, +etc. Bones must relieve muscles and nerves. Thus an erect, +self-respecting carriage must be given, and the unfortunate +association, so difficult to overcome, between effort and an involuted +posture must be broken up. This means economy and a great saving of +vital energy. Extensor action goes with expansive, flexor with +depressive states of mind; hence courage, buoyancy, hope, are favored +and handicaps removed. All that is done with great effort causes wide +irradiation of tensions to the other half of the body and also +sympathetic activities in those not involved; the law of maximal ease +and minimal expenditure of energy must be always striven for, and the +interests of the viscera never lost sight of. This involves educating +weak and neglected muscles, and like the next ideal, often shades over +by almost imperceptible gradation into the passive movements by the +Zander machines. Realizing that certain activities are sufficiently or +too much emphasized in ordinary life, stress is laid upon those which +are complemental to them, so that there is no pretense of taking +charge of the totality of motor processes, the intention being +principally to supplement deficiencies, to insure men against being +warped, distorted, or deformed by their work in life, to compensate +specialties and perform more exactly what recreation to some extent +aims at. + +This wholesome but less inspiring endeavor, which combats one of the +greatest evils that under modern civilization threatens man's physical +weal, is in some respects as easy and practical as it is useful. The +great majority of city bred men, as well as all students, are prone to +deleterious effects from too much sitting; and indeed there is +anatomical evidence in the structure of the tissues, and especially +the blood-vessels of the groins, that, at his best, man is not yet +entirely adjusted to the upright position. So a method that +straightens knees, hips, spine, and shoulders, or combats the +school-desk attitude, is a most salutary contribution to a great and +growing need. In the very act of stretching, and perhaps yawning, for +which much is to be said, nature itself suggests such correctives and +preventives. To save men from being victims of their occupations is +often to add a better and larger half to their motor development. The +danger of the system, which now best represents this ideal, is +inflexibility and overscholastic treatment. It needs a great range of +individual variations if it would do more than increase circulation, +respiration, and health, or the normal functions of internal organs +and fundamental physiological activities. To clothe the frame with +honest muscles that are faithful servants of the will adds not only +strength, more active habits and efficiency, but health; and in its +material installation this system is financially economic. Personal +faults and shortcomings are constantly pointed out where this work is +best represented, and it has a distinct advantage in inciting an +acquaintance with physiology and inviting the larger fields of medical +knowledge. + +D. The fourth gymnastic aim is symmetry and correct proportions. +Anthropometry and average girths and dimensions, strength, etc., of +the parts of the body are first charted in percentile grades; and each +individual is referred to the apparatus and exercises best fitted to +correct weaknesses and subnormalities. The norms here followed are not +the canons of Greek art, but those established by the measurement of +the largest numbers properly grouped by age, weight, height, etc. +Young men are found to differ very widely. Some can lift 1,000 pounds, +and some not 100; some can lift their weight between twenty and forty +times, and some not once; some are most deficient in legs, others in +shoulders, arms, backs, chests. By photography, tape, and scales, each +is interested in his own bodily condition and incited to overcome his +greatest defects; and those best endowed by nature to attain ideal +dimensions and make new records are encouraged along these lines. Thus +this ideal is also largely though not exclusively remedial. + +This system can arouse youth to the greatest pitch of zest in watching +their own rapidly multiplying curves of growth in dimensions and +capacities, in plotting curves that record their own increment in +girths, lifts, and other tests, and in observing the effects of sleep, +food, correct and incorrect living upon a system so exquisitely +responsive to all these influences as are the muscles. To learn to +know and grade excellence and defect, to be known for the list of +things one can do and to have a record, or to realize what we lack of +power to break best records, even to know that we are strengthening +some point where heredity has left us with some shortage and perhaps +danger, the realization of all this may bring the first real and deep +feeling for growth that may become a passion later in things of the +soul. Growth always has its selfish aspects, and to be constantly +passing our own examination in this respect is a new and perhaps +sometimes too self-conscious endeavor of our young college barbarians; +but it is on the whole a healthful regulative, and this form of the +struggle toward perfection and escape from the handicap of birth will +later move upward to the intellectual and moral plane. To kindle a +sense of physical beauty of form in every part, such as a sculptor +has, may be to start youth on the lowest round of the Platonic ladder +that leads up to the vision of ideal beauty of soul, if his ideal be +not excess of brawn, or mere brute strength, but the true proportion +represented by the classic or mean temperance balanced like justice +between all extremes. Hard, patient, regular work, with the right +dosage for this self-cultural end, has thus at the same time a unique +moral effect. + +The dangers of this system are also obvious. Nature's intent can not +be too far thwarted; and as in mental training the question is always +pertinent, so here we may ask whether it be not best in all cases to +some extent, and in some cases almost exclusively, to develop in the +direction in which we most excel, to emphasize physical individuality +and even idiosyncrasy, rather than to strive for monotonous +uniformity. Weaknesses and parts that lag behind are the most easily +overworked to the point of reaction and perhaps permanent injury. +Again, work for curative purposes lacks the exuberance of free sports: +it is not inspiring to make up areas; and therapeutic exercises +imposed like a sentence for the shortcomings of our forebears bring a +whiff of the atmosphere of the hospital, if not of the prison, into +the gymnasium. + +These four ideals, while so closely interrelated, are as yet far from +harmonized. Swedish, Turner, Sargent, and American systems are each, +most unfortunately, still too blind to the others' merits and too +conscious of the others' shortcomings. To some extent they are +prevented from getting together by narrow devotion to a single cult, +aided sometimes by a pecuniary interest in the sale of their own +apparatus and books or in the training of teachers according to one +set of rubrics. The real elephant is neither a fan, a rope, a tree nor +a log, as the blind men in the fable contended, each thinking the part +he had touched to be the whole. This inability of leaders to combine +causes uncertainty and lack of confidence in, and of enthusiastic +support for, any system on the part of the public. Even the radically +different needs of the sexes have failed of recognition from the same +partisanship. All together represent only a fraction of the nature and +needs of youth. The world now demands what this country has never had, +a man who, knowing the human body, gymnastic history, and the various +great athletic traditions of the past, shall study anew the whole +motor field, as a few great leaders early in the last century tried to +do; who shall gather and correlate the literature and experiences of +the past and present with a deep sense of responsibility to the +future; who shall examine martial training with all the inspirations, +warnings, and new demands; and who shall know how to revive the +inspiration of the past animated by the same spirit as the Turners, +who were almost inflamed by referring back to the hardy life of the +early Teutons and trying to reproduce its best features; who shall +catch the spirit of, and make due connections with, popular sports +past and present, study both industry and education to compensate +their debilitating effects, and be himself animated by a great ethical +and humanistic hope and faith in a better future. Such a man, if he +ever walks the earth, will be the idol of youth, will know their +physical secrets, will come almost as a savior to the bodies of men, +and will, like Jahn, feel his calling and work sacred, and his +institution a temple in which every physical act will be for the sake +of the soul. The world of adolescence, especially that part which sits +in closed spaces conning books, groans and travails all the more +grievously and yearningly, because unconsciously, waiting for a +redeemer for its body. Till he appears, our culture must remain for +most a little hollow, falsetto, and handicapped by school-bred +diseases. The modern gymnasium performs its chief service during +adolescence and is one of the most beneficent agencies of which not a +few, but every youth, should make large use. Its spirit should be +instinct with euphoria, where the joy of being alive reaches a point +of high, although not quite its highest, intensity. While the stimulus +of rivalry and even of records is not excluded, and social feelings +may be appealed to by unison exercises and by the club spirit, and +while competitions, tournaments, and the artificial motives of prizes +and exhibitions may be invoked, the culture is in fact largely +individual. And yet in this country the annual _Turnerfest_ brings +4,000 or 5,000 men from all parts of the Union, who sometimes all +deploy and go through some of the standard exercises together under +one leader. Instead of training a few athletes, the real problem now +presented is how to raise the general level of vitality so that +children and youth may be fitted to stand the strain of modern +civilization, resist zymotic diseases, and overcome the deleterious +influences of city life. The almost immediate effects of systematic +training are surprising and would hardly be inferred from the annual +increments tabled earlier in this chapter. Sandow was a rather weakly +boy and ascribes his development chiefly to systematic training. + +We have space but for two reports believed to be typical. Enebuske +reports on the effects of seven months' training on young women +averaging 22.3 years. The figures are based on the 50 percentile +column. + +----------------+--------+----------------------------------+-------- + | | Strength of | + |Lung | | | |right |left |Total + |capacity| legs |back |chest|forearm|forearm|Strength +----------------+--------+------+-----+-----+-------+-------+-------- +Before training | 2.65 | 93 |65.5 | 27 | 26 | 23 | 230 +After six months| 2.87 | 120 |81.5 | 32 | 28 | 25 | 293 +----------------+--------+------+-----+-----+-------+-------+-------- + +By comparing records of what he deems standard normal growth with that +of 188 naval cadets from sixteen to twenty-one, who had special and +systematic training, just after the period of most rapid growth in +height, Beyer concluded that the effect of four years of this added a +little over an inch of stature, and that this gain as greatest at the +beginning. This increase was greatest for the youngest cadets. He +found also a marked increase in weight, nearly the same for each year +from seventeen to twenty one. This he thought more easily influenced +by exercise than height. A high vital index ratio of lung capacity to +weight is a very important attribute of good training. Beyer[1] found, +however, that the addition of lung area gained by exercise did not +keep up with the increase thus caused in muscular substance, and that +the vital index always became smaller in those who had gained weight +and strength by special physical training. How much gain in weight is +desirable beyond the point where the lung capacity increases at an +equal rate is unknown. If such measurements were applied to the +different gymnastic systems, we might be able to compare their +efficiency, which would be a great desideratum in view of the +unfortunate rivalry between them. Total strength, too, can be greatly +increased. Beyer thinks that from sixteen to twenty-one it may exceed +the average or normal increment fivefold, and he adds, "I firmly +believe that the now so wonderful performances of most of our strong +men are well within the reach of the majority of healthy men, if such +performances were a serious enough part of their ambition +to make them do the exercises necessary to develop them." Power of the +organs to respond to good training by increased strength probably +reaches well into middle life. + +It is not encouraging to learn that, according to a recent writer,[2] +we now have seventy times as many physicians in proportion to the +general population as there are physical directors, even for the +school population alone considered. We have twice as many physicians +per population as Great Britain, four times a many as Germany, or 2 +physicians, 1.8 ministers, 1.4 lawyers per thousand of the general +population; while even if all male teachers of physical training +taught only males of the military age, we should have but 0.05 of a +teacher per thousand, or if the school population alone be considered, +20 teachers per million pupils. Hence, it is inferred that the need of +wise and classified teachers in this field is at present greater than +in any other. But fortunately while spontaneous, unsystematic exercise +in a well-equipped modern gymnasium may in rare cases do harm, so far +from sharing the prejudice often felt for it by professional trainers, +we believe that free access to it without control or direction is +unquestionably a boon to youth. Even if its use be sporadic and +occasional, as it is likely to be with equal opportunity for +out-of-door exercises and especially sports, practise is sometimes +hygienic almost inversely to its amount, while even lameness from +initial excess has its lessons, and the sense of manifoldness of +inferiorities brought home by experiences gives a wholesome +self-knowledge and stimulus. + +In this country more than elsewhere, especially in high school and +college, gymnasium work has been brought into healthful connection +with field sports and record competitions for both teams and +individuals who aspire to championship. This has given the former a +healthful stimulus although it is felt only by a picked few. Scores of +records have been established for running, walking, hurdling, +throwing, putting, swimming, rowing, skating, etc., each for various +shorter and longer distances and under manifold conditions, and for +both amateurs and professionals, who are easily accessible. These, in +general, show a slow but steady advance in this country since 1876, +when athletics were established here. In that year there was not a +single world's best record held by an American amateur, and +high-school boys of to-day could in most, though not in all lines, +have won the American championship twenty-five years ago. Of course, +in a strict sense, intercollegiate contests do not show the real +advance in athletics, because it is not necessary for a man in order +to win a championship to do his best; but they do show general +improvement. + +We select for our purpose a few of those records longest kept. Not +dependent on external conditions like boat-racing, or on improved +apparatus like bicycling, we have interesting data of a very different +order for physical measurements. These down to present writing--July, +1906--are as follows: For the 100-yard dash, every annual record from +1876 to 1895 is 10 or 11 seconds, or between these, save in 1890, +where Owen's record of 9-4/5 seconds still stands. In the 220-yard run +there is slight improvement since 1877, but here the record of 1896 +(Wefers, 21-1/5 seconds) has not been surpassed. In the quarter-mile +run, the beet record was in 1900 (Long, 47 seconds). The half-mile +record, which still stands, was made in 1895 (Kilpatrick, 1 minute +52-2/5 seconds); the mile run in 1895 (Conneff, 4 minutes 15-3/5 +seconds). The running broad jump shows a very steady improvement, with +the best record in 1900 (Prinstein, 24 feet 7-1/4 inches). The running +high jump shows improvement, but less, with the record of 1895 still +standing (Sweeney, 6 feet 5-5/8 inches). The record for pole vaulting, +corrected to November, 1905, is 12 feet 132/100 inches (Dole); for +throwing the 16-pound hammer head, 100 feet 5 inches (Queckberner); +for putting the 16-pound shot, 49 feet 6 inches (Coe, 1905); the +standing high jump, 5 feet 5-1/2 inches (Ewry); for the running high +jump, 6 feet 5-5/8 inches (Sweeney). We also find that if we extend +our purview to include all kinds of records for physical achievement, +that not a few of the amateur records for activities involving +strength combined with rapid rhythm movement are held by young men of +twenty or even less. + +In putting the 16-pound shot under uniform conditions the record has +improved since the early years nearly 10 feet (Coe, 49 feet 6 inches, +best at present writing, 1906). Pole vaulting shows a very marked +advance culminating in 1904 (Dole, 12 feet 132/100 inches). Most +marked of all perhaps is the great advance in throwing the 16-pound +hammer. Beginning between 70 and 80 feet in the early years, the +record is now 172 feet 11 inches (Flanagan, 1904). The two-mile +bicycle race also shows marked gain, partly, of course, due to +improvement in the wheel, the early records being nearly 7 minutes, +and the best being 2 minutes 19 seconds (McLean, 1903). Some of these +are world records, and more exceed professional records.[3] These, of +course, no more indicate general improvement than the steady reduction +of time in horse-racing suggests betterment in horses generally. + +In Panhellenic games as well as at present, athleticism in its +manifold forms was one of the most characteristic expressions of +adolescent nature and needs. Not a single time or distance record of +antiquity has been preserved, although Grasberger[4] and other writers +would have us believe that in those that are comparable, ancient +youthful champions greatly excelled ours, especially in leaping and +running. While we are far from cultivating mere strength, our training +is very one-sided from the Greek norm of unity or of the ideals that +develop the body only for the salve of the soul. While gymnastics in +our sense, with apparatus, exercises, and measurements independently +of games was unknown, the ideal and motive were as different from ours +as was its method. Nothing, so far as is known, was done for +correcting the ravages of work, or for overcoming hereditary defects; +and until athletics degenerated there were Do exercises for the sole +purpose of developing muscle. + +On the whole, while modern gymnastics has done more for the trunk, +shoulders, and arms than for the legs, it is now too selfish and +ego-centric, deficient on the side of psychic impulsion, and but +little subordinated to ethical or intellectual development. Yet it +does a great physical service to all who cultivate it, and is a +safeguard of virtue and temperance. Its need is radical revision and +coordination of various cults and theories in the light of the latest +psycho-physiological science. + +Gymnastics allies itself to biometric work. The present academic zeal +for physical development is in great need of closer affiliation with +anthropometry. This important and growing department will be +represented in the ideal gymnasium of the future--First, by courses, +if not by a chair, devoted to the apparatus of measurements of human +proportions and symmetry, with a kinesological cabinet where young men +are instructed in the elements of auscultation, the use of calipers, +the sphygmograph, spirometer, plethysmograph, kinesometer to plot +graphic curves, compute average errors, and tables of percentile +grades and in statistical methods, etc. Second, anatomy, especially of +muscles, bones, heart, and skin, will be taught, and also their +physiology, with stress upon myology, the effects of exercise on the +flow of blood and lymph, not excluding the development of the upright +position, and all that it involves and implies. Third, hygiene will be +prominent and comprehensive enough to cover all that pertains to +body-keeping, regimen, sleep, connecting with school and domestic and +public hygiene--all on the basis of modern as distinct from the +archaic physiology of Ling, who, it is sufficient to remember, died in +1839, before this science was recreated, and the persistence of whose +concepts are an anomalous survival to-day. Mechanico-therapeutics, the +purpose and service of each chief kind of apparatus and exercise, the +value of work on stall bars with chest weights, of chinning, use of +the quarter-staff, somersaults, rings, clubs, dumb-bells, work with +straight and flexed knees on machinery, etc., will be taught. Fourth, +the history of gymnastics from the time of its highest development in +Greece to the present is full of interest and has a very high and not +yet developed culture value for youth. This department, both in its +practical and theoretical side, should have its full share of prizes +and scholarships to stimulate the seventy to seventy-five per cent of +students who are now unaffected by the influence of athletics. By +these methods the motivation of gymnastics, which now in large measure +goes to waste in enthusiasm, could be utilised to aid the greatly +needed intellectualization of those exercises which in their nature +are more akin to work than play. Indeed, Gutsmuths's first definition +of athletics was "work under the garb of youthful pleasure." So to +develop these courses that they could chiefly, if not entirely, +satisfy the requirements for the A.B. degree, would coordinate the +work of the now isolated curriculum of the training-schools with that +of the college and thus broaden the sphere of the latter; but besides +its culture value, which I hold very high, such a step would prepare +for the new, important, and, as we have seen, very inadequately manned +profession of physical trainers. This has, moreover, great but yet +latent and even unsuspected capacities for the morals of our academic +youth. Grote states that among the ancient Greeks one-half of all +education as devoted to the body, and Galton urges that they as much +excelled us as we do the African negro. They held that if physical +perfection was cultivated, moral and mental excellence would follow; +and that, without this, national culture rests on an insecure basis. +In our day there are many new reasons to believe that the best nations +of the future will be those which give most intelligent care to the +body. + +[Footnote 1: See H.G. Beyer. The Influence of Exercise on Growth. +American Physical Education Review, September-December, 1896, vol. I, +pp. 76-87.] + +[Footnote 2: J.H. McCurdy, Physical Training as a Profession. +Association Seminar, March, 1902, vol. 10, pp. 11-24.] + +[Footnote 3: These records are taken from the World Almanac, 1906, and +Olympic Games of 1906 at Athens. Edited by J.E. Sullivan, Commissioner +from the United States to the Olympic Games. Spalding's Athletic +Library, New York, July, 1906.] + +[Footnote 4: O.H. Jaeger, Die Gymnastik der Hellenen. Heitz, +Stuttgart 1881. L. Grasberger's great standard work, Erziehung und +Untericht im klassischen Alterthum. Wuerzburg, 1864-81, 3 vols.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +PLAY, SPORTS, AND GAMES + + +The view of Groos partial and a better explanation of play proposed as +rehearsing ancestral activities--The glory of Greek physical training, +its ideals and results--The first spontaneous movements of infancy as +keys to the past--Necessity of developing basal powers before those +that are later and peculiar to the individual--Plays that interest due +to their antiquity--Play with dolls--Play distinguished by age--Play +preferences of children and their reasons--The profound +significance of rhythm--The value of dancing and also its +significance, history, and the desirability of re-introducing +it--Fighting--Boxing--Wrestling--Bushido--Foot-ball--Military +ideals--Showing off--Cold baths--Hill climbing--The playground +movement--The psychology of play--Its relation to work. + +Play, sports, and games constitute a more varied, far older, and more +popular field. Here a very different spirit of joy and gladness rules. +Artifacts often enter but can not survive unless based upon pretty +purely hereditary momentum. Thus our first problem is to seek both the +motor tendencies and the psychic motives bequeathed to us from the +past. The view of Groos that play is practise for future adult +activities is very partial, superficial, and perverse. It ignores the +past where lie the keys to all play activities. True play never +practises what is phyletically new; and this, industrial life often +calls for. It exercises many atavistic and rudimentary functions, a +number of which will abort before maturity, but which live themselves +out in play like the tadpole's tail, that must be both developed and +used as a stimulus to the growth of legs which will otherwise never +mature. In place of this mistaken and misleading view, I regard play +as the motor habits and spirit of the past of the race, persisting in +the present, as rudimentary functions sometimes of and always akin to +rudimentary organs. The best index and guide to the stated activities +of adults in past ages is found in the instinctive, untaught, and +non-imitative plays of children which are the most spontaneous and +exact expressions of their motor needs. The young grow up into the +same forms of motor activity, as did generations that have long +preceded them, only to a limited extent; and if the form of every +human occupation were to change to-day, play would be unaffected save +in some of its superficial imitative forms. It would develop the motor +capacities, impulses, and fundamental forms of our past heritage, and +the transformation of these into later acquired adult forms is +progressively later. In play every mood and movement is instinct with +heredity. Thus we rehearse the activities of our ancestors, back we +know not how far, and repeat their life work in summative and +adumbrated ways. It is reminiscent albeit unconsciously, of our line +of descent; and each is the key to the other. The psycho-motive +impulses that prompt it are the forms in which our forebears have +transmitted to us their habitual activities. Thus stage by stage we +reenact their lives. Once in the phylon many of these activities were +elaborated in the life and death struggle for existence. Now the +elements and combinations oldest in the muscle history of the race are +rerepresented earliest in the individual, and those later follow in +order. This is why the heart of youth goes out into play as into +nothing else, as if in it man remembered a lost paradise. This is why, +unlike gymnastics, play has as much soul as body, and also why it so +makes for unity of body and soul that the proverb "Man is whole only +when he plays" suggests that the purest plays are those that enlist +both alike. To address the body predominantly strengthens unduly the +fleshy elements, and to overemphasize the soul causes weakness and +automatisms. Thus understood, play is the ideal type of exercise for +the young, most favorable for growth, and most self-regulating in both +kind and amount. For its forms the pulse of adolescent enthusiasm +beats highest. It is unconstrained and free to follow any outer or +inner impulse. The zest of it vents and satisfies the strong passion +of youth for intense erethic and perhaps orgiastic states, gives an +exaltation of self-feeling so craved that with no vicarious outlet it +often impels to drink, and best of all realizes the watchword of the +Turners, _frisch, frei, froehlich, fromm_ [Fresh, free, jovial, +pious.]. + +Ancient Greece, the history and literature of which owe their +perennial charm for all later ages to the fact that they represent the +eternal adolescence of the world, best illustrates what this +enthusiasm means for youth. Jaeger and Guildersleeve, and yet better +Grasberger, would have us believe that the Panhellenic and especially +the Olympic games combined many of the best features of a modern prize +exhibition, a camp-meeting, fair, Derby day, a Wagner festival, a +meeting of the British Association, a country cattle show, +intercollegiate games, and medieval tournament; that they were the +"acme of festive life" and drew all who loved gold and glory, and that +night and death never seemed so black as by contrast with their +splendor. The deeds of the young athletes were ascribed to the +inspiration of the gods, whose abodes they lit up with glory; and in +doing them honor these discordant states found a bond of unity. The +victor was crowned with a simple spray of laurel; cities vied with +each other for the honor of having given him birth, their walls were +taken down for his entry and immediately rebuilt; sculptors, for whom +the five ancient games were schools of posture, competed in the +representation of his form; poets gave him a pedigree reaching back to +the gods, and Pindar, who sang that only he is great who is great with +his hands and feet, raised his victory to symbolize the eternal +prevalence of good over evil. The best body implied the best mind; and +even Plato, to whom tradition gives not only one of the fairest souls, +but a body remarkable for both strength and beauty, and for whom +weakness was perilously near to wickedness, and ugliness to sin, +argues that education must be so conducted that the body can be safely +entrusted to the care of the soul and suggests, what later became a +slogan of a more degenerate gladiatorial athleticism, that to be well +and strong is to be a philosopher--_valare est philosophari_. The +Greeks could hardly conceive bodily apart from psychic education, and +physical was for the sake of mental training. A sane, whole mind could +hardly reside in an unsound body upon the integrity of which it was +dependent. Knowledge for its own sake, from this standpoint, is a +dangerous superstition, for what frees the mind is disastrous if it +does not give self-control; better ignorance than knowledge that does +not develop a motor side. Body culture is ultimately only for the sake +of the mind and soul, for body is only its other ego. Not only is all +muscle culture at the same time brain-building, but a book-worm with +soft hands, tender feet, and tough rump from much sitting, or an +anemic girl prodigy, "in the morning hectic, in the evening electric," +is a monster. Play at its best is only a school of ethics. It gives +not only strength but courage and confidence, tends to simplify life +and habits, gives energy, decision, and promptness to the will, brings +consolation and peace of mind in evil days, is a resource in trouble +and brings out individuality. + +How the ideals of physical preformed those of moral and mental +training in the land and day of Socrates is seen in the identification +of knowledge and virtue, "_Kennen und Koennen_." [To know and to have +the power to do] Only an extreme and one-sided intellectualism +separates them and assumes that it is easy to know and hard to do. +From the ethical standpoint, philosophy, and indeed all knowledge, is +the art of being and doing good, conduct is the only real subject of +knowledge, and there is no science but morals. He is the best man, +says Xenophon, who is always studying how to improve, and he is the +happiest who feels that he is improving. Life is a skill, an art like +a handicraft, and true knowledge a form of will. Good moral and +physical development are more than analogous; and where intelligence +is separated from action the former becomes mystic, abstract, and +desiccated, and the latter formal routine. Thus mere conscience and +psychological integrity and righteousness are allied and mutually +inspiring. + +Not only play, which is the purest expression of motor heredity, but +work and all exercise owe most of whatever pleasure they bring to the +past. The first influence of all right exercise for those in health is +feeling of well-being and exhilaration. This is one chief source of +the strange enthusiasm felt for many special forms of activity, and +the feeling is so strong that it animates many forms of it that are +hygienically unfit. To act vigorously from a full store of energy +gives a reflex of pleasure that is sometimes a passion and may fairly +intoxicate. Animals must move or cease growing and die. While to be +weak is to be miserable, to feel strong is a joy and glory. It gives a +sense of superiority, dignity, endurance, courage, confidence, +enterprise, power, personal validity, virility, and virtue in the +etymological sense of that noble word. To be active, agile, strong, is +especially the glory of young men. Our nature and history have so +disposed our frame that thus all physiological and psychic processes +are stimulated, products of decomposition are washed out by +oxygenation and elimination, the best reaction of all the ganglionic +and sympathetic activities is accused, and vegetative processes are +normalized. Activity may exalt the spirit almost to the point of +ecstasy, and the physical pleasure of it diffuse, irradiate, and +mitigate the sexual stress just at the age when its premature +localization is most deleterious. Just enough at the proper time and +rate contributes to permanent elasticity of mood and disposition, +gives moral self-control, rouses a love of freedom with all that that +great word means, and favors all higher human aspirations. + +In all these modes of developing our efferent powers, we conceive that +the race comes very close to the individual youth, and that ancestral +momenta animate motor neurons and muscles and preside over most of the +combinations. Some of the elements speak with a still small voice +raucous with age. The first spontaneous movements of infancy are +hieroglyphs, to most of which we have as yet no good key. Many +elements are so impacted and felted together that we can not analyze +them. Many are extinct and many perhaps made but once and only hint +things we can not apprehend. Later the rehearsals are fuller, and +their significance more intelligible, and in boyhood and youth the +correspondences are plain to all who have eyes to see. Pleasure is +always exactly proportional to the directness and force of the current +of heredity, and in play we feel most fully and intensely ancestral +joys. The pain of toil died with our forebears; its vestiges in our +play give pure delight. Its variety prompts to diversity that enlarges +our life. Primitive men and animals played, and that too has left its +traces in us. Some urge that work was evolved or degenerated from +play; but the play field broadens with succeeding generations youth is +prolonged, for play is always and everywhere the best synonym of +youth. All are young at play and only in play, and the best possible +characterization of old age is the absence of the soul and body of +play. Only senile and overspecialized tissues of brain, heart, and +muscles know it not. + +Gulick[1] has urged that what makes certain exercises more interesting +than others is to be found in the phylon. The power to throw with +accuracy and speed was once pivotal for survival, and non-throwers +were eliminated. Those who could throw unusually well best overcame +enemies, killed game, and sheltered family. The nervous and muscular +systems are organized with certain definite tendencies and have back +of them a racial setting. So running and dodging with speed and +endurance, and hitting with a club, were also basal to hunting and +fighting. Now that the need of these is leas urgent for utilitarian +purposes, they are still necessary for perfecting the organism. This +makes, for instance, baseball racially familiar, because it represents +activities that were once and for a long time necessary for survival. +We inherit tendencies of muscular cooerdination that have been of great +racial utility. The best athletic sports and games a composed of these +racially old elements, so that phylogenetic muscular history is of +great importance. Why is it, this writer asks, that a city man so +loves to sit all day and fish! It is because this interest dates back +to time immemorial. We are the sons of fishermen, and early life was +by the water's side, and this is our food supply. This explains why +certain exercises are more interesting than others. It is because they +touch and revive the deep basic emotions of the race. Thus we see that +play is not doing things to be useful later, but it is rehearsing +racial history. Plays and games change only in their external form, +but the underlying neuro-muscular activities, and also the psychic +content of them, are the same. Just as psychic states must be lived +out up through the grades, so the physical activities most be played +off, each in its own time. + +The best exercise for the young should thus be more directed to +develop the basal powers old to the race than those peculiar to the +individual, and it should enforce those psycho-neural and muscular +forms which race habit has banded down rather than insist upon those +arbitrarily designed to develop our ideas of symmetry regardless of +heredity. The best guide to the former is _interest_, zest, and +spontaneity. Hereditary moment, really determine, too, the order in +which nerve centers come into function. The oldest, racial parts come +first, and those which are higher and represent volition come in much +later.[2] As Hughlings Jackson has well shown, speech uses most of the +same organs as does eating, but those concerned with the former are +controlled from a higher level of nerve-cells. By right mastication, +deglutition, etc., we are thus developing speech organs. Thus not only +the kind but the time of forms and degrees of exercise is best +prescribed by heredity. All growth is more or less rhythmic. There are +seasons of rapid increment followed by rest and then perhaps succeeded +by a period of augmentation, and this may occur several times. +Roberts's fifth parliamentary report shows that systematic gymnastics, +which, if applied at the right age, produce such immediate and often +surprising development of lung capacity, utterly fail with boys of +twelve, because this nascent period has not yet come. Donaldson showed +that if the eyelid of a young kitten be forced open prematurely at +birth and stimulated with light, medullation was premature and +imperfect; so, too, if proper exercise is deferred too long, we know +that little result is achieved. The sequence in which the maturation +of levels, nerve areas, and bundles of fibers develop may be, as +Flechsig thinks, causal; or, according to Cajal, energy, originally +employed in growth by cell division, later passes to fiber extension +and the development of latent cells; or as in young children, the +nascent period of finger movements may stimulate that of the thumb +which comes later, and the independent movement of the two eyes, their +subsequent cooerdination, and so on to perhaps a third and yet higher +level. Thus exercise ought to develop nature's first intention and +fulfil the law of nascent periods, or else not only no good but great +harm may be done. Hence every determination of these periods is of +great practical as well as scientific importance. The following are +the chief attempts yet made to fix them, which show the significance +of adolescence. + +The doll curve reaches its point of highest intensity between eight +and nine,[3] and it is nearly ended at fifteen, although it may +persist. Children can give no better reason why they stop playing with +dolls than because other things are liked better, or they are too old, +ashamed, love real babies, etc. The Roman girl, when ripe for +marriage, hung up her childhood doll as a votive offering to Venus. +Mrs. Carlyle, who was compelled to stop, made sumptuous dresses and a +four-post bed, and made her doll die upon a funeral pyre like Dido, +after speaking her last farewell and stabbing herself with a penknife +by way of Tyrian sword. At thirteen or fourteen it is more distinctly +realized that dolls are not real, because they have no inner life or +feeling, yet many continue to play with them with great pleasure, in +secret, till well on in the teens or twenties. Occasionally single +women or married women with no children, and in rare cases even those +who have children, play dolls all their lives. Gales's[4] student +concluded that the girls who played with dolls up to or into pubescent +years were usually those who had the fewest number, that they played +with them in the most realistic manner, kept them because actually +most fond of them, and were likely to be more scientific, steady, and +less sentimental than those who dropped them early. But the instinct +that "dollifies" new or most unfit things is gone, as also the subtle +points of contact between doll play and idolatry. Before puberty dolls +are more likely to be adults; after puberty they are almost always +children or babies. There is no longer a struggle between doubt and +reality in the doll cosmos, no more abandon to the doll illusion; but +where it lingers it is a more atavistic rudiment, and just as at the +height of the fever dolls are only in small part representatives of +future children, the saying that the first child is the last doll is +probably false. Nor are doll and child comparable to first and second +dentition, and it is doubtful if children who play with dolls as +children with too great abandonment are those who make the best +mothers later, or if it has any value as a preliminary practise of +motherhood. The number of motor activities that are both inspired and +unified by this form of play and that can always be given wholesome +direction is almost incredible, and has been too long neglected both +by psychologists and teachers. Few purer types of the rehearsal by the +individual of the history of the race can probably be found even +though we can not yet analyze the many elements involved and assign to +each its phyletic correlate. + +In an interesting paper Dr. Gulick[5] divides play into three childish +periods, separated by the ages three and seven, and attempts to +characterize the plays of early adolescence from twelve to seventeen and +of later adolescence from seventeen to twenty-three. Of the first two +periods he says, children before seven rarely play games spontaneously, +but often do so under the stimulus of older persons. From seven to +twelve, games are almost exclusively individualistic and competitive, +but in early adolescence "two elements predominate--first, the plays are +predominantly team games, in which the individual is more or less +sacrificed for the whole, in which there is obedience to a captain, in +which there is cooeperation among a number for a given end, in which play +has a program and an end. The second characteristic of the period is +with reference to its plays, and there seems to be all of savage +out-of-door life--hunting, fishing, stealing, swimming, rowing, sailing, +fighting, hero-worship, adventure, love of animals, etc. This +characteristic obtains more with boys than with girls." "The plays of +adolescence are socialistic, demanding the heathen virtues of courage, +endurance, self-control, bravery, loyalty, enthusiasm." + +Croswell[6] found that among 2,000 children familiar with 700 kinds of +amusements, those involving physical exercises predominated over all +others, and that "at every age after the eighth year they were +represented as almost two to one and in the sixteenth year rose among +boys as four to one." The age of the greatest number of different +amusements is from ten to eleven, nearly fifteen being mentioned, but +for the next eight or nine years there is a steady decline of number, +and progressive specialisation occurs. The games of chase, which are +suggestive on the recapitulation theory, rise from eleven per cent in +boys of six to nineteen per cent at nine, but soon after decline, and +at sixteen have fallen to less than four per cent. Toys and original +make-believe games decline still earlier, while ball rises steadily +and rapidly to eighteen, and card and table games rise very steadily +from ten to fifteen in girls, but the increment is much less in boys. +"A third or more of all the amusements of boys just entering their +teens are games of contest--games in which the end is in one way or +another to gain an advantage one's fellows, in which the interest is n +the struggle between peers." "As children approach the teens, a +tendency arises that is well expressed by one of the girls who no +longer makes playthings but things that are useful." Parents and +society must, therefore, provide the most favorable conditions for the +kind of amusement fitting at each age. As the child grows older, +society plays a larger role in all the child's amusements, and from +the thirteenth year "amusements take on a decidedly cooeperative and +competitive character, and efforts are ore and more confined to the +accomplishments of some definite aim. The course for this period will +concentrate the effort upon fewer lines," and more time will be +devoted to each. The desire for mastery is now at its height. The +instinct is to maintain one's self independently and ask no odds. At +fourteen, especially, the impulse is, in manual training, to make +something and perhaps to cooeperate. + +McGhee[7] collected the play preferences of 15,718 children, and found +a very steady decline in running plays among girls from nine to +eighteen, but a far more rapid rise in plays of chance from eleven to +fifteen, and a very rapid rise from sixteen to eighteen. From eleven +onward with the most marked fall before fourteen, there was a distinct +decline in imitative games for girls and a slower one for boys. Games +involving rivalry increased rapidly among boys from eleven to sixteen +and still more rapidly among girls, their percentage of preference +even exceeding that of boys at eighteen, when it reached nearly +seventy per cent. With adolescence, specialization upon a few plays +was markedly increased in the teens among boys, whereas with girls in +general there were a large number of plays which were popular with +none preeminent. Even at this age the principle of organization in +games so strong with boys is very slight with girls. Puberty showed +the greatest increase of interest among pubescent girls for croquet, +and among boys for swimming, although baseball and football, the most +favored for boys, rose rapidly. Although the author does not state it, +it would seem from his data that plays peculiar to the different +seasons were most marked among boys, in part, at least, because their +activities are more out of doors. + +Ferrero and others have shown that the more intense activities of +primitive people tend to be rhythmic and with strongly automatic +features. No form of activity is more universal than the dance, which +is not only intense but may express chiefly in terms of fundamental +movements, stripped of their accessory finish and detail, every +important act, vocation, sentiment, or event in the life of man in +language so universal and symbolic that music and poetry themselves +seem to have arisen out of it. Before it became specialized much labor +was cast in rhythmic form and often accompanied by time-marking and +even tone to secure the stimulus of concert on both economic and +social principles. In the dark background of history there is now much +evidence that at some point, play, art, and work were not divorced. +They all may have sprung from rhythmic movement which is so +deep-seated in biology because it secures most joy of life with least +expense. By it Eros of old ordered chaos, and by its judicious use the +human soul is cadenced to great efforts toward high ideals. The many +work-songs to secure concerted action in lifting, pulling, stepping, +the use of flail, lever, saw, ax, hammer, hoe, loom, etc., show that +areas and thesis represent flexion and extension, that accent +originated in the acme of muscular stress, as well as how rhythm eases +work and also makes it social. Most of the old work-canticles are +lost, and machines have made work more serial, while rhythms are +obscured or imposed from without so as to limit the freedom they used +to express. Now all basal, central, or strength movements tend to be +oscillatory, automatically repetitive, or rhythmic like savage music, +as if the waves of the primeval sea whence we came still beat in them, +just as all fine peripheral and late movements tend to be serial, +special, vastly complex, end diversified. It is thus natural that +during the period of greatest strength increment in muscular +development, the rhythmic function of nearly all fundamental movements +should be strongly accentuated. At the dawn of this age boys love +marching; and, as our returns show, there is a very remarkable rise in +the passion for beating time, jigging, double shuffling, rhythmic +clapping, etc. The more prominent the factor of repetition the more +automatic and the less strenuous is the hard and new effort of +constant psychic adjustment and attention. College yells, cheers, +rowing, marching, processions, bicycling, running, tug-of-war, +calisthenics and class gymnastics with counting, and especially with +music, horseback riding, etc., are rhythmic; tennis, baseball and +football, basketball, golf, polo, etc., are less rhythmic, but are +concerted and intense. These latter emphasise the conflict factor, +best brought out in fencing, boxing, and wrestling, and lay more +stress on the psychic elements of attention and skill. The effect of +musical accompaniment, which the Swedish system wrongly rejects, is to +make the exercises more fundamental and automatic, and to +proportionately diminish the conscious effort and relieve the +neuro-muscular mechanism involved in fine movements. + +Adolescence is the golden period of nascency for rhythm. Before this +change many children have a very imperfect sense of it, and even those +who march, sing, play, or read poetry with correct and overemphasised +time marking, experience a great broadening of the horizon of +consciousness, and a marked, and, for mental power and scope, +all-conditioning increase in the carrying power of attention and the +sentence-sense. The soul now feels the beauty of cadences, good +ascension, and the symmetry of well-developed periods--and all, as I +am convinced, because this is the springtime of the strength movements +which are predominantly rhythmic. Not only does music start in time +marking, the drum being the oldest instrument, but quantity long took +precedence of sense and form of content, both melody and words coming +later. Even rhythmic tapping or beating of the foot (whence the poetic +feet of prosody and meter thus later imposed monotonous prose to make +poetry) exhilarates, makes glad the soul and inspires it to attack, +gives compulsion and a sense of unity. The psychology of rhythm shows +its basal value in cadencing the soul. We can not conceive what war, +love, and religion would be without it. The old adage that "the parent +of prose is poetry, the parent of poetry is music, the parent of music +is rhythm, and the parent of rhythm is God" seems borne out not only +in history, but by the nature of thought and attention that does not +move in a continuum, but flies and perches alternately, or on +stepping-stones and as if influenced by the tempo of the leg swinging +as a compound pendulum. + +Dancing is one of the best expressions of pure play and of the motor +needs of youth. Perhaps it is the most liberal of all forms of motor +education. Schopenhauer thought it the apex of physiological +irritability and that it made animal life most vividly conscious of +its existence and most exultant in exhibiting it. In very ancient +times China ritualised it in the spring and made it a large part of +the education of boys after the age of thirteen. Neale thinks it was +originally circular or orbicular worship, which he deems oldest. In +Japan, in the priestly Salic College of ancient Rome, in Egypt, in the +Greek Apollo cult, it was a form of worship. St. Basil advised it; St. +Gregory introduced it into religious services. The early Christian +bishops, called praesuls, led the sacred dance around the altar; and +only in 692, and again in 1617, was it forbidden in church. Neale and +others have shown how the choral processionals with all the added +charm of vestment and intonation have had far more to do in +Christianizing many low tribes, who could not understand the language +of the church, than has preaching. Savages are nearly all great +dancers, imitating every animal they know, dancing out their own +legends, with ritual sometimes so exacting that error means death. The +character of people is often learned from their dances, and Moliere +says the destiny of nations depends on them. The gayest dancers are +often among the most downtrodden and unhappy people. Some mysteries +can be revealed only in them, as holy passion-plays. If we consider +the history of secular dances, we find that some of them, when first +invented or in vogue, evoked the greatest enthusiasm. One writer says +that the polka so delighted France and England that statesmen forgot +politics. The spirit of the old Polish aristocracy still lives in the +polonaise. The gipsy dances have inspired a new school of music. The +Greek drama grew out of the evolution of the tragic chorus. National +dances like the hornpipe and reel of Scotland, the _Reihen_, of +Germany, the _rondes_ of France, the Spanish tarantella and +_chaconne_, the strathspey from the Spey Valley, the Irish jig, etc., +express racial traits. Instead of the former vast repertory, the +stately pavone, the graceful and dignified saraband, the wild +_salterrelle_, the bourree with song and strong rhythm, the light and +skippy bolero, the courtly bayedere, the dramatic plugge, gavotte, and +other peasant dances in costume, the fast and furious fandango, weapon +and military dances; in place of the pristine power to express love, +mourning, justice, penalty, fear, anger, consolation, divine service, +symbolic and philosophical conceptions, and every industry or +characteristic act of life in pantomime and gesture, we have in the +dance of the modern ballroom only a degenerate relict, with at best +but a very insignificant culture value, and too often stained with bad +associations. This is most unfortunate for youth, and for their sake a +work of rescue and revival is greatly needed; for it is perhaps, not +excepting even music, the completest language of the emotions and can +be made one of the best schools of sentiment and even will, +inculcating good states of mind and exorcising bad ones as few other +agencies have power to do. Right dancing can cadence the very soul, +give nervous poise and control, bring harmony between basal and finer +muscles, and also between feeling and intellect, body and mind. It can +serve both as an awakener and a test of intelligence, predispose the +heart against vice, and turn the springs of character toward virtue. +That its present decadent forms, for those too devitalized to dance +aright, can be demoralizing, we know in this day too well, although +even questionable dances may sometimes work off vicious propensities +in ways more harmless than those in which they would otherwise find +vent. Its utilization for and influence on the insane would be another +interesting chapter. + +Very interesting scientifically and suggestive practically is another +correspondence which I believe to be new, between the mode of +spontaneous activity in youth and that of labor in the early history +of the race. One of the most marked distinctions between savage and +civilized races is in the longer rhythm of work and relaxation. The +former are idle and lazy for days, weeks, and perhaps months, and then +put forth intense and prolonged effort in dance, hunt, warfare, +migration, or construction, sometimes dispensing with sleep and +manifesting remarkable endurance. As civilization and specialization +advance, hours become regular. The cultured man is less desultory in +all his habits, from eating and sleeping to performing social and +religious duties, although he may put forth no more aggregate energy +in a year than the savage. Women are schooled to regular work long +before men, and the difficulty of imposing civilization upon low races +is compared by Buecher[8] to that of training a eat to work when +harnessed to a dog-cart. It is not dread of fatigue but of the +monotony of method makes them hate labor. The effort of savages is +more intense and their periods of rest more prolonged and inert. +Darwin thinks all vital function bred to go in periods, as vertebrates +are descended from tidal ascidian.[9] There is indeed much that +suggests some other irregular rhythm more or less independent of day +and night, and perhaps sexual in its nature, but not lunar, and for +males. This mode of life not only preceded the industrial and +commercial period of which regularity is a prime condition, but it +lasted indefinitely longer than the latter has yet existed; during +this early time great exertion, sometimes to the point of utter +exhaustion and collapse, alternated with seasons of almost vegetative +existence. We see abundant traces of this psychosis in the muscle +habits of adolescents, and, I think, in student and particularly in +college life, which can enforce regularity only to a limited extent. +This is not reversion, but partly expression of the nature and perhaps +the needs of this stage of immaturity, and partly the same instinct of +revolt against uniformity imposed from without, which rob life of +variety and extinguish the spirit of adventure and untrammeled +freedom, and make the savage hard to break to the harness of +civilization. The hunger for fatigue, too, can become a veritable +passion and is quite distinct from either the impulse for activity for +its own sake or the desire of achievement. To shout and put forth the +utmost possible strength in crude ways is erethic intoxication at a +stage when every tissue can become erectile and seems, like the crying +of infants, to have a legitimate function in causing tension and +flushing, enlarging the caliber of blood vessels, and forcing the +blood perhaps even to the point of extravasation to irrigate newly +growing fibers, cells, and organs which atrophy if not thus fed. When +maturity is complete this need abates. If this be correct, the +phenomenon of second breath, so characteristic of adolescence, and one +factor in the inebriate's propensity, is ontogenetic expression of a +rhythm trait of a long racial period. Youth needs overexertion to +compensate for underexertion, to undersleep in order to offset +oversleep at times. This seems to be nature's provision to expand in +all directions its possibilities of the body and soul in this plastic +period when, without this occasional excess, powers would atrophy or +suffer arrest for want of use, or larger possibilities world not be +realized without this regimen peculiar to nascent periods. This is +treated more fully elsewhere. + +Perhaps next to dancing in phyletic motivation come personal +conflicts, such as wrestling, fighting, boxing, dueling, and in some +sense, hunting. The animal world is full of struggle for survival, and +primitive warfare is a wager of battle, of personal combat of foes +contesting eye to eye and hand to hand, where victory of one is the +defeat and perhaps death of the other, and where life is often staked +against life. In its more brutal forms we see one of the most +degrading of all the aspects of human nature. Burk[10] has shown how +the most bestial of these instincts survive and crop out irresistibly +in boyhood, where fights are often engaged in with desperate abandon. +Noses are bitten, ears torn, sensitive places kicked, hair pulled, +arms twisted, the head stamped on and pounded on stones, fingers +twisted, and hoodlums sometimes deliberately try to strangle, gouge +out an eye, pull off an ear, pull out the tongue, break teeth, nose, +or bones, or dislocate jaws or other joints, wring the neck, bite off +a lip, and torture in utterly nameless ways. In unrestrained anger, +man becomes a demon in love with the blood of his victim. The face is +distorted, and there are yells, oaths, animal snorts and grunts, +cries, and then exultant laughter at pain, and each is bruised, dirty, +disheveled and panting with exhaustion. For coarser natures, the +spectacle of such conflicts has an intense attraction, while some +morbid souls are scarred by a distinct phobia for everything +suggestive of even lower degrees of opposition. These instincts, more +or less developed in boyhood, are repressed in normal cases before +strength and skill are sufficiently developed to inflict serious +bodily injury, while without the reductives that orthogenetic growth +brings they become criminal. Repulsive as are these grosser and animal +manifestations of anger, its impulsion can not and should not be +eliminated, but its expression transformed and directed toward evils +that need all its antagonism. To be angry aright is a good part of +moral education, and non-resistance under all provocations is unmanly, +craven, and cowardly.[11] An able-bodied young man, who can not fight +physically, can hardly have a high and true sense of honor, and is +generally a milksop, a lady-boy, or sneak. He lacks virility, his +masculinity does not ring true, his honesty can not be sound to the +core. Hence, instead of eradicating this instinct, one of the great +problems of physical and moral pedagogy is rightly to temper and +direct it. + +Sparta sedulously cultivated it in boys; and in the great English +schools, where for generations it has been more or less tacitly +recognized, it is regulated by custom, and their literature and +traditions abound in illustrations of its man-making and often +transforming influence in ways well appreciated by Hughes and Arnold. +It makes against degeneration, the essential feature of which is +weakening of will and loss of honor. Real virtue requires enemies, and +women and effeminate and old men want placid, comfortable peace, while +a real man rejoices in noble strife which sanctifies all great causes, +casts out fear, and is the chief school of courage. Bad as is +overpugnacity, a scrapping boy is better than one who funks a fight, +and I have no patience with the sentimentality that would here "pour +out the child with the bath," but would have every healthy boy taught +boxing at adolescence if not before. The prize-ring is degrading and +brutal, but in lieu of better illustrations of the spirit of personal +contest I would interest a certain class of boys in it and try to +devise modes of pedagogic utilization of the immense store of interest +it generates. Like dancing it should be rescued from its evil +associations, and its educational force put to do moral work, even +though it be by way of individual prescriptions for specific defects +of character. At its best, it is indeed a manly art, a superb school +for quickness of eye and hand, decision, force of will, and +self-control. The moment this is lost stinging punishment follows. +Hence it is the surest of all cures for excessive irascibility and has +been found to have a most beneficent effect upon a peevish or unmanly +disposition. It has no mean theoretic side, of rules, kinds of blow +and counters, arts of drawing out and tiring an opponent, hindering +but not injuring him, defensive and offensive tactics, etc., and it +addresses chiefly the fundamental muscles in both training and +conflict. I do not underestimate the many and great difficulties of +proper purgation, but I know from both personal practise and +observation that they are not unconquerable. + +This form of personal conflict is better than dueling even in its +comparatively harmless German student form, although this has been +warmly defended by Jacob Grimm, Bismarck, and Treitschke, while +Paulsen, Professor of Philosophy and Pedagogy, and Schrempf, of +Theology, have pronounced it but a slight evil, and several Americans +have thought it better than hazing, which it makes impossible. The +dark side of dueling is seen in the hypertrophied sense of honor which +under the code of the corps becomes an intricate and fantastic thing, +prompting, according to Ziegler,[12] a club of sixteen students to +fight over two hundred duels in four weeks in Jena early in this +century. It is prone to degenerate to an artificial etiquette +demanding satisfaction for slight and unintended offenses. Although +this professor who had his own face scarred on the _mensur_, pleaded +for a student court of honor, with power to brand acts as infamous and +even to expel students, on the ground that honor had grown more +inward, the traditions in favor of dueling were too strong. The duel +had a religious romantic origin as revealing God's judgment, and means +that the victim of an insult is ready to stake body, or even life, and +this is still its ideal side. Anachronism as it now is and +degenerating readily to sport or spectacle, overpunishing what is +often mere awkwardness or ignorance, it still impresses a certain +sense of responsibility for conduct and gives some physical training, +slight and specialized though it be. The code is conventional, drawn +directly from old French military life, and is not true to the line +that separates real honor from dishonor, deliberate insult that wounds +normal self-respect from injury fancied by oversensitiveness or +feigned by arrogance; so that in its present form it is not the best +safeguard of the sacred shrine of personality against invasion of ifs +rights. If, as is claimed, it is some diversion from or fortification +against corrosive sensuality, it has generally allied itself with +excessive beer-drinking. Fencing, while an art susceptible of high +development and valuable for both pose and poise, and requiring great +quickness of eye, arm, and wrist, is unilateral and robbed of the vest +of inflicting real pain on an antagonist. + +Bushido,[13] which means military-knightly ways, designates the +Japanese conception of honor in behavior and in fighting. The youth is +inspired by the ideal of Tom Brown "to leave behind him the name of a +fellow who never bullied a little boy or turned his back on a big +one." It expresses the race ideal of justice, patriotism, and the duty +of living aright and dying nobly. It means also sympathy, pity, and +love, for only the bravest can be the tenderest, and those most in +love are most daring, and it includes politeness and the art of +poetry. Honor is a sense of personal dignity and worth, so the _bushi_ +is truthful without an oath. At the tender age of five the _samurai_ +is given a real sword, and this gives self-respect and responsibility. +At fifteen, two sharp and artistic ones, long and short, are given +him, which must be his companions for life. They were made by a smith +whose shop is a sanctuary and who begins his work with prayer. They +have the finest hilts and scabbards, and are besung as invested with a +charm or spell, and symbolic of loyalty and self-control, for they +must never be drawn lightly. He is taught fencing, archery, +horsemanship, tactics, the spear, ethics and literature, anatomy, for +offence and defense; he must be indifferent to money, hold his life +cheap beside honor, and die if it is gone. This chivalry is called the +soul of Japan, and if it fades life is vulgarised. It is a code of +ethics and physical training. + +Football is a magnificent game if played on honor. An English tennis +champion was lately playing a rubber game with the American champion. +They were even and near the end when the American made a bad fluke +which would have lost this country its championship. The English +player, scorning to win on an accident, intentionally made a similar +mistake that the best man might win. The chief evil of modern American +football which now threatens its suppression in some colleges is the +lust to win at any price, and results in tricks and secret practise. +These sneaky methods impair the sentiment of honor which is the best +and most potent of all the moral safeguards of youth, so that a young +man can not be a true gentleman on the gridiron. This ethical +degeneration is far worse than all the braises, sprains, broken bones +and even deaths it causes. + +Wrestling is a form of personal encounter which in antiquity reached a +high development, and which, although now more known and practised as +athletics of the body than of the soul, has certain special +disciplinary capacities in its various forms. It represents the most +primitive type of the struggle of unarmed and unprotected man with +man. Purged of its barbarities, and in its Greco-Roman form and +properly subject to rules, it cultivates more kinds of movements than +any other form--for limbs, trunk, neck, hand, foot, and all in the +upright and in every prone position. It, too, has its manual of +feints, holds, tricks, and specialties, and calls out wariness, +quickness, strength, and shiftiness. Victory need involve no cruelty +or even pain to the vanquished. The very closeness of body to body, +emphasizing flexor rather than extensor arm muscles, imparts to it a +peculiar tone, gives it a vast variety of possible activities, +developing many alternatives at every stage, and tempts to many +undiscovered forms of permanent mayhem. Its struggle is usually longer +and less interrupted by pauses than pugilism, and its situations and +conclusions often develop slowly, so that all in all, its character +among contests is unique. As a school of posture for art, its +varieties are extremely manifold and by no means developed, for it +contains every kind of emphasis of every part and calls out every +muscle group and attitude of the human body; hence its training is +most generic and least specialized, and victories have been won by +very many kinds of excellence. + +Perhaps nothing is more opposed to the idea of a gentleman than the +_saeva animi tempestas_ [Fierce tempest of the soul] of anger. A testy, +quarrelsome, mucky humor is antisocial, and an outburst of rage is +repulsive. Even non-resistance, turning the other cheek, has its +victories and may be a method of moral combat. A strong temper well +controlled and kept in leash makes a kinetic character; but in view of +bullying, unfair play, cruel injustice to the weak and defenseless, of +outrageous wrong that the law can not reach, patience and forbearance +may cease to be virtues, and summary redress may have a distinct +advantage to the ethical nature of man and to social order, and the +strenuous soul must fight or grow stagnant or flabby. If too +repressed, righteous indignation may turn to sourness and sulks, and +the disposition be spoiled. Hence the relief and exhilaration of an +outbreak that often clears the psychic atmosphere like a thunderstorm, +and gives the "peace that passeth understanding" so often dilated on +by our correspondents. Rather than the abject fear of making enemies +whatever the provocation, I would praise those whose best title of +honor is the kind of enemies they make. Better even an occasional nose +dented by a fist, a broken bone, a rapier-scarred face, or even +sometimes the sacrifice of the life of one of our best academic youth +than stagnation, general cynicism and censoriousness, bodily and +psychic cowardice, and moral corruption, if this indeed be, as it +sometimes is, its real alternative. + +So closely are love and war connected that not only is individual +pugnacity greatly increased at the period of sexual maturity, when +animals acquire or develop horns, fangs, claws, spurs, and weapons of +offense and defense, but a new spirit of organization arises which +makes teams possible or more permanent. Football, baseball, cricket, +etc., and even boating can become schools of mental and moral +training. First, the rules of the game are often intricate, and to +master and observe them effectively is no mean training for the mind +controlling the body. These are steadily being revised and improved, +and the reasons for each detail of construction and conduct of the +game require experience and insight into human nature. Then the +subordination of each member to the whole and to a leader cultivates +the social and cooeperative instincts, while the honor of the school, +college, or city, which each team represents, is confided to each and +all. Group loyalty in Anglo-Saxon games, which shows such a marked +increment in cooerdination and self-subordination at the dawn of +puberty as to constitute a distinct change in the character of sports +at this age, can be so utilized as to develop a spirit of service and +devotion not only to town, country, and race, but to God and the +church. Self must be merged and a sportsmanlike spirit cultivated that +prefers defeat to tricks and secret practise, and a clean game to the +applause of rooters and fans, intent only on victory, however won. The +long, hard fight against professionalism that brings in husky muckers, +who by every rule of true courtesy and chivalry belong outside +academic circles, scrapping and underhand advantages, is a sad comment +on the character and spirit of these games, and eliminates the best of +their educational advantages. The necessity of intervention, which has +imposed such great burdens on faculties and brought so much friction +with the frenzy of scholastic sentiment in the hot stage of seasonal +enthusiasms, when fanned to a white heat by the excessive interest of +friends and patrons and the injurious exploitation of the press, bears +sad testimony to the strength and persistence of warlike instincts +from our heredity. But even thus the good far predominates. The +elective system has destroyed the class games, and our institutions +have no units like the English colleges to be pitted against each +other, and so colleges grow, an ever smaller percentage of students +obtain the benefit of practise on the teams, while electioneering +methods often place second-best men in place of the best. But both +students and teachers are slowly learning wisdom in the dear school of +experience. On the whole, there is less license in "breaking training" +and in celebrating victories, and even at their worst, good probably +predominates, while the progress of recent years bids us hope. + +Finally, military ideals and methods of psycho-physical education are +helpful regulations of the appetite for combat, and on the whole more +wholesome and robust than those which are merely esthetic. Marching in +step gives proper and uniform movement of legs, arms, and carriage of +body; the manual of arms, with evolution and involution of figures in +the ranks, gives each a corporate feeling of membership, and involves +care of personal appearance and accouterments, while the uniform +levels social distinction in dress. For the French and Italian and +especially the German and Russian adolescent of the lower classes, the +two or three years of compulsory military service is often compared to +an academic course, and the army is called, not without some +justification, the poor man's university. It gives severe drill, +strict discipline, good and regular hours, plain but wholesome fare +and out-of-door exercise, exposure, travel, habits of neatness, many +useful knacks and devices, tournaments and mimic or play battles; +these, apart from its other functions, make this system a great +promoter of national health and intelligence. Naval schools for +midshipmen, who serve before the mast, schools on board ship that +visit a wide curriculum of ports each year, cavalry schools, where +each boy is given a horse to care for, study and train, artillery +courses and even an army drill-master in an academy, or uniform, and a +few exterior features of soldierly life, all give a distinct character +to the spirit of any institution. The very fancy of being in any sense +a soldier opens up a new range of interests too seldom utilized; and +tactics, army life and service, military history, battles, patriotism, +the flag, and duties to country, should always erect a new standard of +honor. Youth should embrace every opportunity that offers in this +line, and instruction should greatly increase the intellectual +opportunities created by every interest in warfare. It would be easy +to create pregnant courses on how soldiers down the course of history +have lived, thought, felt, fought, and died, how great battles were +won and what causes triumphed in them, and to generalize many of the +best things taught in detail in the best schools of war in different +grades and lands. + +A subtle but potent intersexual influence is among the strongest +factors of all adolescent sport. Male birds and beasts show off their +charms of beauty and accomplishment in many a liturgy of love antics +in the presence of the female. This instinct seems somehow continuous +with the growth of ornaments in the mating season. Song, tumbling, +balking, mock fights, etc., are forms of animal courtship. The boy who +turns cartwheels past the home of the girl of his fancy, is brilliant, +brave, witty, erect, strong in her presence, and elsewhere dull and +commonplace enough, illustrates the same principle. The true cake-walk +as seen in the South is perhaps the purest expression of this impulse +to courtship antics seen in man, but its irradiations are many and +pervasive. The presence of the fair sex gives tonicity to youth's +muscles and tension to his arteries to a degree of which he is rarely +conscious. Defeat in all contests is more humiliating and victory more +glorious thereby. Each sex is constantly passing the examination of +the other, and each judges the other by standards different from its +own. Alas for the young people who are not different with the other +sex from what they are with their own!--and some are transformed into +different beings. Achievement proclaims ability to support, defend, +bring credit and even fame to the object of future choice, and no good +point is lost. Physical force and skill, and above all, victory and +glory, make a hero and invest him with a romantic glamour, which, even +though concealed by conventionality or etiquette, is profoundly felt +and makes the winner more or less irresistible. The applause of men +and of mates is sweet and even intoxicating, but that of ladies is +ravishing. By universal acclaim the fair belong to the brave, strong, +and victorious. This stimulus is wholesome and refining. As is shown +later, a bashful youth often selects a maiden onlooker and is +sometimes quite unconsciously dominated in his every movement by a +sense of her presence, stranger and apparently unnoticed though she +be, although in the intellectual work of coeducation girls are most +influenced thus. In athletics this motive makes for refinement and +good form. The ideal knight, however fierce and terrible, must not be +brutal, but show capacity for fine feeling, tenderness, magnanimity, +and forbearance. Evolutionists tell us that woman has domesticated and +educated savage man and taught him all his virtues by exercising her +royal prerogative of selecting in her mate just those qualities that +pleased her for transmission to future generations and eliminating +others distasteful to her. If so, she is still engaged in this work as +much as ever, and in his dull, slow way man feels that her presence +enforces her standards, abhorrent though it would be to him to +compromise in one iota his masculinity. Most plays and games in which +both sexes participate have some of the advantages with some of the +disadvantages of coeducation. Where both are partners rather than +antagonists, there is less eviration. A gallant man would do his best +to help, but his worst not to beat a lady. Thus, in general, the +latter performs her best in her true rule of sympathetic spectator +rather than as fellow player, and is now an important factor in the +physical education of adolescents. + +How pervasive this femininity is, which is slowly transforming our +schools, is strikingly seen in the church. Gulick holds that the +reason why only some seven per cent of the young men of the country +are in the churches, while most members and workers are women, is that +the qualities demanded are the feminine ones of love, rest, prayer, +trust, desire for fortitude to endure, a sense of atonement--traits +not involving ideals that most stir young men. The church has not yet +learned to appeal to the more virile qualities. Fielding Hall[14] asks +why Christ and Buddha alone of great religious teachers were rejected +by their own race and accepted elsewhere. He answers that these mild +beliefs of peace, nonresistance, and submission, rejected by virile +warrior races, Jews and ancient Hindus, were adopted where women were +free and led in these matters. Confucianism, Mohammedanism, etc., are +virile, and so indigenous, and in such forms of faith and worship +women have small place. This again suggests how the sex that rules the +heart controls men. + +Too much can hardly be said in favor of cold baths and swimming at +this age. Marro[15] quotes Father Kneipp, and almost rivals his +hydrotherapeutic enthusiasm. Cold bathing sends the blood inward +partly by the cold which contracts the capillaries of the skin and +tissue immediately underlying it, and partly by the pressure of the +water over all the dermal surface, quickens the activity of kidneys, +lungs, and digestive apparatus, and the reactive glow is the best +possible tonic for dermal circulation. It is the best of all +gymnastics for the nonstriated or involuntary muscles and for the +heart and blood vessels. This and the removal of the products of +excretion preserve all the important dermal functions which are so +easily and so often impaired in modern life, lessen the liability to +skin diseases, promote freshness of complexion; and the moral effects +of plunging into cold and supporting the body in deep water is not +inconsiderable in strengthening a spirit of hardihood and reducing +overtenderness to sensory discomforts. The exercise of swimming is +unique in that nearly all the movements and combinations are such as +are rarely used otherwise, and are perhaps in a sense ancestral and +liberal rather than directly preparatory for future avocations. Its +stimulus for heart and lungs is, by general consent of all writers +upon the subject, most wholesome and beneficial. Nothing so directly +or quickly reduces to the lowest point the plethora of the sex organs. +The very absence of clothes and running on the beach is exhilarating +and gives a sense of freedom. Where practicable it is well to dispense +with bathing suits, even the scantiest. The warm bath tub is +enfeebling and degenerative, despite the cold spray later, while the +free swim in cold water is most invigorating. + +Happily, city officials, teachers, and sanitarians are now slowly +realizing the great improvement in health and temper that comes from +bathing and are establishing beach and surf, spray, floating and +plunge summer baths and swimming pools; often providing instruction +even in swimming in clothes, undressing in the water, treading water, +and rescue work, free as well as fee days, bathing suits, and, in +London, places for nude bathing after dark; establishing time and +distance standards with certificates and even prizes; annexing +toboggan slides, swings, etc., realizing that in both the preference +of youth and in healthful and moral effects, probably nothing outranks +this form of exercise. Such is its strange fascination that, according +to one comprehensive census, the passion to get to the water outranks +all other causes of truancy, and plays an important part in the +motivation of runaways. In the immense public establishment near San +Francisco, provided by private munificence, there are accommodations +for all kinds of bathing in hot and cold and in various degrees of +fresh and salt water, in closed spaces and in the open sea, for small +children and adults, with many appliances and instructors, all in one +great covered arena with seats in an amphitheater for two thousand +spectators, and many adjuncts and accessories. So elsewhere the +presence of visitors is now often invited and provided for. Sometimes +wash-houses and public laundries are annexed. Open hours and longer +evenings and seasons are being prolonged. + +Prominent among the favorite games of early puberty and the years just +before are those that involve passive motion and falling, like +swinging in its many forms, including the May-pole and single rope +varieties. Mr. Lee reports that children wait late in the evening and +in cold weather for a turn at a park swing. Psychologically allied to +these are wheeling and skating. Places for the latter are now often +provided by the fire department, which in many cities floods hundreds +of empty lots. Ponds are cleared of snow and horse-plowed, perhaps by +the park commission, which often provides lights and perhaps ices the +walks and streets for coasting, erects shelters, and devises space +economy for as many diamonds, bleachers, etc., as possible. Games of +hitting, striking, and throwing balls and other objects, hockey, +tennis, all the courts of which are usually crowded, golf and croquet, +and sometimes fives, cricket, bowling, quoits, curling, etc., have +great "thumogenic" or emotional power. + +Leg exercise has perhaps a higher value than that of any other part. +Man is by definition an upright being, but only after a long +apprenticeship.[16] Thus the hand was freed from the necessity of +locomotion and made the servant of the mind. Locomotion overcomes the +tendency to sedentary habits in modern schools and life, and helps the +mind to helpful action, so that a peripatetic philosophy is more +normal than that of the easy chair and the study lamp. Hill-climbing +is unexcelled as a stimulus at once of heart, lungs, and blood. If +Hippocrates is right, inspiration is possible only on a mountain-top. +Walking, running, dancing, skating, coasting are also alterative and +regulative of sex, and there is a deep and close though not yet fully +explained reciprocity between the two. Arm work is relatively too +prominent a feature in gymnasia. Those who lead excessively sedentary +lives are prone to be turbulent and extreme in both passion and +opinion, as witness the oft-adduced revolutionary disposition of +cobblers. + +The play problem is now fairly open and is vast in its relation to +many other things. Roof playgrounds, recreation piers, schoolyards and +even school-buildings, open before and after school hours; excursions +and outings of many kinds and with many purposes, which seem to +distinctly augment growth; occupation during the long vacation when, +beginning with spring, most juvenile crime is committed; theatricals, +which according to some police testimony lessen the number of juvenile +delinquents; boys' clubs with more or less self-government of the +George Junior Republic and other types, treated in another chapter; +nature-study; the distinctly different needs and propensities of both +good and evil in different nationalities; the advantages of playground +fences and exclusion, their disciplinary worth, and their value as +resting places; the liability that "the boy without a playground will +become the father without a job"; the relation of play and its slow +transition to manual and industrial education at the savage age when a +boy abhors all regular occupation; the necessity of exciting interest, +not by what is done for boys, but by what they do; the adjustment of +play to sex; the determination of the proper average age of maximal +zest in and good from sandbox, ring-toss, bean-bag, shuffle-board, peg +top, charity, funeral play, prisoner's base, hill-dill; the value and +right use of apparatus, and of rabbits, pigeons, bees, and a small +menagerie in the playground; tan-bark, clay, the proper alternation of +excessive freedom, that often turns boys stale through the summer, +with regulated activities; the disciplined "work of play" and +sedentary games; the value of the washboard rubbing and of the hand +and knee exercise of scrubbing, which a late writer would restore for +all girls with clever and Greek-named play apparatus; as well as +digging, shoveling, tamping, pick-chopping, and hod-carrying exercises +in the form of games for boys; the relations of women's clubs, +parents' clubs, citizens' leagues and unions, etc., to all this +work--such are the practical problems. + +The playground movement encounters its chief obstacles in the most +crowded and slum districts, where its greatest value and success was +expected for boys in the early teens, who without supervision are +prone to commit abuses upon property and upon younger children,[17] +and are so disorderly as to make the place a nuisance, and who resent +the "fathering" of the police, without, at least, the minimum control +of a system of permits and exclusions. If hoodlums play at all, they +become infatuated with baseball and football, especially punting; they +do not take kindly to the soft large ball of the Hall House or the +Civic League, and prefer at first scrub games with individual +self-exhibition to organized teams. Lee sees the "arboreal instincts +of our progenitors" in the very strong propensity of boys from ten to +fourteen to climb in any form; to use traveling rings, generally +occupied constantly to their fullest extent; to jump from steps and +catch a swinging trapeze; to go up a ladder and slide down poles; to +use horizontal and parallel bars. The city boy has plenty of daring at +this age, but does not know what he can do and needs more supervision +than the country youth. The young tough is commonly present, and +though admired and copied by younger boys, it is, perhaps, as often +for his heroic as for his bad traits. + +Dr. Sargent and others have well pointed out that athletics afford a +wealth of new and profitable topics for discussion and enthusiasm +which helps against the triviality and mental vacuity into which the +intercourse of students is prone to lapse. It prompts to discussion of +diet and regimen. It gives a new standard of honor. For a member of a +team to break training would bring reprobation and ostracism, for he +is set apart to win fame for his class or college. It supplies a +splendid motive against all errors and vices that weaken or corrupt +the body. It is a wholesome vent for the reckless courage that would +otherwise go to disorder or riotous excess. It supplies new and +advantageous topics for compositions and for terse, vigorous, and +idiomatic theme-writing, is a great aid to discipline, teaches respect +for deeds rather than words or promises, lays instructors under the +necessity of being more interesting, that their work be not jejune or +dull by contrast; again the business side of managing great contests +has been an admirable school for training young men to conduct great +and difficult financial operations, sometimes involving $100,000 or +more, and has thus prepared some for successful careers. It furnishes +now the closest of all links between high school and college, reduces +the number of those physically unfit for college, and should give +education generally a more real and vigorous ideal. Its obvious +dangers are distraction from study and overestimation of the value of +victory, especially in the artificial glamours which the press and the +popular furor give to great games; unsportsmanlike secret tricks and +methods, over-emphasis of combative and too stalwart impulses, and a +disposition to carry things by storm, by rush-line tactics; friction +with faculties, and censure or neglect of instructors who take +unpopular sides on hot questions; action toward license after games, +spasmodic excitement culminating in excessive strain for body and +mind, with alternations of reaction; "beefiness"; overdevelopment of +the physical side of life, and, in some cases, premature features of +senility in later life, undergrowth of the accessory motor parts and +powers, and erethic diathesis that makes steady and continued mental +toil seem monotonous, dull, and boresome. + +The propensity to codify sports, to standardize the weight and size of +their implements, and to reduce them to what Spencer calls +regimentation, is a outcrop of uniformitarianism that works against +that individuation which is one of the chief advantages of free play. +This, to be sure, has developed old-fashioned rounders to modern +baseball, and this is well, but it is seen in the elaborate Draconian +laws, diplomacy, judicial and legislative procedures, concerning +"eligibility, transfer, and even sale of players." In some games +international conformity is gravely discussed. Even where there is no +tyranny and oppression, good form is steadily hampering nature and the +free play of personality. Togs and targets, balls and bats, rackets +and oars are graded or numbered, weighed, and measured, and every +emergency is legislated on and judged by an autocratic martinet, +jealous of every prerogative and conscious of his dignity. All this +separates games from the majority and makes for specialism and +professionalism. Not only this, but men are coming to be sized up for +hereditary fitness in each point and for each sport. Runners, +sprinters, and jumpers,[18] we are told, on the basis of many careful +measurements, must be tall, with slender bodies, narrow but deep +chests, longer legs than the average for their height, the lower leg +being especially long, with small calf, ankle, and feet, small arms, +narrow hips, with great power of thoracic inflation, and thighs of +small girth. Every player must be studied by trainers for ever finer +individual adjustments. His dosage of work must be kept well within +the limits of his vitality, and be carefully adjusted to his +recuperative power. His personal nascent periods must be noted, and +initial embarrassment carefully weeded out. + +The field of play is as wide as life and its varieties far outnumber +those of industries and occupations in the census. Plays and games +differ in seasons, sex, and age. McGhee[19] has shown on the basis of +some 8,000 children, that running plays are pretty constant for boys +from six to seventeen, but that girls are always far behind boys and +run steadily less from eight to eighteen. In games of choice, boys +showed a slight rise at sixteen and seventeen, and girls a rapid +increase at eleven and a still more rapid one after sixteen. In games +of imitation girls excel and show a marked, as boys do a slight, +pubescent fall. In those games involving rivalry boys at first greatly +excel girls, but are overtaken by the latter in the eighteenth year, +both showing marked pubescent increment. Girls have the largest number +of plays and specialise on a few less than boys, and most of these +plays are of the unorganized kinds. Johnson[20] selected from a far +larger number 440 plays and games and arranged the best of them in a +course by school grades, from the first to the eighth, inclusive, and +also according to their educational value as teaching observation, +reading and spelling, language, arithmetic, geography, history, and +biography, physical training, and specifically as training legs, hand, +arm, back, waist, abdominal muscles, chest, etc. Most of our best +games are very old and, Johnson thinks, have deteriorated. But +children are imitative and not inventive in their games, and easily +learn new ones. Since the Berlin Play Congress in 1894 the sentiment +has grown that these are of national importance and are preferable to +gymnastics both for soul and body. Hence we have play-schools, +teachers, yards, and courses, both for their own value and also to +turn on the play impulse to aid in the drudgery of school work. +Several have thought that a well-rounded, liberal education could be +given by plays and games alone on the principle that there is no +profit where there is no pleasure or true euphoria. + +Play is motor poetry. Too early distinction between play and work +should not be taught. Education perhaps should really begin with +directing childish sports aright. Froebel thought it the purest and +most spiritual activity of childhood, the germinal leaves of all later +life. Schooling that lacks recreation favors dulness, for play makes +the mind alert and its joy helps all anabolic activities. Says +Brinton, "the measure of value of work is the amount of play there is +in it, and the measure of value of play is the amount of work there is +in it." Johnson adds that "it is doubtful if a great man ever +accomplished his life work without having reached a play interest in +it." Sully[21] deplores the increase of "agolasts" or "non-laughers" +in our times in merry old England[22] every one played games; and +laughter, their natural accompaniment, abounded. Queen Elizabeth's +maids of honor played tag with hilarity, but the spirit of play with +full abandon seems taking its departure from our overworked, serious, +and tons, age. To requote Stevenson with variation, as _laborari_, [To +labor] so _ludere, et joculari orare sunt_. [To play and to jest are +to pray] Laughter itself, as Kuehne long ago showed, is one of the most +precious forms of exercise, relieving the arteries of their +tension.[23] + +The antithesis between play and work is generally wrongly conceived, +for the difference is essentially in the degree of strength of the +psycho-physic motivations. The young often do their hardest work in +play. With interest, the most repellent tasks become pure sport, as in +the case Johnson reports of a man who wanted a pile of stone thrown +into a ditch and, by kindling a fire in the ditch and pretending the +stones were buckets of water, the heavy and long-shirked job was done +by tired boys with shouting and enthusiasm. Play, from one aspect of +it, is superfluous energy over and above what is necessary to digest, +breathe, keep the heart and organic processes going; and most children +who can not play, if they have opportunity, can neither study nor work +without overdrawing their resources of vitality. Bible psychology +conceives the fall of man as the necessity of doing things without +zest, and this is not only ever repeated but now greatly emphasized +when youth leaves the sheltered paradise of play to grind in the mills +of modern industrial civilization. The curse is overcome only by those +who come to love their tasks and redeem their toil again to play. +Play, hardly less than work, can be to utter exhaustion; and because +it draws upon older stores and strata of psycho-physic impulsion its +exhaustion may even more completely drain our kinetic resources, if it +is too abandoned or prolonged. Play can do just as hard and painful +tasks as work, for what we love is done with whole and undivided +personality. Work, as too often conceived, is all body and no soul, +and makes for duality and not totality. Its constraint is external, +mechanical, or it works by fear and not love. Not effort but zestless +endeavor is the tragedy of life. Interest and play are one and +inseparable as body and soul. Duty itself is not adequately conceived +and felt if it is not pleasure, and is generally too feeble and fitful +in the young to awaken much energy or duration of action. Play is from +within from congenital hereditary impulsion. It is the best of all +methods of organizing instincts. Its cathartic or purgative function +regulates irritability, which may otherwise be drained or vented in +wrong directions, exactly as Breuer[24] shows psychic traumata may, if +overtense, result in "hysterical convulsions." It is also the best +form of self-expression; and its advantage is variability, following +the impulsion of the idle, perhaps hyperemic, and overnourished +centers most ready to act. It involves play illusion and is the great +agent of unity and totalization of body and soul, while its social +function develops solidarity and unison of action between individuals. +The dances, feasts, and games of primitive people, wherein they +rehearse hunting and war and act and dance out their legends, bring +individuals and tribes together.[25] Work is menial, cheerless, +grinding, regular, and requires more precision and accuracy and, +because attended with less ease and pleasure and economy of movement, +is more liable to produce erratic habits. Antagonistic as the forms +often are, it may be that, as Carr says, we may sometimes so suffuse +work with the play spirit, and _vice versa_, that the present +distinction between work and play will vanish, the transition will be +less tragic and the activities of youth will be slowly systematised +into a whole that better fits his nature and needs; or, if not this, +we may at least find the true proportion and system between drudgery +and recreation. + +The worst product of striving to do things with defective psychic +impulsion is fatigue in its common forms, which slows down the pace, +multiplies errors and inaccuracies, and develops slovenly habits, +ennui, flitting will specters, velleities and caprices, and +neurasthenic symptoms generally. It brings restlessness, and a +tendency to many little heterogeneous, smattering efforts that weaken +the will and leave the mind like a piece of well-used blotting paper, +covered with traces and nothing legible. All beginnings are easy, and +only as we leave the early stages of proficiency behind and press on +in either physical or mental culture and encounter difficulties, do +individual differences and the tendency of weak will, to change and +turn to something else increase. Perhaps the greatest disparity +between men is the power to make a long concentrative, persevering +effort, for _In der Beschraenkung zeigt sich der Meister_ [The master +shows himself in limitation]. Now no kind or line of culture is +complete till it issues in motor habits, and makes a well-knit soul +texture that admits concentration series in many directions and that +can bring all its resources to bear at any point. The brain +unorganized by training has, to recur to Richter's well-worn aphorism, +saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal, or all the ingredients of gunpowder, +but never makes a grain of it because they never get together. Thus +willed action is the language of complete men and the goal of +education. When things are mechanized by right habituation, there is +still further gain; for not only is the mind freed for further and +higher work, but this deepest stratum of motor association is a plexus +that determines not only conduct and character, but even beliefs. The +person who deliberates is lost, if the intellect that doubts and +weighs alternatives is less completely organised than habits. All will +culture is intensive and should safeguard us against the chance +influence of life and the insidious danger of great ideas in small and +feeble minds. Now fatigue, personal and perhaps racial, is just what +arrests in the incomplete and mere memory or noetic stage. It makes +weak bodies that command, and not strong ones that obey. It divorces +knowing and doing, _Kennen_ and _Koennen_, a separation which the +Greeks could not conceive because for them knowledge ended in skill or +was exemplified in precepts and proverbs that were so clear cut that +the pain of violating them was poignant. Ideas must be long worked +over till life speaks as with the rifle and not with the shotgun, and +still less with the water hose. The purest thought, if true, is only +action repressed to be ripened to more practical form. Not only do +muscles come before mind, will before intelligence, and sound ideas +rest on a motor basis, but all really useless knowledge tends to be +eliminated as error or superstition. The roots of play lie close to +those of creative imagination and idealism. + +The opposite extreme is the factitious and superficial motivation of +fear, prizes, examinations, artificial and immediate rewards and +penalties, which can only tattoo the mind and body with conventional +patterns pricked in, but which lead an unreal life in the soul because +they have no depth of soil in nature or heredity. However precious and +coherent in themselves, all subject-matters thus organized are mere +lugs, crimps, and frills. All such culture is spurious, unreal, and +parasitic. It may make a scholastic or sophistic mind, but a worm is +at the root and, with a dim sense of the vanity of all knowledge that +does not become a rule of life, some form of pessimism is sure to +supervene in every serious soul. With age a civilization accumulates +such impedimenta, traditional flotsam and jetsam, and race fatigue +proceeds with equal step with its increasing volume. Immediate +utilities are better, but yet not so much better than acquisitions +that have no other than a school or examination value. If, as Ruskin +says, all true work is praise, all true play is love and prayer. +Instil into a boy's soul learning which he sees and feels not to have +the highest worth and which can not become a part of his active life +and increase it, and his freshness, spontaneity, and the fountains of +play slowly run dry in him, and his youth fades to early desiccation. +The instincts, feelings, intuitions, the work of which is always play, +are superseded by method, grind, and education by instruction which is +only an effort to repair the defects of heredity, for which, at its +best, it is vulgar, pinchbeck substitute. The best play is true +genius, which always comes thus into the world, and has this way of +doing its work, and all the contents of the memory pouches is luggage +to be carried rather than the vital strength that carries burdens. +Grosswell says that children are young because they play, and not +_vice versa_; and he might have added, men grow old because they stop +playing, and not conversely, for play is, at bottom, growth, and at +the top of the intellectual scale it is the eternal type of research +from sheer love of truth. Home, school, church, state, civilization, +are measured in one supreme scale of values, viz., whether and how, +for they aid in bringing youth to its fullest maturity. Even vice, +crime, and decline are often only arrest or backsliding or reversion. +National and racial decline beginning in eliminating one by one the +last and highest styles of development of body and mind, mental +stimulus of excessive dosage lowers general nutrition. A psychologist +that turns his back on mere subtleties and goes to work in a life of +service has here a great opportunity, and should not forget, as Horace +Mann said, "that for all that grows, one former is worth one hundred +reformers." + +[Footnote 1: Interest in Relation to Muscular Exercise. American +Physical Education Review, June, 1902, vol. 7, pp. 57-65.] + +[Footnote 2: The Influence of Exercise upon Growth by Frederic Burk. +American Physical Education Review, December, 1899, vol. 4, pp. +340-349.] + +[Footnote 3: A Study of Dolls, by G. Stanley Hall and A.C. Ellis. +Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1896, vol. 4, pp. 129-175.] + +[Footnote 4: Studies in Imagination, by Lilian H. Chalmers. +Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 111-123.] + +[Footnote 5: Some Psychical Aspects of Physical Exercise. Popular +Science Monthly, October, 1898, vol. 53, pp. 703-805.] + +[Footnote 6: Amusements of Worcester School Children. Pedagogical +Seminary, September, 1899, vol. 6, pp. 314-371.] + +[Footnote 7: A Study in the Play Life of Some South Carolina Children. +Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 439-478.] + +[Footnote 8: Arbeit und Rythmus. Trubner, Leipzig, 1896.] + +[Footnote 9: Descent of Man. D. Appleton and Co., 1872, vol. 1, chap. +vi, p. 204 _et seq_] + +[Footnote 10: Teasing and Bullying. Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1897, +vol. 4, pp. 336-371.] + +[Footnote 11: See my Study of Anger. American Journal of Psychology, +July, 1899, vol. 10, pp. 516-591.] + +[Footnote 12: Der deutsche Student am Ende des 19 Jahrhunderts, 6th +ed., Goeschen, Leipzig, 1896. See also H. P. Shelden: History and +Pedagogy of American Student Societies, New York, 1901, p. 31 _et +seq_.] + +[Footnote 13: Bushido: The Soul of Japan. An exposition of Japanese +thought, by Inazo Nitobe. New York, 1905, pp. 203 _et seq_.] + +[Footnote 14: The Hearts of Men. Macmillan, 1901, chap. xxii.] + +[Footnote 15: La Puberte. Schleicher Freres, editeurs, Paris, 1902.] + +[Footnote 16: See A.W. Trettien. Creeping and Walking. American +Journal of Psychology, October, 1900, vol. 12, pp. 1-57.] + +[Footnote 17: Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy, by Joseph Lee. +Macmillan, New York, 1902, chaps. x and xi.] + +[Footnote 18: C.O. Bernies. Physical Characteristics of the Runner and +Jumper. American Physical Education Review, September, 1900, vol. 5, +pp. 235-245.] + +[Footnote 19: A Study in the Play Life of some South Carolina +Children. Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 459-478.] + +[Footnote 20: Education by Plays and Games. Pedagogical Seminary, +October, 1894, vol. 3, pp. 97-133.] + +[Footnote 21: An Essay on Laughter. Longmans, Green and Co., London, +1902, p. 427 _et seq_.] + +[Footnote 22: See Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, 3 +Vols., London, 1883.] + +[Footnote 23: Psychology of Tickling, Laughing, and the Comic, by G. +Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin. American Journal of Psychology, +October, 1897, vol. 9, pp. 1-41.] + +[Footnote 24: I. Breuer and S. Freud. Studien ueber Hysterie. F. +Deuticke, Wien, 1895. See especially p. 177 _et seq_.] + +[Footnote 25: See a valuable discussion by H. A. Carr. The Survival +Values of Play, Investigations of the Department of Psychology and +Education of the University of Colorado, Arthur Allin, Ph.D., Editor, +November, 1902, vol. 1, pp. 3-47] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +FAULTS, LIES, AND CRIMES + + +Classifications of children's faults--Peculiar children--Real faults +as distinguished from interference with the teacher's ease--Truancy, +its nature and effects--The genesis of crime--The lie, its classes and +relations to imagination--Predatory activities--Gangs--Causes of +crime--The effects of stories of crime--Temibility--Juvenile crime +and its treatment. + +Siegert[1] groups children of problematical nature into the following +sixteen classes: the sad, the extremely good or bad, star-gazers, +scatter-brains, apathetic, misanthropic, doubters and investigators, +reverent, critical, executive, stupid and clownish, naive, funny, +anamnesic, disposed to learn, and _blase_; patience, foresight, and +self-control, he thinks, are chiefly needed. + +A unique and interesting study was undertaken by Koezle[2] by +collecting and studying thirty German writers on pedagogical subjects +since Pestalozzi, and cataloguing all the words they use describing +the faults of children. In all, this gave 914 faults, far more in +number than their virtues. These were classified as native and of +external origin, acute and chronic, egoistic and altruistic, greed, +perverted honor, self-will, falsity, laziness, frivolity, distraction, +precocity, timidity, envy and malevolence, ingratitude, +quarrelsomeness, cruelty, superstition; and the latter fifteen were +settled on as resultant groups, and the authors who describe them best +are quoted. + +Bohannon[3] on the basis of _questionnaire_ returns classified +peculiar children as heavy, tall, short, small, strong, weak, deft, +agile, clumsy, beautiful, ugly, deformed, birthmarked, keen and +precocious, defective in sense, mind, and speech, nervous, clean, +dainty, dirty, orderly, obedient, disobedient, disorderly, teasing, +buoyant, buffoon, cruel, selfish, generous, sympathetic, inquisitive, +lying, ill-tempered, silent, dignified, frank, loquacious, courageous, +timid, whining, spoiled, gluttonous and only child. + +Marro[4] tabulated the conduct of 3,012 boys in gymnasial and lyceal +classes in Italy from eleven to eighteen years of age (see table given +above). Conduct was marked as good, bad, and indifferent, according to +the teacher's estimate, and was good at eighteen in 74 per cent of the +cases; at eleven in 70 per cent; at seventeen in 69 per cent; and at +fourteen in only 58 per cent. In positively bad conduct, the age of +fifteen led, thirteen and fourteen were but little better, while it +improved at sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen. In general, conduct was +good at eleven; declined at twelve and thirteen; said, to its worst at +fourteen; and then improved in yearly increments that did not differ +much, and at seventeen was nearly as good as at eleven, and at +eighteen four points better. + +[Illustration: Percentage x Age] + +He computed also the following percentage table of the causes of +punishments in certain Italian schools for girls and boys near +pubescent ages: + + Boys Girls +Quarrels and blows 53.90 17.4 +Laziness, negligence 1.80 21.3 +Untidiness 10.70 24.7 +Improper language .41 14.6 +Indecent acts and words 1.00 .24 +Refusal to work .82 1.26 +Various offenses against discipline 19.00 19.9 +Truancy 9.60 .0 +Plots to run away 1.70 .0 +Running away .72 .0 + +Mr. Sears[5] reports in percentages statistics of the punishments +received by a thousand children for the following offenses: Disorder, +17-1/3; disobedience, 16; carelessness, 13-1/3; running away, 12-2/3; +quarreling, 10; tardiness, 6-2/3; rudeness, 6; fighting, 5-1/3; lying, +4; stealing, 1; miscellaneous, 7-1/3. He names a long list of +punishable offenses, such as malice, swearing, obscenity, bullying, +lying, cheating, untidiness, insolence, insult, conspiracy, +disobedience, obstinacy, rudeness, noisiness, ridicule; injury to +books, building, or other property; and analyzes at length the kinds +of punishment, modes of making it fit the offense and the nature of +the child, the discipline of consequences, lapse of time between the +offense and its punishment, the principle of slight but sure tasks as +penalties, etc. + +Triplett[6] attempted a census of faults and defeats named by the +teacher. Here inattention by far led all others. Defects of sense and +speech, carelessness, indifference, lack of honor and of +self-restraint, laziness, dreamy listlessness, nervousness, mental +incapacity, lack of consideration for others, vanity, affectation, +disobedience, untruthfulness, grumbling, etc., follow. Inattention to +a degree that makes some children at the mercy of their environment +and all its changes, and their mental life one perpetual distraction, +is a fault which teachers, of course, naturally observe. Children's +views of their own faults and those of other children lay a very +different emphasis. Here fighting, bullying, and teasing lead all +others; then come stealing, bad manners, lying, disobedience, truancy, +cruelty to animals, untidiness, selfishness, etc. Parents' view of +this subject Triplett found still different. Here wilfulness and +obstinacy led all others with teasing, quarreling, dislike of +application and effort, and many others following. The vast number of +faults mentioned contrasts very strikingly with the seven deadly sins. + +In a suggestive statistical study on the relations of the conduct of +children to the weather, Dexter[7] found that excessive humidity was +most productive of misdemeanors; that when the temperature was between +90 and 100 the probability of bad conduct was increased 300 per cent, +when between 80 and 90 it was increased 104 per cent. Abnormal +barometric pressure, whether great or small, was found to increase +misconduct 50 per cent; abnormal movements of the wind increased it +from 20 to 66 per cent; while the time of year and precipitation +seemed to have almost no effect. While the effect of weather has been +generally recognized by superintendents and teachers and directors of +prisons and asylums, and even by banks, which in London do not permit +clerks to do the more important bookkeeping during very foggy days, +the statistical estimates of its effect in general need larger numbers +for more valuable determinations. Temperature is known to have a very +distinct effect upon crime, especially suicide and truancy. Workmen do +less in bad weather, blood pressure is modified, etc.[8] + +In his study of truancy, Kline[9] starts with the assumption that the +maximum metabolism is always consciously or unconsciously sought, and +that migrations are generally away from the extremes of hot and cold +toward an optimum temperature. The curve of truancies and runaways +increases in a marked ratio at puberty, which probably represents the +age of natural majority among primitive people. Dislike of school, the +passion for out-of-door life, and more universal interests in man and +nature now arise, so that runaways may be interpreted as an +instinctive rebellion against limitations of freedom and unnatural +methods of education as well as against poor homes. Hunger is one of +its most potent, although often unconscious causes. The habitual +environment now begins to seem dull and there is a great increase in +impatience at restraint. Sometimes there is a mania for simply going +away and enjoying the liberty of nomadic life. Just as good people in +foreign parts sometimes allow themselves unwonted liberties, so +vagrancy increases crime. The passion to get to and play at or in the +water is often strangely dominant. It seems so fine out of doors, +especially in the spring, and the woods and fields make it so hard to +voluntarily incarcerate oneself in the schoolroom, that pubescent boys +and even girls often feel like animals in captivity. They long +intensely for the utter abandon of a wilder life, and very +characteristic is the frequent discarding of foot and head dress and +even garments in the blind instinct to realise again the conditions of +primitive man. The manifestations of this impulse, if read aright, are +grave arraignments of the lack of adaptability of the child's +environment to his disposition and nature, and with home restraints +once broken, the liabilities to every crime, especially theft, are +enormously increased. The truant, although a cording to Kline's +measurements slightly smaller than the average child, is more +energetic and is generally capable of the greatest activity and +usefulness in more out-of-door vocations. Truancy is augmented, too, +just in proportion as legitimate and interesting physical exercise is +denied. + +The vagrant, itinerant, vagabond, gadabout, hobo, and tramp, that Riis +has made so interesting, is an arrested, degenerate, or perverted +being who abhors work; feels that the world owes him a living; and +generally has his first real nomad experience in the teens or earlier. +It is a chronic illusion of youth that gives "elsewhere" a special +charm. In the immediate present things are mean, dulled by wont, and +perhaps even nauseating because of familiarity. There must be a change +of scene to see the world; man is not sessile but locomotor; and the +moment his life becomes migratory all the restraints and +responsibilities of settled life vanish. It is possible to steal and +pass on undiscovered and unsuspected, and to steal again. The vagabond +escapes the control of public sentiment, which normally is an external +conscience, and having none of his own within him thus lapses to a +feral state. The constraint of city, home, and school is especially +irksome, and if to this repulsion is added the attraction of a love of +nature and of perpetual change, we have the diathesis of the roadsman +already developed. Adolescence is the normal time of emancipation from +the parental roof, when youth seeks to set up a home of its own, but +the apprentice to life must wander far and long enough to find the +best habitat in which to set up for himself. This is the spring season +of emigration; and it should be an indispensable part of every life +curriculum, just before settlement, to travel far and wide, if +resources and inclination permit. But this stage should end in wisely +chosen settlement where the young life can be independently developed, +and that with more complacency and satisfaction because the place has +been wisely chosen on the basis of a wide comparison. The chronic +vagrant has simply failed to develop the reductives of this normal +stage. + +Crime is cryptogamous and flourishes in concealment, so that not only +does falsehood facilitate it, but certain types of lies often cause +and are caused by it. The beginning of wisdom in treatment is to +discriminate between good and bad lies. My own study[10] of the lies +of 300 normal children, by a method carefully devised in order to +avoid all indelicacy to the childish consciousness, suggested the +following distinct species of lies. It is often a well-marked epoch +when the young child first learns that it can imagine and state things +that have no objective counterpart in its life, and there is often a +weird intoxication when some absurd and monstrous statement is made, +while the first sensation of a deliberate break with truth causes a +real excitement which is often the birth pang of the imagination. More +commonly this is seen in childish play, which owes a part of its charm +to self-deception. Children make believe they are animals, doctors, +ogres, play school, that they are dead, mimic all they see and hear. +Idealising temperaments sometimes prompt children of three or four +suddenly to assert that they saw a pig with five ears, apples on a +cherry tree, and other Munchausen wonders, which really means merely +that they have had a new mental combination independently of +experience. Sometimes their fancy is almost visualisation and develops +into a kind of mythopeic faculty which spins clever yarns and suggests +in a sense, quite as pregnant as Froschmer asserts of all mental +activity and of the universe itself, that all their life is +imagination. Its control and not its elimination in a Gradgrind age of +crass facts is what should be sought in the interests of the highest +truthfulness and of the evolution of thought as something above +reality, which prepares the way for imaginative literature. The life +of Hartley Coleridge,[11] by his brother, is one of many +illustrations. He fancied cataract of what he named "jug-force" would +burst out in a certain field and flow between populous banks, where an +ideal government, long wars, and even a reform in spelling, would +prevail, illustrated in a journal devoted to the affairs of this +realm--all these developed in his imagination, where they existed with +great reality for years. The vividness of this fancy resembles the +pseudo-hallucinations of Kandinsky. Two sisters used to say, "Let us +play we are sisters," as if this made the relation more real. +Cagliostro found adolescent boys particularly apt for training for his +exhibition of phrenological impostures, illustrating his thirty-five +faculties. "He lied when he confessed he had lied," said a young +Sancho Panza, who had believed the wild tales of another boy who later +admitted their falsity. Sir James Mackintosh, near puberty, after +reading Roman history, used to fancy himself the Emperor of +Constantinople, and carried on the administration of the realm for +hours at a time. His fancies never quite became convictions, but +adolescence is the golden age of this kind of dreamery and reverie +which supplements reality and totalizes our faculties, and often gives +a special charm to dramatic activities and in morbid cases to +simulation and dissimulation. It is a state from which some of the +bad, but far more of the good qualities of life and mind arise. These +are the noble lies of poetry, art, and idealism, but their pedagogic +regime must be wise. + +Again with children as with savages, truth depends largely upon +personal likes and dislikes. Truth is for friends, and lies are felt +to be quite right for enemies. The young often see no wrong in lies +their friends wish told, but may collapse and confess when asked if +they would have told their mother thus. Boys best keep up complotted +lies and are surer to own up if caught than girls. It is harder to +cheat in school with a teacher who is liked. Friendships are cemented +by confidences and secrets, and when they wane, promises not to tell +weaken in their validity. Lies to the priest, and above all to God, +are the worst. All this makes special attention to friendships, +leaders, and favorites important, and suggests the high value of +science for general veracity. + +The worst lies, perhaps, are those of selfishness. They ease children +over many hard places in life, and are convenient covers for weakness +and vice. These lies are, on the whole, judging from our census, most +prevalent. They are also most corrupting and hard to correct. All bad +habits particularly predispose to the lie of concealment; for those +who do wrong are almost certain to have recourse to falsehood, and the +sense of meanness thus slowly bred, which may be met by appeals to +honor, for so much of which school life is responsible, is often +mitigated by the fact that falsehoods are frequently resorted to in +moments of danger and excitement, are easily forgotten when it is +over, and rarely rankle. These, even more than the pseudomaniac cases +mentioned later, grow rankly in those with criminal predispositions. + +The lie heroic is often justified as a means of noble ends. Youth has +an instinct which is wholesome for viewing moral situations as wholes. +Callow casualists are fond of declaring that it would be a duty to +state that their mother was out when she was in, if it would save her +life, although they perhaps would not lie to save their own. A doctor, +many suggested, might tell an overanxious patient or friend that there +was hope, saving his conscience perhaps by reflecting that there was +hope, although they had it while he had none. The end at first in such +cases may be very noble and the fib or quibble very petty, but worse +lies for meaner objects may follow. Youth often describes such +situations with exhilaration as if there were a feeling of easement +from the monotonous and tedious obligation of rigorous literal +veracity, and here mentors are liable to become nervous and err. The +youth who really gets interested in the conflict of duties may +reverently be referred to the inner lie of his own conscience, the +need of keeping which as a private tribunal is now apparent. + +Many adolescents become craven literalists and distinctly morbid and +pseudophobiac, regarding every deviation from scrupulously literal +truth as alike heinous; and many systematized palliatives and +casuistic word-splittings, methods of whispering or silently +interpolating the words "not," "perhaps," or "I think," sometimes said +over hundreds of times to neutralize the guilt of intended or +unintended falsehoods, appear in our records as a sad product of bad +methods. + +Next to the selfish lie for protection--of special psychological +interest for adolescent crime--is what we may call pseudomania, seen +especially in pathological girls in their teens, who are honeycombed +with selfishness and affectation and have a passion for always acting +a part, attracting attention, etc. The recent literature of telepathy +and hypnotism furnishes many striking examples of this diathesis of +impostors of both sexes. It is a strange psychological paradox that +some can so deliberately prefer to call black white and find distinct +inebriation in flying diametrically in the face of truth and fact. The +great impostors, whose entire lives have been a fabric of lies, are +cases in point. They find a distinct pleasure not only in the sense of +power which their ability to make trouble gives, but in the sense of +making truth a lie, and of decreeing things into and out of existence. + +Sheldon's interesting statistics show that among the institutional +activities of American children,[12] predatory organizations culminate +from eleven to fifteen, and are chiefly among boys. These include +bands of robbers, clubs for hunting and fishing, play armies, +organized fighting bands between separate districts, associations for +building forts, etc. This form of association is the typical one for +boys of twelve. After this age their interests are gradually +transferred to less loosely organized athletic clubs. Sheldon's +statistics are as follows: + +Age 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Total +No. of +predatory 4 5 3 0 7 1 1 3 1 0 25 = Girls +societies 4 2 17 31 18 22 (11) 7 1 0 111 = Boys + +Innocent though these predatory habits may be in small boys, if they +are not naturally and normally reduced at the beginning of the teens +and their energy worked off into athletic societies, they become +dangerous. "The robber knight, the pirate chief, and the marauder +become the real models." The stealing clubs gather edibles and even +useless things, the loss of which causes mischief, into some den, +cellar, or camp in the woods, where the plunder of their raids is +collected. An organized gang of boy pilferers for the purpose of +entering stores had a cache, where the stolen goods were brought +together. Some of these bands have specialized on electric bells and +connections, or golf sticks and balls. Jacob Riis says that on the +East Side of New York, every corner has its gang with a program of +defiance of law and order, where the young tough who is a coward alone +becomes dangerous when he hunts with the pack. He is ambitious to get +"pinched" or arrested and to pose as a hero. His vanity may obliterate +common fear and custom as his mind becomes inflamed with flash +literature and "penny dreadfuls." Sometimes whole neighborhoods are +terrorized so that no one dares to testify against the atrocities they +commit. Riis even goes so far as to say that "a bare enumeration of +the names of the best-known gangs would occupy the pages of this +book."[13] The names are sufficiently suggestive--hell's kitchen gang, +stable gang, dead men, floaters, rock, pay, hock gang, the soup-house +gang, plug uglies, back-alley men, dead beats, cop beaters, and +roasters, hell benders, chain gang, sheeny skinners, street cleaners, +tough kids, sluggers, wild Indians, cave and cellar men, moonlight +howlers, junk club, crook gang, being some I have heard of. Some of +the members of these gangs never knew a home, were found perhaps as +babies wrapped in newspapers, survivors of the seventy-two dead +infants Riis says were picked up on the streets in New York in 1889, +or of baby farming. They grow up street arabs, slum waifs, the +driftwood of society, its flotsam and jetsam, or plankton, fighting +for a warn corner in their resorts or living in crowded +tenement-houses that rent for more than a house on Fifth Avenue. +Arrant cowards singly, they dare and do anything together. A gang +stole a team in East New York and drove down the avenue, shopping to +throw in supplies, one member sitting in the back of the wagon and +shooting at all who interfered. One gang specialized on stealing baby +carriages, depositing their inmates on the sidewalk. Another blew up a +grocery store because its owner refused a gift they demanded. Another +tried to saw off the head of a Jewish pedler. One member killed +another for calling him "no gent." Six murderous assaults were made at +one time by these gangs within a single week. One who is caught and +does his "bit" or "stretch" is a hero, and when a leader is hanged, as +has sometimes happened, he is almost envied for his notoriety. A +frequent ideal is to pound a policeman with his own club. The gang +federates all nationalities. Property is depreciated and may be ruined +if it is frequented by these gangs or becomes their lair or +"hang-out." A citizen residing on the Hudson procured a howitzer and +pointed it at a boat gang, forbidding them to land on his river +frontage. They have their calls, whistles, signs, rally suddenly from +no one knows where, and vanish in the alleys, basements, roofs, and +corridors they know so well. Their inordinate vanity is well called +the slum counterpart of self-esteem, and Riis calls the gang a club +run wild. They have their own ideality and a gaudy pinchbeck honor. A +young tough, when arrested, wrenched away the policeman's club, dashed +into the street, rescued a baby from a runaway, and came back and gave +himself up. They batten on the yellowest literature. Those of foreign +descent, who come to speak our language better than their parents, +early learn to despise them. Gangs emulate each other in hardihood, +and this is one cause of epidemics in crime. They passionately love +boundless independence, are sometimes very susceptible to good +influence if applied with great wisdom and discretion, but easily fall +away. What is the true moral antitoxin for this class, or at least +what is the safety-valve and how and when to pull it, we are now just +beginning to learn, but it is a new specialty in the great work of +salvage from the wreckage of city life. In London, where these groups +are better organised and yet more numerous, war is often waged between +them, weapons are used and murder is not so very infrequent. Normally +this instinct passes harmlessly over into associations for physical +training, which furnishes a safe outlet for these instincts, until the +reductives of maturer years have perfected their work. + +The causation of crime, which the cure seeks to remove, is a problem +comparable with the origin of sin and evil. First, of course, comes +heredity, bad antenatal conditions, bad homes, unhealthful infancy and +childhood, overcrowded slums with their promiscuity and squalor, which +are always near the border of lawlessness, and perhaps are the chief +cause of crime. A large per cent of juvenile offenders, variously +estimated, but probably one-tenth of all, are vagrants or without +homes, and divorce of parents and illegitimacy seem to be nearly equal +as causative agencies. If whatever is physiologically wrong is morally +wrong, and whatever is physiologically right is morally right, we have +an important ethical suggestion from somatic conditions. There is no +doubt that conscious intelligence during a certain early stage of its +development tends to deteriorate the strength and infallibility of +instinctive processes, so that education is always beset with the +danger of interfering with ancestral and congenital tendencies. Its +prime object ought to be moralization, but it can not be denied that +in conquering ignorance we do not thereby conquer poverty or vice. +After the free schools in London were opened there was an increase of +juvenile offenders. New kinds of crime, such as forgery, grand +larceny, intricate swindling schemes, were doubled, while sneak +thieves, drunkards, and pick-pockets decreased, and the proportion of +educated criminals was greatly augmented.[14] To collect masses of +children and ram them with the same unassimilated facts is not +education in this sense, and we ought to confess that youthful crime +is an expression of educational failure. Illiterate criminals are more +likely to be detected, and also to be condemned, than are educated +criminals. Every anthropologist knows that the deepest poverty and +ignorance among primitive people are in nowise incompatible with +honesty, integrity, and virtue. Indeed there is much reason to suspect +that the extremes of wealth and poverty are more productive of crime +than ignorance, or even intemperance. Educators have no doubt vastly +overestimated the moral efficiency of the three R's and forgotten that +character in infancy is all instinct; that in childhood it is slowly +made over into habits; while at adolescence more than at any other +period of life, it can be cultivated through ideals. The dawn of +puberty, although perhaps marked by a certain moral hebetude, is soon +followed by a stormy period of great agitation, when the very worst +and best impulses in the human soul struggle against each other for +its possession, and when there is peculiar proneness to be either very +good or very bad. As the agitation slowly subsides, it is found that +there has been a renaissance of either the best or the worst elements +of the soul, if not indeed of both. + +Although pedagogues make vast claims for the moralizing effect of +schooling, I cannot find a single criminologist who is satisfied with +the modern school, while most bring the severest indictments against +it for the blind and ignorant assumption that the three R's or any +merely intellectual training can moralize. By nature, children are +more or less morally blind, and statistics show that between thirteen +and sixteen incorrigibility is between two and three times as great as +at any other age. It is almost impossible for adults to realize the +irresponsibility and even moral neurasthenia incidental to this stage +of development. If we reflect what a girl would do if dressed like a +boy and leading his life and exposed to the same moral contagion, or +what a boy would do if corseted and compelled to live like a girl, +perhaps we can realize that whatever role heredity plays, the youth +who go wrong are, in the vast majority of cases, victims of +circumstances or of immaturity, and deserving of both pity and hope. +It was this sentiment that impelled Zarnadelli to reconstruct the +criminal law of Italy, in this respect, and it was this sympathy that +made Rollet a self-constituted advocate, pleading each morning for the +twenty or thirty boys and eight or ten girls arrested every day in +Paris. + +Those smitten with the institution craze or with any extreme +correctionalist views will never solve the problem of criminal youths. +First of all, they must be carefully and objectively studied, lived +with, and understood as in this country Gulick, Johnson, Forbush and +Yoder are doing in different ways, but each with success. Criminaloid +youth is more sharply individualized than the common good child, who +is less differentiated. Virtue is more uniform and monotonous than +sin. There is one right but there are many wrong ways, hence they need +to be individually studied by every paidological method, physical and +psychic. Keepers, attendants, and even sponsors who have to do with +these children should be educators with souls full of fatherhood and +motherhood, and they should understand that the darkest criminal +propensities are frequently offset by the very best qualities; that +juvenile murderers are often very tender-hearted to parents, sisters, +children, or pets;[15] they should understand that in the criminal +constitution there are precisely the same ingredients, although +perhaps differently compounded, accentuated, mutually controlled, +etc., by the environment, as in themselves, so that to know all would, +in the great majority of cases, be to pardon all; that the home +sentiments need emphasis; that a little less stress of misery to +overcome the effects of economic malaise and, above all, a friend, +mentor, adviser are needed. + +I incline to think that many children would be better and not worse +for reading, provided it can be done in tender years, stories like +those of Captain Kidd, Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin, and other gory +tales, and perhaps later tales like Eugene Aram, and the ophidian +medicated novel, Elsie Venner, etc., on the principle of the +Aristotelian catharsis to arouse betimes the higher faculties which +develop later, and whose function it is to deplete the bad centers and +suppress or inhibit their activity. Again, I believe that judicious +and incisive scolding is a moral tonic, which is often greatly needed, +and if rightly administered would be extremely effective, because it +shows the instinctive reaction of the sane conscience against evil +deeds and tendencies. Special pedagogic attention should be given to +the sentiment of justice, which is almost the beginning of personal +morals in boys; and plays should be chosen and encouraged that hold +the beam even, regardless of personal wish and interest. Further yet +benevolence and its underlying impulse to do more than justice to our +associates; to do good in the world; to give pleasure to those about, +and not pain, can be directly cultivated. Truth-telling presents a far +harder problem, as we have seen. It is no pedagogical triumph to clip +the wings of fancy, but effort should be directed almost solely +against the cowardly lies, which cover evil; and the heroism of +telling the truth and taking the consequences is another of the +elements of the moral sense, so complex, so late in development, and +so often permanently crippled. The money sense, by all the many means +now used for its development in school, is the surest safeguard +against the most common juvenile crime of theft, and much can be +taught by precept, example, and moral regimen of the sacredness of +property rights. The regularity of school work and its industry is a +valuable moralizing agent, but entirely inadequate and insufficient by +itself. Educators must face the fact that the ultimate verdict +concerning the utility of the school will be determined, as Talleck +well says, by its moral efficiency in saving children from personal +vice and crime. + +Wherever any source of pollution of school communities occurs, it must +be at once and effectively detected, and some artificial elements must +be introduced into the environment. In other words, there must be a +system of moral orthopedics. Garofalo's[16] new term and principle of +"temibility" is perhaps of great service. He would thus designate the +quantum of evil feared that is sufficient to restrain criminal +impulsion. We can not measure guilt or culpability, which may be of +all degrees from nothing to infinity perhaps, but we can to some +extent scale the effectiveness of restraint, if criminal impulse is +not absolutely irresistible. Pain then must be so organised as to +follow and measure the offense by as nearly a natural method as +possible, while on the other hand the rewards for good conduct must +also be more or less accentuated. Thus the problem of criminology for +youth can not be based on the principles now recognised for adults. +They can not be protective of society only, but must have marked +reformatory elements. Solitude[17] which tends to make weak, agitated, +and fearful, at this very gregarious age should be enforced with very +great discretion. There must be no personal and unmotivated clemency +or pardon in such scheme, for, according to the old saw, "Mercy but +murders, pardoning those who kill"; nor on the other hand should there +be the excessive disregard of personal adjustments, and the +uniformitarian, who perhaps celebrated his highest triumph in the old +sentence, "Kill all offenders and suspects, for God will know his +own," should have no part nor lot here. The philosopher Hartmann has a +suggestive article advocating that penal colonies made up of +transported criminals should be experimented upon by statesmen in +order to put various theories of self-government to a practical test. +However this may be, the penologist of youth must face some such +problem in the organization of the house of detention, boys' club, +farm, reformatory, etc. We must pass beyond the clumsy apparatus of a +term sentence., or the devices of a jury, clumsier yet, for this +purpose; we must admit the principle of regret, fear, penance, +material restoration of damage, and understand the sense in which, for +both society and for the individual, it makes no practical difference +whether experts think there is some taint of insanity, provided only +that irresponsibility is not hopelessly complete. + +In few aspects of this theme do conceptions of and practises in regard +to adolescence need more radical reconstruction. A mere accident of +circumstance often condemns to criminal careers youths capable of the +highest service to society, and for a mere brief season of +temperamental outbreak or obstreperousness exposes them to all the +infamy to which ignorant and cruel public opinion condemns all those +who have once been detected on the wrong side of the invisible and +arbitrary line of rectitude. The heart of criminal psychology is here; +and not only that, but I would conclude with a most earnest personal +protest against the current methods of teaching and studying ethics in +our academic institutions as a speculative, historical, and abstract +thing. Here in the concrete and saliently objective facts of crime it +should have its beginning, and have more blood and body in it by +getting again close to the hot battle line between vice and virtue, +and then only, when balanced and sanified by a rich ballast of facts, +can it with advantage slowly work its way over to the larger and +higher philosophy of conduct, which, when developed from this basis, +will be a radically different thing from the shadowy phantom, +schematic speculations of many contemporary moralists, taught in our +schools and colleges. + +[Footnote 1: Problematische Kindesnaturen. Eine Studie fuer Schule und +Haus. Voigtlaender, Leipzig, 1889.] + +[Footnote 2: Die paedagogische Pathologie in der Erziehungskunde des 19 +Jahrhunderts. Bertelsman, Guetersloh, 1893, p. 494.] + +[Footnote 3: Peculiar and Exceptional Children. Pedagogical Seminary, +October, 1896, vol. 4, pp. 3-60.] + +[Footnote 4: La Puberte. Schleicher Freres, Paris, 1902, p. 72.] + +[Footnote 5: Home and School Punishments. Pedagogical Seminary, March, +1899, vol. 6, pp. 159-187.] + +[Footnote 6: A Study of the Faults of Children. Pedagogical Seminary, +June, 1903, vol. 10, p. 200 _et seq._] + +[Footnote 7: The Child and the Weather, by Edwin G. Dexter. +Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1898, vol. 5, pp. 512-522.] + +[Footnote 8: Psychic Effects of the Weather, by J.S. Lemon. American +Journal of Psychology, January, 1894, vol. 6, pp. 277-279.] + +[Footnote 9: Truancy as Related to the Migrating Instinct, by L.W. +Kline. Pedagogical Seminary, January, 1898, vol. 5, pp. 381-420.] + +[Footnote 10: Children's Lies. American Journal of Psychology, +January, 1890, vol. 3, pp. 59-70.] + +[Footnote 11: Poems. With memoir by his brother, 2 vols., London, +1851.] + +[Footnote 12: American Journal of Psychology, July, 1898, vol. 9, pp. +425-448.] + +[Footnote 13: How the Other Half Lives. Scribner's Sons, New York, +1890, p. 229.] + +[Footnote 14: The Curse in Education, by Rebecca Harding Davis. North +American Review, May, 1899, vol. 168, pp. 609-614.] + +[Footnote 15: Holtzendorff: Psychologie des Mordes. C. Pfeiffer, +Berlin, 1875] + +[Footnote 16: La Criminologie. Paris, Alcan, 1890, p. 332] + +[Footnote 17: See its psychology and dangers well pointed out by M.H. +Small: Psychical Relations of Society and Solitude. Pedagogical +Seminary, April, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 13-69] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +BIOGRAPHIES OF YOUTH + + +Knightly ideals and honor--Thirty adolescents from +Shakespeare--Goethe--C.D. Warner--Aldrich--The fugitive nature of +adolescent experience--Extravagance of autobiographies--Stories that +attach to great names--Some typical crazes--Illustrations from George +Eliot, Edison, Chatterton, Hawthorne, Whittier, Spencer, Huxley, +Lyell, Byron, Heine, Napoleon, Darwin, Martineau, Agassiz, Madame +Roland, Louisa Alcott, F.H. Burnett, Helen Keller, Marie Bashkirtseff, +Mary MacLane, Ada Negri, De Quincey, Stuart Mill, Jefferies, and +scores of others. + +The knightly ideals and those of secular life generally during the +middle ages and later were in striking contrast to the ascetic ideals +of the early Christian Church; in some respects they were like those +of the Greeks. Honor was the leading ideal, and muscular development +and that of the body were held in high respect; so that the spirit of +the age fostered conceptions not unlike those of the Japanese Bushido. +Where elements of Christianity were combined with this we have the +spirit of the pure chivalry of King Arthur and the Knights of the +Round Table, which affords perhaps the very best ideals for youth to +be found in history, as we shall see more fully later. + +In a very interesting paper, entitled "Shakespeare and Adolescence," +Dr. M.F. Libby[1] very roughly reckons "seventy-four interesting +adolescents among the comedies, forty-six among the tragedies, and +nineteen among the histories." He selects "thirty characters who, +either on account of direct references to their age, or because of +their love-stories, or because they show the emotional and +intellectual plasticity of youth, may be regarded as typical +adolescents." His list is as follows: Romeo, Juliet, Hamlet, Ophelia, +Imogen, Perdita, Arviragus, Guiderius, Palamon, Arcite, Emilia, +Ferdinand, Miranda, Isabella, Mariana, Orlando, Rosalind, Biron, +Portia, Jessica, Phebe, Katharine, Helena, Viola, Troilus, Cressida, +Cassio, Marina, Prince Hal, and Richard of Gloucester. The proof of +the youth of these characters, as set forth, is of various kinds, and +Libby holds that besides these, the sonnets and poems perhaps show a +yet greater, more profound and concentrated knowledge of adolescence. +He thinks "Venus and Adonis" a successful attempt to treat sex in a +candid, naive way, if it be read as it was meant, as a catharsis of +passion, in which is latent a whole philosophy of art. To some extent +he also finds the story of the Passionate Pilgrim "replete with the +deepest knowledge of the passions of early adolescence" The series +culminates in Sonnet 116, which makes love the sole beacon of +humanity. It might be said that it is connected by a straight line +with the best teachings of Plato, and that here humanity picked up the +clue, lost, save with some Italian poets, in the great interval. + +In looking over current autobiographies of well-known modern men who +deal with their boyhood, one finds curious extremes. On the one hand +are those of which Doctor's is a type, where details are dwelt upon at +great length with careful and suggestive philosophic reflections. The +development of his own tastes, capacities, and his entire adult +consciousness was assumed to be due to the incidents of childhood and +youth, and especially the latter stage was to him full of the most +serious problems essential to his self-knowledge; and in the story of +his life he has exploited all available resources of this genetic +period of storm and stress more fully perhaps than any other writer. +At the other extreme, we have writers like Charles Dudley Warner,[2] a +self-made man, whose early life was passed on the farm, and who holds +his own boyhood there in greater contempt than perhaps any other +reputable writer of such reminiscences. All the incidents are treated +not only with seriousness, but with a forced drollery and catchy +superficiality which reflect unfavorably at almost every point upon +the members of his household, who are caricatured; all the precious +associations of early life on a New England farm are not only made +absurd, but from beginning to end his book has not a scintilla of +instruction or suggestion for those that are interested in child life. +Aldrich[3] is better, and we have interesting glimpses of the pet +horse and monkeys, of his fighting the boy bully, running way, and +falling in love with an older girl whose engagement later blighted his +life. Howells,[4] White,[5] Mitter,[6] Grahame,[7] Heidi,[8] and Mrs. +Barnett,[9] might perhaps represent increasing grades of merit in this +field in this respect. + +Yoder,[10] in his interesting study of the boyhood of great men, has +called attention to the deplorable carelessness of their biographers +concerning the facts and influences of their youth. He advocates the +great pedagogic influence of biography, and would restore the high +appreciation of it felt by the Bolandists, which Comte's positivist +calendar, that renamed all the days of the year from three hundred and +sixty-five such accounts in 1849, also sought to revive. Yoder +selected fifty great modern biographies, autobiographies preferred, +for his study. He found a number of lives whose equipment and momentum +have been strikingly due to some devoted aunt, and that give many +glimpses of the first polarization of genius in the direction in which +fame is later achieved. He holds that, while the great men excelled in +memory, imagination is perhaps still more a youthful condition of +eminence; magnifies the stimulus of poverty, the fact that elder sons +become prominent nearly twice as often as younger ones; and raises the +question whether too exuberant physical development does not dull +genius and talent. + +One striking and cardinal fact never to be forgotten considering its +each and every phenomenon and stage is that the experiences of +adolescence are extremely transitory and very easily forgotten, so +that they are often totally lost to the adult consciousness. +Lancaster[11] observes that we are constantly told by adults past +thirty that they never had this and that experience, and that those +who have had them are abnormal; that they are far more rare than +students of childhood assert, etc. He says, "Not a single young person +with whom I have had free and open conversation has been free from +serious thoughts of suicide," but these are forgotten later. A typical +case of many I could gather is that of a lady, not yet in middle life, +precise and carefully trained, who, on hearing a lecture on the +typical phases of adolescence, declared that she must have been +abnormal, for she knew nothing of any of these experiences. Her +mother, however, produced her diary, and there she read for the first +time since it was written, beginning in the January of her thirteenth +year, a long series of resolutions which revealed a course of conduct +that brought the color to her face, that she should have found it +necessary to pledge not to swear, lie, etc., and which showed +conclusively that she had passed through about all the phases +described. These phenomena are sometimes very intense and may come +late in life, but it is impossible to remember feelings and emotions +with definiteness, and these now make up a large part of life. Hence +we are prone to look with some incredulity upon the immediate records +of the tragic emotions and experiences typical and normal at this +time, because development has scored away their traces from the +conscious soul. + +There is a wall around the town of Boyville, says White,[12] in +substance, which is impenetrable when its gates have once shut upon +youth. An adult may peer over the wall and try to ape the games +inside, but finds it all a mockery and himself banished among the +purblind grown-ups. The town of Boyville was old when Nineveh was a +hamlet; it is ruled by ancient laws; has its own rulers and idols; and +only the dim, unreal noises of the adult world about it have changed. + +In exploring such sources we soon see how few writers have given true +pictures of the chief traits of this developmental period, which can +rarely be ascertained with accuracy. The adult finds it hard to recall +the emotional and instinctive life of the teens which is banished +without a trace, save as scattered hints may be gathered from diaries, +chance experiences, or the recollections of others. But the best +observers see but very little of what goes on in the youthful soul, +the development of which is very largely subterranean. Only when the +feelings erupt in some surprising way is the process manifest. The +best of these sources are autobiographies, and of these only few are +full of the details of this stage. Just as in the mythic prehistoric +stage of many nations there is a body of legendary matter, which often +reappears in somewhat different form, so there is a floating +plankton-like mass of tradition and storiology that seems to attach to +eminence wherever it emerges and is repeated over and over again, +concerning the youth of men who later achieve distinction, which +biographers often incorporate and attach to the time, place, and +person of their heroes. + +As Burnham[13] well intimates, many of the literary characterizations +of adolescence are so marked by extravagance, and sometimes even by +the struggle for literary effects, that they are not always the best +documents, although often based on personal experience. +Confessionalism is generally overdrawn, distorted, and especially the +pains of this age are represented as too keen. Of George Eliot's types +of adolescent character, this may best be seen in Maggie Tulliver, +with her enthusiastic self-renunciation, with "her volcanic upheavings +of imprisoned passions," with her "wide, hopeless yearning for that +something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth," +and in Gwendolen, who, from the moment she caught Deronda's eye, was +"totally swayed in feeling and action by the presence of a person of +the other sex whom she had never seen before." There was "the resolute +action from instinct and the setting at defiance of calculation and +reason, the want of any definite desire to marry, while all her +conduct tended to promote proposals." Exaggeration, although not the +perversions of this age often found in adult characterizations, is +marked trait of the writings of adolescents, whose conduct meanwhile +may appear rational, so that this suggests that consciousness may at +this stage serve as a harmless vent for tendencies that would +otherwise cause great trouble if turned to practical affairs. If +Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the adolescent tyrant slayers of Greece, +had been theorists, they might have been harmless on the principle +that its analysis tends to dissipate emotion. + +Lancaster[14] gathered and glanced over a thousand biographies, from +which he selected 200 for careful study, choosing them to show +different typical directions of activity. Of these, 120 showed a +distinct craze for reading in adolescence; 109 became great lovers of +nature; 58 wrote poetry, 58 showed a great and sudden development of +energy; 55 showed great eagerness for school; 53 devoted themselves +for a season to art and music; 53 became very religious; 51 left home +in the teens; 51 showed dominant instincts of leadership; 49 had great +longings of many kinds; 46 developed scientific tastes; 41 grew very +anxious about the future; 34 developed increased keenness of sensation +or at least power of observation; in 32 cases health was better; 31 +were passionately altruistic; 23 became idealists; 23 showed powers of +invention; 17 were devoted to older friends; 15 would reform society; +7 hated school. These, like many other statistics, have only +indicative value, as they are based on numbers that are not large +enough and upon returns not always complete. + +A few typical instances from Lancaster must here suffice. Savonarola +was solitary, pondering, meditating, felt profoundly the evils of the +world and need of reform, and at twenty-two spent a whole night +planning his career. Shelley during these years was unsocial, much +alone, fantastic, wandered much by moonlight communing with stars and +moon, was attached to an older man. Beecher was intoxicated with +nature, which he declared afterward to have been the inspiration of +his life. George Eliot at thirteen had a passion for music and became +a clever pianist. At sixteen she was religious, founded societies for +the poor and for animals, and had fitting spells of misanthropy. +Edison undertook to read the Detroit Free Library through, read +fifteen solid feet as the books stand on the shelves, was stopped, and +says he has read comparatively little since. Tolstoi found the aspect +of things suddenly changed. Nature put on a new appearance. He felt he +might commit the most dreadful crimes with no purpose save curiosity +and the need of action. The future looked gloomy. He became furiously +angry without cause; thought he was lost, hated by everybody, was +perhaps not the son of his father, etc. At seventeen he was solitary, +musing about immortality, human destiny, feeling death at hand, giving +up his studies, fancying himself a great man with new truths for +humanity. By and by he took up the old virtuous course of life with +fresh power, new resolutions, with the feeling that he had lost much +time. He had a deep religious experience at seventeen and wept for joy +over his new life. He had a period before twenty when he told +desperate lies, for which he could not account, then a passion for +music, and later for French novels. Rousseau at this age was +discontented, immensely in love, wept often without cause, etc. Keats +had a great change at fourteen, wrestling with frequent obscure and +profound stirrings of soul, with a sudden hunger for knowledge which +consumed his days with fire, and "with passionate longing to drain the +cup of experience at a draft." He was "at the morning hour when the +whole world turns to gold." "The boy had suddenly become a poet." +Chatterton was too proud to eat a gift dinner, though nearly starved, +and committed suicide at seventeen for lack of appreciation. John +Hunter was dull and hated study, but at twenty his mind awoke as did +that of Patrick Henry, who before was a lonely wanderer, sitting idly +for hours under the trees. Alexander Murray awoke to life at fifteen +and acquired several languages in less than two years. Gifford was +distraught for lack of reading, went to sea at thirteen, became a +shoemaker, studying algebra late at night, was savagely unsociable, +sunk into torpor from which he was roused to do splenetic and +vexatious tricks, which alienated his friends. Rittenhouse at fourteen +was a plowboy, covering the fences with figures, musing on infinite +time and space. Benjamin Thompson was roused to a frenzy for sciences +at fifteen; at seventeen walked nine miles daily to attend lectures at +Cambridge; and at nineteen married a widow of thirty-three. Franklin +had a passion for the sea; at thirteen read poetry all night; wrote +verses and sold them on the streets of Boston; doubted everything at +fifteen; left home for good at seventeen; started the first public +library in Philadelphia before he was twenty-one. Robert Fulton was +poor, dreamy, mercurial, devoted to nature, art, and literature. He +became a painter of talent, then a poet, and left home at seventeen. +Bryant was sickly till fourteen and became permanently well +thereafter; was precociously devoted to nature, religion, prayed for +poetic genius and wrote Thanatopsis before he was eighteen. Jefferson +doted on animals and nature at fourteen, and at seventeen studied +fifteen hours a day. Garfield, though living in Ohio, longed for the +sea, and ever after this period the sight of a ship gave him a strange +thrill. Hawthorne was devoted to the sea and wanted to sail on and on +forever and never touch shore again. He would roam through the Maine +woods alone; was haunted by the fear that he would die before +twenty-five. Peter Cooper left home at seventeen; was passionately +altruistic; and at eighteen vowed he would build a place like his New +York Institute. Whittier at fourteen found a copy of Burns, which +excited him and changed the current of his life. Holmes had a passion +for flowers, broke into poetry at fifteen, and had very romantic +attachments to certain trees. J. T. Trowbridge learned German, French, +and Latin alone before twenty-one; composed poetry at the plow and +wrote it out in the evening. Henry followed a rabbit under the Public +Library at Albany, found a hole in the floor that admitted him to the +shelves, and, unknown to any one, read all the fiction the library +contained, then turned to physics, astronomy, and chemistry, and +developed a passion for the sciences. He was stage-struck, and became +a good amateur actor. H. H. Boyesen was thrilled by nature and by the +thought that he was a Norseman. He had several hundred pigeons, +rabbits, and other pets; loved to be in the woods at night; on leaving +home for school was found with his arms around the neck of a calf to +which he was saying good-by. Maxwell, at sixteen, had almost a horror +of destroying a leaf, flower, or fly. Jahn found growing in his heart, +at this age, an inextinguishable feeling for right and wrong--which +later he thought the cause of all his inner weal and outer woe. When +Nansen was in his teens he spent weeks at a time alone in the forest, +full of longings, courage, altruism, wanted to get away from every one +and live like Crusoe. T. B. Reed, at twelve and thirteen, had a +passion for reading; ran away at seventeen; painted, acted, and wrote +poetry. Cartwright, at sixteen, heard voices from the sky saying, +"Look above, thy sins are forgiven thee." Herbert Spencer became an +engineer at seventeen, after one idle year. He never went to school, +but was a private pupil of his uncle. Sir James Mackintosh grew fond +of history at eleven; fancied he was the Emperor of Constantinople; +loved solitude at thirteen; wrote poetry at fourteen; and fell in love +at seventeen. Thomas Buxton loved dogs, horses, and literature, and +combined these while riding on an old horse. At sixteen be fell in +love with an older literary woman, which aroused every latent power to +do or die, and thereafter he took all the school prizes. Scott began +to like poetry at thirteen. Pascal wrote treatises on conic sections +at sixteen and invented his arithmetical machine at nineteen. Nelson +went to sea at twelve; commanded a boat in peril at fifteen, which at +the same age he left to fight a polar bear. Banks, the botanist, was +idle and listless till fourteen, could not travel the road marked out +for him; when coming home from bathing, he was struck by the beauty of +the flowers and at once began his career. Montcalm and Wolfe both +distinguished themselves as leaders in battle at sixteen. Lafayette +came to America at nineteen, thrilled by our bold strike for liberty. +Gustavus Adolphus declared his own majority at seventeen and was soon +famous. Ida Lewis rescued four men in a boat at sixteen. Joan of Arc +began at thirteen to have the visions which were the later guide of +her life. + +Mr. Swift has collected interesting biographical material[15] to show +that school work is analytic, while life is synthetic, and how the +narrowness of the school enclosure prompts many youth in the wayward +age to jump fences and seek new and more alluring pastures. According +to school standards, many were dull and indolent, but their nature was +too large or their ideals too high to be satisfied with it. Wagner at +the Nikolaischule at Leipzig was relegated to the third form, having +already attained to the second at Dresden, which so embittered him +that he lost all taste for philology and, in his own words, "became +lazy and slovenly." Priestley never improved by any systematic course +of study. W.H. Gibson was very slow and was rebuked for wasting his +time in sketching. James Russell Lowell was reprimanded, at first +privately and then publicly, in his sophomore year "for general +negligence in themes, forensics, and recitations," and finally +suspended in 1838 "on account of continued neglect of his college +duties." In early life Goldsmith's teacher thought him the dullest boy +she had ever taught. His tutor called him ignorant and stupid. Irving +says that a lad "whose passions are not strong enough in youth to +mislead him from that path of science which his tutors, and not his +inclinations, have chalked out, by four or five years' perseverance, +will probably obtain every advantage and honor his college can bestow. +I would compare the man whose youth has been thus passed in the +tranquility of dispassionate prudence, to liquors that never ferment, +and, consequently, continue always muddy." Huxley detested writing +till past twenty. His schooling was very brief, and he declared that +those set over him "cared about as much for his intellectual and moral +welfare as if they were baby farmers." Humphry Davy was faithful but +showed no talent in school, having "the reputation of being an idle +boy, with a gift for making verses, but with no aptitude for studies +of a graver sort." Later in life he considered it fortunate that he +was left so much to himself. Byron was so poor a scholar that he only +stood at the head of the class when, as was the custom, it was +inverted, and the bantering master repeatedly said to him, "Now, +George, man, let me see how soon you'll be at the foot." Schiller's +negligence and lack of alertness called for repeated reproof, and his +final school thesis was unsatisfactory. Hegel was a poor scholar, and +at the university it was stated "that he was of middling industry and +knowledge but especially deficient in philosophy." John Hunter nearly +became a cabinetmaker. Lyell had excessive aversion to work. George +Combe wondered why he was so inferior to other boys in arithmetic. +Heine agreed with the monks that Greek was the invention of the devil. +"God knows what misery I suffered with it." He hated French meters, +and his teacher vowed he had no soul for poetry. He idled away his +time at Bonn, and was "horribly bored" by the "odious, stiff, +cut-and-dried tone" of the leathery professors. Humboldt was feeble as +a child and "had less facility in his studies than most children." +"Until I reached the age of sixteen," he says, "I showed little +inclination for scientific pursuits." He was essentially self-taught, +and acquired most of his knowledge rather late in life. At nineteen he +had never heard of botany. Sheridan was called inferior to many of his +schoolfellows. He was remarkable for nothing but idleness and winning +manners, and was "not only slovenly in construing, but unusually +defective in his Greek grammar." Swift was refused his degree because +of "dulness and insufficiency," but given it later as a special favor. +Wordsworth was disappointing. General Grant was never above +mediocrity, and was dropped as corporal in the junior class and served +the last year as a private. W. H. Seward was called "too stupid to +learn." Napoleon graduated forty-second in his class. "Who," asks +Swift, "were the forty-one above him?" Darwin was singularly incapable +of mastering any language. "When he left school," he says, "I was +considered by all my masters and by my father as a very ordinary boy, +rather below the common standard in intellect. To my deep +mortification, my father once said to me, 'You care for nothing but +shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to +yourself and to all your family.'" Harriet Martineau was thought very +dull. Though a horn musician, she could do absolutely nothing in the +presence of her irritable master. She wrote a cramped, untidy scrawl +until past twenty. A visit to some very brilliant cousins at the age +of sixteen had much to do in arousing her backward nature. At this age +J. Pierpont Morgan wrote poetry and was devoted to mathematics. Booker +T. Washington, at about thirteen or fourteen (he does not know the +date of his birth), felt the new meaning of life and started off on +foot to Hampton, five hundred miles away, not knowing even the +direction, sleeping under a sidewalk his first night in Richmond. +Vittorino da Feltre,[16] according to Dr. Burnham, had a low, tardy +development, lingering on a sluggish dead level from ten to fourteen, +which to his later unfoldment was as the barren, improving years +sometimes called the middle ages, compared with the remainder which +followed when a new world-consciousness intensified his personality. + +Lancaster's summaries show that of 100 actors, the average age of +their first great success was exactly 18 years. Those he chose had +taken to the stage of their own accord, for actors are more born than +made. Nearly half of them were Irish, the unemotional American stock +having furnished far less. Few make their first success on the stage +after 22, but from 16 to 20 is the time to expect talent in this line, +although there is a second rise in his curve before and still more +after 25, representing those whose success is more due to intellect. +Taking the average age of 100 novelists when their first story met +with public approval, the curve reaches its highest point between 30 +and 35. Averaging 53 poets, the age at which most first poems were +published falls between 15 and 20. The average age at which first +publication showed talent he places at 18, which is in striking +contrast with the average age of inventors at time of the first +patent, which is 33 years. + +A still more striking contrast is that between 100 musicians and 100 +professional men. Music is by far the most precocious and instinctive +of all talents. The average age when marked talent was first shown is +a little less than 10 years, 95 per cent showed rare talent before 16, +while the professional men graduated at an average age of 24 years and +11 months, and 10 years must be added to mark the point of recognized +success. Of 53 artists, 90 per cent showed talent before 20, the +average age being 17.2 years. Of 100 pioneers who made their mark in +the Far West, leaving home to seek fortunes near the frontier, the +greatest number departed before they were 18. Of 118 scientists, +Lancaster estimates that their life interest first began to glow on +the average a little before they were 19. In general, those whose +success is based on emotional traits antedate by some years those +whose renown is more purely in intellectual spheres, and taking all +together, the curves of the first class culminate between 18 and 20. + +While men devoted to physical science, and their biographers, give us +perhaps the least breezy accounts of this seething age, it may be, +because they mature late, nearly all show its ferments and its +circumnutations, as a few almost random illustrations clearly show: + + +Tycho Brahe, born in 1596 of illustrious Danish stock, was adopted by +an uncle, and entered the University of Copenhagen at thirteen, where +multiplication, division, philosophy, and metaphysics were taught. +When he was fourteen, an eclipse of the sun occurred, which aroused so +much interest that he decided to devote himself to the study of the +heavenly bodies. He was able to construct a series of interesting +instruments on a progressive scale of size, and finally to erect the +great Observatory of Uraniberg on the Island of Hven. Strange to say, +his scientific conclusions had for him profound astrological +significance. An important new star he declared was "at first like +Venus and Jupiter and its effects will therefore first be pleasant; +but as it then became like Mars, there will next come a period of +wars, seditions, captivity, and death of princes, and destruction of +cities, together with dryness and fiery meteors in the air, +pestilence, and venomous snakes. Lastly, the star became like Saturn, +and thus will finally come a time of want, death, imprisonment, and +all kinds of sad things!" He says that "a special use of astronomy is +that it enables us to draw conclusions from the movements in the +celestial regions as to human fate." He labored on his island twenty +years. He was always versifying, and inscribed a poem over the +entrance of his underground observatory expressing the astonishment of +Urania at finding in the interior of the earth a cavern devoted to the +study of the heavens. + +Galileo[17] was born in 1564 of a Florentine noble, who was poor. As a +youth he became an excellent lutist, then thought of devoting himself +to painting, but when he was seventeen studied medicine, and at the +University of Pisa fell in love with mathematics. + +Isaac Newton,[18] born in 1642, very frail and sickly, solitary, had a +very low piece in the class lists of his school; wrote poetry, and at +sixteen tried farming. In one of his university examinations in Euclid +be did so poorly as to incur special censure. His first incentive to +diligent study came from being severely kicked by a high class boy. He +then resolved to pass him in studies, and soon rose to the head of the +school. He made many ingenious toys and windmills; a carriage, the +wheels of which were driven by the hands of the occupants, and a clock +which moved by water; curtains, kites, lanterns, etc.; and before he +was fourteen fell in love with Miss Storey, several yeas older than +himself. He entered Trinity College at Cambridge at eighteen. + +William Herschel, born in 1738, at the outbreak of the Seven Years' +War, when he was eighteen, was a performer in the regimental band, and +after a battle passed a night in a ditch and escaped in disguise, to +England, where he eked out a precarious livelihood by teaching music. +He supported himself until middle age as an organist. In much of his +later work he was greatly aided by his sister Caroline. When be +discovered a sixth planet he became famous, and devoted himself +exclusively to astronomy, training his only son to follow in his +footsteps, and dying in 1822. + +Agassiz[19] at twelve had developed a mania for collecting. He +memorized Latin names, of which he accumulated "great volumes of +MSS.", and "modestly expressed the hope that in time he might be able +to give the name of every known animal." At fourteen he revolted at +mercantile life, for which he was designed, and issued a manifesto +planning to spend four years at a Cermem university, then in Paris, +when he could begin to write. Rooks were scarce, and a little later he +copied, with the aid of his brother, several large volumes, and had +fifty live birds in his room at one time. + +At twelve Huxley[20] became an omnivorous reader, and two or three +years later devoured Hamilton's Logic and became deeply interested in +metaphysics. At fourteen he saw and participated in his first +post-mortem examination, was left in a strange state of apathy by it, +and dates his life-long dyspepsia to this experience. His training was +irregular; he taught himself German with a book in one hand while he +made hay with the other; speculated about the basis of matter, soul, +and their relations, on radicalism and conservatism; and reproached +himself that he did not work and get on enough. At seventeen he +attempted a comprehensive classification of human knowledge, and +having finished his survey, resolved to master the topics one after +another, striking them out from his table with ink as soon us they +were done. "May the list soon get black, although at present I shall +hardly be able, I am afraid, to spot the paper." Beneath the top +skimmings of these years he afterward conceived seething depths +working beneath the froth, but could give hardly any account of it. He +undertook the practise of pharmacy, etc. + + +Women with literary gifts perhaps surpass men in their power to +reproduce and describe the great but so often evanescent ebullitions +of this age; perhaps because their later lives, on account of their +more generic nature, depart less from this totalizing period, or +because, although it is psychologically shorter than in men, the +necessities of earning a livelihood less frequently arrest its full +development, and again because they are more emotional, and feeling +constitutes the chief psychic ingredient of this stage of life, or +they dwell more on subjective states. + +Manon Philipon (Madame Roland) was born in 1754. Her father was an +engraver in comfortable circumstances. Her earliest enthusiasm was for +the Bible and Lives of the Saints, and she had almost a mania for +reading books of any kind. In the corner of her father's workshop she +would read Plutarch for hours, dream of the past glories of antiquity, +and exclaim, weeping, "Why was I not born a Greek?" She desired to +emulate the brave men of old. + + +Books and flowers aroused her to dreams of enthusiasm, romantic +sentiment, and lofty aspiration. Finding that the French society +afforded no opportunity for heroic living, in her visionary fervor she +fell back upon a life of religious mysticism, and Xavier, Loyola, St. +Elizabeth, and St. Theresa became her new idols. She longed to follow +even to the stake those devout men and women who had borne obloquy, +poverty, hunger, thirst, wretchedness, and the agony of a martyr's +death for the sake of Jesus. Her capacities for self-sacrifice became +perhaps her leading trait, always longing after a grand life like +George Eliot's Dorothea Brooke. She was allowed at the age of eleven +to enter a convent, where, shunning her companions, she courted +solitude apart, under the trees, reading and thinking. Artificial as +the atmosphere was here, it no doubt inspired her life with permanent +tenderness of feeling and loftiness of purpose, and gave a mystic +quality to her imagination. Later she experienced to the full +revulsion of thought and experience which comes when doubt reacts upon +youthful credulity. It was the age of the encyclopedia, and now she +came to doubt her creed and even God and the soul, but clung to the +Gospels as the best possible code of morals, and later realized that +while her intellect had wandered her heart had remained constant. At +seventeen she was, if not the moat beautiful, perhaps the noblest +woman in all France, and here the curtain moat drop upon her girlhood. +All her traits were, of course, set off by the great life she lived +and the yet greater death she died. + + +Gifted people seem to conserve their youth and to be all the more +children, and perhaps especially all the more intensely adolescents, +because of their gifts, and it is certainly one of the marks of genius +that the plasticity and spontaneity of adolescence persists into +maturity. Sometimes even its passions, reveries, and hoydenish freaks +continue. In her "Histoire de Ma Vie," it is plain that George Sand +inherited at this age an unusual dower of gifts. She composed many and +interminable stories, carried on day after day, so that her confidants +tried to tease her by asking if the prince had got out of the forest +yet, etc. She personated an echo and conversed with it. Her day-dreams +and plays were so intense that she often came back from the world of +imagination to reality with a shock. She spun a weird zoological +romance out of a rustic legend of _la grande bete_. + +When her aunt sent her to a convent, she passed a year of rebellion +and revolt, and was the leader of _les diables_, or those who refused +to be devout, and engaged in all wild pranks. At fifteen she became +profoundly interested in the lives of the saints, although ridiculing +miracles. She entered one evening the convent church for service, +without permission, which was an act of disobedience. The mystery and +holy charm of it penetrated her; she forgot everything outward and was +left alone, and some mysterious change stole over her. She "breathed +an atmosphere of ineffable sweetness" more with the mind than the +senses; had a sudden indescribable perturbation; her eyes swam; she +was enveloped in a white glimmer, and heard a voice murmur the words +written under a convent picture of St. Augustine, _Tolle, lege,_ and +turned around thinking Mother Alicia spoke, but she was alone. She +knew it was an hallucination, but saw that faith had laid hold of her, +as she wished, by the heart, and she sobbed and prayed to the unknown +God till a nun heard her groaning. At first her ardor impelled her not +only to brave the jeers of her madcap club of harum-scarums and +tomboys, but she planned to become a nun, until this feverish longing +for a recluse life passed, but left her changed.[21] + +When she passed from the simple and Catholic faith of her grisette +mother to the atmosphere of her cynical grandmother at Nohant, who was +a disciple of Voltaire, she found herself in great straits between the +profound sentiments inspired by the first communion and the concurrent +contempt for this faith, instilled by her grandmother for all those +mummeries through which, however, for conventional reasons she was +obliged to pass. Her heart was deeply stirred, and yet her head +holding all religion to be fiction or metaphor, it occurred to her to +invent a story which might be a religion or a religion which might be +a story into any degree of belief in which she could lapse at will. +The name and the form of her new deity was revealed to her in a dream. +He was Corambe, pure as Jesus, beautiful as Gabriel, as graceful as +the nymphs and Orpheus, less austere than the Christian God, and as +much woman as man, because she could best understand this sex from her +love for her mother. He appeared in many aspects of physical and moral +beauty; was eloquent, master of all arts, and above all of the magic +of musical improvisation; loved as a friend and sister, and at the +same time revered as a god; not awful and remote from impeccability, +but with the fault of excess of indulgence. She estimated that she +composed about a thousand sacred books or songs developing phases of +his mundane existence. In each of these he became incarnate man on +touching the earth, always in a new group of people who were good, yet +suffering martyrdoms from the wicked known only by the effects of +their malice. In this "gentle hallucination" she could lose herself in +the midst of friends, and turn to her hero deity for comfort. There +must be not only sacred books, but a temple and ritual, and in a +garden thicket, which no eye could penetrate, in a moss-carpeted +chamber she built an altar against a tree-trunk, ornamented with a +wreath hung over it. Instead of sacrificing, which seemed barbaric, +she proceeded to restore life and liberty to butterflies, lizards, +green frogs, and birds, which she put in a box, laid on the altar, and +"after having invoked the good genius of liberty and protection," +opened it. In these mimic rites and delicious reveries she found the +germs of a religion that fitted her heart. From the instant, however, +that a boy playmate discovered and entered this sanctuary, "Corambe +ceased to dwell in it. The dryads and the cherubim deserted it," and +it seemed unreal. The temple was destroyed with great care, and the +garlands and shells were buried under the tree.[22] + +Louisa Alcott's romantic period opened at fifteen, when she began to +write poetry, keep a heart journal, and wander by moonlight, and +wished to be the Bettine of Emerson, in whose library she foraged; +wrote him letters which were never sent; sat in a tall tree at +midnight; left wild flowers on the doorstep of her master; sang +Mignon's song under his window; and was refined by her choice of an +idol. Her diary was all about herself. + + +If she looked in the glass at her long hair and well-shaped head, she +tried to keep down her vanity; her quick tongue, moodiness, poverty, +impossible longings, made every day a battle until she hardly wished +to live, only something must be done, and waiting is so hard. She +imagined her mind a room in confusion which must be put in order; the +useless thought swept out; foolish fancies dusted away; newly +furnished with good resolutions. But she was not a good housekeeper; +cobwebs got in, and it was hard to rule. She was smitten with a mania +for the stage, and spent most of her leisure in writing and acting +plays of melodramatic style ad high-strung sentiment, improbable +incidents, with no touch of common life or sense of humor, full of +concealments and surprises, bright dialogues, and lofty sentiments. +She had much dramatic power and loved to transform herself into Hamlet +and declaim in mock heroic style. From sixteen to twenty-three was her +apprenticeship to life. She taught, wrote for the papers, did +housework for pay as a servant, and found sewing a pleasant resource +because it was tranquillizing, left her free, and set her thoughts +going. + +Mrs. Burnett,[23] like most women who record their childhood and +adolescent memories, is far more subjective and interesting than most +men. In early adolescence she was never alone when with flowers, but +loved to "speak to them, to bend down and say caressing things, to +stoop and kiss them, to praise them for their pretty ways of looking +up at her as into the eyes of a friend and beloved. There were certain +little blue violets which always seemed to lift their small faces +childishly, as if they were saying, 'Kiss me; don't go by like that.'" +She would sit on the porch, elbows on knees and chin on hands, staring +upward, sometimes lying on the grass. Heaven was so high and yet she +was a part of it and was something even among the stars. It was a +weird, updrawn, overwhelming feeling as she stared so fixedly and +intently that the earth seemed gone, left far behind. Every hour and +moment was a wonderful and beautiful thing. She felt on speaking terms +with the rabbits. Something was happening in the leaves which waved +and rustled as she passed. Just to walk, sit, lie around out of doors, +to loiter, gaze, watch with a heart fresh as a young dryad, following +birds, playing hide-and-seek with the brook-these were her halcyon +hours. + +With the instability of genius, Beth[24] did everything suddenly. When +twelve or thirteen, she had grown too big to be carried, pulled or +pushed; she suddenly stood still one day, when her mother, commanded +her to dress. She had been ruled before by physical force, but her +will and that of her mother were now in collision, and the latter +realised she could make her do nothing unless by persuasion or moral +influence. Being constantly reproved, scolded, and even beaten by her +mother, Beth one day impulsively jumped into the sea, and was rescued +with difficulty. She had spells of being miserable with no cause. She +was well and happy, but would burst into tears suddenly, which seemed +often to surprise her. Being very sensitive herself, she was morbidly +careful of the feelings of others and incessantly committed grave sins +of insincerity without compunction in her effort to spare them. To +those who confided in her abilities, praised her, and thought she +could do things, her nature expanded, but her mother checked her +mental growth over and over, instead of helping her by saying, "Don't +try, you can't do it," etc. + +Just before the dawn of adolescence she had passed through a long +period of abject superstition, largely through the influence of a +servant. All the old woman's signs were very dominant in her life. She +even invented methods of divination, as, "if the boards do not creak +when I walk across the room I shall get through my lessons without +trouble." She always preferred to see two rooks together to one and +became expert in the black arts. She used to hear strange noises at +night for a time, which seemed signs and portents of disaster at sea, +fell into the ways of her neighbors, and had more faith in +incantations than in doctors' doses. She not only heard voices and +very ingeniously described them, but claimed to know what was going to +happen and compared her forebodings with the maid. She "got religion" +very intensely under the influence of her aunt, grew thin, lost her +appetite and sleep, had heartache to think of her friends burning in +hell, and tried to save them. + +Beth never thought at all of her personal appearance until she +overheard a gentleman call her rather nice-looking, when her face +flushed and she had a new feeling of surprise and pleasure, and took +very clever ways of cross-examining her friends to find if she was +handsome. All of a sudden the care of her person became of great +importance, and every hint she had heard of was acted on. She aired +her bed, brushed her hair glossy, pinched her waist and feet, washed +in buttermilk, used a parasol, tortured her natural appetite in every +way, put on gloves to do dirty work, etc. + +The house always irked her. Once stealing out of the school by night, +she was free, stretched herself, drew a long breath, bounded and waved +her arms in an ecstasy of liberty, danced around the magnolia, buried +her face in the big flowers one after another and bathed it in the dew +of the petals, visited every forbidden place, was particularly +attracted to the water, enjoyed scratching and making her feet bleed +and eating a lot of green fruit. This liberty was most precious and +all through a hot summer she kept herself healthy by exercise in the +moonlight. This revived her appetite, and she ended these night +excursions by a forage in the kitchen. Beth had times when she +hungered for solitude and for nature. Sometimes she would shut herself +in her room, but more often would rove the fields and woods in +ecstasy. Coming home from school, where she had long been, she had to +greet the trees and fields almost before she did her parents. She had +a great habit of stealing out often by the most dangerous routes over +roofs, etc., at night in the moonlight, running and jumping, waving +her arms, throwing herself on the ground, rolling over, walling on +all-fours, turning somersaults, hugging trees, playing hide-and-seek +with the shadow fairy-folk, now playing and feeling fear and running +away. She invoked trees, stars, etc. + +Beth's first love affair was with a bright, fair-haired, fat-faced +boy, who sat near her pew Sundays. They looked at each other once +during service, and she felt a glad glow in her chest spread over her, +dwelt on his image, smiled, and even the next day felt a new desire to +please. She watched for him to pass from school. When he appeared, +"had a most delightful thrill shoot through her." The first impulse to +fly was conquered; she never thought a boy beautiful before. They +often met after dark, wrote; finally she grew tired of him because she +could not make him feel deeply, sent him off, called him an idiot, and +then soliloquized on the "most dreadful grief of her life." The latter +stages of their acquaintance she occasionally used to beat him, but +his attraction steadily waned. Once later, as she was suffering from a +dull, irresolute feeling due to want of a companion and an object, she +met a boy of seventeen, whose face, like her own, brightened as they +approached. It was the first appearance of nature's mandate to mate. +This friendly glance suffused her whole being with the "glory and +vision of love." Religion and young men were her need. They had stolen +interviews by night and many an innocent embrace and kiss, and almost +died once by being caught. They planned in detail what they would do +after they were married, but all was taken for granted without formal +vows. Only when criticized did they ever dream of caution and +concealment, and then they made elaborate parades of ignoring each +other in public and fired their imaginations with thoughts of +disguises, masks, etc. This passion was nipped in the bud by the boy's +removal from his school. + +In preparing for her first communion, an anonymous writer[25] became +sober and studious, proposing to model her life on that of each fresh +saint and to spend a week in retreat examining her conscience with +vengeance. She wanted to revive the custom of public confession and +wrote letters of penitence and submission, which she tore up later, +finding her mind not "all of a piece." She lay prostrate on her +prie-dieu weeping from ecstasy, lying on the rim of heaven held by +angels, wanting to die, now bathed in bliss or aching intolerably with +spiritual joy, but she was only twelve and her old nature often +reasserted itself. Religion at that time became an intense emotion +nourished on incense, music, tapers, and a feeling of being tangible. +It was rapturous and sensuous. While under its spell, she seemed to +float and touch the wings of angels. Here solemn Gregorian chants are +sung, so that when one comes back to earth there is a sense of hunger, +deception, and self-loathing. Now she came to understand how so many +sentimental and virtuous souls sought oblivion in the narcotic of +religious excitement. Here, at the age of twelve, youth began and +childhood ended with her book. + + +Pathetic is the account of Helen Keller's effort to understand the +meaning of the word "love" in its season.[26] + + +Is it the sweetness of flowers? she asked. No, said her teacher. Is it +the warm sun? Not exactly. It can not be touched, "'but you feel the +sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love, you would not +be happy or want to play.' The beautiful truth burst upon my mind. I +felt that there were invisible lines stretched between my spirit and +the spirit of others." This period seems to have came gradually and +naturally to this wonderful child, whose life has been perhaps the +purest ever lived and one of the sweetest. None has ever loved every +aspect of nature accessible to her more passionately, or felt more +keenly the charm of nature or of beautiful sentiments. The unhappy +Frost King episode has been almost the only cloud upon her life, which +unfortunately came at about the dawn of this period, that is perhaps +better marked by the great expansion of mind which she experienced at +the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, when she was thirteen. About this +time, too, her great ambition of going to college and enjoying all the +advantages that other girls did, which, considering her handicap, was +one of the greatest human resolutions, was strengthened and deepened. +The fresh, spontaneous, and exquisite reactions of this pellucid mind, +which felt that each individual could comprehend all the experiences +and emotions of the race and that chafed at every pedagogical and +technical obstacle between her soul and nature, and the great +monuments of literature, show that she has conserved to a remarkable +degree, which the world will wish may be permanent, the best impulses +of this golden age. + + +Marie Bashkirtseff,[27] who may be taken as one of the best types of +exaggerated adolescent confessionalists, was rich and of noble birth, +and began in 1873, at the age of twelve, to write a journal that +should be absolutely true and frank, with no pretense, affectation, or +concealment. The journal continues until her death, October, 1884, at +the age of twenty-three. It may be described as in some sense a +feminine counterpart of Rousseau's confessions, but is in some +respects a more precious psychological document than any other for the +elucidation of the adolescent ferment in an unusually vigorous and +gifted soul. Twice I have read it from cover to cover and with growing +interest. + + +At twelve she is passionately in love with a duke, whom she sometimes +saw pass, but who had no knowledge of her existence, and builds many +air castles about his throwing himself at her feet and of their life +together. She prays passionately to see him again, would dazzle him on +the stage, would lead a perfect life, develop her voice, and would be +an ideal wife. She agonizes before the glass on whether or not she is +pretty, and resolves to ask some young man, but prefers to think well +of herself even if it is an illusion; constantly modulates over into +passionate prayer to God to grant all her wishes; is oppressed with +despair; gay and melancholy by turn; believes in God because she +prayed Him for a set of croquet and to help her to learn English, both +of which He granted. At church some prayers and services seem directly +aimed at her; Paris now seems a frightful desert, and she has no +motive to avoid carelessness in her appearance. She has freaky and +very changeable ideas of arranging the things in her room. When she +hears of the duke's marriage she almost throws herself over a bridge, +prays God for pardon of her sins, and thinks all is ended; finds it +horrible to dissemble her feelings in public; goes through the torture +of altering her prayer about the duke. She is disgusted with common +people, harrowed by jealousy, envy, deceit and every hideous feeling, +yet feels herself frozen in the depth, and moving only on the surface. +When her voice improves she welcomes it with tears and feels an +all-powerful queen. The man she loves should never speak to another. +Her journal she resolves to make the most instructive book that ever +was or ever will be written. She esteems herself so great a treasure +that no one is worthy of her; pities those who think they can please +her; thinks herself a real divinity; prays to the moon to show her in +dreams her future husband, and quarrels with her photographs. + +In some moods she feels herself beautiful, knows she shall succeed, +everything smiles upon her and she is absolutely happy and yet in the +next paragraph the fever of life at high pressure palls upon her and +things seem asleep and unreal. Her attempts to express her feelings +drive her to desperation because words are inadequate. She loves to +weep, gives up to despair to think of death, and finds everything +transcendently exquisite. She comes to despise men and wonder whether +the good are always stupid and the intelligent always false and +saturated with baseness, but on the whole believes that some time or +other she is destined to meet one true good and great man. Now she is +inflated with pride of her ancestry, her gifts, and would subordinate +everybody and everything; she would never speak a commonplace word, +and then again feels that her life has been a failure and she is +destined to be always waiting. She falls on her knees sobbing, praying +to God with outstretched hands as if He were in her room; almost vows +to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem one-tenth of the way on foot; to +devote her money to good works; lacks the pleasures proper to her age; +wonders if she can ever love again. On throwing a bouquet from a +window into a crowd in the Corso a young man choked so beautifully a +workman who caught it that by that one act of strangling and snatching +the bouquet she fell in love. The young man calls and they see each +other often. Now she is clad from head to foot in an armor of cold +politeness, now vanity and now passion seem uppermost in their +meetings. She wonders if a certain amount of sin, like air, is +necessary to a man to sustain life. Finally they vow mutual love and +Pietro leaves, and she begins to fear that she has cherished illusions +or been insulted; is torments at things unsaid or of her spelling in +French. She coughs and for three days has a new idea that she is going +to die; prays and prostrates herself sixty times, one for each bead in +her rosary, touching the floor with her forehead every time; wonders +if God takes intentions into account; resolves to read the New +Testament, but can not find one and reads Dumas instead. In +novel-reading she imagines herself the heroine of every scene; sees +her lover and they plan their mode of life together and at last kiss +each other, but later she feels humiliated, chilled, doubts if it is +real love; studies the color of her lips to see if they have changed; +fears that she has compromised herself; has eye symptoms that make her +fear blindness. Once on reading the Testament she smiled and clasped +her hands, gazed upward, was no longer herself but in ecstasy; she +makes many programs for life; is haunted by the phrase "We live but +once"; wants to live a dozen lives in one, but feels that she does not +live one-fourth of a life; has several spells of solitary +illumination. At other times she wishes to be the center of a salon +and imagines herself to be so. She soars on poets' wings, but often +has hell in her heart; slowly love is vowed henceforth to be a word +without meaning to her. Although she suffers from _ennui_, she +realizes that women live only from sixteen to forty and cannot bear +the thought of losing a moment of her life; criticizes her mother; +scorns marriage and child-bearing, which any washerwoman can attain, +but pants for glory; now hates, now longs to see new faces; thinks of +disguising herself as a poor girl and going out to seek her fortunes; +thinks her mad vanity is her devil; that her ambitions are justified +by no results; hates moderation in anything, would have intense and +constant excitement or absolute repose; at fifteen abandons her idea +of the duke but wants an idol, and finally decides to live for fame; +studies her shoulders, hips, bust, to gauge her success in life; tries +target-shooting, hits every time and feels it to be fateful; at times +despises her mother because she is so easily influenced by her; meets +another man whose affection for her she thinks might be as reverent as +religion and who never profaned the purity of his life by a thought, +but finally drops him because the possible disappointment would be +unbearable; finds that the more unhappy any one is for love of us the +happier we are; wonders why she has weeping spells; wonders what love +that people talk so much about really is, and whether she is ever to +know. One night, at the age of seventeen, she has a fit of despair +which vents itself in moans until arising, she seizes the dining-room +clock, rushes out and throws it into the sea, when she becomes happy. +"Poor clock!" + +At another time she fears she has used the word love lightly and +resolves to no longer invoke God's help, yet in the next line prays +Him to let her die as everything is against her, her thoughts are +incoherent, she hates herself and everything is contemptible; but she +wishes to die peacefully while some one is singing a beautiful air of +Verdi. Again she thinks of shaving her head to save the trouble of +arranging her hair; is crazed to think that every moment brings her +nearer death; to waste a moment of life is infamous, yet she can trust +no one; all the freshness of life is gone; few things affect her now; +she wonders how in the past she could have acted so foolishly and +reasoned so wisely; is proud that no advice in the world could ever +keep her from doing anything she wished. She thinks the journal of her +former years exaggerated and resolves to be moderate; wants to make +others feel as she feels; finds that the only cure for disenchantment +with life is devotion to work; fears her face is wearing an anxious +look instead of the confident expression which was its chief charm. +"Impossible" is a hideous, maddening word; to think of dying like a +dog as most people do and leaving nothing behind is a granite wall +against which she every instant dashes her head. If she loved a man, +every expression of admiration for anything, or anybody else in her +presence would be a profanation. Now she thinks the man she loves must +never know what it is to be in want of money and must purchase +everything he wishes; must weep to see a woman want for anything, and +find the door of no palace or club barred to him. Art becomes a great +shining light in her life of few pleasures and many griefs, yet she +dares hope for nothing. + +At eighteen all her caprices are exhausted; she vows and prays in the +name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for her wishes. She would like +to be a millionaire, get back her voice, obtain the _prix de Rome_ +under the guise of a man and marry Napoleon IV. On winning a medal for +her pictures she does nothing but laugh, cry, and dream of greatness, +but the next day is scolded and grows discouraged. She has an immense +sense of growth and transformation, so that not a trace of her old +nature remains; feels that she has far too much of some things, and +far too little of others in her nature; sees defects in her mother's +character, whose pertinacity is like a disease; realizes that one of +her chief passions is to inspire rather than to feel love; that her +temper is profoundly affected by her dress; deplores that her family +expect her to achieve greatness rather than give her the stimulus of +expecting nothing; declares that she thanks a million thoughts for +every word that she writes; is disgusted with and sometimes absolutely +hates herself. At one time she coquets with Kant, and wonders if he is +right that all things exist only in the imagination; has a passion for +such "abracadabrante follies" that seem so learned and logical, but is +grieved to feel them to be false; longs to penetrate the intellectual +world, to see, learn, and know everything; admires Balzac because he +describes so frankly all that he has felt; loves Fleury, who has shown +her a wider horizon; still has spells of admiring her dazzling +complexion and deploring that she can not go out alone; feels that she +is losing her grip on art and also on God, who no longer hears her +prayers, and resolves to kill herself if she is not famous at thirty. + +At nineteen, and even before, she has spells of feeling inefficient +cries, calls on God, feels exhausted; is almost stunned when she hears +that the young French prince about whom she has spun romances was +killed by the Kaffirs; feels herself growing serious and sensible; +despises death; realizes that God is not what she thought, but is +perhaps Nature and Life or is perhaps Chance; she thinks out possible +pictures she might paint; develops a Platonic friendship for her +professor; might marry an old man with twenty-seven millions, but +spurns the thought; finds herself growing deaf gradually, and at +nineteen finds three grey hairs; has awful remorse for days, when she +cannot work and so loses herself in novels and cigarettes; makes many +good resolutions and then commits some folly as if in a dream; has +spells of reviewing the past. When the doctor finds a serious lung +trouble and commands iodine, cod-liver oil, hot milk, and flannel, she +at first scorns death and refuses all, and is delighted at the terror +of her friends, but gradually does all that is necessary; feels +herself too precocious and doomed; deplores especially that +consumption will cost her her good looks; has fits of intense anger +alternating with tears; concludes that death is annihilation; realizes +the horrible thought that she has a skeleton within her that some time +or other will come out; reads the New Testament again and returns to +belief in miracle, and prayer to Jesus and the Virgin; distributes one +thousand francs to the poor; records the dreamy delusions that flow +through her brain at night and the strange sensations by day. Her eye +symptoms cause her to fear blindness again; she grows superstitious, +believing in signs and fortune-tellers; is strongly impelled to +embrace and make up with her mother; at times defies God and death; +sees a Spanish bull-fight and gets from it a general impression of +human cowardice, but has a strange intoxication with blood and would +like to thrust a lance into the neck of every one she meets; coquets a +great deal with the thought of marriage; takes up her art and paints a +few very successful pictures; tries to grapple with the terrible +question, "What is my unbiased opinion concerning myself?" pants +chiefly for fame. When the other lung is found diseased the diary +becomes sometimes more serious, sometimes more fevered; she is almost +racked to find some end in life; shall she marry, or paint? and at +last finds much consolation in the visits of Bastien-Lepage, who comes +to see her often while he is dying of some gastric trouble. She keeps +up occasional and often daily entries in her journal until eleven days +before her death, occurring in October, 1884, at the age of +twenty-three, and precipitated by a cold incurred while making an +open-air sketch. + + +The confessional outpourings of Mary MacLane[28] constitute a unique +and valuable adolescent document, despite the fact that it seems +throughout affected and written for effect; however, it well +illustrates a real type, although perhaps hardly possible save in this +country, and was inspired very likely by the preceding. + + +She announces at the outset that she is odd, a genius, an extreme +egotist; has no conscience; despises her father, "Jim MacLane of +selfish memory"; loves scrubbing the floor because it gives her +strength and grace of body, although her daily life is an "empty +damned weariness." She is a female Napoleon passionately desiring +fame; is both a philosopher and a coward; her heart is wooden; +although but nineteen, she feels forty; desires happiness even more +than fame, for an hour of which she would give up at once fame, money, +power, virtue, honor, truth, and genius to the devil, whose coming she +awaits. She discusses her portrait, which constitutes the +frontispiece; is glad of her good strong body, and still awaits in a +wild, frenzied impatience the coming of the devil to take her +sacrifice, and to whom she would dedicate her life. She loves but one +in all the world, an older "anemone" lady, once her teacher. She ran +not distinguish between right and wrong; love is the only thing real +which will some day bring joy, but it is agony to wait. "Oh, dame! +damn! damn! damn! every living thing in the world!--the universe be +damned!" herself included. She is "marvelously deep," but thanks the +good devil who has made her without conscience and virtue so that she +may take her happiness when it comes. Her soul seeks but blindly, for +nothing answers. How her happiness will seethe, quiver, writhe, shine, +dance, rush, surge, rage, blare, and wreak with love and light when it +comes! + +The devil she thinks fascinating and strong, with a will of steel, +conventional clothes, whom she periodically falls in love with and +would marry, and would love to be tortured by him. She holds imaginary +conversations with him. If happiness does not come soon she will +commit suicide, and she finds rapture in the thought of death. In +Butte, Montana, where she lives, she wanders among the box rustlers, +the beer jerkers, biscuit shooters, and plunges out into the sand and +barrenness, but finds everything dumb. The six toothbrushes in the +bathroom make her wild and profane. She flirts with death at the top +of a dark, deep pit, and thinks out the stages of decomposition if she +yielded herself to Death, who would dearly love to have her. She +confesses herself a thief on several occasions, but comforts herself +because the stolen money was given to the poor. Sometimes her "very +good legs" carry her out into the country, where she has imaginary +love confabs with the devil, but the world is so empty, dreary, and +cold, and it is all so hard to bear when one is a woman and nineteen. +She has a litany from which she prays in recurrent phrases "Kind +devil, deliver me"--as, e.g., from musk, boys with curls, feminine +men, wobbly hips, red note-paper, codfish-balls, lisle-thread +stockings, the books of A.C. Gunter and Albert Ross, wax flowers, soft +old bachelors and widowers, nice young men, tin spoons, false teeth, +thin shoes, etc. She does not seem real to herself everything is a +blank. Though she doubts everything else, she will keep the one atom +of faith in love and the truth that is love and life in her heart. +When something shrieks within her, she feels that all her anguish is +for nothing and that she is a fool. She is exasperated that people +call her peculiar, but confesses that she loves admiration; she can +fascinate and charm company if she tries; imagines an admiration for +Messalina. She most desires to cultivate badness when there is lead in +the sky. "I would live about seven years of judicious badness, and +then death if you will." "I long to cultivate the of badness in me." +She describes the fascination of making and eating fudge; devotes a +chapter to describing how to eat an olive; discusses her figure. "In +the front of my shirt-waist there are nine cambric handkerchiefs +cunningly distributed." She discusses her foot, her beautiful hair, +her hips; describes each of the seventeen little engraved portraits of +Napoleon that she keeps, with each of which she falls in love; vows +she would give up even her marvelous genius far one dear, bright day +free from loneliness. When her skirts need sewing, she simply pins +them; this lasts longer, and had she mended them with needle and +thread she would have been sensible, which she hates. As she walks +over the sand one day she vows that she would like a man to come so be +that he was strong and a perfect villain and she would pray him to +lead her to what the world calls her ruin. Nothing is of consequence +to her except to be rid of unrest and pain. She would be positively +and not merely negatively wicked. To poison her soul would rouse her +mental power. "Oh, to know just once what it is to be loved!" "I know +that I am a genius more than any genius that has lived," yet she often +thinks herself a small vile creature for whom no one cares. The world +is ineffably dull, heaven has always fooled her, and she is starving +for love. + + +Ada Negri illustrates the other extreme of genuineness and is +desperately in earnest.[29] She began to teach school in a squalid, +dismal Italian village, and at eighteen to write the poetry that has +made her famous. She lived in a dim room back of a stable, up two +flights, where the windows were not glass but paper, and where she +seems to have been, like her mother, a mill head before she was a +teacher. She had never seen a theater, but had read of Duse with +enthusiasm; had never seen the sea, mountain, or even a hill, lake, or +large city, but she had read of them. After she began to write, +friends gave her two dream days in the city. Then she returned, put on +her wooden shoes, and began to teach her eighty children to spell. The +poetry she writes is from the heart of her own experience. + +She craved "the kiss of genius and of light;" but the awful figure of +misfortune with its dagger stood by her bed at night. She writes: + + "I have no name--my home a hovel damp; + I grew up from the mire; + Wretched and outcast folk my family, + And yet within me burns a flame of fire." + + +There is always a praying angel and an evil dwarf on either side. The +black abyss attracts her yet she is softened by a child's caress. She +laughs at the blackest calamities that threaten her, but weeps over +thin, wan children without bread. Her whole life goes into song. The +boy criminal on the street fascinates her and she would kiss him. She +writes of jealousy as a ghost of vengeance. If death comes, she fears +"that the haggard doctor will dissect my naked corpse," and pictures +herself dying on the operating-table like a stray dog and her +well-made body "disgraced by the lustful kiss of the too eager blade" +as, "with sinister smile untiring, they tear my bowels out and still +gloat over my sold corpse, go on to bare my bones, and veins at will, +wrench out my heart," probe vainly for the secrets of hunger and the +mystery of pain, until from her "dead breast gurgles a gasp of +malediction." Much of her verse is imprecation. "A crimson rain of +crying blood dripping from riddled chests" of those slain for liberty +falls, on her heart; the sultry factories where "monsters, of steel, +huge engines, snort all day," and where the pungent air poisons the +blood of the pale weaver girls; the fate of the mason who felt from a +high roof and struck the stone flagging, whose funeral she attends, +all inspire her to sing occasionally the songs of enfranchised labor. +Misery as a drear, toothless ghost visits her, as when gloomy pinions +had overspread her dying mother's bed, to wrench with sharp nails all +the hope from her breast with which she had defied it. A wretched old +man on the street inspires her to sing of what she imagines is his +happy though humble prime. There is the song of the pickaxe brandished +in revolution when mobs cry "Peace, labor bread," and in mines of +industry beneath the earth. She loves the "defeated" in whose house no +fire glows, who live in caves and dens, and writes of the mutilation +of a woman in the factory machinery. At eighteen years "a loom, two +handsome eyes that know no tears, a cotton dress, a love, belong to +me." She is inspired by a master of the forge beating a red-hot bar, +with his bare neck swelled. He is her demon, her God, and her pride in +him is ecstasy. She describes jealousy of two rival women, so intense +that they fight and bite, and the pure joy of a guileless, +intoxicating, life-begetting first kiss. She longs for infinite +stretches of hot, golden sand, over which she would gallop wildly on +her steed; anticipates an old age of cap and spectacles; revels in the +hurricane, and would rise in and fly and whirl with it adrift far out +in the immensity of space. She tells us, "Of genius and light I'm a +blithe, millionaire," and elsewhere she longs for the everlasting ice +of lofty mountains, the immortal silence of the Alps; sings of her +"sad twenty years," "how all, all goes when love is gone and spent." +She imagines herself springing into the water which closes over her, +while her naked soul, ghostly pale, whirls past through the lonely +dale. She imprecates the licentious world of crafty burghers, +coquettes, gamblers, well-fed millionaires, cursed geese and serpents +that make the cowardly vile world, and whom she would smite in the +face with her indignant verse. "Thou crawlest and I soar." She chants +the champions of the spade, hammer, pick, though they are ground and +bowed with toil, disfigured within, with furrowed brows. She pants for +war with outrage and with wrong; questions the abyss for its secret; +hears moans and flying shudders; and sees phantoms springing from +putrid tombs. The full moon is an old malicious spy, peeping +stealthily with evil eye. She is a bird caught in a cursed cage, and +prays some one to unlock the door and give her space and light, and +let her soar away in ecstasy and glory. Nothing less than infinite +space will satisfy her. Even the tempest, the demon, or a malevolent +spirit might bear her away on unbridled wings. In one poem she +apostrophizes Marie Bashkirtseff as warring with vast genius against +unknown powers, but who now is in her coffin among worms, her skull +grinning and showing its teeth. She would be possessed by her and +thrilled as by an electric current. A dwarf beggar wrings her heart +with pity, but she will not be overwhelmed. Though a daring peasant, +she will be free and sing out her paean to the sun, though amid the +infernal glow of furnaces, forges, and the ringing noise of hammers +and wheels. + + +Literary men who record their experiences during this stage seem to +differ from women in several important respects. First, they write with +less abandon. I can recall no male MacLanes. A Bashkirtseff would be +less impossible, and a Negri with social reform in her heart is still +less so. But men are more prone to characterize their public +metamorphoses later in life, when they are a little paled, and perhaps +feel less need of confessionalism for that reason. It would, however, be +too hazardous to elaborate this distinction too far. Secondly and more +clearly, men tend to vent their ephebic calentures more in the field of +action. They would break the old moorings of home and strike out new +careers, or vent their souls in efforts and dreams of reconstructing the +political, industrial, or social world. Their impracticabilities are +more often in the field of practical life and remoter from their own +immediate surroundings. This is especially true in our practical +country, which so far lacks subjective characterizations of this age of +eminent literary merit, peculiarly intense as it is here. Thirdly, they +erupt in a greater variety of ways, and the many kinds of genius and +talent that now often take possession of their lives like fate are more +varied and individual. This affords many extreme contrasts, as, e.g., +between Trollope's pity for, and Goethe's apotheosis of his youth; +Mill's loss of feeling, and Jefferies's unanalytic, passionate outbursts +of sentiment; the esthetic ritualism of Symonds, and the progressive +religious emancipation of Fielding Hall; the moral and religious +supersensitiveness of Oliphant, who was a reincarnation of medieval +monkhood, and the riotous storminess of Mueller and Ebers; the +abnormalities and precocity of De Quincey, and the steady, healthful +growth of Patterson; the simultaneity of a fleshly and spiritual love in +Keller and Goethe, and the duality of Pater, with his great and +tyrannical intensification of sensation for nature and the sequent +mysticity and symbolism. In some it is fulminating but episodic, in +others gradual and lifelong like the advent of eternal spring. Fourth, +in their subjective states women outgrow less in their consciousness, +and men depart farther from their youth, in more manifold ways. Lastly, +in its religious aspects, the male struggles more with dogma, and his +enfranchisement from it is more intellectually belabored. Yet, despite +all these differences, the analogies between the sexes are probably yet +more numerous, more all-pervasive. All these biographic facts reveal +nothing not found in _questionnaire_ returns from more ordinary youth, +so that for our purposes they are only the latter, writ large because +superior minds only utter what all more inwardly feel. The arrangement +by nationality which follows gives no yet adequate basis for inference +unless it be the above American peculiarity. + +In his autobiography from 1785-1803, De Quincey[30] remembered feeling +that life was finished and blighted for him at the age of six, up to +which time the influence of his sister three years older had brooded +over him. + + +His first remembrance, however, is of a dream of terrific grandeur +before he was two, which seemed to indicate that his dream tendencies +were constitutional and not due to morphine, but the chill was upon +the first glimpse that this was a world of evil. He had been brought +up in great seclusion from all knowledge of poverty and oppression in +a silent garden with three sisters, but the rumor that a female +servant had treated one of them rudely just before her death plunged +him into early pessimism. He felt that little Jane would come back +certainly in the spring with the roses, and he was glad that his utter +misery with the blank anarchy confusion which her death brought could +not be completely remembered. He stole into the chamber where her +corpse lay, and as he stood, a solemn wind, the saddest he ever heard, +that might have swept the fields of mortality for a thousand +centuries, blew, and that same hollow Memnonian wind he often had +heard since, and it brought back the open summer window and the +corpse. A vault above opened into the sky, and he slept and dreamed +there, standing by her, he knew not how long; a worm that could not +die was at his heart, for this was the holy love between children that +could not perish. The funeral was full of darkness and despair for +him, and after it he sought solitude, gazed into the heavens to see +his sister till he was tired, and realized that he was alone. Thus, +before the end of his sixth year, with a mind already adolescent, +although with a retarded body, the minor tone of life became dominant +and his awakening to it was hard. + +As a penniless schoolboy wandering the streets of London at night, he +was on familiar and friendly terms of innocent relationship with a +number of outcast women. In his misery they were to him simply sisters +in calamity, but he found in them humanity, disinterested generosity, +courage, and fidelity. One night, after he had walked the streets for +weeks with one of these friendless girls who had not completed her +sixteenth year, as they sat on the steps of a house, he grew very ill, +and had she not rushed to buy from her slender purse cordials and +tenderly ministered to and revived him, he would have died. Many years +later he used to wander past this house, and he recalled with real +tenderness this youthful friendship; he longed again to meet the +"noble-minded Ann ----" with whom he had so often conversed familiarly +"_more Socratico_," whose betrayer he had vainly sought to punish, and +yearned to hear from her in order to convey to her some authentic +message of gratitude, peace, and forgiveness. + +His much older brother came home in his thirty-ninth year to die. He +had been unmanageable in youth and his genius for mischief was an +inspiration, yet he was hostile to everything pusillanimous, haughty, +aspiring, ready to fasten a quarrel on his shadow for running before, +at first inclined to reduce his boy brother to a fag, but finally +before his death became a great influence in his life. Prominent were +the fights between De Quincey and another older brother on the one +hand, and the factory crowd of boys on the other, a fight incessantly +renewed at the close of factory hours, with victory now on one and now +on the other side; fought with stones and sticks, where thrice he was +taken prisoner, where once one of the factory women kissed him, to the +great delight of his heart. He finally invented a kingdom like Hartley +Coleridge, called Gom Broon. He thought first that it had no location, +but finally because his brother's imaginary realm was north and he +wanted wide water between them, his was in the far south. It was only +two hundred and seventy miles in circuit, and he was stunned to be +told by his brother one day that his own domain swept south for eighty +degrees, so that the distance he had relied on vanished. Here, +however, he continued to rule for well or ill, raising taxes, keeping +an imaginary standing army, fishing herring and selling the product of +his fishery for manure, and experiencing how "uneasy lies the head +that wears a crown." He worried over his obligations to Gom Broon, and +the shadow froze into reality, and although his brother's kingdom +Tigrosylvania was larger, his was distinguished for eminent men and a +history not to be ashamed of. A friend had read Lord Monboddo's view +that men had sprung from apes, and suggested that the inhabitants of +Gom Broon had tails, so that the brother told him that his subjects +had not emerged from apedom and he must invent arts to eliminate the +tails. They must be made to sit down for six hours a day as a +beginning. Abdicate he would not, though all his subjects had three +tails apiece. They had suffered together. Vain was his brother's +suggestion that they have a Roman toga to conceal their ignominious +appendages. He was greatly interested in two scrofulous idiots, who +finally died, and feared that his subjects were akin to them. + + +John Stuart Mill's Autobiography presents one of the most remarkable +modifications of the later phases of adolescent experience. No boy +ever had more diligent and earnest training than his father gave him +or responded better. He can not remember when be began to learn Greek, +but was told that it was at the age of three. The list of classical +authors alone that he read in the original, to say nothing of history, +political, scientific, logical, and other works before he was twelve, +is perhaps unprecedented in all history. He associated with his father +and all his many friends on their own level, but modestly ascribes +everything to his environment, insists that in natural gifts he is +other below than above par, and declares that everything he did could +be done by every boy of average capacity and healthy physical +constitution. His father made the Greek virtue of temperance or +moderation cardinal, and thought human life "a poor thing at best +after the freshness of youth and unsatisfied curiosity had gone by." +He scorned "the intense" and had only contempt for strong emotion. + + +In his teens Mill was an able debater and writer for the quarterlies, +and devoted to the propagation of the theories of Bentham, Ricardo, +and associationism. From the age of fifteen he had an object in life, +viz., to reform the world. This gave him happiness, deep, permanent, +and assured for the future, and the idea of struggling to promote +utilitarianism seemed an inspiring program for life. But in the autumn +of 1826, when he was twenty years of age, he felt into "a dull state +of nerves," where he could no longer enjoy and what had produced +pleasure seemed insipid; "the state, I should think, in which converts +to Methodism usually are when smitten by their first 'conviction of +sin.' In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question +directly to myself; 'Suppose that all your objects in life were +realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you +are looking forward to could be completely effected at this very +instant; would this be a great joy and happiness to you?' And an +irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, 'No.' At this my +heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was +constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the +continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how +could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have +nothing left to live for. At first I hoped that the cloud would pass +away of itself, but it did not. A night's sleep, the sovereign remedy +for the smaller vexations of life, had no effect on it. I awoke to a +renewed consciousness of the woful fact. I carried it with me into all +companies, into all occupations. Hardly anything had power to cause me +even a few minutes' oblivion of it. For some months the cloud seemed +to grow thicker and thicker. The lines in Coleridge's 'Dejection'--I +was not then acquainted with them--exactly described my case: + + +"'A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear, + A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief, + Which finds no natural outlet or relief + In word, or sigh, or tear.' + + +"In vain I sought relief from my favorite books, those memorials of +past nobleness and greatness from which I had always hitherto drawn +strength and animation. I read them now without feeling, or with the +accustomed feeling minus all its charm; and I became persuaded that my +love of mankind, and of excellence for its own sake, had worn itself +out. I sought no comfort by speaking to others of what I felt. If I +had loved any one sufficiently to make confiding my griefs a +necessity, I should not have been in the condition I was. I felt, too, +that mine was not an interesting or in anyway respectable distress. +There was nothing in it to attract sympathy. Advice, if I had known +where to seek it, would have been most precious. The words of Macbeth +to the physician often occurred to my thoughts. But there was no one +on whom I could build the faintest hope of such assistance. My father, +to whom it would have been natural to me to have recourse in any +practical difficulties, was the last person to whom, in such a case as +this, I looked for help. Everything convinced me that he had no +knowledge of any such mental state as I was suffering from, and that +even if he could be made to understand it, he was not the physician +who could heal it. My education, which was wholly his work, had been +conducted without any regard to the possibility of its ending in this +result, and I saw no use in giving him the pain of thinking that his +plans had failed, when the failure was probably irremediable, and, at +all event, beyond the power of his remedies. Of other friends, I had +at that time none to whom I had any hope of making my condition +intelligible. It was, however, abundantly intelligible to myself, and +the more I dwelt upon it the more hopeless it appeared." + +He now saw what had hitherto seemed incredible, that the habit of +analysis tends to wear away the feelings. He felt "stranded at the +commencement of my voyage, with a well-equipped ship and a rudder, but +no sail; without any real desire for the ends which I had been so +carefully fitted out to work for: no delight in virtue, or the general +good, but also just as little in anything else. The fountains of +vanity and ambition seemed to have dried up within me as completely as +those of benevolence." His vanity had been gratified at too early an +age, and, like all premature pleasures, they had caused indifference, +until he despaired of creating any fresh association of pleasure with +any objects of human dire. Meanwhile, dejected and melancholy as he +was through the winter, he went on mechanically with his tasks; +thought he found in Coleridge the first description of what he was +feeling; feared the idiosyncrasies of his education had made him a +being unique and apart. "I asked myself if I could or if I was bound +to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally +answered to myself that I did not think I could possibly bear it +beyond a year." But within about half that time, in reading a pathetic +page of how a mere boy felt that he could save his family and take the +place of all they had lost, a vivid conception of the scene came over +him and he was moved to tears. From that moment, his burden grew +lighter. He saw that his heart was not dead and that he still had some +stuff left of which character and happiness are made; and although +there were several later lapses, some of which lasted many months, he +was never again as miserable as he had been. + +These experience left him changed in two respects. He had a new theory +of life, having much in common with the anti-consciousness theory of +Carlyle. He still held happiness the end of life, but thought it must +be aimed at indirectly and taken incidentally. The other change was +that for the first time he gave its proper place to internal culture +of the individual, especially the training of the feelings which +became now cardinal. He relished and felt the power of poetry and art; +was profoundly moved by music; fell in love with Wordsworth and with +nature, and his later depressions were best relieved by the power of +rural beauty, which wrought its charm not because of itself but by the +states and feelings it aroused. His ode on the intimations of +immortality showed that he also had felt that the first freshness of +youthful joy was not lasting, and had sought and found compensation. +He had thus come to a very different standpoint from that of his +father, who had up to this time formed his mind and life, and +developed on this basis his unique individuality. + + +Jefferies, when eighteen, began his "Story of My Heart,"[31] which he +said was an absolutely true confession of the stages of emotion in a +soul from which all traces of tradition and learning were erased, and +which stood face to face with nature and the unknown. + + +His heart long seemed dusty and parched for want of feeling, and he +frequented a hill, where the pores of his soul opened to a new air. +"Lying down on the grass, I spoke in my soul to the earth, the sun, +the air and the distant sea.... I desired to have its strength, its +mystery and glory. I addressed the sun, desiring the sole equivalent +of his light and brilliance, his endurance, and unwearied race. I +turned to the blue heaven over, gazing into its depth, inhaling its +exquisite color and sweetness. The rich blue of the unobtainable +flower of the sky drew my soul toward it, and there it rested, for +pure color is the rest of the heart. By all these I prayed. I felt an +emotion of the soul beyond all definition; prayer is a puny thing to +it." He prayed by the thyme; by the earth; the flowers which he +touched; the dust which he let fall through his fingers; was filled +with "a rapture, an ecstasy, an inflatus. With this inflatus I +prayed.... I hid my face in the grass; I was wholly prostrated; I lost +myself in the wrestle.... I see now that what I labored for was soul +life, more soul learning." After gazing upward he would turn his face +into the grass, shutting out everything with hands each side, till he +felt down into the earth and was absorbed in it, whispering deep down +to its center. Every natural impression, trees, insects, air, clouds, +he used for prayer, "that my soul might be more than the cosmos of +life." His "Lyra" prayer was to live a more exalted and intense soul +life; enjoy more bodily pleasure and live long and find power to +execute his designs. He often tried, but failed for years to write at +least a meager account of these experiences. He felt himself immortal +just as he felt beauty. He was in eternity already; the supernatural +is only the natural misnamed. As he lay face down on the grass, +seizing it with both hands, he longed for death, to be burned on a +pyre of pine wood on a high hill, to have his ashes scattered wide and +broadcast, to be thrown into the space he longed for while living, but +he feared that such a luxury of resolution into the elements would be +too costly. Thus his naked mind, close against naked mother Nature, +wrested from her the conviction of soul, immortality, deity, under +conditions as primitive as those of the cave man, and his most +repeated prayer was "Give me the deepest soul life." + +In other moods he felt the world outre-human, and his mind could by no +twist be fitted to the cosmos. Ugly, designless creatures caused him +to cease to look for deity in nature, where all happens by chance. He +at length concluded there is something higher than soul and above +deity, and better than God, for which he searched and labored. He +found favorite thinking places, to which he made pilgrimages, where he +"felt out into the depths of the ether." His frame could not bear the +labor his heart demanded. Work of body was his meat and drink. "Never +have I had enough of it. I wearied long before I was satisfied, and +weariness did not bring a cessation of desire, the thirst was still +there. I rode; I used the ax; I split tree-trunks with wedges; my arms +tired, but my spirit remained fresh and chafed against the physical +weariness." Had he been indefinitely stronger, he would have longed +for more strength. He was often out of doors all day and often half +the night; wanted more sunshine; wished the day was sixty hours long; +took pleasure in braving the cold so that it should be not life's +destroyer but its renewer. Yet he abhorred asceticism. He wrestled +with the problem of the origin of his soul and destiny, but could find +no solution; revolted at the assertion that all is designed for the +best; "a man of intellect and humanity could cause everything to +happen in an infinitely superior manner." He discovered that no one +ever died of old age, but only of disease; that we do not even know +what old age would be like; found that his soul is infinite, but lies +in abeyance; that we are murdered by our ancestors and must roll back +the tide of death; that a hundredth part of man's labor would suffice +for his support; that idleness is no evil; that in the future +nine-tenths of the time will be leisure, and to that end he will work +with all his heart. "I was not more than eighteen when an inner and +esoteric meaning began to come to me from all the visible universe, +and indefinable aspirations filled me." + +Interesting as is this document, it is impossible to avoid the +suspicion that the seventeen years which intervened between the +beginning of these experiences and their final record, coupled with +the perhaps unconscious tendency toward literary effect, detract more +or less from their value as documents of adolescent nature. + + +Mr. H. Fielding Hall, author of "The Soul of a People," has since +written a book[32] in which, beginning with many definitions of +Christianity, weighing the opinion of those who think all our advance +is made because of, against those who think it in spite of +Christianity, he proceeds to give the story of a boy, probably +himself, who till twelve was almost entirely reared by women and with +children younger than himself. + + +He was sickly, and believed not in the Old but in the New Testament; +in the Sermon on the Mount, which he supposed all accepted and lived +by; that war and wealth were bad and learning apt to be a snare; that +the ideal life was that of a poor curate, working hard and unhappy. At +twelve, he went to a boarding-school, passed from a woman's world into +a man's, out of the New Testament into the Old, out of dreams into +reality. War was a glorious opportunity, and all followed the British +victories, which were announced publicly. Big boys were going to +Sandhurst or Woolwich; there were parties; and the school code never +turned the other cheek. Wars were God's storms, stirring stagnant +natures to new life; wealth was worshiped; certain lies were an honor; +knowledge was an extremely desirable thing--all this was at first new +and delightful, but extremely wicked. Sunday was the only other Old +Testament rule, but was then forgotten. Slowly a repugnance of +religion in all its forms arose. He felt his teachers hypocrites; he +raised no alarm, "for he was hardly conscious that his anchor had +dragged or that he had lost hold" of it forever. At eighteen, he read +Darwin and found that if he were right, Genesis was wrong; man had +risen, not fallen; if a part was wrong, the whole was. If God made the +world, the devil seemed to rule it; prayer can not influence him; the +seven days of creation were periods, Heaven knows how long. Why did +all profess and no one believe religion? Why is God so stern and yet +so partial, and how about the Trinity? Then explanations were given. +Heaven grew repulsive, as a place for the poor, the maimed, the +stupid, the childish, and those unfit for earth generally. + +Faiths came from the East. "The North has originated only Thor, Odin, +Balder, Valkyres." The gloom and cold drive man into himself; do not +open him. In the East one can live in quiet solitude, with no effort, +close to nature. The representatives of all faiths wear ostentatiously +their badges, pray in public, and no one sneers at all religions. +Oriental faiths have no organization; there is no head of Hinduism, +Buddhism, or hardly of Mohammedanism. There are no missions, but +religion grows rankly from a rich soil, so the boy wrote three +demands: a reasonable theory of the universe, a workable and working +code of conduct, and a promise of something desirable hereafter. So he +read books and tried to make a system. + +On a hill, in a thunder-storm in the East, he realized how Thor was +born. Man fears thunder; it seems the voice of a greater man. Deny +eyes, legs, and body of the Deity, and nothing is left. God as an +abstract spirit is unthinkable, but Buddhism offers us no God, only +law. Necessity, blind force, law, or a free personal will--that is the +alternative. Freedom limits omnipotence; the two can never mix. "The +German Emperor's God, clanking round the heavenly mansions wearing a +German _Pickelhaube_ and swearing German oaths," is not satisfactory. +Man's God is what he admires most in himself; he can be propitiated, +hence atonement; you can not break a law, but you can study it. +Inquiry, not submission, is the attitude. Perhaps both destiny and +freedom are true, but truth is for the sake of light. + +Thor had no moral code; the Greeks were unmoral. Jehovah at first +asked only fear, reverence, and worship. This gives no guide to life. +Most codes are directed against a foe and against pain. Truth, mercy, +courtesy--these were slowly added to reverence; then sanitary rules, +hence castes. Two codes, those of Christ and Buddha, tower above all +others. They are the same in praising not wealth, greatness, or power, +but purity, renunciation of the world, as if one fitted one's self for +one by being unfitted for the other world. + +Is heaven a bribe? Its ideals are those of children, of girl angels, +white wings, floating dresses, no sheep, but lambs. "Surely there is +nothing in all the world so babyish." One can hardly imagine a man +with a deep voice, with the storm of life beating his soul, amid those +baby faces. If happiness in any act or attitude is perfect, it will +last forever. Where is due the weariness or satiety? But if happiness +be perfect, this is impossible; so life would be monotony akin to +annihilation. But life is change, and change is misery. There is +effort here; but there will be none in the great peace that passes +understanding; no defeat, therefore no victory; no friends, because no +enemies; no joyous meetings, because no farewells. It is the shadows +and the dark mysteries that sound the depths of our hearts. No man +that ever lived, if told that he could be young again or go to any +heaven, would choose the latter. Men die for many things, but all fear +the beyond. Thus no religion gives us an intelligible First Cause, a +code or a heaven that we want. The most religious man is the peasant +listening to the angelus, putting out a little _ghi_ for his God; the +woman crying in the pagoda. Thus we can only turn to the hearts of men +for the truth of religion. + + +Biographies and autobiographies furnish many photographic glimpses of +the struggles and experiences of early adolescent years. + + +Anthony Trollope's autobiography[33] is pitiful. He was poor and +disliked by most of his masters and treated with ignominy by his +fellow pupils. He describes himself as always in disgrace. At fifteen +he walked three miles each way twice a day to and from school. As a +sizar he seemed a wretched farmer's boy, reeking from the dunghill, +sitting next the sons of big peers. All were against him, and he was +allowed to join no games, and learned, he tells us, absolutely nothing +but a little Greek and Latin. Once only, goaded to desperation, he +rallied and whipped a bully. The boy was never able to overcome the +isolation of his school position, and while he coveted popularity with +an eagerness which was almost mean, and longed exceedingly to excel in +cricket or with the racquet, was allowed to know nothing of them. He +remembers at nineteen never to have had a lesson in writing, +arithmetic, French, or German. He knew his masters by their ferules +and they him. He believes that he has "been flogged oftener than any +human being alive. It was just possible to obtain five scourgings in +one day at Winchester, and I have often boasted that I have obtained +them all." Prizes were distributed prodigally, but he never got one. +For twelve years of tuition, he says, "I do not remember that I ever +knew a lesson." + +At this age he describes himself as "an idle, desolate, hanger on ... +without an idea of a career or a profession or a trade," but he was +tolerably happy because be could fancy himself in love with pretty +girls and had been removed from the real misery of school, but had not +a single aspiration regarding his future. Three of his household were +dying of consumption, and his mother was day nurse, night nurse, and +divided her time between pill-boxes and the ink-bottle, for when she +was seventy-six she had written one hundred and forty volumes, the +first of which was not written till she was fifty. + +Gradually the boy became alive to the blighted ambition of his +father's life and the strain his mother was enduring, nursing the +dying household and writing novels to provide a decent roof for them +to die under. Anthony got a position at the post-office without an +examination. He knew no French nor science; was a bad speller and +worse writer and could not have sustained an examination on any +subject. Still be could not bear idleness, and was always going about +with some castle in the air finely built in his mind, carrying on for +weeks and years the same continuous story; binding himself down to +certain laws, proprieties, and unities; always his own hero, excluding +everything violently improbable. To this practise, which he calls +dangerous and which began six or seven years before he went to the +post-office, he ascribes his power to maintain an interest in a +fictitious story and to live in a entirely outside imaginative life. +During these seven years he acquired a character of irregularity and +grew reckless. + +Mark Pattison[34] shows us how his real life began in the middle +teens, when his energy was "directed to one end, to improve myself"; +"to form my own mind; to sound things thoroughly; to be free from the +bondage of unreason and the traditional prejudices which, when I first +began to think, constituted the whole of my mental fabric." He entered +upon life with a "hide-bound and contracted intellect," and depicts +"something of the steps by which I emerged from that frozen +condition." He believes that to "remember the dreams and confusions of +childhood and never to lose the recollection of the curiosity and +simplicity of that age, is one of the great gifts of the poetic +character," although this, he tells us, was extraordinarily true of +George Sand, but not of himself. From the age of twelve on, a +Fellowship at Oriel was the ideal of his life, and although he became +a commoner there at seventeen, his chief marvel is that he was so +immature and unimpressionable. + +William Hale White[35] learned little at school, save Latin and good +penmanship, but his very life was divided into halves--Sundays and +week days--and he reflects at some length upon the immense dangers of +the early teens; the physiological and yet subtler psychic penalties +of error; callousness to fine pleasures; hardening of the conscience; +and deplores the misery which a little instruction might have saved +him. At fourteen he underwent conversion, understood in his sect to be +a transforming miracle, releasing higher and imprisoning lower powers. +He compares it to the saving of a mind from vice by falling in love +with a woman who is adored, or the reclamation of a young woman from +idleness and vanity by motherhood. But as a boy he was convinced of +many things which were mere phrases, and attended prayer-meetings for +the clanship of being marked off from the world and of walking home +with certain girls. He learned to say in prayer that there was nothing +good in him, that he was rotten and filthy and his soul a mass of +putrefying sores; but no one took him at his word and expelled him +from society, but thought the better of him. Soon he began to study +theology, but found no help in suppressing tempestuous lust, in +understanding the Bible, or getting his doubts answered, and all the +lectures seemed irrelevant chattering. An infidel was a monster whom +he had rarely ever seen. At nineteen he began to preach, but his heart +was untouched till he read Wordsworth's lyrical ballads, and this +recreated a living God for him, melted his heart to tears, and made +him long for companionship; its effect was instantly seen in his +preaching, and soon made him slightly suspected as heretical.[36] + +John Addington Symonds, in his autobiography, describes his +"insect-like" devotion to creed in the green infancy of ritualism. In +his early teens at boarding-school he and his mates, with half +sincerity, followed a classmate to compline, donned surplices, tossed +censers, arranged altars in their studies, bought bits of painted +glass for their windows and illuminated crucifixes with gold dust and +vermilion. When he was confirmed, this was somewhat of an epoch. +Preparation was like a plowshare, although it turned up nothing +valuable, and stimulated esthetic and emotional ardor. In a dim way he +felt God near, but he did not learn to fling the arms of the soul in +faith around the cross of Christ. Later the revelation he found in +Plato removed him farther from boyhood. He fell in love with gray +Gothic churches, painted glass, organ lofts, etc. + +Walter Pater has described phases of ferment, perhaps largely his own, +in the character of Florian Deleal; his rapture of the red hawthorn +blossoms, "absolutely the reddest of all things"; his times of +"seemingly exclusive predominance of interest in beautiful physical +things, a kind of tyranny of the senses"; and his later absorbing +efforts to estimate the proportion of the sensuous and ideal, +assigning most importance to sensible vehicles and occasions; +associating all thoughts with touch and sight as a link between +himself and things, till he became more and more "unable to care for +or think of soul but as in an actual body"; comforted in the +contemplation of death by the thought of flesh turning to violets and +almost oppressed by the pressure of the sensible world, his longings +for beauty intensifying his fear of death. He loved to gaze on dead +faces in the Paris Morgue although the haunt of them made the sunshine +sickly for days, and his long fancy that they had not really gone nor +were quite motionless, but led a secret, half fugitive life, freer by +night, and perhaps dodging about in their old haunts with no great +good-will toward the living, made him by turns pity and hate the +ghosts who came back in the wind, beating at the doors. His religious +nature gradually yielded to a mystical belief in Bible personages in +some indefinite place as the reflexes and patterns of our nobler self, +whose companionship made the world more satisfying. There was "a +constant substitution of the typical for the actual," and angels might +be met anywhere. "A deep mysticity brooded over real things and +partings," marriages and many acts and accidents of life. "The very +colors of things became themselves weighty with meanings," or "full of +penitence and peace." "For a time he walked through the world in a +sustained, not unpleasurable awe generated by the habitual +recognition, beside every circumstance and event of life, of its +celestial correspondent." + +In D. C. Boulger's Life of General Charles Gordon[37] he records how, +like Nelson Clive, his hero was prone to boys' escapades and outbreaks +that often made him the terror of his superiors. He was no bookworm, +but famous as the possessor of high spirits, very often involved in +affairs that necessitated discipline, and seemed greatly out of +harmony with the popular idea of the ascetic of Mount Carmel. As a +schoolboy he made wonderful squirts "that would wet you through in a +minute." One Sunday twenty-seven panes of glass in a large storehouse +were broken with screws shot through them by his cross-bow "for +ventilation." Ringing bells and pushing young boys in, butting an +unpopular officer severely in the stomach with his head and taking the +punishment, hitting a bully with a clothes-brush and being put back +six months in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich; these are the +early outcrops of one side of his dual character. Although more +soldier than saint, he had a very cheery, genial side. He was always +ready to take even the severest punishment for all his scrapes due to +excessive high spirits. When one of his superiors declared that he +would never make an officer, he felt his honor touched, and his +vigorous and expressive reply was to tear the epaulets from his +shoulders and throw them at his superior's feet. He had already +developed some of the rather moody love of seclusion that was marked +later, but religion did not strike him deeply enough to bring him into +the church until he was twenty-one, when he took his first sacrament. +On one occasion he declined promotion within his reach because he +would have had to pass a friend to get it. He acted generally on his +impulses, which were perhaps better than his judgments, took great +pleasure in corresponding on religious topics with his elder sister, +and early formed the habit of excessive smoking which gravely affected +his health later. His was the rare combination of inner repose and +confidence, interrupted by spells of gaiety. + +Williamson, in his "Life of Holman Hunt,"[38] tells us that at +thirteen he was removed from school as inapt in study. He began to +spend his time in drawing in his copybooks. He was made clerk to an +auctioneer, who fortunately encouraged his passion, and at sixteen was +with a calico printer. Here he amused himself by drawing flies on the +window, which his employer tried to brush off. There was the greatest +home opposition to his studying art. After being rejected twice, he +was admitted at seventeen to the Academy school as a probationer, and +the next year, in 1845, as a student. Here he met Millais and Rossetti +and was able to relieve the strain on his mind, which the worry of his +father concerning his course caused him, and very soon his career +began. + +At thirteen Fitzjames Stephen[39] roused himself to thrash a big boy +who had long bullied him, and became a fighter. In his sixteenth year, +he grew nearly five inches, but was so shy and timid at Eton that he +says, "I was like a sensible grown-up woman among a crowd of rough +boys"; but in the reaction to the long abuse his mind was steeled +against oppression, tyranny, and every kind of unfairness. He read +Paine's "Age of Reason," and went "through the Bible as a man might go +through a wood, cutting down trees. The priests can stick them in +again, but they will not make them grow." + + +Dickens has given us some interesting adolescents. Miss Dingwall in +"Sketches by Boz," "very sentimental and romantic"; the tempery young +Nickleby, who, at nineteen, thrashed Squeers; Barnaby Rudge, idiotic +and very muscular; Joe Willet, persistently treated as a boy till he +ran away to join the army and married Dolly Varden, perhaps the most +exuberant, good-humored, and beautiful girl in all the Dickens +gallery; Martin Chuzzlewit, who also ran away, as did David +Copperfield, perhaps the most true to adolescence because largely +reminiscent of the author's own life; Steerforth, a stranger from +home, and his victim, Little Emily; and to some extent Sam Weller, +Dick Swiveller, the Marchioness, young Podsnap, the Artful Dodger, and +Charley Bates; while Oliver Twist, Little Nell, and Little Dorrit, Joe +and Turveydrop in Bleak House, and Paul Dombey, young as they were, +show the beginning of the pubescent change. Most of his characters, +however, are so overdrawn and caricatured as to be hardly true to +life.[40] + +In the "Romance of John Inglesant,"[41] by J. H. Shorthouse, we have +a remarkable picture of an unusually gifted youth, who played an +important role in the days of Cromwell and King Charles, and who was +long poised in soul between the Church of Rome and the English party. +He was very susceptible to the fascination of superstition, romance, +and day-dreaming, and at eleven absorbed his master's Rosicrucian +theories of spiritual existence where spirits held converse with each +other and with mankind. A mystic Platonism, which taught that Pindar's +story of the Argo was only a recipe for the philosopher's stone, +fascinated him at fourteen. The philosophy of obedience and of the +subjection of reason to authority was early taught him, and he sought +to live from within, hearing only the divine law, as the worshipers of +Cybele heard only the flutes. His twin brother Eustace was an active +worldling, and soon he followed him to court as page to the Queen, but +delighted more and more in wandering apart and building air castles. +For a time he was entirely swayed, and his life directed, by a Jesuit +Father, who taught him the crucifix and the rosary. At sixteen the +doctrine of divine illumination fascinated him. He struggled to find +the path of true devotion; abandoned himself to extremely ritualistic +forms of worship; dabbled a little in alchemy and astrology to help +develop the divine nature within him and to attain the beatific +vision. Soon he was introduced to the "Protestant nunnery," as it was +called, where the venerable Mr. Ferran, a friend of George Herbert's, +was greatly taken by Inglesant's accomplishments and grace of manner. +Various forms of extremely High Church yet Protestant worship were +celebrated here each day with great devotion, until he became +disgusted with Puritanism and craved to participate in the office of +mass. At this point, however, he met Mr. Hobbes, whose rude but +forcible condemnation of papacy restrained him from casting his lot +with it. At seventeen, he saw one night a real apparition of the just +executed Strafford. The last act of his youth, which we can note here, +was soon after he was twenty, when he fell in love with the charming +and saintly Mary Collet. The rough Puritan Thorne had made her +proposals at which she revolted, but she and Inglesant confessed love +to each other; she saw, however, that they had a way of life marked +out for themselves by an inner impulse and light. This calling they +must follow and abandon love, and now John plunged into the war on the +side of the King. + +W. J. Stillman[42] has written with unusual interest and candor the +story of his own early life. + + +As a boy he was frenzied at the first sight of the sea; caught the +whip and lashed the horses in an unconscious delirium, and always +remembered this as one of the most vivid experiences of his life. He +had a period of nature worship. His first trout was a delirium, and he +danced about wildly and furiously. He relates his very vivid +impressions of the religious orthodoxy in which he was reared, +especially revival sermons; his occasional falsehoods to escape severe +punishment; his baptism at ten or eleven in a river in midwinter; the +somberness of his intellectual life, which was long very apathetic; +his phenomenal stupidity for years; his sudden insurrections in which +he thrashed bullies at school; his fear that he should be sent home in +disgrace for bad scholarship; and how at last, after seven years of +dulness, at the age of fourteen, "the mental fog broke away suddenly, +and before the term ended I could construe the Latin in less time than +it took to recite it, and the demonstrations of Euclid were as plain +and clear as a fairy story. My memory came back so distinctly that I +could recite long poems after a single reading, and no member of the +class passed a more brilliant examination at the end of the term than +I; and, at the end of the second term, I could recite the whole of +Legendre's geometry, plane and spherical, from beginning to end +without a question, and the class examination was recorded as the most +remarkable which the academy had witnessed for many years. I have +never been able to conceive an explanation of this curious phenomenon, +which I record only as of possible interest to some one interested in +psychology." + +A. Bronson Alcott[43] was the son of a Connecticut farmer. He began a +diary at twelve; aspired vainly to enter Yale, and after much +restlessness at the age of nineteen left home with two trunks for +Virginia to peddle on foot, hoping to teach school. Here he had a +varying and often very hard experience for years. + +Hornes Bushnell's[44] parents represented the Episcopal and liberal +Congregational Church. His early life was spent on a farm and in +attending a country academy. He became profoundly interested in +religion in the early teens and developed extreme interest in nature. +At seventeen, while tending a carding machine, he wrote a paper on +Calvinism. At nineteen he united with the church, and entered Yale +when he was twenty-one, in 1823. Later he tried to teach school, but +left it, declaring he would rather lay stone wall; worked on a +journal, but withdrew, finding it a terrible life; studied law for a +year, became a tutor at Yale, experienced a reconversion and entered +the ministry. + + +A well-known American, who wishes his name withheld, writes me of his +youth as follows: + + +"First came the love of emotion and lurid romance reading. My mind was +full of adventure, dreams of underground passages, and imprisoned +beauties whom I rescued. I wrote a story in red ink, which I never +read, but a girl friend did, and called it magnificent. The girl +fever, too, made me idealize first one five years older than I, later +another three years older, and still later one of my own age. I would +have eaten dirt for each of them for a year or two; was extremely +gallant and the hero of many romances for two, but all the time so +bashful that I scarcely dared speak to one of them, and no schoolmate +ever suspected it all. Music also became a craze at fourteen. Before, +I had hated lessons, now I was thrilled and would be a musician, +despite my parents' protests. I practised the piano furiously; wrote +music and copied stacks of it; made a list of several hundred pieces +and tunes, including everything musical I knew; would imagine a +crowded hall, where I played and swayed with fine airs. The vast +assembly applauded and would not let me go, but all the time it was a +simple piece and I was a very ordinary player. At fifty years, this is +still a relic. I now in hours of fatigue pound the piano and dreamily +imagine dazed and enchanted audiences. Then came oratory, and I glowed +and thrilled in declaiming Webster's "Reply to Hayne," "Thanatopsis," +Byron's "Darkness," Patrick Henry, and best of all "The Maniac," which +I spouted in a fervid way wearing a flaming red necktie. I remember a +fervid scene with myself on a high solitary hill with a bald summit +two miles from home, where I once went because I had been blamed. I +tried to sum myself up, inventory my good and bad points. It was +Sunday, and I was keyed up to a frenzy of resolve, prayer, +idealization of life; all grew all in a jumble. My resolve to go to +college was clinched then and there, and that hill will always remain +my Pisgah and Moriah, Horeb and Sinai all in one. I paced back and +forth in the wind and shouted, 'I will make people know and revere me; +I will do something'; and called everything to witness my vow that I +never again would visit this spot till all was fulfilled." "Alas!" he +says, "I have never been there since. Once, to a summer party who +went, I made excuse for not keeping this rendezvous. It was too +sacramental. Certainly it was a very deep and never-to-be-forgotten +experience there all alone, when something of great moment to me +certainly took place in my soul." + +In the biography of Frederick Douglas[45] we are told that when he was +about thirteen he began to feel deeply the moral yoke of slavery and +to seek means of escaping it. He became interested in religion, was +converted, and dreamed of and prayed for liberty. With great ingenuity +he extracted knowledge of the alphabet and reading from white boys of +his acquaintance. At sixteen, under a brutal master he revolted and +was beaten until he was faint from loss of blood, and at seventeen he +fought and whipped the brutal overseer Covey, who would have invoked +the law, which made death the punishment for such an offense, but for +shame of having been worsted by a negro boy and from the reflection +that there was no profit from a dead slave. Only at twenty did he +escape into the new world of freedom. + +Jacob Riis[46] "fell head over heels in love with sweet Elizabeth" +when he was fifteen and she thirteen. His "courtship proceeded at a +tumultuous pace, which first made the town laugh, then put it out of +patience and made some staid matrons express the desire to box my ears +soundly." She played among the lumber where he worked, and he watched +her so intently that he scarred his shinbone with an adze he should +have been minding. He cut off his forefinger with an ax when she was +dancing on a beam near by, and once fell off a roof when craning his +neck to see her go round a corner. At another time he ordered her +father off the dance-floor, because he tried to take his daughter home +a few minutes before the appointed hour of midnight. Young as he was, +he was large and tried to run away to join the army, but finally went +to Copenhagen to serve his apprenticeship with a builder, and here had +an interview with Hans Christian Andersen. + +Ellery Sedgwick tells as that at thirteen the mind of Thomas Paine ran +on stories of the sea which his teacher had told him, and that he +attempted to enlist on the privateer _Terrible_. He was restless at +home for years, and shipped on a trading vessel at nineteen. + +Indeed, modern literature in our tongue abounds in this element, from +"Childe Harold" to the second and third long chapters in Mrs. Ward's +"David Grieve," ending with his engagement to Lucy Purcell; +Thackeray's Arthur Pendennis and his characteristic love of the far +older and scheming Fanny Fotheringay; David in James Lane Allen's +"Reign of Law," who read Darwin, was expelled from the Bible College +and the church, and finally was engaged to Gabriella; and scores more +might be enumerated. There is even Sonny,[47] who, rude as he was and +poorly as he did in all his studies, at the same age when he began to +keep company, "tallered" his hair, tied a bow of ribbon to the buggy +whip, and grew interested in manners, passing things, putting on his +coat and taking off his hat at table, began to study his menagerie of +pet snakes, toads, lizards, wrote John Burroughs, helped him and got +help in return, took to observing, and finally wrote a book about the +forest and its occupants, all of which is very _bien trouve_ if not +historic truth. + + +Two singular reflections always rearise in reading Goethe's +autobiographical writings: first, that both the age and the place, +with its ceremonies, festivals, great pomp and stirring events in +close quarters in the little province where he lived, were especially +adapted to educate children and absorb them in externals; and, second, +that this wonderful boy had an extreme propensity for moralizing and +drawing lessons of practical service from all about him. This is no +less manifest in Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels, which +supplements the autobiography. Both together present a very unique +type of adolescence, the elaborate story of which defies epitome. From +the puppet craze well on into his precocious university life it was +his passion to explore the widest ranges of experience and then to +reflect, moralize, or poetize upon them. Perhaps no one ever studied +the nascent stages of his own life and elaborated their every incident +with such careful observation and analysis. His peculiar diathesis +enabled him to conserve their freshness on to full maturity, when he +gave them literary form. Most lack power to fully utilize their own +experience even for practical self-knowledge and guidance, but with +Goethe nothing was wasted from which self-culture could be extracted. + + +Goethe's first impression of female loveliness was of a girl named +Gretchen, who served wine one evening, and whose face and form +followed him for a long time. Their meetings always gave him a thrill +of pleasure, and though his love was like many first loves, very +spiritual and awakened by goodness and beauty, it gave a new +brightness to the whole world, and to be near her seemed to him an +indispensable condition of his being. Her _fiance_ was generally with +her, and Goethe experienced a shock in finding that she had become a +milliner's assistant for although, like all natural boys of +aristocratic families, he loved common people, this interest was not +favored by his parents. The night following the coronation day several +were compelled to spend in chairs, and he and his Gretchen, with +others, slept, she with her head upon his shoulder, until all the +others had awakened in the morning. At last they parted at her door, +and for the first and last time they kissed but never met again, +although he often wept in thinking of her. He was terribly affronted +to fully realize that, although only two years older than himself, she +should have regarded him as a child. He tried to strip her of all +loving qualities and think her odious, but her image hovered over him. +The sanity of instinct innate in youth prompted him to lay aside as +childish the foolish habit of weeping and railing, and his +mortification that she regarded him somewhat as a nurse might, +gradually helped to work his cure. + +He was very fond of his own name, and, like young and uneducated +people, wrote or carved it anywhere; later placed near it that of a +new love, Annette, and afterward on finding the tree he shed tears, +melted toward her, and made an idyl. He was also seized with a passion +of teasing her and dominating over her devotedness with wanton and +tyrannical caprice, venting upon her the ill humor of his +disappointments, and grew absurdly jealous and lost her after she had +borne with him with incredible patience and after terrible scenes with +her by which he gained nothing. Frenzied by his loss, he began to +abuse his physical nature and was only saved from illness by the +healing power of his poetic talent; the "Lover's Caprice" was written +with the impetus of a boiling passion. In the midst of many serious +events, a reckless humor, which was due to the excess of life, +developed which made him feel himself superior to the moment, and even +to court danger. He played tricks, although rarely with premeditation. +Later he mused much upon the transient nature of love and the +mutability of character; the extent to which the senses could be +indulged within the bounds of morality; he sought to rid himself of +all that troubled him by writing song or epigram about it, which made +him seem frivolous and prompted one friend to seek to subdue him by +means of church forms, which he had severed on coming to Leipzig. By +degrees he felt an epoch approaching when all respect for authority +was to vanish, and he became suspicious and even despairing with +regard to the best individuals he had known before and grew chummy +with a young tutor whose jokes and fooleries were incessant. His +disposition fluctuated between gaiety and melancholy, and Rousseau +attracted him. Meanwhile his health declined until a long illness, +which began with a hemorrhage, caused him to oscillate for days +between life and death; and convalescence, generally so delightful, +was marred by a serious tumor. His father's disposition was stern, and +he could become passionate and bitter, and his mother's domesticity +made her turn to religion, so that on coming home he formed the +acquaintance of a religious circle. Again Goethe was told by a hostile +child that he was not the true son of his father. This inoculated him +with a disease that long lurked in his system and prompted various +indirect investigations to get at the truth, during which he compared +all distinguished guests with his own physiognomy to detect his own +likeness. + +Up to the Leipzig period he had great joy in wandering unknown, +unconscious of self; but he soon began to torment himself with an +almost hypertrophied fancy that he was attracting much attention, that +others' eyes were turned on his person to fix it in their memories, +that he was scanned and found fault with; and hence he developed a +love of the country, of the woods and solitary places, where he could +be hedged in and separated from all the world. Here he began to throw +off his former habit of looking at things from the art standpoint and +to take pleasure in natural objects for their own sake. His mother had +almost grownup to consciousness in her two oldest children, and his +first disappointment in love turned his thought all the more +affectionately toward her and his sister, a year younger. He was long +consumed with amazement over the newly awakening sense impulse that +took intellectual forms and the mental needs that clothed themselves +in sense images. He fell to building air castles of opposition lecture +courses and gave himself up to many dreams of ideal university +conditions. He first attended lectures diligently, but suffered much +harm from being too advanced; learned a great deal that he could not +regulate, and was thereby made uncomfortable; grew interested in the +fit of his clothes, of which hitherto he had been careless. He was in +despair at the uncertainty of his own taste and judgment, and almost +feared he must make a complete change of mind, renouncing what he had +hitherto learned, and so one day in great contempt for his past burned +up his poetry, sketches, etc. + +He had learned to value and love the Bible, and owed his moral culture +to it. Its events and symbols were deeply stamped upon him, so without +being a pietist he was greatly moved at the scoffing spirit toward it +which he met at the university. From youth he had stood on good terms +with God, and at times he had felt that he had some things to forgive +God for not having given better assistance to his infinite good-will. +Under all this influence he turned to cabalism and became interested +in crystals and the microcosm and macrocosm, and fell into the habit +of despair over what he had been and believed just before. He +conceived a kind of hermetical or neoplatonic godhead creating in more +and more eccentric circles, until the last, which rose in +contradiction, was Lucifer to whom creation was committed. He first of +all imagined in detail an angelic host, and finally a whole theology +was wrought out _in petto_. He used a gilt ornamented music-stand as a +kind of altar with fumigating pastils for incense, where each morning +God was approached by offerings until one day a conflagration put a +sudden end to these celebrations. + +Hans Anderson,[48] the son of a poor shoemaker, taught in a charity +school at the dawn of puberty; vividly animated Bible stories from +pictures painted on the wall; was dreamy and absent-minded; told +continued stories to his mates; at confirmation vowed he would be +famous and finally, at fourteen, left home for Copenhagen, where he +was violently stage-struck and worked his way from friendship with the +bill-poster to the stage as page, shepherd, etc.; called on a famous +dancer, who scorned him, and then, feeling that he had no one but God +to depend on, prayed earnestly and often. For nearly a year, until his +voice broke, he was a fine singer. He wet with his tears the eyes of a +portrait of a heartless man that he might feel for him. He played with +a puppet theater and took a childish delight in decking the characters +with gay remnants that he begged from shops; wrote several plays which +no one would accept; stole into an empty theater one New Year's day to +pray aloud on the middle of the stage; shouted with joy; hugged and +kissed a beech-tree till people thought him insane; abhorred the +thought of apprenticeship to Latin as he did to that of a trade, which +was a constant danger; and was one of the most dreamy and sentimental, +and by spells religious and prayerful, of youth. + +George Ebers[49] remembered as a boy of eleven the revolution of '48 +in Berlin, soon after which he was placed in Froebel's school at +Keilhau. This great teacher with his noble associates, Middendorf, +Barop, and Langekhal, lived with the boys; told the stirring stories +of their own lives as soldiers in the war of liberation; led their +pupils on long excursions in vacation, often lasting for months, and +gave much liberty to the boys, who were allowed to haze not only their +new mates, but new teachers. This transfer from the city to the +country roused a veritable passion in the boy, who remained here till +he was fifteen. Trees and cliffs were climbed, collections made, the +Saale by moonlight and the lofty Steiger at sunset were explored. +There were swimming and skating and games, and the maxim of the +school, "_Friede, Freude, Freiheit_,"[Peace, joy, freedom] was lived up +to. The boys hung on their teachers for stories. The teachers took +their boys into their confidence for all their own literary aims, +loves, and ideals. One had seen the corpse of Koerner and another knew +Prohaska. "The Roman postulate that knowledge should be imparted to +boys according to a thoroughly tested method approved by the mature +human intellect and which seems most useful to it for later life" was +the old system of sacrificing the interests of the child for those of +the man. Here childhood was to live itself out completely and +naturally into an ever renewed paradise. The temperaments, +dispositions, and characters of each of the sixty boys were carefully +studied and recorded. Some of these are still little masterpieces of +psychological penetration, and this was made the basis of development. +The extreme Teutonism cultivated by wrestling, shooting, and fencing, +giving each a spot of land to sow, reap, and shovel, and all in an +atmosphere of adult life, made an environment that fitted the +transition period as well as any that the history of education +affords. Every tramp and battle were described in a book by each boy. +When at fifteen Ebers was transferred to the Kottbus Gymnasium, he +felt like a colt led from green pastures to the stable, and the period +of effervescence made him almost possessed by a demon, so many sorts +of follies did he commit. He wrote "a poem of the world," fell in love +with an actress older than himself, became known as foolhardy for his +wild escapades, and only slowly sobered down. + +In Gottfried Kelley's "Der gruene Heinrich,"[50] the author, whom R.M. +Meyer calls "the most eminent literary German of the nineteenth +century," reviews the memories of his early life. This autobiography +is a plain and very realistic story of a normal child, and not +adulterated with fiction like Goethe's or with psychoses like Rousseau +or Bashkirtseff. He seems a boy like all other boys, and his childhood +and youth were in no wise extraordinary. The first part of this work, +which describes his youth up to the age of eighteen, is the most +important, and everything is given with remarkable fidelity and +minuteness. It is a tale of little things. All the friendships and +loves and impulses are there, and he is fundamentally selfish and +utilitarian; God and nature were one, and only when his beloved Army +died did he wish to believe in immortality. He, too, as a child, found +two kinds of love in his heart--the idea and the sensual, very +independent--the one for a young and innocent girl and the other for a +superb young woman years older than he, pure, although the +personification of sense. He gives a rich harvest of minute and +sagacious observations about his strange simultaneous loves; the +peculiar tastes of food; his day-dream period; and his rather +prolonged habit of lying, the latter because he had no other vent for +invention. He describes with great regret his leaving school at so +early an age; his volcanic passion of anger; his self-distrust; his +periods of abandon; his passion to make a success of art though he did +not of life; his spells of self-despair and cynicism; his periods of +desolation in his single life; his habit of story-telling; his +wrestling with the problem of theology and God; the conflict between +his philosophy and his love of the girls, etc. + +From a private school in Leipzig, where he had shown all a boy's tact +in finding what his masters thought the value of each subject they +taught; where he had joined in the vandalism of using a battering-ram +to break a way to the hated science apparatus and to destroy it; +feeling that the classical writers were overpraised; and where at the +age of sixteen he had appeared several times in public as a reciter of +his own poems, Max Mueller returned to Leipzig and entered upon the +freedom of university life there at the age of seventeen. For years +his chief enjoyment was music.[51] He played the piano well, heard +everything he could in concert or opera, was an oratorio tenor, and +grew more and more absorbed in music, so that he planned to devote +himself altogether to it and also to enter a musical school at Dessau, +but nothing came of it. At the university he saw little of society, +was once incarcerated for wearing a club ribbon, and confesses that +with his boon companions he was guilty of practises which would now +bring culprits into collision with authorities. He fought three duels, +participated in many pranks and freakish escapades, but nevertheless +attended fifty-three different courses of lectures in three years. +When Hegelism was the state philosophy, he tried hard to understand +it, but dismissed it with the sentiments expressed by a French officer +to his tailor, who refused to take the trousers he had ordered to be +made very tight because they did not fit so closely that he could not +get into them. Darwin attracted him, yet the wildness of his followers +repelled. He says, "I confess I felt quite bewildered for a time and +began to despair altogether of my reasoning powers." He wonders how +young minds in German universities survive the storms and fogs through +which they pass. With bated breath he heard his elders talk of +philosophy and tried to lay hold of a word here and there, but it all +floated before his mind like mist. Later he had an Hegelian period, +but found in Herbart a corrective, and at last decided upon Sanskrit +and other ancient languages, because he felt that he must know +something that no other knew, and also that the Germans had then heard +only the after-chime and not the real striking of the bells of Indian +philosophy. From twenty his struggles and his queries grew more +definite, and at last, at the age of twenty-two, he was fully launched +upon his career in Paris, and later went to Oxford. + +At thirteen Wagner[52] translated about half the "Odyssey" +voluntarily; at fourteen began the tragedy which was to combine the +grandeur of two of Shakespeare's dramas; at sixteen he tried "his +new-fledged musical wings by soaring at once to the highest peaks of +orchestral achievement without wasting any time on the humble +foot-hills." He sought to make a new departure, and, compared to the +grandeur of his own composition, "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony appeared +like a simple Pleyel Sonata." To facilitate the reading of his +astounding score, he wrote it in three kinds of ink--red for strings, +green for the wood-wind, and black for the brass instruments. He +writes that this overture was the climax of his absurdities, and +although the audience before which an accommodating orchestra played +it were disgusted and the musicians were convulsed with laughter, it +made a deep impression upon the author's mind. Even after +matriculating at the university he abandoned himself so long to the +dissipations common to student life before the reaction came that his +relatives feared that he was a good-for-nothing. + +In his "Hannele," Hauptmann, the dramatist, describes in a kind of +dream poem what he supposed to pass through the mind of a dying girl +of thirteen or fourteen, who does not wish to live and is so absorbed +by the "Brownies of her brain" that she hardly knows whether she is +alive on earth or dead in heaven, and who sees the Lord Jesus in the +form of the schoolmaster whom she adores. In her closing vision there +is a symbolic representation of her own resurrection. To the +passionate discussions in Germany, England, and France, as to whether +this character is true to adolescence, we can only answer with an +emphatic affirmative; that her heaven abounds in local color and in +fairy tale items, that it is very material, and that she is troubled +by fears of sin against the Holy Ghost, is answer enough in an +ill-used, starving child with a fevered brain, whose dead mother +taught her these things. + + +Saint-Pierre's "Paul and Virginia" is an attempt to describe budding +adolescence in a boy and girl born on a remote island and reared in a +state of natural simplicity The descriptions are sentimental after the +fashion of the age in France, and the pathos, which to us smacks of +affectation and artificiality, nevertheless has a vein of truth in it. +The story really begins when the two children were twelve; and the +description of the dawn of love and melancholy in Virginia's heart, +for some time concealed from Paul, of her disquiet and piety, of the +final frank avowal of eternal love by each, set of by the pathetic +separation, and of the undying love, and finally the tragic death and +burial of each--all this owes its charm, for its many generations of +readers, to its merits as an essentially true picture of the human +heart at this critical age. This work and Rousseau[53] have +contributed to give French literature its peculiar cast in its +description of this age. + + +"The first explosions of combustible constitution" in Rousseau's, +precocious nature were troublesome, and he felt premature sensations +of erotic voluptuousness, but without any sin. He longed "to fall at +the feet of an imperious mistress, obey her mandates or implore +pardon." He only wanted a lady, to become a knight errant. At ten he +was passionately devoted to a Mlle. Vulson, whom he publicly and +tyrannically claimed as his own and would allow no other to approach. +He had very different sensuous feelings toward Mlle. Goton, with whom +his relations were very passionate, though pure. Absolutely under the +power of both these mistresses, the effects they produced upon him +were in no wise related to each other. The former was a brother's +affection with the jealousy of a lover added, but the latter a +furious, tigerish, Turkish rage. When told of the former's marriage, +in his indignation and heroic fury he swore never more to see a +perfidious girl. A slightly neurotic vein of prolonged ephebeitis +pervades much of his life. + +Pierre Loti's "Story of a Child"[54] was written when the author was +forty-two, and contains hardly a fact, but it is one of the best of +inner autobiographies, and is nowhere richer than in the last +chapters, which bring the author down to the age of fourteen and a +half. He vividly describes the new joy at waking, which he began to +feel at twelve or thirteen; the clear vision into the bottomless pit +of death; the new, marvelous susceptibility to nature as comradeship +with boys of his own age was lacking; the sudden desires from pure +bravado and perversity to do something unseemly, e. g., making a fly +omelet and carrying it in a procession with song; the melting of +pewter plates and pouring them into water and salting a wild tract of +land with them; organizing a band of miners, whom he led as if with +keen scent to the right spot and rediscovered his nuggets, everything +being done mysteriously and as a tribal secret. Loti had a new feeling +for the haunting music of Chopin, which he had been taught to play but +had not been interested in; his mind was inflamed, by a home visit of +an elder brother, with the idea of going to the South Sea Islands, and +this became a long obsession which finally led him to enlist in the +navy, dropping, with a beating heart, the momentous letter into the +post-office after long misgivings and delays. He had a superficial and +a hidden self, the latter somewhat whimsical and perhaps ridiculous, +shared only with a few intimate friends for whom he would have let +himself be cut into bits. He believes his transition period lasted +longer than with the majority of men, and during it he was carried +from one extreme to another; had rather eccentric and absurd manners, +and touched moat of the perilous rocks on the voyage of life. He had +an early love for an older girl whose name he wrote in cipher on his +books, although he felt it a little artificial, but believed it might +have developed into a great and true hereditary friendship, continuing +that which their ancestors had felt for many generations. The birth of +love in his heart was in a dream after having read the forbidden poet, +Alfred de Musset. He was fourteen, and in his dream it was a soft, +odorous twilight. He walked amid flowers seeking a nameless some one +whom he ardently desired, and felt that something strange and +wonderful, intoxicating as it advanced, was going to happen. The +twilight grew deeper, and behind a rose-bush he saw a young girl with +a languorous and mysterious smile, although her forehead and eyes were +hidden. As it darkened rather suddenly, her eyes came out, and they +were very personal and seemed to belong to some one already much +beloved, who had been found with "transports of infinite joy and +tenderness." He woke with a start and sought to retain the phantom, +which faded. He could not conceive that was a mere illusion, and as he +realized that she had vanished he felt overwhelmed with hopelessness. +It was the first stirring "of true love with all its great melancholy +and deep mystery, with its overwhelming but sad enchantment--love +which like a perfume endows with a fragrance all it touches." + + +It is, I believe, high time that ephebic literature should be +recognized as a class by itself, and have a place of its own in the +history of letters and in criticism. Much of it should be individually +prescribed for the reading of the young, for whom it has a singular +zest and is a true stimulus and corrective. This stage of life now has +what might almost be called a school of its own. Here the young appeal +to and listen to each other as they do not to adults, and in a way the +latter have failed to appreciate. Again, no biography, and especially +no autobiography, should henceforth be complete if it does not +describe this period of transformation so all-determining for future +life to which it alone can often give the key. Rightly to draw the +lessons of this age not only saves us from waste ineffable of this +rich but crude area of experience, but makes maturity saner and more +complete. Lastly, many if not most young people should be encouraged +to enough of the confessional private journalism to teach them +self-knowledge, for the art of self-expression usually begins now if +ever, when it has a wealth of subjective material and needs forms of +expression peculiar to itself. + +For additional references on the subject of this chapter, see: + +Alcafarado, Marianna, Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun. Translated by +R. H., New York, 1887. Richardson, Abby Sage, Abelard and Heloise, and +Letters of Heloise, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston. Smith, Theodote +L., Types of Adolescent Affection. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1904, +vol. II, pp. 178-203. + + +[Footnote 1: Pedagogical Seminary, June 1901, vol. 8, pp. 163-205] + +[Footnote 2: Being a Boy.] + +[Footnote 3: Story of a Bad Boy.] + +[Footnote 4: A Boy's Town.] + +[Footnote 5: Court of Boyville.] + +[Footnote 6: The Spoilt Child, by Peary Chandmitter. Translated by G. +D. Oswell. Thacker, Spink and Co., Calcutta, 1893.] + +[Footnote 7: The Golden Age] + +[Footnote 8: Frau Spyri.] + +[Footnote 9: The One I Knew the Best of All.] + +[Footnote 10: The Study of the Boyhood of Great Men. Pedagogical +Seminary, October, 1894, vol. 3, pp. 134-156.] + +[Footnote 11: The Vanishing Character of Adolescent Experiences. +Northwestern Monthly, June, 1898, vol. 8, p. 644.] + +[Footnote 12: The Count of Boyville, by William Allen White. New York, +1899, p. 358.] + +[Footnote 13: The Study of Adolescence. Pedagogical Seminary, June, +1891, vol. 1, pp. 174-195.] + +[Footnote 14: Lancaster: The Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence. +Pedagogical Seminary, July, 1897, vol. 5, p. 106.] + +[Footnote 15: Standards of Efficiency in School and in Life. +Pedagogical Seminary, March, 1903, vol. 10, pp. 3-22.] + +[Footnote 16: See also Vittorio da Feltre and other Humanist +Educators, by W. H. Woodward. Cambridge University Press, 1897.] + +[Footnote 17: See The Private Life of Galileo; from his Correspondence +and that of his Eldest Daughter. Anon, Macmillan, London, 1870.] + +[Footnote 18: See Sir David Brewster's Life of Newton. Harper, New +York, 1874.] + +[Footnote 19: Louis Agassiz, His Life and Work, by C. F. Holder. G. P. +Putnam's Sons, New York, 1893.] + +[Footnote 20: Life and Letters of Thomas H. Huxley, by his son Leonard +Huxley. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1901.] + +[Footnote 21: See also Sully: A Girl's Religion. Longman's Magazine, +May, 1890, pp. 89-99.] + +[Footnote 22: Sheldon (Institutional Activities of American Children; +American Journal of Psychology, July, 1898, vol. 9, p. 434) describes +a faintly analogous case of a girl of eleven, who organised the +worship of Pallas Athena on two flat rocks, in a deep ravine by a +stream where a young sycamore grew from an old stump, as did Pallas +from the head of her father Zeus. There was a court consisting of +king, queen and subjects, and priests who officiated at sacrifices. +The king and queen wore goldenrod upon their heads and waded in +streams attended by their subjects; gathered flowers for Athena; +caught crayfish which were duly smashed upon her altar. "Sometimes +there was a special celebration, when, in addition to the slaughtered +crayfish and beautiful flower decorations, and pickles stolen from the +dinner-table, there would be an elaborate ceremony," which because of +its uncanny acts was intensely disliked by the people at hand.] + +[Footnote 23: The One I Know The Best of All. A Memory of the Mind of +a Child. By Frances Hodgson Burnett. Scribner's Sons, New York, 1893] + +[Footnote 24: The Beth Book, by Sarah Grand. D. Appleton and Co., New +York, 1897.] + +[Footnote 25: Autobiography of a Child. Hannah Lynch, W. Blackwood and +Sons, London, 1899, p. 255.] + +[Footnote 26: The Story of My Life. By Helen Keller. Doubleday, Page +and Co., New York, 1903, p. 39.] + +[Footnote 27: Journal of a Young Artist. Cassell and Co., New York, +1889, p. 434.] + +[Footnote 28: The Story of Mary MacLane. By herself. Herbert S. Stone +and Co., Chicago, 1902, p. 322.] + +[Footnote 29: Fate. Translated from the Italian by A.M. Von Blomberg. +Copeland and Day, Boston, 1898.] + +[Footnote 30: Confessions of an Opium Eater. Part I. Introductory +Narrative. (Cambridge Classics) 1896.] + +[Footnote 31: Longmans, Green and Co. London, 1891, 2nd ed.] + +[Footnote 32: The Hearts of Men. Macmillan, London, 1891, p. 324.] + +[Footnote 33: An Autobiography. Edited by H.M. Trollope. 2 vols. +London, 1883.] + +[Footnote 34: See his Memoirs. London, 1885.] + +[Footnote 35: See Autobiography of Mark Rutherford (pseudonym for W.H. +White), edited by Reuben Shapcott. 2 vols. London, 1881.] + +[Footnote 36: The rest of the two volumes is devoted to his further +life as a dissenting minister, who later became something of a +literary man; relating how he was slowly driven to leave his little +church, how he outgrew and broke with the girl to whom he was engaged, +whom he marvelously met and married when both were well on in years, +and how strangely he was influenced by the free-thinker Mardon and his +remarkable daughter. All in all it is a rare study of emancipation.] + +[Footnote 37: London, 1896, vol. 1.] + +[Footnote 38: Macmillan, 1902.] + +[Footnote 39: Life of Sir J.F. Stephen. By his brother, Leslie +Stephen, London, 1895.] + +[Footnote 40: See the very impressive account of Dicken's +characterization of childhood and youth, and of his great but hitherto +inadequately recognized interest and influence as an educator. Dickens +as an Educator. James L. Hughes. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1901, +p. 319.] + +[Footnote 41: John Inglesant: A Romance. 6th ed. Macmillan, 1886.] + +[Footnote 42: The Autobiography of a Journalist. 2 vols. Houghton, +Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1901.] + +[Footnote 43: A. Bronson Alcott, His Life and Philosophy. By F. B. +Sanborn and W. T. Harris. Roberts Bros., Boston, 1893.] + +[Footnote 44: Horace Bushnell, Preacher and Theologian. By Theodore F. +Munger. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1899.] + +[Footnote 45: By C.W. Chesnutt. (Beacon Biographies.) Small, Maynard +and Co., Boston, 1899.] + +[Footnote 46: The Making of an American. Macmillan, 1901.] + +[Footnote 47: Sonny. By Ruth McEnery Stuart. The Century Co., New +York, 1896.] + +[Footnote 48: The Story of My Life. Works, vol. 8 new edition. +Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1894.] + +[Footnote 49: The Story of My Life. Translated by M. J. Safford. D. +Appleton and Co., New York 1893.] + +[Footnote 50: Gesammelte Werke. Vierter Band. Wilhelm Hertz, Berlin, +1897.] + +[Footnote 51: My Autobiography, p. 106. Chas. Scribner's Sons, New +York, 1901.] + +[Footnote 52: Wagner and His Works. By Henry T. Finck. Chas. +Scribner's Sons, New York, 1893.] + +[Footnote 53: Les Confessions. Oeuvres Completes, vols. 8 and 9. +Hachette et Cie., Paris, 1903.] + +[Footnote 54: Translated from the French by C.F. Smith. C.C. Birchard +and Co., Boston, 1901.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL IDEALS + + +Change from childish to adult friends--Influence of favorite +teachers--What children wish or plan to do or be--Property and the +money sense--Social judgments--The only child--First social +organizations--Student life--Associations for youth, controlled by +adults. + +In a few aspects we are already able to trace the normal psychic +outgrowing of the home of childhood as its interests irradiate into an +ever enlarging environment. Almost the only duty of small children is +habitual and prompt obedience. Our very presence enforces one general +law--that of keeping our good-will and avoiding our displeasure. They +respect all we smile at or even notice, and grow to it like the plant +toward the light. Their early lies are often saying what they think +will please. At bottom, the most restless child admires and loves +those who save him from too great fluctuations by coercion, provided +the means be rightly chosen and the ascendency extend over heart and +mind. But the time comes when parents are often shocked at the lack of +respect suddenly shown by the child. They have ceased to be the +highest ideals. The period of habituating morality and making it +habitual is ceasing; and the passion to realize freedom, to act on +personal experience, and to keep a private conscience is in order. To +act occasionally with independence from the highest possible ideal +motives develops the impulse and the joy of pure obligation, and thus +brings some new and original force into the world and makes habitual +guidance by the highest and best, or by inner as opposed to outer +constraint, the practical rule of life. To bring the richest streams +of thought to bear in interpreting the ethical instincts, so that the +youth shall cease to live in a moral interregnum, is the real goal of +self-knowledge. This is true education of the will and prepares the +way for love of overcoming obstacles of difficulty, perhaps even of +conflict. This impulse is often the secret of obstinacy.[1] And yet, +"at no time in life will a human being respond So heartily if treated +by older and wiser people as if he were an equal or even a superior. +The attempt to treat a child at adolescence as you would treat an +inferior is instantly fatal to good discipline."[2] Parents still +think of their offspring as mere children, and tighten the rein when +they should loosen it. Many young people feel that they have the best +of homes and yet that they will go crazy if they must remain in them. +If the training of earlier years has been good, guidance by command +may now safely give way to that by ideals, which are sure to be +heroic. The one unpardonable thing for the adolescent is dullness, +stupidity, lack of life, interest, and enthusiasm in school or +teachers, and, perhaps above all, too great stringency. Least of all, +at this stage, can the curriculum school be an ossuary. The child must +now be taken into the family councils and find the parents interested +in all that interests him. Where this is not done, we have the +conditions for the interesting cases of so many youth, who now begin +to suspect that father, mother, or both, are not their true parents. +Not only is there interest in rapidly widening associations with +coevals, but a new lust to push on and up to maturity. One marked +trait now is to seek friends and companions older than themselves, or +next to this, to seek those younger. This is marked contrast with +previous years, when they seek associates of their own age. Possibly +the merciless teasing instinct, which culminates at about the same +time, may have some influence, but certain it is that now interest is +transpolarized up and down the age scale. One reason is the new hunger +for information, not only concerning reproduction, but a vast variety +of other matters, so that there is often an attitude of silent begging +for knowledge. In answer to Lancaster's[3] questions on this subject, +some sought older associates because they could learn more from them, +found them better or more steadfast friends, craved sympathy and found +most of it from older and perhaps married people. Some were more +interested in their parents' conversation with other adults than with +themselves, and were particularly entertained by the chance of hearing +things they had no business to. There is often a feeling that adults +do not realize this new need of friendship with them and show want of +sympathy almost brutal. + + +Stableton,[4] who has made interesting notes on individual boys +entering the adolescent period, emphasizes the importance of sympathy, +appreciation, and respect in dealing with this age. They must now be +talked to as equals, and in this way their habits of industry and even +their dangerous love affairs run be controlled. He says, "There is no +more important question before the teaching fraternity today than how +to deal justly and successfully with boys at this time of life. This +is the age when they drop out of school" in far too large numbers, and +he thinks that the small percentage of male graduates from our high +schools is due to "the inability of the average grammar grade or +high-school teacher to deal rightly with boys in this critical period +of their school life." Most teachers "know all their bad points, but +fail to discover their good ones." The fine disciplinarian, the +mechanical movement of whose school is so admirable and who does not +realize the new need of liberty or how loose-jointed, mentally and +physically, all are at this age, should be supplanted by one who can +look into the heart and by a glance make the boy feel that he or she +is his friend. "The weakest work in our schools is the handling of +boys entering the adolescent period of life, and there is no greater +blessing that can come to a boy at this age, when be does not +understand himself, than a good strong teacher that understands him, +has faith in him, and will day by day lead him till he can walk +alone." + +Small[5] found the teacher a focus of imitation whence many +influences, both physical and mental, irradiated to the pupils. Every +accent, gesture, automatism, like and dislike is caught consciously +and unconsciously. Every intellectual interest in the teacher +permeates the class--liars, if trusted, became honest; those treated +as ladies and gentlemen act so; those told by favorite teachers of the +good things they are capable of feel a strong impulsion to do them; +some older children are almost transformed by being made companions to +teachers, by having their good traits recognized, and by frank +apologies by the teacher when in error. + +An interesting and unsuspected illustration of the growth of +independence with adolescence was found in 2,411 papers from the +second to eighth grades on the characteristics of the best teacher as +seen by children.[6] In the second and third grades, all, and in the +fourth, ninety-five per cent specified help in studies. This falls off +rapidly in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades to thirty-nine per +cent, while at the same time the quality of patience in the upper +grades rises from a mention by two to twenty-two per cent. + +Sanford Bell[7] collated the answers of 543 males and 488 females as +to who of all their past teachers did them most good, and wherein; +whom they loved and disliked most, and why. His most striking result +is presented in which shows that fourteen in girls and sixteen in boys +is the age in which most good was felt to have been done, and that +curves culminating at twelve for both sexes but not falling rapidly +until fifteen or sixteen represent the period when the strongest and +most indelible dislikes were felt. What seems to be most appreciated +in teachers is the giving of purpose, arousing of ideals, kindling of +ambition to be something or do something and so giving an object in +life, encouragement to overcome circumstances, and, in general, +inspiring self-confidence and giving direction. Next came personal +sympathy and interest, kindness, confidence, a little praise, being +understood; and next, special help in lessons, or timely and kindly +advice, while stability and poise of character, purity, the absence of +hypocrisy, independence, personal beauty, athleticism and vigor are +prominent. It is singular that those of each sex have been most helped +by their own sex and that this prominence is far greatest in men. +Four-fifths of the men and nearly one-half of the women, however, got +most help from men. Male teachers, especially near adolescence, seem +most helpful for both sexes. + +The qualities that inspire most dislike are malevolence, sarcasm, +unjust punishment, suspicion, severity, sternness, absence of laughing +and smiling, indifference, threats and broken vows, excessive scolding +and "roasting," and fondness for inflicting blows. The teacher who +does not smile is far more liable to excite animosity. Most boys +dislike men most, and girls' dislikes are about divided. The stories +of school cruelties and indignities are painful. Often inveterate +grudges are established by little causes, and it is singular how +permanent and indelible strong dislike, are for the majority of +children. In many cases, aversions engendered before ten have lasted +with little diminution till maturity, and there is a sad record of +children who have lost a term, a year, or dropped school altogether +because of ill treatment or partiality. + +Nearly two thousand children were asked what they would do in a +specific case of conflict between teacher and parents. It was found +that, while for young children parental authority was preferred, a +marked decline began about eleven and was most rapid after fourteen in +girls and fifteen in boys, and that there was a nearly corresponding +increase in the number of pubescents who preferred the teacher's +authority. The reasons for their choice were also analyzed, and it was +found that whereas for the young, unconditioned authority was +generally satisfactory, with pubesecents, abstract authority came into +marked predominance, "until when the children have reached the age of +sixteen almost seventy-five per cent of their reasons belong to this +class, and the children show themselves able to extend the idea of +authority without violence to their sense of justice." + + +On a basis of 1,400 papers answering the question whom, of anyone ever +heard or read of, they would like to resemble, Barnes[8] found that +girls' ideals were far more often found in the immediate circle of +their acquaintance than boys, and that those within that circle were +more often in their own family, but that the tendency to go outside +their personal knowledge and choose historical and public characters +was greatly augmented at puberty, when also the heroes of philanthropy +showed marked gain in prominence. Boys rarely chose women as their +ideals; but in America, half the girls at eight and two-thirds at +eighteen chose male characters. The range of important women ideals +among the girls was surprisingly small. Barnes fears that if from the +choice of relative as ideals, the expansion to remote or world heroes +is too fast, it may "lead to disintegration of character and reckless +living." "If, on the other hand, it is expanded too slowly we shall +have that arrested development which makes good ground in which to +grow stupidity, brutality, and drunkenness--the first fruits of a +sluggish and self-contained mind." "No one can consider the regularity +with which local ideals die out and are replaced by world ideals +without feeling that he is in the presence of law-abiding forces," and +this emphasizes the fact that the teacher or parent does not work in a +world governed by caprice. + +The compositions written by thousands of children in New York on what +they wanted to do when they were grown up were collated by Dr. +Thurber.[9] The replies were serious, and showed that poor children +looked forward willingly to severe labor and the increased earnestness +of adolescent years, and the better answers to the question _why_ were +noteworthy. All anticipated giving up the elastic joyousness of +childhood and felt the need of patience. Up to ten, there was an +increase in the number of those who had two or more desires. This +number declined rapidly at eleven, rose as rapidly at twelve, and +slowly fell later. Preferences for a teacher's life exceeded in girls +up to nine, fell rapidly at eleven, increased slightly the next year, +and declined thereafter. The ideal of becoming a dressmaker and +milliner increased till ten, fell at eleven, rose rapidly to a maximum +at thirteen, when it eclipsed teaching, and then fell permanently +again. The professions of clerk and stenographer showed a marked rise +from eleven and a half. The number of boys who chose the father's +occupation attained its maximum at nine and its minimum at twelve, +with a slight rise to fourteen, when the survey ended. The ideal of +tradesman culminated at eight, with a second rise at thirteen. The +reason "to earn money" reached its high maximum of fifty per cent at +twelve, and fell very rapidly. The reason "because I like it" +culminated at ten and fell steadily thereafter. The motive that +influenced the choice of a profession and which was altruistic toward +parents or for their benefit culminated at twelve and a half, and then +declined. The desire for character increased somewhat throughout, but +rapidly after twelve, and the impulse to do good to the world, which +had risen slowly from nine, mounted sharply after thirteen. Thus, "at +eleven all the ideas and tendencies are increasing toward a maximum. +At twelve we find the altruistic desires for the welfare of parents, +the reason 'to earn money'; at thirteen the desire on the part of the +girls to be dressmakers, also to be clerks and stenographers. At +fourteen culminates the desire for a business career in bank or office +among the boys, the consciousness of life's uncertainties which +appeared first at twelve, the desire for character, and the hope of +doing the world good." + +"What would you like to be in an imaginary new city?" was a question +answered by 1,234 written papers.[10] One hundred and fourteen +different occupations were given; that of teacher led with the girls +at every age except thirteen and fourteen, when dressmaker and +milliner took precedence. The motive of making money led among the +boys at every age except fourteen and sixteen, when occupations chosen +because they were liked led. The greatest number of those who chose +the parent's occupation was found at thirteen, but from that age it +steadily declined and independent choice came into prominence. The +maximum of girls who chose parental vocations was at fourteen. Motives +of philanthropy reached nearly their highest point in girls and boys +at thirteen. + +Jegi[11] obtained letters addressed to real or imaginary friends from +3,000 German children in Milwaukee, asking what they desired to do +when they grew up, and why, and tabulated returns from 200 boys and +200 girls for each age from eight to fourteen inclusive. He also found +a steadily decreasing influence of relatives to thirteen; in early +adolescence, the personal motive of choosing an occupation because it +was liked increased, while from twelve in boys and thirteen in girls +the consideration of finding easy vocations grew rapidly strong. + +L. W. Cline[12] studied by the census method returns from 2,594 +children, who were asked what they wished to be and do. He found that +in naming both ideals and occupations girls were more conservative +than boys, but more likely to give a reason for their choice. In this +respect country children resembled boys more than city children. +Country boys were prone to inattention, were more independent and able +to care for themselves, suggesting that the home life of the country +child is more effective in shaping ideals and character than that of +the city child. Industrial occupations are preferred by the younger +children, the professional and technical pursuits increasing with age. +Judgments of rights and justice with the young are more prone to issue +from emotional rather than from intellectual processes. Country +children seem more altruistic than those in the city, and while girls +are more sympathetic than boys, they are also more easily prejudiced. +Many of these returns bear unmistakable marks that in some homes and +schools moralization has been excessive and has produced a sentimental +type of morality and often a feverish desire to express ethical views +instead of trusting to suggestion. Children are very prone to have one +code of ideals for themselves and another for others. Boys, too, are +more original than girls, and country children more than city +children. + +Friedrich[13] asked German school children what person they chose as +their pattern. The result showed differences of age, sex, and creed. +First of all came characters in history, which seemed to show that +this study for children of the sixth and seventh grades was +essentially ethical or a training of mood and disposition +(_Gesinnungsunterricht_), and this writer suggests reform in this +respect. He seems to think that the chief purpose of history for this +age should be ethical. Next came the influence of the Bible, although +it was plain that this was rather in spite of the catechism and the +method of memoriter work. Here, too, the immediate environment at this +age furnished few ideals (four and one-fifth per cent), for children +seem to have keener eyes for the faults than for the virtues of those +near them. Religion, therefore, should chiefly be directed to the +emotions and not to the understanding. This census also suggested more +care that the reading of children should contain good examples in +their environment, and also that the matter of instruction should be +more fully adapted to the conditions of sex. + +Friedrich found as his chief age result that children of the seventh +or older class in the German schools laid distinctly greater stress +upon characters distinguished by bravery and courage than did the +children of the sixth grade, while the latter more frequently selected +characters illustrating piety and holiness. The author divided his +characters into thirty-five classes, illustrating qualities, and found +that national activity led, with piety a close second; that then came +in order those illustrating firmness of faith, bravery, modesty, and +chastity; then pity and sympathy, industry, goodness, patience, etc. + +Taylor, Young, Hamilton, Chambers, and others, have also collected +interesting data on what children and young people hope to be, do, +whom they would like to be, or resemble, etc. Only a few at +adolescence feel themselves so good or happy that they are content to +be themselves. Most show more or less discontent at their lot. From +six to eleven or twelve, the number who find their ideals among their +acquaintances falls off rapidly, and historical characters rise to a +maximum at or before the earliest teens. From eleven or twelve on into +the middle teens contemporary ideals increase steadily. London +children are more backward in this expansion of ideals than Americans, +while girls choose more acquaintance ideals at all ages than do boys. +The expansion, these authors also trace largely to the study of +history. The George Washington ideal, which leads all the rest by far +and is greatly overworked, in contrast with the many heroes of equal +rank found in England, pales soon, as imperfections are seen and those +now making history loom up. This is the normal age to free from +bondage to the immediate present, and this freedom is one measure of +education. Bible heroes are chosen as ideals by only a very small +percentage, mostly girls, far more characters being from fiction and +mythology; where Jesus is chosen, His human is preferred to His divine +side. Again, it would seem that teachers would be ideals, especially +as many girls intend to teach, but they are generally unpopular as +choices. In an ideal system they would be the first step in expansion +from home ideals. Military heroes and inventors play leading roles in +the choices of pubescent boys. + +Girls at all school ages and increasingly up the grades prefer foreign +ideals, to be the wife of a man of title, as aristocracies offer +special opportunities for woman to shine, and life near the source of +fashion is very attractive, at least up to sixteen. The saddest fact +in these studies is that nearly half our American pubescent girls, or +nearly three times as many as in England, choose male ideals, or would +be men. Girls, too, have from six to fifteen times as many ideals as +boys. In this significant fact we realize how modern woman has cut +loose from all old moorings and is drifting with no destination and no +anchor aboard. While her sex has multiplied in all lower and high +school grades, its ideals are still too masculine. Text-books teach +little about women. When a woman's Bible, history, course of study, +etc., is proposed, her sex fears it may reduce her to the old +servitude. While boys rarely, and then only when very young, choose +female ideals, girls' preference for the life of the other sex +sometimes reaches sixty and seventy per cent. The divorce between the +life preferred and that demanded by the interests of the race is often +absolute. Saddest and most unnatural of all is the fact that this +state of things increases most rapidly during just those years when +ideals of womanhood should be developed and become most dominant, till +it seems as if the female character was threatened with +disintegration. While statistics are not yet sufficient to be reliable +on the subject, there is some indication that woman later slowly +reverts toward ideals not only from her own sex but also from the +circle of her own acquaintances. + +The reasons for the choice of ideals are various and not yet well +determined. Civic virtues certainly rise; material and utilitarian +considerations do not seem to much, if at all, at adolescence, and in +some data decline. Position, fame, honor, and general greatness +increase rapidly, but moral qualities rise highest and also fastest +just before and near puberty and continue to increase later yet. By +these choices both sexes, but girls far most, show increasing +admiration of ethical and social qualities. Artistic and intellectual +traits also rise quite steadily from ten or eleven onward, but with no +such rapidity, and reach no such height as military ability and +achievement for boys. Striking in these studies is the rapid increase, +especially from eight to fourteen, of the sense of historic time for +historic persons. These long since dead are no longer spoken of as now +living. Most of these choices are direct expressions of real +differences of taste and character. + +_Property,_ Kline and France[14] have defined as "anything that the +individual may acquire which sustains and prolongs life, favors +survival, and gives an advantage over opposing forces." Many animals +and even insects store up food both for themselves and for their +young. Very early in life children evince signs of ownership. +Letourneau[15] says that the notion of private property, which seems +to us so natural, dawned late and slowly, and that common ownership +was the rule among primitive people. Value is sometimes measured by +use and sometimes by the work required to produce it. Before puberty, +there is great eagerness to possess things that are of immediate +service; but after its dawn, the desire of possession takes another +form, and money for its own sake, which is at first rather an +abstraction, comes to be respected or regarded as an object of extreme +desire, because it is seen to be the embodiment of all values. + +The money sense, as it is now often called, is very complex and has +not yet been satisfactorily analyzed by psychology. Ribot and others +trace its origin to provision which they think animals that hoard food +feel. Monroe[16] has tabulated returns from 977 boys and 1,090 girls +from six to sixteen in answer to the question as to what they would do +with a small monthly allowance. The following table shows the marked +increase at the dawn of adolescence of the number who would save it: + + +Age. Boys. Girls. | Age. Boys. Girls. + 7....43 per cent 36 per cent | 12....82 per cent 64 per cent + 8....45 " 34 " | 13....88 " 78 " + 9....48 " 35 " | 14....85 " 80 " +10....58 " 50 " | 15....83 " 78 " +11....71 " 58 " | 16....85 " 82 " + + +This tendency to thrift is strongest in boys, and both sexes often +show the tendency to moralize, that is so strong in the early teens. +Much of our school work in arithmetic is dominated by the money sense; +and school savings-banks, at first for the poor, are now extending to +children of all classes. This sense tends to prevent pauperism, +prodigality, is an immense stimulus to the imagination and develops +purpose to pursue a distant object for a long time. To see all things +and values in terms of money has, of course, its pedagogic and ethical +limitations; but there is a stage when it is a great educational +advance, and it, too, is full of phylogenetic suggestions. + + +_Social judgement, cronies, solitude_--The two following observations +afford a glimpse of the development of moral judgments. From 1,000 +boys and 1,000 girls of each age from six to sixteen who answered the +question as to what should be done to a girl with a new box of paints +who beautified the parlor chairs with them with a wish to please her +mother, the following conclusion was drawn.[17] Most of the younger +children would whip the girl, but from fourteen on the number declines +very rapidly. Few of the young children suggest explaining why it was +wrong; while at twelve, 181, and at sixteen, 751 would explain. The +motive of the younger children in punishment is revenge; with the +older ones that of preventing a repetition of the act comes in; and +higher and later comes the purpose of reform. With age comes also a +marked distinction between the act and its motive and a sense of the +girl's ignorance. Only the older children would suggest extracting a +promise not to offend again. Thus with puberty comes a change of +view-point from judging actions by results to judging by motives, and +only the older ones see that wrong can be done if there are no bad +consequences. There is also with increased years a great development +of the quality of mercy. + + +One hundred children of each sex and age between six and sixteen asked +what they would do with a burglar, the question stating that the +penalty was five years in prison.[18] Of the younger children nearly +nine-tenths ignored the law and fixed upon some other penalty, but +from twelve years there is a steady advance in those who would inflict +the legal penalty, while at sixteen, seventy-four per cent would have +the criminal punished according to law. Thus "with the dawn of +adolescence at the age of twelve or shortly after comes the +recognition of a larger life, a life to be lived in common with +others, and with this recognition the desire to sustain the social +code made for the common welfare," and punishment is no longer +regarded as an individual and arbitrary matter. + +From another question answered by 1,914 children[19] it was found that +with the development of the psychic faculties in youth, there was an +increasing appreciation of punishment as preventive; an increasing +sense of the value of individuality and of the tendency to demand +protection of personal rights; a change from a sense of justice based +on feeling and on faith in authority to that based on reason and +understanding. Children's attitude toward punishment for weak time +sense, tested by 2,536 children from six to sixteen,[20] showed also a +marked pubescent increase in the sense of the need of the remedial +function of punishment as distinct from the view of it as vindictive, +or getting even, common in earlier years. There is also a marked +increase in discriminating the kinds and degrees of offenses; in +taking account of mitigating circumstances, the inconvenience caused +others, the involuntary nature of the offense and the purpose of the +culprit. All this continues to increase up to sixteen, where these +studies leave the child. + +An interesting effect of the social instinct appears in August +Mayer's[21] elaborate study made up on fourteen boys in the fifth and +sixth grade of a Wuerzburg school to determine whether they could work +better together or alone. The tests were in dictation, mental and +written arithmetic, memory, and Ebbinghaus's combination exercises and +all were given with every practicable precaution to make the other +conditions uniform. The conclusions demonstrate the advantages of +collective over individual instruction. Under the former condition, +emulation is stronger and work more rapid and better in quality. From +this it is inferred that pupils should not be grouped according to +ability, for the dull are most stimulated by the presence of the +bright, the bad by the good, etc. Thus work at home is prone to +deteriorate, and experimental pedagogy shows that the social impulse +is on the whole a stronger spur for boys of eleven or twelve than the +absence of distraction which solitude brings. + +From the answers of 1,068 boys and 1,268 girls from seven to sixteen +on the kind of chum they liked best,[22] it appears that with the +teens children are more anxious for chums that can keep secrets and +dress neatly, and there is an increased number who are liked for +qualities that supplement rather than duplicate those of the chooser. +"There is an apparent struggle between the real actual self and the +ideal self; a pretty strong desire to have a chum that embodies the +traits youth most desire but which they are conscious of lacking." The +strong like the weak; those full of fun the serious; the timid the +bold; the small the large, etc. Only children[23] illustrate differing +effects of isolation, while "mashes" and "crushes" and ultra-crony-ism +with "selfishness for two" show the results of abnormal restriction of +the irradiation of the social instinct which should now occur.[24] + +M. H. Small,[25] after pointing out that communal animals are more +intelligent than those with solitary habits, and that even to name all +the irradiations of the social instinct would be write a history of +the human race, studied nearly five hundred cases of eminent men who +developed proclivities to solitude. It is interesting to observe in +how many of these cases this was developed in adolescence when, with +the horror of mediocrity, comes introspection, apathy, irresolution, +and subjectivism. The grounds of repulsion from society at this age +may be disappointed hunger for praise, wounded vanity, the reaction +from over-assertion, or the nursing of some high ideals, as it is +slowly realized that in society the individual cannot be absolute. The +motives to self-isolation may be because youth feels its lack of +physical or moral force to compete with men, or they may be due to the +failure of others to concede to the exactions of inordinate egotism +and are directly proportional to the impulse to magnify self, or to +the remoteness of common social interests from immediate personal +desire or need, and inversely as the number and range of interests +seen to be common and the clearness with which social relations are +realized. While maturity of character needs some solitude, too much +dwarfs it, and more or less of the same paralysis of association +follows which is described in the nostalgia of arctic journeys, +deserts, being lost in the jungle, solitary confinement, and in the +interesting stories of feral men.[26] In some of these cases the mind +is saved from entire stultification by pets, imaginary companions, +tasks, etc. Normally "the tendency to solitude at adolescence +indicates not fulness but want"; and a judicious balance between rest +and work, pursuit of favorite lines, genuine sympathy, and wise +companionship will generally normalize the social relation. + + +_First forms of spontaneous social organizations.--_ Gulick has +studied the propensity of boys from thirteen on to consort in gangs, +do "dawsies" and stumps, get into scrapes together, and fight and +suffer for one another. The manners and customs of the gang are to +build shanties or "hunkies," hunt with sling shots, build fires before +huts in the woods, cook their squirrels and other game, play Indian, +build tree-platforms, where they smoke or troop about some leader, who +may have an old revolver. They find or excavate caves, or perhaps roof +them over; the barn is a blockhouse or a battleship. In the early +teens boys begin to use frozen snowballs or put pebbles in them, or +perhaps have stone-fights between gangs than which no contiguous +African tribes could be more hostile. They become toughs and tantalize +policemen and peddlers; "lick" every enemy or even stranger found +alone on their grounds; often smash windows; begin to use sticks and +brass knuckles in their fights; pelt each other with green apples; +carry shillalahs, or perhaps air-rifles. The more plucky arrange +fights beforehand; rifle unoccupied houses; set ambushes for gangs +with which they are at feud; perhaps have secrets and initiations +where new boys are triced up by the legs and butted against trees and +rocks. When painted for their Indian fights, they may grow so excited +as to perhaps rush into the water or into the school-room yelling; +mimic the violence of strikes; kindle dangerous bonfires; pelt +policemen, and shout vile nicknames. + +The spontaneous tendency to develop social and political organizations +among boys in pubescent years was well seen in a school near Baltimore +in the midst of an eight-hundred-acre farm richly diversified with +swamp and forest and abounding with birds, squirrels, rabbits, etc. +Soon after the opening of this school[27] the boys gathered nuts in +parties. When a tree was reached which others had shaken, an unwritten +law soon required those who wished to shake it further first to pile +up all nuts under the tree, while those who failed to do so were +universally regarded as dishonest and every boy's hand was against +them. To pile them involved much labor, so that the second party +usually sought fresh trees, and partial shaking practically gave +possession of all the fruits on a tree. They took birds' eggs freely, +and whenever a bird was found in building, or a squirrel's hole was +discovered, the finder tacked his name on the tree and thereby +confirmed his ownership, as he did if he placed a box in which a nest +was built. The ticket must not blow off, and the right at first lasted +only one season. In the rabbit-land every trap that was set preempted +ground for a fixed number of yards about it. Some grasping boys soon +made many traps and set them all over a valuable district, so that the +common land fell into a few hands. Traps were left out all winter and +simply set the next spring. All these rights finally came into the +ownership of two or three boys, who slowly acquired the right and +bequeathed their claims to others for a consideration, when they left +school. The monopolists often had a large surplus of rabbits which +they bartered for "butters," the unit being the ounce of daily +allowance. These could be represented by tickets transferred, so that +debts were paid with "butters" that had never been seen. An agrarian +party arose and demanded a redistribution of land from the +monopolists, as Sir Henry Maine shows often happened in the old +village community. Legislation and judicial procedure were developed +and quarrels settled by arbitration, ordeal, and wager, and punishment +by bumping often followed the decision of the boy folk-mote. Scales of +prices for commodities in "butters" or in pie-currency were evolved, +so that we here have an almost entirely spontaneous but amazingly +rapid recapitulation of the social development of the race by these +boys. + +From a study of 1,166 children's organizations described as a language +lesson in school composition, Mr. Sheldon[28] arrives at some +interesting results. American children tend strongly to institutional +activities, only about thirty per cent of all not having belonged to +some such organization. Imitation plays a very important role, and +girls take far more kindly than boys to societies organized by adults +for their benefit. They are also more governed by adult and altruistic +motives in forming their organizations, while boys are nearer to +primitive man. Before ten comes the period of free spontaneous +imitation of every form of adult institution. The child reproduces +sympathetically miniature copies of the life around him. On a farm, +his play is raking, threshing, building barns, or on the seashore he +makes ships and harbors. In general, he plays family, store, church, +and chooses officers simply because adults do. The feeling of caste, +almost absent in the young, culminates about ten and declines +thereafter. From ten to fourteen, however, associations assume a new +character; boys especially cease to imitate adult organizations and +tend to form social units characteristic of lower stages of human +evolution--pirates, robbers, soldiers, lodges, and other savage +reversionary combinations, where the strongest and boldest is the +leader. They build huts, wear feathers and tomahawks as badges, carry +knives and toy-pistols, make raids and sell the loot. Cowards alone, +together they fear nothing. Their imagination is perhaps inflamed by +flash literature and "penny-dreadfuls." Such associations often break +out in decadent country communities where, with fewer and feebler +offspring, lax notions of family discipline prevail and hoodlumism is +the direct result of the passing of the rod. These barbaric societies +have their place and give vigor; but if unreduced later, as in many +unsettled portions of this country, a semisavage state of society +results. At twelve the predatory function is normally subordinated, +and if it is not it becomes dangerous, because the members are no +longer satisfied with mere play, but are stronger and abler to do +harm, and the spice of danger and its fascination may issue in crime. +Athleticism is now the form into which these wilder instincts can be +best transmuted, and where they find harmless and even wholesome vent. +Another change early in adolescence is the increased number of social, +literary, and even philanthropic organizations and institutions for +mutual help--perhaps against vice, for having a good time, or for +holding picnics and parties. Altruism now begins to make itself felt +as a motive. + +_Student life and organizations._ Student life is perhaps the best of +all fields, unworked though it is, for studying the natural history of +adolescence. Its modern record is over eight hundred years old and it +is marked with the signatures of every age, yet has essential features +that do not vary. Cloister and garrison rules have never been enforced +even in the hospice, bursa, inn, "house," "hall," or dormitory, and +_in loco parentis_ [In place of a parent] practises are impossible, +especially with large numbers. The very word "school" means leisure, +and in a world of toil and moil suggests paradise. Some have urged +that _elite_ youth, exempt from the struggle to live and left to the +freedom of their own inclinations, might serve as a biological and +ethnic compass to point out the goal of human destiny. But the +spontaneous expressions of this best age and condition of life, with +no other occupation than their own development, have shown reversions +as often as progress. The rupture of home ties stimulates every wider +vicarious expression of the social instinct. Each taste and trait can +find congenial companionship in others and thus be stimulated to more +intensity and self-consciousness. Very much that has been hitherto +repressed in the adolescent soul is now reenforced by association and +may become excessive and even aggressive. While many of the +race-correlates of childhood are lost, those of this stage are more +accessible in savage and sub-savage life. Freedom is the native air +and vital breath of student life. The sense of personal liberty is +absolutely indispensable for moral maturity; and just as truth can not +be found without the possibility of error, so the _posse non peccare_ +[Ability not to sin] precedes the _non posse peccare_, [Inability to +sin] and professors must make abroad application of the rule _abusus +non tollit usum_ [Abuse does not do away with use]. The student must +have much freedom to be lazy, make his own minor morals, vent his +disrespect for what he can see no use in, be among strangers to act +himself out and form a personality of his own, be baptized with the +revolutionary and skeptical spirit, and go to extremes at the age when +excesses teach wisdom with amazing rapidity, if he is to become a true +knight of the spirit and his own master. Ziegler[29] frankly told +German students that about one-tenth of them would be morally lost in +this process, but insisted that on the whole more good was done than +by restraint; for, he said, "youth is now in the stage of Schiller's +bell when it was molten metal." + +Of all safeguards I believe a rightly cultivated sense of honor is the +most effective at this age. Sadly as the written code of student honor +in all lands needs revision, and partial, freaky, and utterly +perverted, tainted and cowardly as it often is, it really means what +Kant expressed in the sublime precept, "Thou canst because thou +oughtest." Fichte said that _Faulheit, Feigheit_, and _Falschheit_ +[Laziness, cowardice, falsehood] were the three dishonorable things +for students. If they would study the history and enter into the +spirit of their own fraternities, they would often have keener and +broader ideas of honor to which they are happily so sensitive. If +professors made it always a point of honor to confess and never to +conceal the limitation of their knowledge, would scorn all pretense of +it, place credit for originality frankly where it belongs, teach no +creeds they do not profoundly believe, or topics in which they are not +interested, and withhold nothing from those who want the truth, they +could from this vantage with more effect bring students to feel that +the laziness that, while outwardly conforming, does no real inner +work; that getting a diploma, as a professor lately said, an average +student could do, on one hour's study a day; living beyond one's +means, and thus imposing a hardship on parents greater than the talent +of the son justifies; accepting stipends not needed, especially to the +deprivation of those more needy; using dishonest ways of securing rank +in studies or positions on teams, or social standing, are, one and +all, not only ungentlemanly but cowardly and mean, and the axe would +be laid at the root of the tree. Honor should impel students to go +nowhere where they conceal their college, their fraternity, or even +their name; to keep themselves immaculate from all contact with that +class of women which, Ziegler states, brought twenty-five per cent of +the students of the University of Berlin in a single year to +physicians; to remember that other's sisters are as cherished as their +own; to avoid those sins against confiding innocence which cry for +vengeance, as did Valentine against Faust, and which strengthen the +hate of social classes and make mothers and sisters seem tedious +because low ideas of womanhood have been implanted, and which give a +taste for mucky authors that reek with suggestiveness; and to avoid +the waste of nerve substance and nerve weakness in ways which Ibsen +and Tolstoi have described. These things are the darkest blot on the +honor of youth. + +_Associations for youth, devised or guided by adults._ Here we enter a +very different realm. Forbush[30] undertakes an analysis of many such +clubs which he divides according to their purpose into nine chief +classes: physical training, handicraft, literary, social, civic and +patriotic, science-study, hero-love, ethical, religious. These he +classifies as to age of the boys, his purview generally ending at +seventeen; discusses and tabulates the most favorable number, the +instincts chiefly utilized, the kinds of education gained in each and +its percentage of interest, and the qualities developed. He commends +Riis's mode of pulling the safety-valve of a rather dangerous boy-gang +by becoming an adult honorary member, and interpreting the impulsions +of this age in the direction of adventure instead of in that of +mischief. He reminds us that nearly one-third of the inhabitants of +America are adolescents, that 3,000,000 are boys between twelve and +sixteen, "that the do-called heathen people are, whatever their age, +all in the adolescent stage of life." + +A few American societies of this class we may briefly characterize as +follows: + + +(a) Typical of a large class of local juvenile clubs is the "Captains +of Ten," originally for boys of from eight to fourteen, and with a +later graduate squad of those over fifteen. The "Ten" are the fingers; +and whittling, scrap-book making, mat-weaving, etc., are taught. The +motto is, "The hand of the diligent shall bear rule"; its watchword is +"Loyalty"; and the prime objects are "to promote a spirit of loyalty +to Christ among the boys of the club," and to learn about and work for +Christ's kingdom. The members wear a silver badge; have an annual +photograph; elect their leaders; vote their money to missions (on +which topic they hold meetings); act Bible stories in costume; hear +stories and see scientific experiments; enact a Chinese school; write +articles for the children's department of religious journals; develop +comradeship, and "have a good time." + +(b) The Agassiz Association, founded in 1875 "to encourage personal +work in natural science," now numbers some 25,000 members, with +chapters distributed all over the country, and was said by the late +Professor Hyatt to include "the largest number of persons ever bound +together for the purpose of mutual help in the study of nature." It +furnishes practical courses of study in the sciences; has local +chapters in thousands of towns and cities in this and other countries; +publishes a monthly organ, The Swiss Cross, to facilitate +correspondence and exchange of specimens; has a small endowment, a +badge, is incorporated, and is animated by a spirit akin to that of +University Extension; and, although not exclusively for young people, +is chiefly sustained by them. + +(c) The Catholic Total Abstinence Union is a strong, well-organized, +and widely extended society, mostly composed of young men. The pledge +required of all members explains its object: "I promise with the +Divine assistance and in honor of the Sacred Thirst and the Agony of +our Saviour, to abstain from all intoxicating drinks and to prevent as +much as possible by advice and example the sin of intemperance in +others and to discountenance the drinking customs of society." A +general convention of the Union has been held annually since 1877. + +(d) The Princely Knights of Character Castle is an organization +founded in 1895 for boys from twelve to eighteen to "inculcate, +disseminate, and practise the principles of heroism--endurance--love, +purity, and patriotism." The central incorporated castle grants +charters to local castles, directs the ritual and secret work. Its +officers are supreme prince, patriarch, scribes, treasurer, director, +with captain of the guard, watchman, porter, keeper of the dungeon, +musician, herald, and favorite son. The degrees of the secret work are +shepherd lad, captive, viceroy, brother, son, prince, knight, and +royal knight. There are jewels, regalia, paraphernalia, and +initiations. The pledge for the first degree is, "I hereby promise and +pledge that I will abstain from the use of intoxicating liquor in any +form as a beverage; that I will not use profane or improper language; +that I will discourage the use of tobacco in any form; that I will +strive to live pure in body and mind; that I will obey all rules and +regulations of the order and not reveal any of the secrets in any +way." There are benefits, reliefs, passwords, a list of offenses and +penalties. + +(e) Some 35,000 Bands of Mercy are now organized under the direction +of the American Humane Education Society. The object of the +organization is to cultivate kindness to animals and sympathy with the +poor and oppressed. The prevention of cruelty in driving, cattle +transportation, humane methods of killing, care for the sick and +abandoned or overworked animals, are the themes of most of its +voluminous literature. It has badges, hymnbooks, cards, and +certificates of membership, and a motto, "Kindness, Justice, and Mercy +to All." Its pledge is, "I will try to be kind to all harmless living +creatures, and try to protect them from cruel usage," and is intended +to include human as well as dumb creatures. The founder and secretary, +with great and commendable energy, has instituted prize contests for +speaking on humane subjects in schools, and has printed and circulated +prize stories; since the incorporation of the society in 1868, he has +been indefatigable in collecting funds, speaking before schools and +colleges, and prints fifty to sixty thousand copies of the monthly +organ. In addition to its mission of sentiment, and to make it more +effective, this organization clearly needs to make more provision for +the intellectual element by well-selected or constructed courses, or +at least references on the life, history, habits, and instincts of +animals, and it also needs more recognition that modern charity is a +science as well as a virtue. + +(f) The Coming Men of America, although organized only in 1894, now +claims to be the greatest chartered secret society for boys and young +men in the country. It began two years earlier in a lodge started by a +nineteen-year-old boy in Chicago in imitation of such ideas of Masons, +Odd-Fellows, etc., as its founder could get from his older brother, +and its meetings were first held in a basement. On this basis older +heads aided in its development, so that it is a good example of the +boy-imitative helped out by parents. The organization is now +represented in every State and Territory, and boys travel on its +badge. There is an official organ, The Star, a badge, sign, and a +secret sign language called "bestography." Its secret ritual work is +highly praised. Its membership is limited to white boys under +twenty-one. + +(g) The first Harry Wadsworth Club was established in 1871 as a +result of E.E. Hale's Ten Times One, published the year before. Its +motto is, "Look up, and not down; look forward, and not back; look +out, and not in; lend a hand," or "Faith, Hope, and Charity." Its +organ is the Ten Times One Record; its badge is a silver Maltese +cross. Each club may organize as it will, and choose its own name, +provided it accepts the above motto. Its watchword is, "In His Name." +It distributes charities, conducts a Noonday Rest, outings in the +country, and devotes itself to doing good.[31] + + + +[Footnote 1: Tarde: L'Opposition Universelle. Alcan, Paris, 1897, p. +461.] + +[Footnote 2: The Adolescent at Home and in School. By E. G. Lancaster. +Proceedings of the National Educational Association, 1899, p. 1039.] + +[Footnote 3: The Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence. Pedagogical +Seminary, July, 1897, vol. 5, p. 87.] + +[Footnote 4: Study of Boys Entering the Adolescent Period of Life. +North Western Monthly, November, 1897, vol. 8, pp. 248-250, and a +series thereafter.] + +[Footnote 5: The Suggestibility of Children. Pedagogical Seminary, +December, 1896, vol. 4, p. 211] + +[Footnote 6: Characteristics of the Best Teacher as Recognized by +Children. By H.E. Kratz. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1896, vol. 3, pp. +413-418. See also The High School Teacher from the Pupil's Point of +View, by W.F. Book. Pedagogical Seminary, September, 1905, vol. 12, +pp. 239-288.] + +[Footnote 7: A Study of the Teacher's Influence. Pedagogical Seminary, +December, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 492-525.] + +[Footnote 8: Children's Ideals. Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1900, +vol. 7, pp. 3-12] + +[Footnote 9: Transactions of the Illinois Society for Child Study, +vol. 2, No. 2, 1896, pp. 41-46.] + +[Footnote 10: Children's Ambitions. By H.M. Willard. Barnes's Studies +in Education, vol. 2, pp. 243-258. (Privately printed by Earl Barnes, +4401 Sansom Street, Philadelphia.)] + +[Footnote 11: Transactions of the Illinois Society for Child Study, +October, 1898, vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 131-144.] + +[Footnote 12: A Study in Juvenile Ethics. Pedagogical Seminary, June, +1903, vol. 10, pp. 239-266] + +[Footnote 13: Die Ideale der Kinder. Zeitschrift fuer paedagogische +Psychologie, Pathologie und Hygiene, Jahrgang 3, Heft 1, pp. 38-64.] + +[Footnote 14: The Psychology of Ownership, Pedagogical Seminary, +December, 1899, vol. 6, pp. 421-470.] + +[Footnote 15: Property: Its Origin and Development. Chas. Scribner's +Sons, 1892.] + +[Footnote 16: Money-Sense of Children. Will S. Monroe. Pedagogical +Seminary, March, 1899, vol. 6, pp. 152-156] + +[Footnote 17: A Study of Children's Rights, as Seen by Themselves. By +M.E. Schallenberger. Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1894, vol. 3, pp. +87-96.] + +[Footnote 18: Children's Attitude toward Law. By E. M Darrah. Barnes's +Studies in Education, vol. 1, pp. 213-216. (Stanford University, +1897.) G. E. Stechert and Co., New York.] + +[Footnote 19: Class Punishment. By Caroline Frear. Barnes's Studies in +Education, vol. 1, pp. 332-337.] + +[Footnote 20: Children's Attitude toward Punishment for Weak Time +Sense. By D.S. Snedden. Barnes's Studies in Education, vol. 1, pp. +344-351] + +[Footnote 21: Ueber Einzel- und Gesamtleistung des Schulkindes. Archiv +fuer die gesamte Psychologie, 1 Band, 2 and 3 Heft, 1903, pp. 276-416] + +[Footnote 22: Development of the Social Consciousness of Children. By +Will S. Monroe. North-Western Monthly, September, 1898, vol. 9, pp. +31-36.] + +[Footnote 23: Bohannon: The Only Child in a Family. Pedagogical +Seminary, April, 1898, vol. 5, pp. 475-496.] + +[Footnote 24: J. Delitsch: Ueber Schuelerfreundschaften in einer +Volksschulklasse, Die Kinderfehler. Fuenfter Jahrgang, Mai, 1900, pp. +150-163.] + +[Footnote 25: On Some Psychical Relations of Society and Solitude. +Pedagogical Seminary, April 1900, vol. 7, pp. 13-69] + +[Footnote 26: A. Rauber: Homo Sapiens Ferus. J. Brehse, Leipzig, +1888. See also my Social Aspects of Education; Pedagogical Seminary, +March, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 81-91. Also Kropotkin: Mutual Aid a Factor of +Evolution. W. Heinemann, London, 1902.] + +[Footnote 27: Rudimentary Society among Boys, by John H. Johnson, +McDonogh, Md. McDonogh School, 1983, reprinted from Johns Hopkins +University Studies Series 2 (Historical and Political Studies, vol. 2, +No. 11).] + +[Footnote 28: The Institutional Activities of American Children. +American Journal of Psychology, July, 1898, vol. 9, pp. 425-448.] + +[Footnote 29: Der deutsche Student am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts. 6th +Ed. Goeschen, Leipzig, 1896.] + +[Footnote 30: The Social Pedagogy of Boyhood. Pedagogical Seminary, +October, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 307-346. See also his The Boy Problem, with +an introduction by G. Stanley Hall, The Pilgrim Press, Boston, 1901, +p. 194. Also Winifred Buck (Boys' Self-governing Clubs, Macmillan, New +York, 1903), who thinks ten million dollars could be used in training +club advisers who should have the use of schools and grounds after +hours and evenings, conduct excursions, organize games, etc., but +avoid all direct teaching and book work generally. This writer thinks +such an institution would soon result in a marked increase of public +morality and an augmented demand for technical instruction, and that +for the advisers themselves the work would be the best training for +high positions in politics and reform. Clubs of boys from eight to +sixteen or eighteen must not admit age disparities of more than two +years.] + +[Footnote 31: See Young People's Societies, by L.W. Bacon. D. Appleton +and Co., New York, 1900, p. 265. Also, F.G. Cressey: The Church and +Young Men. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York, 1903, p. 233.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION AND SCHOOL WORK + + +The general change and plasticity at puberty--English teaching--Causes +of its failure: (1) too much time to other languages, (2) +subordination of literary content to form, (3) too early stress on eye +and hand instead of ear and mouth, (4) excessive use of concrete +words--Children's interest in words--Their favorites--Slang--Story +telling--Age of reading crazes--What to read--The historic +sense--Growth of memory span. + +Just as about the only duty of young children is implicit obedience, +so the chief mental training from about eight to twelve is arbitrary +memorization, drill, habituation, with only limited appeal to the +understanding. After the critical transition age of six or seven, when +the brain has achieved its adult size and weight, and teething has +reduced the chewing surface to its least extent, begins a unique stage +of life marked by reduced growth and increased activity and power to +resist both disease and fatigue, which suggests what was, in some just +post-simian age of our race, its period of maturity. Here belong +discipline in writing, reading, spelling, verbal memory, manual +training, practise of instrumental technic, proper names, drawing, +drill in arithmetic, foreign languages by oral methods, the correct +pronunciation of which is far harder if acquired later, etc. The hand +is never so near the brain. Most of the content of the mind has +entered it through the senses, and the eye-and ear-gates should be +open at their widest. Authority should now take precedence of reason. +Children comprehend much and very rapidly if we can only refrain from +explaining, but this slows down intuition, tends to make casuists and +prigs and to enfeeble the ultimate vigor of reason. It is the age of +little method and much matter. The good teacher is now a _pedotrieb_, +or boy-driver. Boys of this age at now not very affectionate. They +take pleasure in obliging and imitating those they like and perhaps in +disobliging those they dislike. They have much selfishness and little +sentiment. As this period draws to a close and the teens begin, the +average normal child will not be bookish but should read and write +well, know a few dozen well-chosen books, play several dozen games, be +well started in one or more ancient and modern languages--if these +must be studied at all, should know something of several industries +and how to make many things he is interested in, belong to a few teams +and societies, know much about nature in his environment, be able to +sing and draw, should have memorized much more than he now does, and +be acquainted, at least in story form, with the outlines of many of +the best works in literature and the epochs and persons in history.[1] +Morally he should have been through many if not most forms of what +parents and teachers commonly call "badness," and Professor Yoder even +calls "meanness". He should have fought, whipped and been whipped, +used language offensive to the prude and to the prim precisian, been +in some scrapes, had something to do with bad, if more with good, +associates, and been exposed to and already recovering from as many +forms of ethical mumps and measles as, by having in mild form now he +can be rendered immune to later when they become far more dangerous, +because his moral and religious as well as his rational nature is +normally rudimentary. He is not depraved, but only in a savage or +half-animal stage, although to a large-brained, large-hearted and +truly parental soul that does not call what causes it inconvenience by +opprobrious names, an altogether lovable and even fascinating stage. +The more we know of boyhood the more narrow and often selfish do adult +ideals of it appear. Something is amiss with the lad of ten who is +very good, studious, industrious, thoughtful, altruistic, quiet, +polite, respectful, obedient, gentlemanly, orderly, always in good +toilet, docile to reason, who turns away from stories that reek with +gore, prefers adult companionship to that of his mates, refuses all +low associates, speaks standard English, or is as pious and deeply in +love with religious services as the typical maiden teacher or the _a +la mode_ parent wishes. Such a boy is either under-vitalized and +anemic and precocious by nature, a repressed, overtrained, +conventionalized manikin, a hypocrite, as some can become under +pressure thus early in life, or else a genius of some kind with a +little of all these. + +But with the teens all this begins to be changed and many of these +precepts must be gradually reversed. There is an outburst of growth +that needs a large part of the total kinetic energy of the body. There +is a new interest in adults, a passion to be treated like one's +elders, to make plans for the future, a new sensitiveness to adult +praise or blame. The large muscles have their innings and there is a +new clumsiness of body and mind. The blood-vessels expand and blushing +is increased, new sensations and feelings arise, the imagination +blossoms, love of nature is born, music is felt in a new, more inward +way, fatigue comes easier and sooner; and if heredity and environment +enable the individual to cross this bridge successfully there is +sometimes almost a break of continuity, and a new being emerges. The +drill methods of the preceding period must be slowly relaxed and new +appeals made to freedom and interest. We can no longer coerce a break, +but must lead and inspire if we would avoid arrest. Individuality must +have a longer tether. Never is the power to appreciate so far ahead of +the power to express, and never does understanding so outstrip ability +to explain. Overaccuracy is atrophy. Both mental and moral acquisition +sink at once too deep to be reproduced by examination without injury +both to intellect and will. There is nothing in the environment to +which the adolescent nature does not keenly respond. With pedagogic +tact we can teach about everything we know that is really worth +knowing; but if we amplify and morselize instead of giving great +wholes, if we let the hammer that strikes the bell rest too long +against it and deaden the sound, and if we wait before each methodic +step till the pupil has reproduced all the last, we starve and retard +the soul, which is now all insight and receptivity. Plasticity is at +its maximum, utterance at its minimum. The inward traffic obstructs +the outer currents. Boys especially are often dumb-bound, +monophrastic, inarticulate, and semi-aphasic save in their own +vigorous and inelegant way. Nature prompts to a modest reticence for +which the deflowerers of all ephebic naivete should have some respect. +Deep interests arise which are almost as sacred as is the hour of +visitation of the Holy Ghost to the religious teacher. The mind at +times grows in leaps and bounds in a way that seems to defy the great +enemy, fatigue; and yet when the teacher grows a little tiresome the +pupil is tired in a moment. Thus we have the converse danger of +forcing knowledge upon unwilling and unripe minds that have no love +for it, which is in many ways psychologically akin to a nameless crime +that in some parts of the country meets summary vengeance. + +(_A_) The heart of education as well as its phyletic root is the +vernacular literature and language. These are the chief instruments of +the social as well as of the ethnic and patriotic instinct. The prime +place of the former we saw in the last chapter, and we now pass to the +latter, the uniqueness of which should first be considered. + + +The Century, the largest complete dictionary of English, claims to +have 250,000 words, as against 55,000 in the old Webster's Unabridged. +Worcester's Unabridged of 1860 has 105,000; Murray's, now in L, it is +said, will contain 240,000 principal and 140,000 compound words, or +380,000 words in all. The dictionary of the French Academy has 33,000; +that of the Royal Spanish Academy, 50,000; the Dutch dictionary of Van +Dale, 86,000; the Italian and Portuguese, each about 50,000 literary, +or 150,000 encyclopedic words. Of course, words can really be counted +hardly more than ideas or impressions, and compounds, dialects, +obsolete terms, localisms, and especially technical terms, swell the +number indefinitely. A competent philologist[2] says, if given large +liberty, he "will undertake to supply 1,000,000 English words for +1,000,000 American dollars." Chamberlain[3] estimates that our +language contains more than two score as many words as all those left +us from the Latin. Many savage languages contain only a very few +thousand, and some but a few hundred, words. Our tongue is essentially +Saxon in its vocabulary and its spirit and, from the time when it was +despised and vulgar, has followed an expansion policy, swallowing with +little modification terms not only from classical antiquity, but from +all modern languages--Indian, African, Chinese, Mongolian--according +to its needs, its adopted children far outnumbering those of its own +blood. It absorbs at its will the slang of the street gamin, the cant +of thieves and beggars; is actually creative in the baby talk of +mothers and nurses; drops, forgets, and actually invents new words +with no pedigree like those of Lear, Carrol, and many others.[4] + +In this vast field the mind of the child early begins to take flight. +Here his soul finds its native breath and vital air. He may live as a +peasant, using, as Max Mueller says many do, but a few hundred words +during his lifetime; or he may need 8,000, like Milton, 15,000, like +Shakespeare, 20,000 or 30,000, like Huxley, who commanded both +literary and technical terms; while in understanding, which far +outstrips, use, a philologist may master perhaps 100,000 or 200,000 +words. The content of a tongue may contain only folk-lore and terms +for immediate practical life, or this content may be indefinitely +elaborated in a rich literature and science. The former is generally +well on in its development before speech itself becomes an abject of +study. Greek literature was fully grown when the Sophists, and finally +Aristotle, developed the rudiments of grammar, the parts of speech +being at first closely related with his ten metaphysical categories. +Our modern tongue had the fortune, unknown to those of antiquity, when +it was crude and despised, to be patronized and regulated by Latin +grammarians, and has had a long experience, both for good and evil, +with their conserving and uniformitizing instincts. It has, too, a +long history of resistance to this control. Once spelling was a matter +of fashion or even individual taste; and as the constraint grew, two +pedagogues in the thirteenth century fought a duel for the right +spelling of the word, and that maintained by the survivor prevailed. +Phonic and economic influences are now again making some headway +against orthographic orthodoxy here; so with definitions. In the days +of Johnson's dictionary, individuality still had wide range in +determining meanings. In pronunciation, too: we may now pronounce the +word _tomato_ in six ways, all sanctioned by dictionaries. Of our +tongue in particular it is true, as Tylor says in general, condensing +a longer passage, "take language all in all, it is the product of a +rough-and-ready ingenuity and of the great rule of thumb. It is an old +barbaric engine, which in its highest development is altered, patched, +and tinkered into capability. It is originally and naturally a product +of low culture, developed by ages of conscious and unconscious +improvement to answer more or less perfectly the requirements of +modern civilization." + + +It is plain, therefore, that no grammar, and least of all that derived +from the prim, meager Latin contingent of it, is adequate to legislate +for the free spirit of our magnificent tongue. Again, if this is ever +done and English ever has a grammar that is to it what Latin grammar +is to that language, it will only be when the psychology of speech +represented, e.g., in Wundt's Psychologie der Sprache,[5] which is now +compiling and organizing the best elements from all grammars, is +complete. The reason why English speakers find such difficulty in +learning other languages is because ours has so far outgrown them by +throwing off not only inflections but many old rules of syntax, that +we have had to go backward to an earlier and more obsolescent stage of +human development. In 1414, at the Council of Constance, when Emperor +Sigismund was rebuked for a wrong gender, he replied, "I am King of +the Romans and above grammar." Thomas Jefferson later wrote, "Where +strictures of grammar does not weaken expression it should be attended +to; but where by a small grammatical negligence the energy of an idea +is condensed or a word stands for a sentence, I hold grammatical rigor +in contempt." Browning, Whitman, and Kipling deliberately violate +grammar and secure thereby unique effects neither asking nor needing +excuse. + +By general consent both high school and college youth in this country +are in an advanced stage of degeneration in the command of this the +world's greatest organ of the intellect; and that, despite the fact +that the study of English often continues from primary into college +grades, that no topic counts for more, and that marked deficiency here +often debars from all other courses. Every careful study of the +subject for nearly twenty years shows deterioration, and Professor +Shurman, of Nebraska, thinks it now worse than at any time for forty +years. We are in the case of many Christians described by Dante, who +strove by prayers to get nearer to God when in fact with every +petition they were departing farther from him. Such a comprehensive +fact must have many causes. + +I. One of these is the excessive time given to other languages just at +the psychological period of greatest linguistic plasticity and +capacity for growth. School invention and tradition is so inveterate +that it is hard for us to understand that there is little educational +value--and perhaps it is deeducational--to learn to tell the time of +day or name a spade in several different tongues or to learn to say +the Lord's Prayer in many different languages, any one of which the +Lord only can understand. The polyglot people that one meets on great +international highways of travel are linguists only in the sense that +the moke on the variety stage who plays a dozen instruments equally +badly is a musician. It is a psychological impossibility to pass +through the apprenticeship stage of learning foreign languages at the +age when the vernacular is setting without crippling it. The extremes +are the youth in ancient Greece studying his own language only and the +modern high school boy and girl dabbling in three or perhaps four +languages. Latin, which in the eight years preceding 1898 increased +one hundred and seventy-four per cent. in American high schools, while +the proportion entering college in the country and even in +Massachusetts steadily declined, is the chief offender. In the day of +its pedagogical glory Latin was the universal tongue of the learned. +Sturm's idea was to train boys so that if suddenly transported to +ancient Rome or Greece they would be at home there. Language, it was +said, was the chief instrument of culture; Latin, the chief language +and therefore a better drill in the vernacular than the vernacular +itself. Its rules were wholesome swathing bands for the modern +languages when in their infancy. Boys must speak only Latin on the +playground. They thought, felt, and developed an intellectual life in +and with that tongue.[6] But how changed all this is now. Statistical +studies show that five hours a week for a year gives command of but a +few hundred words, that two years does not double this number, and +that command of the language and its resources in the original is +almost never attained, but that it is abandoned not only by the +increasing percentage that do not go to college but also by the +increasing percentage who drop it forever at the college door. Its +enormous numerical increase due to high school requirements, the +increasing percentage of girl pupils more ready to follow the +teacher's advice, in connection with the deteriorating quality of the +girls--inevitable with their increasing numbers, the sense that Latin +means entering upon a higher education, the special reverence for it +by Catholic children, the overcrowded market for Latin teachers whom a +recent writer says can be procured by the score at less rates than in +almost any other subject, the modern methods of teaching it which work +well with less knowledge of it by the teacher than in the case of +other school topics, have been attended perhaps inevitably by steady +pedagogic decline despite the vaunted new methods; until now the baby +Latin in the average high school class is a kind of sanctified relic, +a ghost of a ghost, suggesting Swift's Struldbrugs, doomed to physical +immortality but shriveling and with increasing horror of all things +new. In 1892 the German emperor declared it a shame for a boy to excel +in Latin composition, and in the high schools of Sweden and Norway it +has been practically abandoned. In the present stage of its +educational decadence the power of the dead hand is strongly +illustrated by the new installation of the old Roman pronunciation +with which our tongue has only remote analogies, which makes havoc +with proper names which is unknown and unrecognized in the schools of +the European continent, and which makes a pedantic affectation out of +more vocalism. I do not know nor care whether the old Romans +pronounced thus or not, but if historic fidelity in this sense has +pedagogic justification, why still teach a text like the _Viri Romae_, +which is not a classic but a modern pedagogue's composition? + + +I believe profoundly in the Latin both as a university specialty and +for all students who even approach mastery, but for the vast numbers +who stop in the early stages of proficiency it is disastrous to the +vernacular. Compare the evils of translation English, which not even +the most competent and laborious teaching can wholly prevent and which +careless mechanical instruction directly fosters, with the vigorous +fresh productions of a boy or girl writing or speaking of something of +vital present interest. The psychology of translation shows that it +gives the novice a consciousness of etymologies which rather impedes +than helps the free movement of the mind. Jowett said in substance +that it is almost impossible to render either of the great dead +languages into English without compromise, and this tends to injure +the idiomatic mastery of one's own tongue, which can be got only by +much hard experience in uttering our own thoughts before trying to +shape the dead thoughts of others into our language. We confound the +little knowledge of word-histories which Latin gives with the far +higher and subtler sentence-sense which makes the soul of one language +so different from that of another, and training in which ought not to +end until one has become more or less of a stylist and knows how to +hew out modes of expressing his own individuality in great language. +There is a sense in which Macaulay was not an Englishman at all, but a +Ciceronian Latinist who foisted an alien style upon our tongue; and +even Addison is a foreigner compared to the virile Kipling. The nature +and needs of the adolescent mind demand bread and meat, while Latin +rudiments are husks. In his autobiography, Booker Washington says that +for ten years after their emancipation, the two chief ambitions of the +young negro of the South were to hold office and to study Latin, and +he adds that the chief endeavor of his life has been against these +tendencies. For the American boy and girl, high school too often means +Latin. This gives at first a pleasing sense of exaltation to a higher +stage of life, but after from one to three years the great majority +who enter the high school drop out limp and discouraged for many +reasons, largely, however, because they are not fed. Defective +nutrition of the mind also causes a restlessness, which enhances all +the influences which make boys and girls leave school. + + +II. The second cause of this degeneration is the subordination of +literature and content to language study. Grammar arises in the old +age of language. As once applied to our relatively grammarless tongue +it always was more or less of a school-made artifact and an alien +yoke, and has become increasingly so as English has grown great and +free. Its ghost, in the many textbooks devoted to it, lacks just the +quality of logic which made and besouled it. Philology, too, with all +its magnificence, is not a product of the nascent stages of speech. In +the college, which is its stronghold, it has so inspired professors of +English that their ideal is to be critical rather than creative till +they prefer the minute reading of a few masterpieces to a wide general +knowledge, and a typical university announces that "in every case the +examiners will treat mere knowledge of books as less important than +the ability to write good English" that will parse and that is +spelled, punctuated, capitalized, and paragraphed aright. Good +professors of English literature are hard to find, and upon them +philologists, who are plentiful, look with a certain condescension. +Many academic chairs of English are filled by men whose acquaintance +of our literature is very narrow, who wish to be linguistic and not +literary, and this is true even in ancient tongues. + + +At a brilliant examination, a candidate for the doctor's degree who +had answered many questions concerning the forms of Lucretius, when +asked whether he was a dramatist, historian, poet, or philosopher, did +not know, and his professor deemed the question improper. I visited +the eleventh recitation in Othello in a high school class of nineteen +pupils, not one of whom knew how the story ended, so intent had they +been kept on its verbiage. Hence, too, has come the twelve feet of +text-books on English on my shelves with many standard works, edited +for schools, with more notes than text. Fashion that works from above +down the grades and college entrance requirements are in large measure +responsible for this, perhaps now the worst case of the prostitution +of content to form. + +Long exposure to this method of linguistic manicuring tends to make +students who try to write ultra-fastidiously, seeking an over-refined +elaboration of petty trifles, as if the less the content the greater +the triumph of form alone could be. These petty but pretty nothings +are like German confectionery, that appeals to the eye but has little +for taste and is worse than nothing for the digestion. It is like +straining work on an empty stomach. For youth this embroidery of +details is the precocious senescence that Nordau has so copiously +illustrated as literary decadence. Language is vastly larger than all +its content, and the way to teach it is to focus the mind upon story, +history, oratory, drama, Bible, for their esthetic, mental, and above +all, moral content, as shown in the last chapter. The more unconscious +processes that reflect imitatively the linguistic environment and that +strike out intuitively oral and written vents for interests so intense +that they must be told and shared, are what teach us how to command +the resources of our mother tongue. These prescriptions and +corrections and consciousness of the manifold ways of error are never +so peculiarly liable to hinder rather than to help as in early +adolescence, when the soul has a new content and a new sense for it, +and so abhors and is so incapable of precision and propriety of +diction. To hold up the flights of exuberant youth by forever being on +the hunt for errors is, to borrow the language of the gridiron, low +tackle, and I would rather be convicted of many errors by such methods +than use them. Of course this has its place, but it must always be +subordinated to a larger view, as in one of the newly discovered +_logia_ ascribed to Jesus, who, when he found a man gathering sticks +on Sunday, said to him, "If you understand what you are doing, it is +well, but if not, thou shalt be damned." The great teacher who, when +asked how he obtained such rare results in expression, answered, "By +carefully neglecting it and seeking utter absorption in +subject-matter," was also a good practical psychologist. This is the +inveterate tendency that in other ages has made pedagogic scribes, +Talmudists, epigoni, and sophists, who have magnified the letter and +lost the spirit. But there are yet other seats of difficulty. + + +III. It is hard and, in the history of the race, a late change, to +receive language through the eye which reads instead of through the +ear which hears. Not only is perception measurably quite distinctly +slower, but book language is related to oral speech somewhat as an +herbarium is to a garden, or a museum of stuffed specimens to a +menagerie. The invention of letters is a novelty in the history of the +race that spoke for countless ages before it wrote. The winged word of +mouth is saturated with color, perhaps hot with feeling, musical with +inflection, is the utterance of a living present personality, the +consummation of man's gregarious instincts. The book is dead and more +or less impersonal, best apprehended in solitude, its matter more +intellectualized; it deals in remoter second-hand knowledge so that +Plato reproached Aristotle as being a reader, one remove from the +first spontaneous source of original impressions and ideas, and the +doughty medieval knights scorned reading as a mere clerk's trick, not +wishing to muddle their wits with other people's ideas when their own +were good enough for them. But although some of the great men in +history could not read, and though some of the illiterate were often +morally and intellectually above some of the literate, the argument +here is that the printed page must not be too suddenly or too early +thrust between the child and life. The plea is for moral and objective +work, more stories, narratives, and even vivid readings, as is now +done statedly in more than a dozen of the public libraries of the +country, not so often by teachers as by librarians, all to the end +that the ear, the chief receptacle of language, be maintained in its +dominance, that the fine sense of sound, rhythm, cadence, +pronunciation, and speech-music generally be not atrophied, that the +eye which normally ranges freely from far to near be not injured by +the confined treadmill and zigzag of the printed page. + +Closely connected with this, and perhaps psychologically worse, is the +substitution of the pen and the scribbling fingers for the mouth and +tongue. Speech is directly to and from the soul. Writing, the +deliberation of which fits age better than youth, slows down its +impetuosity many fold, and is in every way farther removed from vocal +utterance than is the eye from the ear. Never have there been so many +pounds of paper, so many pencils, and such excessive scribbling as in +the calamopapyrus [Pen-paper] pedagogy of to-day and in this country. +Not only has the daily theme spread as infection, but the daily lesson +is now extracted through the point of a pencil instead of from the +mouth. The tongue rests and the curve of writer's cramp takes a sharp +turn upward, as if we were making scribes, reporters, and +proof-readers. In some schools, teachers seem to be conducting +correspondence classes with their own pupils. It all makes excellent +busy work, keeps the pupils quiet and orderly, and allows the school +output to be quantified, and some of it gives time for more care in +the choice of words. But is it a gain to substitute a letter for a +visit, to try to give written precedence over spoken forms? Here again +we violate the great law that the child repeats the history of the +race, and that, from the larger historic standpoint, writing as a mode +of utterance is only the latest fashion. + + +Of course the pupils must write, and write well, just as they must +read, and read much; but that English suffers from insisting upon this +double long circuit too early and cultivates it to excess, devitalizes +school language and makes it a little unreal, like other affectations +of adult ways, so that on escaping from its thraldom the child and +youth slump back to the language of the street as never before. This +is a false application of the principle of learning to do by doing. +The young do not learn to write by writing, but by reading and +hearing. To become a good writer one must read, feel, think, +experience, until he has something to say that others want to hear. +The golden age of French literature, as Gaston Deschamps and +Brunetiere have lately told us, was that of the salon, when +conversation dominated letters, set fashions, and made the charm of +French style. Its lowest ebb was when bookishness led and people began +to talk as they wrote. + + +IV. The fourth cause of degeneration of school English is the growing +preponderance of concrete words for designating things of sense and +physical acts, over the higher element of language that names and +deals with concepts, ideas, and non-material things. The object-lesson +came in as a reaction against the danger of merely verbal and +definition knowledge and word memory. Now it has gone so far that not +only things but even languages, vernacular and foreign, are taught by +appeals to the eye. More lately, elementary science has introduced +another area of pictures and things while industrial education has +still further greatly enlarged the material sensori-motor element of +training. Geography is taught with artifacts, globes, maps, sand +boxes, drawing. Miss Margaret Smith[7] counted two hundred and eighty +objects that must be distributed and gathered for forty pupils in a +single art lesson. Instruction, moreover, is more and more busied upon +parts and details rather than wholes, upon analysis rather than +synthesis. Thus in modern pedagogy there is an increased tyranny of +things, a growing neglect or exclusion of all that is unseen. + +The first result of this is that the modern school child is more and +more mentally helpless without objects of sense. Conversation is +increasingly concrete, if not of material things and persons present +in time and even place. Instead of dealing with thoughts and ideas, +speech and writing is close to sense and the words used are names for +images and acts. But there is another higher part of language that is +not so abjectly tied down to perception, but that lives, moves, and +has its being in the field of concepts rather than percepts, which, to +use Earle's distinction, is symbolic and not presentative, that +describes thinking that is not mere contiguity in space or sequence in +time but that is best in the far higher and more mental associations +of likeness, that is more remote from activity, that, to use logical +terminology, is connotative and not merely denotative, that has +extension as well as intension, that requires abstraction and +generalization. Without this latter element higher mental development +is lacking because this means more than word-painting the material +world. + +Our school youth today suffer from just this defect. If their psychic +operations can be called thought it is of that elementary and half +animal kind that consists imagery. Their talk with each other is of +things of present and immediate interest. They lack even the elements +of imagination, which makes new combinations and is creative, because +they are dominated by mental pictures of the sensory. Large views that +take them afield away from the persons and things and acts they know +do not appeal to them. Attempts to think rigorously are too hard. The +teacher feels that all the content of mind must come in through the +senses, and that if these are well fed, inferences and generalizations +will come of themselves later. Many pupils have never in their lives +talked five minutes before others on any subject whatever that can +properly be called intellectual. It irks them to occupy themselves +with purely mental processes, so enslaved are they by what is near and +personal, and thus they are impoverished in the best elements of +language. It is as if what are sometimes called the associative +fibers, both ends of which are in the brain, were dwarfed in +comparison with the afferent and efferent fibers that mediate sense +and motion. + +That the soul of language as an instrument of thought consists in this +non-presentative element, so often lacking, is conclusively shown in +the facts of speech diseases. In the slowly progressive aphasias, of +late so carefully studied, the words first lost are those of things +and acts most familiar to the patient, while the words that persist +longest in the wreckage of the speech-centers are generally words that +do not designate the things of sense. A tailor loses the power to name +his chalk, measure, shears, although he can long talk fluently of what +little be may chance to know of God, beauty, truth, virtue, happiness, +prosperity, etc. The farmer is unable to name the cattle in his yard +or his own occupations, although he can reason as well as ever about +politics; can not discuss coin or bills, but can talk of financial +policies and securities, or about health and wealth generally. The +reason obvious. It is because concrete thinking has two forms, the +word and the image, and the latter so tends to take the place of the +former that it can be lost to both sense and articulation without +great impairment, whereas conceptual thinking lacks imagery and +depends upon words alone, and hence these must persist because they +have no alternate form which vicariates for them. + +In its lower stages, speech is necessarily closely bound up with the +concrete world; but its real glory appears in its later stages and its +higher forms, because there the soul takes flight in the intellectual +world, learns to live amidst its more spiritual realities, to put +names to thoughts, which is far higher than to put names to things. It +is in this world that the best things in the best books live; and the +modern school-bred distaste for them, the low-ranged mental action +that hovers near the coastline of matter and can not launch out with +zest into the open sea of thoughts, holding communion with the great +dead of the past or the great living of the distant present, seems +almost like a slow progressive abandonment of the high attribute of +speech and the lapse toward infantile or animal picture-thinking. If +the school is slowly becoming speechless in this sense, if it is +lapsing in all departments toward busy work and losing silence, +repose, the power of logical thought, and even that of meditation, +which is the muse of originality, this is perhaps the gravest of all +these types of decay. If the child has no resources in solitude, can +not think without the visual provocation, is losing subjective life, +enthusiasm for public, social, ethical questions, is crippled for +intellectual pursuits, cares only in a languid way for literary prose +and poetry, responds only to sensuous stimuli and events at short +range, and is indifferent to all wide relations and moral +responsibility, cares only for commercial self-interest, the tactics +of field sport, laboratory occupations and things which call be +illustrated from a pedagogic museum, then the school is dwarfing, in +dawning maturity, the higher powers that belong to this stage of +development and is responsible for mental arrest. + +In this deplorable condition, if we turn to the child study of speech +for help, we find that, although it has been chiefly occupied with +infant vocabularies, there are already a very few and confessedly +crude and feeble beginnings, but even these shed more light on the +lost pathway than all other sources combined. The child once set in +their midst again corrects the wise men. We will first briefly +recapitulate these and then state and apply their lessons. + + +Miss Williams[8] found that out of 253 young ladies only 133 did not +have favorite sounds, _[long "a"]_ and _a_ leading among the vowels, +and _l_, _r_ and _m_ among the constants. Eighty-five had favorite +words often lugged in, 329 being good. Two hundred and twenty-one, as +children, had favorite proper names in geography, and also for boys, +but especially for girls. The order of a few of the latter is as +follows: Helen, 36; Bessie, 25; Violet and Lilly, 20; Elsie and +Beatrice, 18; Dorothy and Alice, 17; Ethel, 15; Myrtle, 14; Mabel, +Marguerite, Pearl, and Rose, 13; May, 12; Margaret, Daisy, and Grace, +11; Ruth and Florence, 9; Gladys, 8; Maud, Nellie, and Gertrude, 7; +Blanche and Mary, 6; Eveline and Pansy, 5; Belle, Beulah, Constance, +Eleanor, Elizabeth, Eve, Laura, Lulu, Pauline, Virginia, and Vivian, 4 +each, etc. + +Of ten words found interesting to adolescents, murmur was the +favorite, most enjoying its sound. Lullaby, supreme, +annannamannannaharoumlemay, immemorial, lillibulero, burbled, and +incarnadine were liked by most, while zigzag and shigsback were not +liked. This writer says that adolescence is marked by some increased +love of words for motor activity and in interest in words as things in +themselves, but shows a still greater rise of interest in new words +and pronunciations; "above all, there is a tremendous rise in interest +in words as instruments of thought." The flood of new experiences, +feelings, and views finds the old vocabulary inadequate, hence "the +dumb, bound feeling of which most adolescents at one time or another +complain and also I suspect from this study in the case of girls, we +have an explanation of the rise of interest in slang." "The second +idea suggested by our study is the tremendous importance of hearing in +the affective side of language." + +Conradi[9] found that of 273 returns concerning children's pleasure in +knowing or using new words, ninety-two per cent were affirmative, +eight per cent negative, and fifty per cent gave words especially +"liked." Some were partial to big words, some for those with z in +them. Some found most pleasure in saying them to themselves and some +in using them with others. In all there were nearly three hundred such +words, very few of which were artificial. As to words pretty or queer +in form or sound, his list was nearly as large, but the greater part +of the words were different. Sixty per cent of all had had periods of +spontaneously trying to select their vocabulary by making lists, +studying the dictionary, etc. The age of those who did so would seem +to average not far from early puberty, but the data are too meager for +conclusion. A few started to go through the dictionary, some wished to +astonish their companions or used large new words to themselves or +their dolls. Seventy percent had had a passion for affecting foreign +words when English would do as well. Conradi says "the age varies from +twelve to eighteen, most being fourteen to sixteen." Some indulge this +tendency in letters, and would like to do so in conversation, but fear +ridicule. Fifty-six per cent reported cases of superfine elegance or +affected primness or precision in the use of words. Some had spells of +effort in this direction, some belabor compositions to get a style +that suits them, some memorise fine passages to this end, or modulate +their voices to aid them, affect elegance with a chosen mate by +agreement soliloquize before a glass with poses. According to his +curve this tendency culminates at fourteen. + +Adjectivism, adverbism, and nounism, or marked disposition to multiply +one or more of the above classes of words, and in the above order, +also occur near the early teens. Adjectives are often used as +adverbial prefixes to other adjectives, and here favorite words are +marked. Nearly half of Conradi's reports show it, but the list of +words so used is small. + +[Illustration: Graph showing Slang, Reading Craze, and Precision by +Age.] + +Miss Williams presents on interesting curve of slang confessed as +being both attractive and used by 226 out of 251. From this it appears +that early adolescence is the curve of greatest pleasure in its use, +fourteen being the culminating year. There is very little until +eleven, when the curve for girls rises very rapidly, to fall nearly us +rapidly from fifteen to seventeen. Ninety-three out of 104 who used it +did so despite criticism. + +Conradi, who collected and prints a long list of current slang words +and phrases, found that of 295 young boys and girls not one failed to +confess their use, and eighty-five per cent of all gave the age at +which they thought it most common. On this basis he constructs the +above curve, comparing with this the curve of a craze for reading and +for precision in speech. + +The reasons given are, in order of frequency, that slang was more +emphatic, more exact, more concise, convenient, sounded pretty, +relieved formality, was natural, manly, appropriate, etc. Only a very +few thought it was vulgar, limited the vocabulary, led to or was a +substitute for swearing, destroyed exactness, etc. This writer +attempts a provisional classification of slang expressions under the +suggestive heads of rebukes to pride, boasting and loquacity, +hypocrisy, quaint and emphatic negatives, exaggerations, exclamations, +mild oaths, attending to one's own business and not meddling or +interfering, names for money, absurdity, neurotic effects of surprise +or shock, honesty and lying, getting confused, fine appearance and +dress, words for intoxication which Partridge has collected,[10]for +anger collated by Chamberlain,[11] crudeness or innocent naivete, love +and sentimentality, etc. Slang is also rich in describing conflicts of +all kinds, praising courage, censuring inquisitiveness, and as a +school of moral discipline, but he finds, however, a very large number +unclassified; and while he maintains throughout a distinction between +that used by boys and by girls, sex differences are not very marked. +The great majority of terms are mentioned but once, and a few under +nearly all of the above heads have great numerical precedence. A +somewhat striking fact is the manifold variations of a pet typical +form. Twenty-three shock expletives, e.g., are, "Wouldn't that ---- +you?" the blank being filled by jar, choke, cook, rattle, scorch, get, +start, etc., or instead of _you_ adjectives are devised. Feeling is so +intense and massive, and psychic processes are so rapid, forcible, and +undeveloped that the pithiness of some of those expressions makes them +brilliant and creative works of genius, and after securing an +apprenticeship are sure of adoption. Their very lawlessness helps to +keep speech from rigidity and desiccation, and they hit off nearly +every essential phrase of adolescent life and experience. + +Conventional modes of speech do not satisfy the adolescent, so that he +is often either reticent or slangy. Walt Whitman[12] says that slang +is "an attempt of common humanity to escape from bald literalism and +to express itself illimitably, which in the highest walks produces +poets and poems"; and again, "Daring as it is to say so, in the growth +of language it is certain that the retrospect of slang from the start +would be the recalling from their nebulous condition of all that is +poetical in the stores of human utterance." Lowell[13] says, "There is +death in the dictionary, and where language is too strictly limited by +convention, the ground for expression to grow in is limited also, and +we get a potted literature, Chinese dwarfs instead of healthy trees." +Lounsbury asserts that "slang is an effort on the part of the users of +language to say something more vividly, strongly, concisely than the +language existing permits it to be said. It is the source from which +the decaying energies of speech are constantly refreshed." Conradi +adds in substance that weak or vicious slang is too feeble to survive, +and what is vital enough to live fills a need. The final authority is +the people, and it is better to teach youth to discriminate between +good and bad slang rather than to forbid it entirely. Emerson calls it +language in the making, its crude, vital, material. It is often an +effective school of moral description, a palliative for profanity, and +expresses the natural craving for superlatives. Faults are hit off and +condemned with the curtness sententiousness of proverbs devised by +youth to sanctify itself and correct its own faults. The pedagogue +objects that it violates good form and established usage, but why +should the habits of hundreds of years ago control when they can not +satisfy the needs of youth, which requires a _lingua franca_ of its +own, often called "slanguage"? Most high school and college youth of +both sexes have two distinct styles, that of the classroom which is as +unnatural as the etiquette of a royal drawing-room reception or a +formal call, and the other, that of their own breezy, free, natural +life. Often these two have no relation to or effect upon each other, +and often the latter is at times put by with good resolves to speak as +purely and therefore as self-consciously as they knew, with petty +fines for every slang expression. But very few, and these generally +husky boys, boldly try to assert their own rude but vigorous +vernacular in the field of school requirements. + + +These simple studies in this vast field demonstrate little or nothing, +but they suggest very much. Slang commonly expresses a moral judgment +and falls into ethical categories. It usually concerns ideas, +sentiment, and will, has a psychic content, and is never, like the +language of the school, a mere picture of objects of sense or a +description of acts. To restate it in correct English would be a +course in ethics, courtesy, taste, logical predication and opposition, +honesty, self-possession, modesty, and just the ideal and +non-presentative mental content that youth most needs, and which the +sensuous presentation methods of teaching have neglected. Those who +see in speech nothing but form condemn it because it is vulgar. Youth +has been left to meet these high needs alone, and the prevalence of +these crude forms is an indictment of the delinquency of pedagogues in +not teaching their pupils to develop and use their intellect properly. +Their pith and meatiness are a standing illustration of the need of +condensation for intellectual objects that later growth analyzes. +These expressions also illustrate the law that the higher and larger +the spiritual content, the grosser must be the illustration in which +it is first couched. Further studies now in progress will, I believe, +make this still clearer. + +Again, we see in the above, outcrops of the strong pubescent instinct +to enlarge the vocabulary in two ways. One is to affect foreign +equivalents. This at first suggests an appetency for another language +like the dog-Latin gibberish of children. It is one of the motives +that prompts many to study Latin or French, but it has little depth, +for it turns out, on closer study, to be only the affectation of +superiority and the love of mystifying others. The other is a very +different impulse to widen the vernacular. To pause to learn several +foreign equivalents of things of sense may be anti-educational if it +limits the expansion of thought in our own tongue. The two are, in +fact, often inversely related to each other. In giving a foreign +synonym when the mind seeks a new native word, the pedagogue does not +deal fairly. In this irradiation into the mother tongue, sometimes +experience with the sentiment or feeling, act, fact, or object +precedes, and then a name for it is demanded, or conversely the sound, +size, oddness or jingle of the word is first attractive and the +meaning comes later. The latter needs the recognition and utilization +which the former already has. Lists of favorite words should be +wrought out for spelling and writing and their meanings illustrated, +for these have often the charm of novelty as on the frontier of +knowledge and enlarge the mental horizon like new discoveries. We must +not starve this voracious new appetite "for words as instruments of +thought." + +Interest in story-telling rises till twelve or thirteen, and +thereafter falls off perhaps rather suddenly, partly because youth is +now more interested in receiving than in giving. As in the drawing +curve we saw a characteristic age when the child loses pleasure in +creating as its power of appreciating pictures rapidly arises, so now, +as the reading curve rises, auditory receptivity makes way for the +visual method shown in the rise of the reading curve with augmented +zest for book-method of acquisition. Darkness or twilight enhances the +story interest in children, for it eliminates the distraction of sense +and encourages the imagination to unfold its pinions, but the youthful +fancy is less bat-like and can take its boldest flights in broad +daylight. A camp-fire, or an open hearth with tales of animals, +ghosts, heroism, and adventure can teach virtue, and vocabulary, +style, and substance in their native unity. + +The pubescent reading passion is partly the cause and partly an effect +of the new zest in and docility to the adult world and also of the +fact that the receptive are now and here so immeasurably in advance of +the creative powers. Now the individual transcends his own experience +and learns to profit by that of others. There is now evolved a +penumbral region in the soul more or less beyond the reach of all +school methods, a world of glimpses and hints, and the work here is +that of the prospector and not of the careful miner. It is the age of +skipping and sampling, of pressing the keys lightly. What is acquired +is not examinable but only suggestive. Perhaps nothing read now fails +to leave its mark. It can not be orally reproduced at call, but on +emergency it is at hand for use. As Augustine said of God, so the +child might say of most of his mental content in these psychic areas, +"If you ask me, I do not know; but if you do not ask me, I know very +well"--a case analogous to the typical girl who exclaimed to her +teacher, "I can do and understand this perfectly if you only won't +explain it." That is why examinations in English, if not impossible, +as Goldwin Smith and Oxford hold, are very liable to be harmful, and +recitations and critical notes an impertinence, and always in danger +of causing arrest of this exquisite romantic function in which +literature comes in the closest relation to life, keeping the heart +warm, reenforcing all its good motives, preforming choices, and +universalizing its sympathies. + + +R. W. Bullock[14] classified and tabulated 2,000 returns from +school-children from the third to the twelfth grade, both inclusive, +concerning their reading. From this it appeared that the average boy +of the third grade "read 4.9 books in six months; that the average +falls to 3.6 in the fourth and fifth grades and rises to a maximum of +6.5 at the seventh grade, then drops quite regularly to 3 in the +twelfth grade at the end of the high school course." The independent +tabulation of returns from other cities showed little variation. +"Grade for grade, the girls read more than the boys, and as a rule +they reach their maximum a year sooner, and from a general maximum of +5.9 books there is a drop to 3.3 at the end of the course." The age of +reading may be postponed or accelerated perhaps nearly a year by the +absence or presence of library facilities. Tabulating the short +stories read per week, it was found that these averaged 2.1 in the +third grade, rose to 7.7 per week in the seventh grade, and in the +twelfth had fallen to 2.3, showing the same general tendency. + +The percentage tables for boys' preference for eight classes of +stories are here only suggestive. "War stories seem popular with third +grade boys, and that liking seems well marked through the sixth, +seventh, and eighth grades. Stories of adventure are popular all +through the heroic period, reaching their maximum in the eighth and +ninth grades. The liking for biography and travel or exploration grows +gradually to a climax in the ninth grade, and remains well up through +the course. The tender sentiment has little charm for the average +grade boy, and only in the high school course does he acknowledge any +considerable use of love stories. In the sixth grade he is fond of +detective stories, but they lose their charm for him as he grows +older." For girls, "stories of adventure are popular in the sixth +grade, and stories of travel are always enjoyed. The girl likes +biography, but in the high school, true to her sex, she prefers +stories of great women rather than great men, but because she can not +get them reads those of men. Pity it is that the biographies of so few +of the world's many great women are written. The taste for love +stories increases steadily to the end of the high school course. +Beyond that we have no record." Thus "the maximum amount of reading is +done in every instance between the sixth and eighth grades, the +average being in the seventh grade at an average age of fourteen and +one-tenth years." Seventy-five per cent of all discuss their reading +with some one, and the writer urges that "when ninety-five per cent of +the boys prefer adventure or seventy-five per cent of the girls prefer +love stories, that is what they are going to read," and the duty of +the teacher or librarian is to see that they have both in the highest, +purest form. + +Henderson[15] found that of 2,989 children from nine to fifteen, least +books were read at the age of nine and most at the age of fifteen, and +that there was "a gradual rise in amount throughout, the only break +being in the case of girls at the age of fourteen and the boys at the +age of twelve." For fiction the high-water mark was reached for both +sexes at eleven, and the subsequent fall is far less rapid for girls +than for boys. "At the age of thirteen the record for travel and +adventure stands highest in the case of the boys, phenomenally so. +There is a gradual rise in history with age, and a corresponding +decline in fiction." + +Kirkpatrick[16] classified returns from 5,000 children from the fourth +to the ninth grade in answer to questions that concerned their +reading. He found a sudden increase in the sixth grade, when children +are about twelve, when there is often a veritable, reading craze. +Dolls are abandoned and "plays, games, and companionship of others are +less attractive, and the reading hunger in many children becomes +insatiable and is often quite indiscriminate." It seems to "most +frequently begin at about twelve years of age and continue at least +three or four years," after which increased home duties, social +responsibilities, and school requirements reduce it and make it more +discriminating in quality. "The fact that boys read about twice, as +much history and travel as girls and only about two-thirds as much +poetry and stories shows beyond question that the emotional and +intellectual wants of boys and girls are essentially different before +sexual maturity." + +Miss Vostrovsky[17] found that among 1,269 children there was a great +increase of taste for reading as shown by the number of books taken +from the library, which began with a sharp rise at eleven and +increased steadily to nineteen, when her survey ended; that boys read +most till seventeen, and then girls took the precedence. The taste for +juvenile stories was declining and that for fiction and general +literature was rapidly increased. At about the sixteenth year a change +took place in both sexes, "showing then the beginning of a greater +interest in works of a more general character." Girls read more +fiction than boys at every age, but the interest in it begins to be +very decided at adolescence. With girls it appears to come a little +earlier and with greater suddenness, while the juvenile story +maintains a strong hold upon boys even after the fifteenth year. The +curve of decline in juvenile stories is much more pronounced in both +sexes than the rise of fiction. Through the teens there is a great +increase in the definiteness of answers to the questions why books +were chosen. Instead of being read because they were "good" or "nice," +they were read because recommended, and later because of some special +interest. Girls relied on recommendations more than boys. The latter +were more guided by reason the former by sentiment. Nearly three times +as many boys in the early teens chose books because they were exciting +or venturesome. Even the stories which girls called exciting were tame +compared with those chosen by boys. Girls chose books more than four +times as often because of children in them, and more often because +they ware funny. Boys care very little for style, but must have +incidents and heroes. The author says "the special interest that girls +have in fiction begins about the age of adolescence. After the +sixteenth year the extreme delight in stories fades," or school +demands become more imperative and uniform. Girls prefer domestic +stories and those with characters like themselves and scenes like +those with which they are familiar. "No boy confesses to a purely +girl's story, while girls frankly do to an interesting story about +boys. Women writers seem to appeal more to girls, men writers to boys. +Hence, the authors named by each sex are almost entirely different. In +fiction more standard works, were drawn by boys than by girls." "When +left to develop according to chance, the tendency is often toward a +selection of books which unfit one for every-day living, either by +presenting, on the one hand, too many scenes of delicious excitement +or, on the other, by narrowing the vision to the wider possibilities +of life." + +Out of 523 full answers, Lancaster found that 453 "had what might be +called a craze for reading at some time in the adolescent period," and +thinks parents little realize the intensity of the desire to read or +how this nascent period is the golden age to cultivate taste and +inoculate against reading what is bad. The curve rises rapidly from +eleven to fourteen, culminates at fifteen, after which it falls +rapidly. Some become omnivorous readers of everything in their way; +others are profoundly, and perhaps for life, impressed with some +single book; others have now crazes for history, now for novels, now +for dramas or for poetry; some devour encyclopedias; some imagine +themselves destined to be great novelists and compose long romances; +some can give the dates with accuracy of the different periods of the +development of their tastes from the fairy tales of early childhood to +the travels and adventures of boyhood and then to romance, poetry, +history, etc; and some give the order of their development of taste +for the great poets. + +The careful statistics of Dr. Reyer show that the greatest greed of +reading is from the age of fifteen to twenty-two, and is on the +average greatest of all at twenty. He finds that ten per cent of the +young people of this age do forty per cent of all the reading. Before +twenty the curve ascends very rapidly, to fall afterward yet more +rapidly as the need of bread-winning becomes imperative. After +thirty-five the great public reads but little. Every youth should have +his or her own library, which, however small, should be select. To +seal some knowledge of their content with the delightful sense of +ownership helps to preserve the apparatus of culture, keeps green +early memories, or makes one of the best tangible mementoes of +parental care and love. For the young especially, the only ark of +safety in the dark and rapidly rising flood of printer's ink is to +turn resolutely away from the ideal of quantity to that of quality. +While literature rescues youth from individual limitations and enables +it to act and think more as spectators of all time, and sharers of all +existence, the passion for reading may be excessive, and books which +from the silent alcoves of our nearly 5,500 American libraries rule +the world more now than ever before, may cause the young to neglect +the oracles within, weaken them by too wide reading, make conversation +bookish, and overwhelm spontaneity and originality with a +superfetation of alien ideas. + + +The reading passion may rage with great intensity when the soul takes +its first long flight in the world of books, and ninety per cent of +all Conradi's cases showed it. Of these, thirty-two per cent read to +have the feelings stirred and the desire of knowledge was a far less +frequent motive. Some read to pass idle time, others to appear learned +or to acquire a style or a vocabulary. Romance led. Some specialized, +and with some the appetite was omnivorous. Some preferred books about +or addressed to children, some fairy tales, and some sought only those +for adults. The night is often invaded and some become "perfectly +wild" over exciting adventures or the dangers and hardships of true +lovers, laughing and crying as the story turns from grave to gay, and +a few read several books a week. Some were forbidden and read by +stealth alone, or with books hidden in their desks or under school +books. Some few live thus for years in an atmosphere highly charged +with romance, and burn out their fires wickedly early with a sudden +and extreme expansiveness that makes life about them uninteresting and +unreal, and that reacts to commonplace later. Conradi prints some two +or three hundred favorite books and authors of early and of later +adolescence. The natural reading of early youth is not classic nor +blighted by compulsion or uniformity for all. This age seeks to +express originality and personality in individual choices and tastes. + +Suggestive and briefly descriptive lists of best books and authors by +authorities in different fields on which some time is spent in making +selection, talks about books, pooling knowledge of them, with no +course of reading even advised and much less prescribed, is the best +guidance for developing the habit of rapid cursory reading. Others +before professor De Long, of Colorado, have held that the power of +reading a page in moment, as a mathematician sums up a column of +figures and as the artist Dore was able to read a book by turning the +leaves, can be attained by training and practise. School pressure +should not suppress this instinct of omnivorous reading, which at this +age sometimes prompts the resolve to read encyclopedias, and even +libraries, or to sample everything to be found in books at home. Along +with, but never suppressing, it there should be some stated reading, +but this should lay down only kinds of reading like the four +emphasized in the last chapter or offer a goodly number of large +alternative groups of books and authors, like the five of the Leland +Stanford University, and permit wide liberty of choice to both teacher +and pupil. Few triumphs of the uniformitarians, who sacrifice +individual needs to mechanical convenience in dealing with youth in +masses, have been so sad as marking off and standardizing a definite +quantum of requirements here. Instead of irrigating a wide field, the +well-springs of literary interest are forced to cut a deep canyon and +leave wide desert plains of ignorance on either side. Besides +imitation, which reads what others do, is the desire to read something +no one else does, and this is a palladium of individuality. Bad as is +the principle, the selections are worse, including the saccharinity +ineffable of Tennyson's Princess (a strange expression of the +progressive feminization of the high school and yet satirizing the +scholastic aspiration of girls) which the virile boy abhors, books +about books which are two removes from life, and ponderous Latinity +authors which for the Saxon boy suggest David fighting in Saul's +armor, and which warp and pervert the nascent sentence-sense on a +foreign model. Worst of all, the prime moral purpose of youthful +reading is ignored in choices based on form and style; and a growing +profusion of notes that distract from content to language, the study +of which belongs in the college if not in the university, develops the +tendencies of criticism before the higher powers of sympathetic +appreciation have done their work.[18] + +(B) Other new mental powers and aptitudes are as yet too little +studied. Very slight are the observations so far made, of children's +historic, which is so clearly akin to literary, interest and capacity. +With regard to this and several other subjects in the curriculum we +are in the state of Watts when he gazed at the tea-kettle and began to +dream of the steam-engine; we are just recognizing a new power and +method destined to reconstruct and increase the efficiency of +education, but only after a long and toilsome period of limited +successes. + + +Mrs. Barnes[19], told a story without date, place, name, or moral and +compared the questions which 1,250 children would like to have +answered about it. She found that the interest of girls in persons, or +the number who asked the question "who," culminated at twelve, when it +coincided with that of boys, but that the latter continued to rise to +fifteen. The interest to know "place where" events occurred culminated +at eleven with girls, and at fifteen, and at a far higher point, with +boys. The questions "how" and "why," calling for the method and +reason, both culminated at twelve for girls and fifteen for boys, but +were more infrequent and showed less age differences than the +preceding question. Interest in the results of the action was most +pronounced of all, culminating at twelve in girls and fifteen in boys. +Details and time excited far less interest, the former jointly +culminating for both sexes at eleven. Interest in the truth of the +narrative was extremely slight, although it became manifest at +fifteen, and was growing at sixteen. The number of inferences drawn +steadily increased with age, although the increase was very slight +after thirteen. Both legitimate and critical inferences increased +after eleven, while imaginative inferences at that age had nearly +reached their maximum. Interest in names was very strong throughout, +as in primitive people. Boys were more curious concerning "who," +"where," and "how"; girls as to "why." In general, the historic +curiosity of boys was greater than that of girls, and culminated +later. The inferences drawn from an imagined finding of a log-house, +boat, and arrows on a lonely island indicate that the power of +inference, both legitimate and imaginative, develops strongly at +twelve and thirteen, after which doubt and the critical faculties are +apparent; which coincides with Mr. M.A. Tucker's conclusion, that +doubt develops at thirteen and that personal inference diminishes +about that age. + +The children were given two accounts of the fall of Fort Sumter, one +in the terms of a school history and the other a despatch of equal +length from Major Anderson, and asked which was best, should be kept, +and why. Choice of the narrative steadily declined after eleven and +that of the despatch increased, the former reaching its lowest, the +latter its highest, point at fifteen, indicating a preference for the +first-hand record. The number of those whose choice was affected by +style showed no great change, from twelve to fifteen, but rose very +rapidly for the nest two years. Those who chose the despatch because +it was true, signed, etc., increased rapidly in girls and boys +throughout the teens, and the preference for the telegram as a more +direct source increased very rapidly from thirteen to seventeen. + +Other studies of this kind led Mrs. Barnes to conclude that children +remembered items by groups; that whole groups were often omitted; that +those containing most action were best remembered; that what is +remembered is remembered with great accuracy; that generalities are +often made more specific; that the number of details a child carries +away from a connected narrative is not much above fifty, so that their +numbers should be limited; and from it all was inferred the necessity +of accuracy, of massing details about central characters or incidents, +letting action dominate, omitting all that is aside from the main line +of the story, of bringing out cause and effect and dramatizing where +possible. + +Miss Patterson[20] collated the answers of 2,237 children to the +question "What does 1895 mean?" The blanks "Don't know" decreased very +rapidly from six to eight, and thereafter maintained a slight but +constant percentage. Those who expanded the phase a little without +intelligence were most numerous from eight to ten, while the +proportion who gave a correct explanation rose quite steadily for both +sexes and culminated at fourteen for girls and fifteen for boys. The +latter only indicates the pupils of real historic knowledge. The +writer concludes that "the sense of historical time is altogether +lacking with children of seven, and may be described as slight up to +the age of twelve." History, it is thought, should be introduced early +with no difference between boys and girls, but "up to the age of +twelve or thirteen it should be presented in a series of striking +biographies and events, appearing if possible in contemporary ballads +and chronicles, and illustrated by maps, chronological charts, and as +richly as possible by pictures of contemporary objects, buildings, and +people." At the age of fourteen or fifteen, another sort of work +should appear. Original sources should still be used, but they should +illustrate not "the picture of human society moving before us in a +long panorama, but should give us the opportunity to study the +organization, thought, feeling, of a time as seen in its concrete +embodiments, its documents, monuments, men, and books." The statesmen, +thinkers, poets, should now exceed explorers and fighters; reflection +and interpretation, discrimination of the true from the false, +comparison, etc., are now first in order; while later yet, perhaps in +college, should come severer methods and special monographic study. + + +Studies of mentality, so well advanced for infants and so well begun +for lower grades, are still very meager for adolescent stages so far +as they bear on growth in the power to deal with arithmetic, drawing +and pictures, puzzles, superstitions, collections, attention, reason, +etc. Enough has been done to show that with authority to collect data +on plans and by methods that can now be operated and with aid which +should now be appropriated by school boards and teachers' +associations, incalculable pedagogic economy could be secured and the +scientific and professional character of teaching every topic in upper +grammar and high school and even in the early college grades be +greatly enhanced. To enter upon this laborious task in every branch of +study is perhaps our chief present need and duty to our youth in +school, although individual studies like that of Binet[21] belong +elsewhere. + +(C) The studies of memory up the grades show characteristic adolescent +changes, and some of these results are directly usable in school. + + +Bolton[22] tested the power of 1,500 children to remember and write +dictated digits, and found, of course, increasing accuracy with the +older pupils. He also found that the memory span increased with age +rather than with the growth of intelligence as determined by grade. +The pupils depended largely upon visualisation, and this and +concentrated attention suggested that growth of memory did not +necessarily accompany intellectual advancement. Girls generally +surpassed boys, and as with clicks too rapid to be counted, it was +found that when the pupils reached the limits of their span, the +number of digits was overestimated. The power of concentrated and +prolonged attention was tested. The probability of error for the +larger number of digits, 7 and 8, decreased in a marked way with the +development of pubescence, at least up to fourteen years, with the +suggestion of a slight rise again at fifteen. + +In comprehensive tests of the ability of Chicago children to remember +figures seen, heard, or repeated by them, it was found that, from +seven to nine, auditory were slightly better remembered than visual +impressions. From that age the latter steadily increased over the +former. After thirteen, auditory memory increased but little, and was +already about ten per cent behind visual, which continued to increase +at least till seventeen. Audiovisual memory was better than either +alone, and the span of even this was improved when articulatory memory +was added. When the tests were made upon pupils of the same age in +different grades it was found in Chicago that memory power, whether +tested by sight, hearing, or articulation, was best in those pupils +whose school standing was highest, and least where standing was +lowest. + +When a series of digits was immediately repeated orally and a record +made, it was found[23] that while from the age of eight to twelve the +memory span increased only eight points, from fourteen to eighteen it +increased thirteen points. The number of correct reproductions of +numbers of seven places increased during the teens, although this +class of children remain about one digit behind normal children of +corresponding age. In general, though not without exceptions, it was +found that intelligence grew with memory span, although the former is +far more inferior to that of the normal child than the latter, and +also that weakness of this kind of memory is not an especially +prominent factor of weak-mindedness. + +Shaw[24] tested memory in 700 school children by dividing a story of +324 words into 152 phrases, having it read and immediately reproduced +by them, and selecting alternate grades from the third grammar to the +end of the high school, with a few college students. The maximum power +of this kind of memory was attained by boys in the high school period. +Girls remembered forty-three per cent in the seventh grade, and in the +high school forty-seven per cent. The increase by two-year periods was +most rapid between the third and fifth grades. Four terms were +remembered on the average by at least ninety per cent of the pupils, +41 by fifty per cent, and 130 by ten per cent. The story written out +in the terms remembered by each percentage from ten to ninety affords +a most interesting picture of the growth of memory, and even its +errors of omission, insertion, substitution and displacement. "The +growth of memory is more rapid in the case of girls than boys, and the +figures suggest a coincidence with the general law, that the rapid +development incident to puberty occurs earlier in girls than in boys." + +In a careful study of children's memory, Kemsies[25] concludes that +the quality of memory improves with age more rapidly than the +quantity. + +W.G. Monroe tested 275 boys and 293 girls, well distributed, from +seven to seventeen years of age, and found a marked rise for both +visual and auditory memory at fifteen for both sexes. For both sexes, +also, auditory memory was best at sixteen and visual at fifteen. + +When accuracy in remembering the length of tone was used as a test, it +was found there was loss from six to seven and gain from seven to +eight for both sexes. From eight to nine girls lost rapidly for one +and gained rapidly for the following year, while boys were nearly +stationary till ten, after which both sexes gained to their maximum at +fourteen years of age and declined for the two subsequent years, both +gaining power from sixteen to seventeen, but neither attaining the +accuracy they had at fourteen.[26] + +[Illustration: Girls and Boys at Memory Reproductions compared.] + +Netschajeff[27] subjected 637 school children, well distributed +between the ages of nine and eighteen, to the following tests. Twelve +very distinct objects were shown them, each for two seconds, which +must them be immediately written down. Twelve very distinct noises +were made out of sight; numbers of two figures each were read; +three-syllable words, which were names of familiar objects, objects +that suggested noises, words designating touch, temperature, and +muscle sensations, words describing states of feeling, and names of +abstract ideas also were given them. The above eight series of twelve +each were all reproduced in writing, and showed that each kind of +memory here tested increased with age, with some slight tendency to +decline at or just before puberty, then to rise and to slightly +decline after the sixteenth or seventeenth year. Memory for objects +showed the greatest amount of increase during the year studied, and +works for feeling next, although at all ages the latter was +considerably below the former. Boys showed stronger memory for real +impressions, and girls excelled for numbers and words. The difference +of these two kinds of memory was less with girls than with boys. The +greatest difference between the sexes lay between eleven and fourteen +years. This seems, at eighteen or nineteen, to be slightly increased. +"This is especially great at the age of puberty." Children from nine +to eleven have but slight power of reproducing emotions, but this +increases in the next few years very rapidly, as does that of the +abstract words. Girls from nine to eleven deal better with words than +with objects; boys slightly excel with objects. Illusions in +reproducing words which mistake sense, sound, and rhythm, which is not +infrequent with younger children, decline with age especially at +puberty. Up to this period girls are most subject to these illusions, +and afterward boys. The preceding tables, in which the ordinates +represent the number of correct reproductions and the abscissas the +age, are interesting. + +Lobsien made tests similar to those of Netschajeff,[28] with +modifications for greater accuracy, upon 238 boys and 224 girls from +nine to fourteen and a half years of age. The preceding tables show +the development of the various kinds of memory for boys and girls: + + +BOYS. + +Age. Objects Noises Number Visual Acoustic Touch Feeling Sounds + Concepts Concepts Concepts Concepts + +13-14-1/2 92.56 71.89 80.67 73.00 74.78 75.33 75.44 40.56 +12-13 76.45 57.38 72.33 69.67 64.89 73.67 58.67 37.87 +11-12 89.78 57.19 70.22 59.67 63.00 73.33 55.33 19.99 +10-11 87.12 55.33 49.33 55.11 48.44 57.11 38.33 12.44 +9-10 64.00 53.33 49.09 46.58 43.78 43.67 27.22 7.22 + +Normal 82.2 59.02 64.8 60.6 59.4 64.2 31.2 24.0 +value. + +GIRLS. + +13-14-1/2 99.56 82.67 87.22 96.67 71.44 82.00 70.22 41.33 +12-13 92.89 75.56 74.89 77.22 63.11 74.67 67.33 34.89 +11-12 94.00 56.00 73.56 72.78 72.11 70.89 73.33 28.22 +10-11 75.78 46.22 62.44 56.22 54.78 58.78 43.22 10.44 +9-10 89.33 46.22 50.44 54.22 38.22 51.11 32.89 6.89 + +Normal 91.4 62.2 71.8 71.0 60.2 67.2 59.4 23.8 +value. + + +The table for boys shows in the fourteenth year a marked increase of +memory for objects, noises, and feelings, especially as compared with +the marked relative decline the preceding year, when there was a +decided increase in visual concepts and senseless sounds. The twelfth +year shows the greatest increase in number memory, acoustic +impressions, touch, and feeling. The tenth and eleventh years show +marked increase of memory for objects and their names. Thus the +increase in the strength of memory is by no means the same year by +year, but progress focuses on some forms and others are neglected. +Hence each type of memory shows an almost regular increase and +decrease in relative strength. + +The table for girls shown marked increase of all memory forms about +the twelfth year. This relative increase is exceeded only in the +fourteenth year for visual concepts. The thirteenth year shows the +greatest increase for sounds and a remarkable regression for objects +in passing from the lowest to the next grade above. + +In the accuracy of reproducing the order of impressions, girls much +exceeded boys at all ages. For seen object, their accuracy was twice +that of boys, the boys excelling in order only in number. In general, +ability to reproduce a series of impressions increases and decreases +with the power to reproduce in any order, but by no means in direct +proportion to it. The effect of the last member in a series by a +purely mechanical reproduction is best in boys. The range and energy +of reproduction is far higher than ordered sequence. In general girls +slightly exceed boys in recalling numbers, touch concepts, and sounds, +and largely exceed in recalling feeling concepts, real things and +visual concept. + +Colegrove[29] tabulated returns from the early memories of 1,658 +correspondents with 6,069 memories, from which he reached the +conclusions, represented in the following curves, for the earliest +three memories of white males and females. + +In the cuts on the following page, the heavy line represents the first +memory, the broken the second, and the dotted the third. Age at the +time of reporting is represented in distance to the right, and the age +of the person at the time of the occurrence remembered is represented +by the distance upward. "There is a rise in all the curves at +adolescence. This shows that, from the age of twelve to fifteen, boys +do not recall so early memories as they do both before and after this +period." This Colegrove ascribes to the fact that the present seems so +large and rich. At any rate, "the earliest memories of boys at the age +of fourteen average almost four years." His curves for girls show that +the age of all the first three memories which they are able to recall +is higher at fourteen than at any period before or after; that at +seven and eight the average age of the first things recalled is nearly +a year earlier than it is at fourteen. This means that at puberty +there is a marked and characteristic obliteration of infantile +memories which lapse to oblivion with augmented absorption in the +present. + +[Illustration: Untitled Graph.] + +It was found that males have the greatest number of memories for +protracted or repeated occurrences, for people, and clothing, +topographical and logical matters; that females have better memories +for novel occurrences or single impressions. Already at ten and eleven +motor memories begin to decrease for females and increase for males. +At fourteen and fifteen, motor memories nearly culminate for males, +but still further decline for females. The former show a marked +decrease in memory for relatives and playmates and an increase for +other persons. Sickness and accidents to self are remembered less by +males and better by females, as are memories of fears. At eighteen and +nineteen there is a marked and continued increase in the visual +memories of each sex and the auditory memory of females. Memory for +the activity of others increases for both, but far more strongly for +males. Colegrove concludes from his data that "the period of +adolescence is one of great psychical awaking. A wide range of +memories is found at this time. From the fourteenth year with girls +and the fifteenth with boys the auditory memories are strongly +developed. At the dawn of adolescence the motor memory of voice nearly +culminates, and they have fewer memories of sickness and accidents to +self. During this time the memory of other persons and the activity of +others is emphasized in case of both boys and girls. In general, at +this period the special sensory memories are numerous, and it is the +golden age for motor memories. Now, too, the memories of high ideals, +self-sacrifice, and self-forgetfulness are cherished. Wider interests +than self and immediate friends become the objects of reflection and +recollection." + +After twenty there is marked change in the memory content. The male +acquires more and the female less visual and auditory memories. The +memories of the female are more logical, and topographical features +increase. Memories of sickness and accidents to self decrease with the +males and increase with the females, while in the case of both there +is relative decline in the memories of sickness and accident to +others. From all this it would appear that different memories +culminate at different periods, and bear immediate relation to the +whole mental life of the period. While perhaps some of the finer +analyses of Colegrove may invite further confirmation, his main +results given above are not only suggestive, but rendered very +plausible by his evidence. + +Statistics based upon replies to the question as to whether pleasant +or unpleasant experiences were best remembered, show that the former +increase at eleven, rise rapidly at fourteen, and culminate at +eighteen for males, and that the curve of painful memories follows the +same course, although for both there is a drop at fifteen. For +females, the pleasant memories increase rapidly from eleven to +thirteen, decline a little at fourteen, rise again at sixteen, and +culminate at seventeen, and the painful memories follow nearly the +same course, only with a slight drop at fifteen. Thus, up to +twenty-two for males, there is a marked preponderance of pleasant over +painful memories, although the two rise and fall together. After +thirty, unpleasant memories are but little recalled. For the Indians +and negroes in this census, unpleasant memories play a far more and +often preponderating role suggesting persecution and sad experiences. +Different elements of the total content of memory come to prominence +at different ages. He also found that the best remembered years of +life are sixteen to seventeen for males and fifteen for females, and +that in general the adolescent period has more to do than any other in +forming and furnishing the memory plexus, while the seventh and eighth +year are most poorly remembered. + +It is also known that many false memories insert themselves into the +texture of remembered experiences. One dreams a friend is dead and +thinks she is till she is met one day in the street; or dreams of a +fire and inquires about it in the morning; dreams of a present and +searches the house for it next day; delays breakfast for a friend, who +arrived the night before in a dream, to come down to breakfast; a +child hunts for a bushel of pennies dreamed of, etc. These phantoms +falsify our memory most often, according to Dr. Colegrove, between +sixteen and nineteen. + +Mnemonic devices prompt children to change rings to keep appointments, +tie knots in the handkerchief, put shoes on the dressing-table, hide +garments, associate faces with hoods, names with acts, things, or +qualities they suggest; visualize, connect figures, letters with +colors, etc. From a scrutiny of the original material, which I was +kindly allowed to make, this appears to rise rapidly at puberty. + + +[Footnote 1: See my Ideal School as Based on Child Study. Proceedings +of the National Educational Association, 1901, pp. 470-490.] + +[Footnote 2: Charles P.G. Scott: The Number of Words in the English +and Other Languages. Princeton University Bulletin, May, 1902, vol. +13, pp. 106-111.] + +[Footnote 3: The Teaching of English. Pedagogical Seminary, June, +1902, vol. 9, pp. 161-168.] + +[Footnote 4: See my Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self. American +Journal of Psychology, April, 1898, vol. 9, pp. 351-395.] + +[Footnote 5: Sprachgeschichte und Sprachpsychologie, mit Rucksicht auf +B. Delbrueck's "Grundfragen der Sprachforschung." Leipzig, W. +Engelmann, 1901] + +[Footnote 6: Latin in the High School. By Edward Conradi. Pedagogical +Seminary, March, 1905, vol. 12, pp. 1-26.] + +[Footnote 7: The Psychological and Pedagogical Aspect of Language. +Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1903, vol. 10, pp. 438-458.] + +[Footnote 8: Children's Interest in Words. Pedagogical Seminary, +September, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 274-295.] + +[Footnote 9: Children's Interests in Words, Slang, Stories, etc. +Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1903, vol. 10, pp. 359-404.] + +[Footnote 10: American Journal of Psychology, April, 1900, vol. 11, p. +345 _et seq._] + +[Footnote 11: American Journal of Psychology, January, 1895, vol. 6, +pp. 585-592. See also vol. 10, p. 517 _et seq._] + +[Footnote 12: North American Review, November, 1885, vol. 141, pp. +431-435.] + +[Footnote 13: Introduction to the Biglow Papers, series ii.] + +[Footnote 14: Some Observations on Children's Reading. Proceedings of +the National Educational Association, 1897, pp. 1015-102l.] + +[Footnote 15: Report on Child Reading. New York Report of State +Superintendent, 1897, vol. 2, p. 979.] + +[Footnote 16: Children's reading. North-Western Monthly, December, +1898, vol. 9, pp. 188-191, and January, 1899, vol. 9, pp. 229-233.] + +[Footnote 17: A study of Children's Reading Tastes. Pedagogical +Seminary, December, 1899, vol. 6, pp. 523-535.] + +[Footnote 18: Perhaps the best and most notable school reader is Das +Deutsche Lesebuch, begun nearly fifty years ago by Hopf and Paulsiek, +and lately supplemented by a corps of writers headed by Doebeln, all in +ten volumes of over 3,500 pages and containing nearly six times as +much matter as the largest American series. Many men for years went +over the history of German literature, from the Eddas and +Nibelungenlied down, including a few living writers, carefully +selecting saga, legends, _Maerchen_, fables, proverbs, hymns, a few +prayers, Bible tales, conundrums, jests, and humorous tales, with many +digests, epitomes and condensation of great standards, quotations, +epic, lyric, dramatic poetry, adventure, exploration, biography, with +sketches of the life of each writer quoted, with a large final volume +on the history of German literature. All this, it is explained, is +"_stataric_" or required to be read between _Octava_[A] and +_Obersecunda_. It is no aimless anthology or chrestomathy like +Chambers's Encyclopedia, but it is perhaps the best product of +prolonged concerted study to select from a vast field the best to feed +each nascent stage of later childhood and early youth, and to secure +the maximum of pleasure and profit. The ethical end is dominant +throughout this pedagogic canon.] + +[Footnote A: The Prussian gymnasium, whose course is classical and +fits for the University, has nine classes in three divisions of three +classes each. The lower classes are Octava, Septa, Sexta, Quinta, and +Quarta; the middle classes, Untertertia, Obertertia, and Untersecunda; +the higher classes, Obersecunda, Unterprima, and Oberprima. Pupils +must be at least nine years of age and have done three years +preparatory work before entrance.] + +[Footnote 19: The Historic Sense among Children. In her Studies in +Historical Method. D. C. Heath and Co., Boston, 1896, p. 57.] + +[Footnote 20: Special Study on Children's Sense of Historical Time. +Mrs. Barnes's Studies in Historical Method, D.C. Heath and Co., +Boston, 1896, p. 94.] + +[Footnote 21: L'Etude experimentale de l'intelligence. Schleicher +Freres, Paris, 1903.] + +[Footnote 22: The Growth of Memory in School Children. American +Journal of Psychology, April, 1892, vol. 9, pp. 362-380.] + +[Footnote 23: Contribution to the Psychology and Pedagogy of +Feeble-minded Children. By G.E. Johnson. Pedagogical Seminary, +October, 1895, vol. 3, p. 270.] + +[Footnote 24: A Test of Memory in School Children. Pedagogical +Seminary, October, 1898, vol. 4, pp. 61-78.] + +[Footnote 25: Zeitschrift fuer paedagogische Psychologie, Pathologie und +Hygiene. February, 1900. Jahrgang II, Heft 1, pp. 21-30.] + +[Footnote 26: See Scripture: Scientific Child Study. Transactions of +the Illinois Society for Child Study, May, 1895, vol. 1, No. 2, pp. +32-37.] + +[Footnote 27: Experimentelle Untersuchungen ueber die +Gedaechtnissentwickelung bei Schulkindern. Zeits. f. Psychologie, u. +Physiologie der Sinnes-organe, November, 1900. Bd. 24. Heft 5, pp. +321-351.] + +[Footnote 28: See Note 4, p. 270.] + +[Footnote 29: Memory: An Inductive Study. By F.W. Colegrove. Henry +Holt and Co., New York, 1900, p. 229. See also Individual Memories. +American Journal of Psychology, January, 1899, vol. 10, pp 228-255.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS + + +Equal opportunities of higher education now open--Brings new dangers to +women--Ineradicable sex differences begin at puberty, when the sexes +should and do diverge--Different interests--Sex tension--Girls more +mature than boys at the same age--Radical psychic and physiological +differences between the sexes--The bachelor women--Needed +reconstruction--Food--Sleep--Regimen--Manners--Religion--Regularity--The +topics for a girls' curriculum--The eternal womanly. + +The long battle of woman and her friends for equal educational and +other opportunities is essentially won all along the line. Her +academic achievements have forced conservative minds to admit that her +intellect is not inferior to that of man. The old cloistral seclusion +and exclusion is forever gone and new ideals are arising. It has been +a noble movement and is a necessary first stage of woman's +emancipation. The caricatured maidens "as beautiful as an angel but as +silly as a goose" who come from the kitchen to the husband's study to +ask how much is two times two, and are told it is four for a man and +three for a woman, and go back with a happy "Thank you, my dear"; +those who love to be called baby, and appeal to instincts half +parental in their lovers and husbands; those who find all the sphere +they desire in a doll's house, like Nora's, and are content to be +men's pets; whose ideal is the clinging vine, and who take no interest +in the field where their husbands struggle, will perhaps soon survive +only as a diminishing remainder. Marriages do still occur where +woman's ignorance and helplessness seem to be the chief charm to men, +and may be happy, but such cases are no farther from the present ideal +and tendency on the one hand than on the other are those which consist +in intellectual partnerships, in which there is no segregation of +interests but which are devoted throughout to joint work or enjoyment. + +A typical contemporary writer[1] thinks the question whether a girl +shall receive a college education is very like the same question for +boys. Even if the four K's, _Kirche, Kinder, Kuchen,_ and _Kleider_ +(which may be translated by the four C's, _Church, Children, Cooking,_ +and _Clothes_), are her vocation, college may help her. The best +training for a young woman is not the old college course that has +proven unfit for young men. Most college men look forward to a +professional training as few women do. The latter have often greater +sympathy, readiness of memory, patience with technic, skill in +literature and language, but lack originality, are not attracted by +unsolved problems, are less motor-minded; but their training is just +as serious and important as that of men. The best results are where +the sexes are brought closer together, because their separation +generally emphasizes for girls the technical training for the +profession of womanhood. With girls, literature and language take +precedence over science; expression stands higher than action; the +scholarship may be superior, but is not effective; the educated woman +"is likely to master technic rather than art; method, rather than +substance. She may know a good deal, but she can do nothing." In most +separate colleges for women, old traditions are more prevalent than in +colleges for men. In the annex system, she does not get the best of +the institution. By the coeducation method, "young men are more +earnest, better in manners and morals, and in all ways more civilized +than under monastic conditions. The women do more work in a more +natural way, with better perspective and with saner incentives than +when isolated from the influence of the society of men. There is less +silliness and folly where a man is not a novelty. In coeducational +institutions of high standards, frivolous conduct or scandals of any +form are rarely known. The responsibility for decorum is thrown from +the school to the woman, and the woman rises to the responsibility." +The character of college work has not been lowered but raised by +coeducation, despite the fact that most of the new, small, weak +colleges are coeducational. Social strain, Jordan thinks, is easily +regulated, and the dormitory system is on the whole best, because the +college atmosphere is highly prized. The reasons for the present +reaction against coeducation are ascribed partly to the dislike of the +idle boy to have girls excel him and see his failures, or because +rowdyish tendencies are checked by the presence of women. Some think +that girls do not help athletics; that men count for most because they +are more apt to be heard from later; but the most serious new argument +is the fear that woman's standards and amateurishness will take the +place of specialization. Women take up higher education because they +like it; men because their careers depend upon it. Hence their studies +are more objective and face the world as it is. In college the women +do as well as men, but not in the university. The half-educated woman +as a social factor has produced many soft lecture courses and cheap +books. This is an argument for the higher education of the sex. +Finally, Jordan insists that coeducation leads to marriage, and he +believes that its best basis is common interest and intellectual +friendship. + +From the available data it seems, however, that the more scholastic +the education of women, the fewer children and the harder, more +dangerous, and more dreaded is parturition, and the less the ability +to nurse children. Not intelligence, but education by present man-made +ways, is inversely as fecundity. The sooner and the more clearly this +is recognized as a universal rule, not, of course, without many +notable and much vaunted exceptions, the better for our civilization. +For one, I plead with no whit less earnestness and conviction than any +of the feminists, and indeed with more fervor because on nearly all +their grounds and also on others, for the higher education of women, +and would welcome them to every opportunity available to men if they +can not do better; but I would open to their election another +education, which every competent judge would pronounce more favorable +to motherhood, under the influence of female principals who do not +publicly say that it is "not desirable" that women students should +study motherhood, because they do not know whether they will marry; +who encourage them to elect "no special subjects because they are +women," and who think infant psychology "foolish." + +Various interesting experiments in coeducation are now being made in +England.[2] Some are whole-hearted and encourage the girls to do +almost everything that the boys do in both study and play. There are +girl prefects; cricket teams are formed sometimes of both sexes, but +often the sexes matched against each other; one play-yard, a dual +staff of teachers, and friendships between the boys and girls are not +tabooed, etc. In other schools the sexes meet perhaps in recitation +only, have separate rooms for study, entrances, play-grounds, and +their relations are otherwise restricted. The opinion of English +writers generally favors coeducation up to about the beginning of the +teens, and from there on views are more divided. It is admitted that, +if there is a very great preponderance of either sex over the other, +the latter is likely to lose its characteristic qualities, and +something of this occurs where the average age of one sex is +distinctly greater than that of the other. On the other hand, several +urge that, where age and numbers are equal, each sex is more inclined +to develop the best qualities peculiar to itself in the presence of +the other. + +Some girls are no doubt far fitter for boys' studies and men's careers +than others. Coeducation, too, generally means far more assimilation +of girls' to boys' ways and work than conversely. Many people believe +that girls either gain or are more affected by coeducation, especially +in the upper grades, than boys. It is interesting, however, to observe +the differences that still persist. Certain games, like football and +boxing, girls can not play; they do not fight; they are not flogged or +caned as English boys are when their bad marks foot up beyond a +certain aggregate; girls are more prone to cliques; their punishments +must be in appeals to school sentiment, to which they are exceedingly +sensitive; it is hard for them to bear defeat in games with the same +dignity and unruffled temper as boys; it is harder for them to accept +the school standards of honor that condemn the tell-tale as a sneak, +although they soon learn this. They may be a little in danger of being +roughened by boyish ways and especially by the crude and unique +language, almost a dialect in itself, prevalent among schoolboys. +Girls are far more prone to overdo; boys are persistingly lazy and +idle. Girls are content to sit and have the subject-matter pumped into +them by recitations, etc., and to merely accept, while boys are more +inspired by being told to do things and make tests and experiments. In +this, girls are often quite at sea. One writer speaks of a certain +feminine obliquity, but hastens to say that girls in these schools +soon accept its code of honor. It is urged, too, that singing classes +the voices of each sex are better in quality for the presence of the +other. In many topics of all kinds boys and girls are interested in +different aspects of the same theme, and therefore the work is +broadened. In manual training, girls excel in all artistic work; boys, +in carpentry. Girls can be made not only less noxiously sentimental +and impulsive, but their conduct tends to become more thoughtful; they +can be made to feel responsibility for bestowing their praise aright +and thus influencing the tone of the school. Calamitous as it world be +for the education of boys beyond a certain age to be entrusted +entirely or chiefly to women, it would be less so for that of girls to +be given entirely to men. Perhaps the great women teachers, whose life +and work have made them a power with girls comparable to that of +Arnold and Thring with boys, are dying out. Very likely economic +motives are too dominant for this problem to be settled on its merits +only. Finally, several writers mention the increased healthfulness of +moral tone. The vices that infest boys' schools, which Arnold thought +a quantity constantly changing with every class, are diminished. +Healthful thoughts of sex, less subterranean and base imaginings on +the one hand, and less gushy sentimentality on the other, are favored. +For either sex to be a copy of the other is to be weakened, and each +comes normally to respect more and to prefer its own sex. + +Not to pursue this subject further here, it is probable that many of +the causes for the facts set forth are very different and some of them +almost diametrically opposite in the two sexes. Hard as it is _per +se_, it is after all a comparatively easy matter to educate boys. They +are less peculiarly responsive in mental tone to the physical and +psychic environment, tend more strongly and early to special +interests, and react more vigorously against the obnoxious elements of +their surroundings. This is truest of the higher education, and more +so in proportion as the tendencies of the age are toward special and +vocational training. Woman, as we saw, in every fiber of her soul and +body is a more generic creature than man, nearer to the race, and +demands more and more with advancing age an education that is +essentially liberal and humanistic. This is progressively hard when +the sexes differentiate in the higher grades. Moreover, nature decrees +that with advancing civilization the sexes shall not approximate, but +differentiate, and we shall probably be obliged to carry sex +distinctions, at least of method, into many if not most of the topics +of the higher education. Now that woman has by general consent +attained the right to the best that man has, she must seek a training +that fits her own nature as well or better. So long as she strives to +be manlike she will be inferior and a pinchbeck imitation, but she +must develop a new sphere that shall be like the rich field of the +cloth of gold for the best instincts of her nature. + +Divergence is most marked and sudden in the pubescent period--in the +early teens. At this age, by almost world-wide consent, boys and girls +separate for a time, and lead their lives during this most critical +period more or less apart, at least for a few years, until the ferment +of mind and body which results in maturity of functions then born and +culminating in nubility, has done its work. The family and the home +abundantly recognize this tendency. At twelve or fourteen, brothers +and sisters develop a life more independent of each other than before. +Their home occupations differ as do their plays, games, tastes. +History, anthropology, and sociology, a well as home life, abundantly +illustrate this. This is normal and biological. What our schools and +other institutions should do, is not to obliterate these differences +but to make boys more manly and girls more womanly. We should respect +the law of sexual differences, and not forget that motherhood is a +very different thing from fatherhood. Neither sex should copy nor set +patterns to the other, but all parts should be played harmoniously and +clearly in the great sex symphony. + +I have here less to say against coeducation in college, still less in +university grades after the maturity which comes at eighteen or twenty +has been achieved; but it is high time to ask ourselves whether the +theory and practise of identical coeducation, especially in the high +school, which has lately been carried to a greater extreme in this +country than the rest of the world recognizes, has not brought certain +grave dangers, and whether it does not interfere with the natural +differentiations seen everywhere else. I recognize, of course, the +great argument of economy. Indeed, we should save money and effort +could we unite churches of not too diverse creeds. We could thus give +better preaching, music, improve the edifice, etc. I am by no means +ready to advocate the radical abolition of coeducation, but we can +already sum up in a rough, brief way our account of profit and loss +with it. On the one hand, no doubt each sex develops some of its own +best qualities best in the presence of the other, but the question +still remains, how much, when, and in what way, identical coeducation +secures this end? + +As has been said, girls and boys are often interested in different +aspects of the same topic, and this may have a tendency to broaden the +view-point of both and bring it into sympathy with that of the other, +but the question still remains whether one be not too much attracted +to the sphere of the other, especially girls to that of boys. No doubt +some girls become a little less gushy, their conduct more thoughtful, +and their sense of responsibility greater; for one of woman's great +functions, which is that of bestowing praise aright, is increased. +There is also much evidence that certain boys' vices are mitigated; +they are made more urbane and their thoughts of sex made more +healthful. In some respects boys are stimulated to good scholarship by +girls, who in many schools and topics excel them. We should ask, +however, What is nature's way at this stage of life? Whether boys, in +order to be well virified later, ought not to be so boisterous and +even rough as to be at times unfit companions for girls; or whether, +on the other hand, girls to be best matured ought not to have their +sentimental periods of instability, especially when we venture to +raise the question, whether for a girl in the early teens, when her +health for her whole life depends upon normalizing the lunar month, +there is not something unhygienic, unnatural, not to say a little +monstrous, in school associations with boys when she must suppress and +conceal her feelings and instinctive promptings at those times which +suggest withdrawing, to let nature do its beautiful work of +inflorescence. It is a sacred time of reverent exemption from the hard +struggle of existence in the world and from mental effort in the +school. Medical specialists, many of the best of whom now insist that +through this period she should be, as it were, "turned out to grass," +or should lie fallow, so far as intellectual efforts go, one-fourth +the time, no doubt often go too far, but their unanimous voice should +not entirely be disregarded. + +It is not this, however, that I have chiefly in mind here, but the +effects of too familiar relations and, especially, of the identical +work, treatment, and environment of the modern school. + +We have now at least eight good and independent statistical studies +which show that the ideals of boys from ten years on are almost always +those of their own sex, while girls' ideals are increasingly of the +opposite sex, or those of men. That the ideals of pubescent girls are +not found in the great and noble women of the world or in their +literature, but more and more in men, suggests a divorce between the +ideals adopted and the line of life best suited to the interests of +the race. We are not furnished in our public schools with adequate +womanly ideals in history or literature. The new love of freedom which +women have lately felt inclines girls to abandon the home for the +office. "It surely can hardly be called an ideal education for women +that permits eighteen out of one hundred college girls to state boldly +that they would rather be men than women." More than one-half of the +schoolgirls in these censuses choose male ideals, as if those of +femininity are disintegrating. A recent writer,[3] in view of this +fact, states that "unless there is a change of trend, we shall soon +have a female sex without a female character." In the progressive +numerical feminization of our schools most teachers, perhaps naturally +and necessarily, have more or less masculine ideals, and this does not +encourage the development of those that constitute the glory of +womanhood. "At every age from eight to sixteen, girls named from three +to twenty more ideals than boys." "These facts indicate a condition of +diffused interests and lack of clear-cut purposes and a need of +integration." + +When we turn to boys the case is different. In most public high +schools girls preponderate, especially in the upper classes, and in +many of them the boys that remain are practically in a girls' school, +sometimes taught chiefly, if not solely, by women teachers at an age +when strong men should be in control more than at any other period of +life. Boys need a different discipline and moral regimen and +atmosphere. They also need a different method of work. Girls excel +them in learning and memorization, accepting studies upon suggestion +or authority, but are often quite at sea when set to make tests and +experiments that give individuality and a chance for self-expression, +which is one of the best things in boyhood. Girls preponderate in our +overgrown high school Latin and algebra, because custom and tradition +and, perhaps, advice incline them to it. They preponderate in English +and history classes more often, let us hope, from inner inclination. +The boy sooner grows restless in a curriculum where form takes +precedence over content. He revolts at much method with meager matter. +He craves utility, and when all these instincts are denied, without +knowing what is the matter, he drops out of school, when with robust +tone and with a truly boy life, such as prevails at Harrow, Eton, and +Rugby, he would have fought it through and have done well. This +feminization of the school spirit, discipline, and personnel is bad +for boys. Of course, on the whole, perhaps, they are made more +gentlemanly, more at ease, their manners improved, and all this to a +woman teacher seems excellent, but something is the matter with the +boy in early teens who can be truly called "a perfect gentleman." That +should come later, when the brute and animal element have had +opportunity to work themselves off in a healthful normal way. They +still have football to themselves, and are the majority perhaps in +chemistry, and sometimes in physics, but there is danger of a settled +eviration. The segregation, which even some of our schools are now +attempting, is always in some degree necessary for full and complete +development. Just as the boys' language is apt to creep into that of +the girl, so girls' interests, ways, standards and tastes, which are +crude at this age, sometimes attract boys out of their orbit. While +some differences are emphasized by contact, others are compromised. +Boys tend to grow content with mechanical, memorized work and, +excelling on the lines of girls' qualities, fail to develop those of +their own. There is a little charm and bloom rubbed off the ideal of +girlhood by close contact, and boyhood seems less ideal to girls at +close range. In place of the mystic attraction of the other sex that +has inspired so much that is best in the world, familiar comradeship +brings a little disenchantment. The impulse to be at one's best in the +presence of the other sex prows lax and sex tension remits, and each +comes to feel itself seen through, so that there is less motive to +indulge in the ideal conduct which such motives inspire, because the +call for it is incessant. This disillusioning weakens the motivation +to marriage sometimes on both sides, when girls grow careless in their +dress and too negligent in their manners, one of the best schools of +woman's morals; and when boys lose all restraints which the presence +of girls usually enforces, there is a subtle deterioration. Thus, I +believe, although of course it is impossible to prove, that this is +one of the factors of a decreasing percentage of marriage among +educated young men and women. + +At eighteen or twenty the girl normally reaches a stage of first +maturity when her ideas of life are amazingly keen and true; when, if +her body is developed, she can endure a great deal; when she is +nearest, perhaps, the ideal of feminine beauty and perfection. Of this +we saw illustrations in Chapter VIII. In our environment, however, +there is a little danger that this age once well past there will +slowly arise a slight sense of aimlessness or lassitude, unrest, +uneasiness, as if one were almost unconsciously feeling along the wall +for a door to which the key was not at hand. Thus some lose their +bloom and, yielding to the great danger of young womanhood, slowly +lapse to a anxious state of expectancy, or desire something not within +their reach, and so the diathesis of restlessness slowly supervenes. +The best thing about college life for girls is, perhaps, that it +postpones this incipient disappointment; but it is a little pathetic +to me to read, as I have lately done, the class letters of hundreds of +girl graduates, out of college one, two, or three years, turning a +little to art, music, travel, teaching, charity work, one after the +other, or trying to find something to which they can devote +themselves, some cause, movement, occupation, where their capacity for +altruism and self-sacrifice can find a field. The tension is almost +imperceptible, perhaps quite unconscious. It is everywhere overborne +by a keen interest in life, by a desire to know the world at first +hand, while susceptibilities are at their height. The apple of +intelligence has been plucked at perhaps a little too great cost of +health. The purely mental has not been quite sufficiently kept back. +The girl wishes to know a good deal more of the world and perfect her +own personality, and would not marry, although every cell of her body +and every unconscious impulse points to just that end. Soon, it may be +in five or ten years or more, the complexion of ill health is in these +notes, or else life has been adjusted to independence and +self-support. Many of these bachelor women are magnificent in mind and +body, but they lack wifehood and yet more--motherhood. + +In fine, we should use these facts as a stimulus to ask more +searchingly the question whether the present system of higher +education for both sexes is not lacking in some very essential +elements, and if so what these are. Indeed, considering the facts that +in our social system man makes the advances and that woman is by +nature more prone than man to domesticity and parenthood, it is not +impossible that men's colleges do more to unfit for these than do +those for women. One cause may be moral. Ethics used to be taught as a +practical power for life and reenforced by religious motives. Now it +is theoretical and speculative and too often led captive by +metaphysical and epistemological speculations. Sometimes girls work or +worry more over studies and ideals than is good for their +constitution, and boys grow idle and indifferent, and this +proverbially tends to bad habits. Perhaps fitting for college has been +too hard at the critical age of about eighteen, and requirements of +honest, persevering work during college years too little enforced, or +grown irksome by physiological reaction of lassitude from the strain +of fitting and entering. Again, girls mature earlier than boys; and +the latter who have been educated with them tend to certain elements +of maturity and completeness too early in life, and their growth +period is shortened or its momentum lessened by an atmosphere of +femininity. Something is clearly wrong, and more so here than we have +at present any reason to think is the case among the academic male or +female youth of other lands. To see and admit that there is an evil +very real, deep, exceedingly difficult and complex in its causes, but +grave and demanding a careful reconsideration of current educational +ideas and practises, is the first step; and this every thoughtful and +well-informed mind, I believe, must now take. + +It is utterly impossible without injury to hold girls to the same +standards of conduct, regularity, severe moral accountability, and +strenuous mental work that boys need. The privileges and immunities of +her sex are inveterate, and with these the American girl in the middle +teens fairly tingles with a new-born consciousness. Already she +occasionally asserts herself in the public high school against a male +teacher or principal who seeks to enforce discipline by methods boys +respect, in a way that suggests that the time is at hand when +popularity with her sex will be as necessary in a successful teacher +as it is in the pulpit. In these interesting oases where girl +sentiment has made itself felt in school it has generally carried +parents, committeemen, the press, and public sentiment before it, and +has already made a precious little list of martyrs whom, were I an +educational pope, I would promptly canonize. The progressive +feminization of secondary education works its subtle demoralization on +the male teachers who remain. Public sentiment would sustain them in +many parental exactions with boys which it disallows in mixed classes. +It is hard, too, for male principals of schools with only female +teachers not to suffer some deterioration in the moral tone of their +virility and to lose in the power to cope successfully with men. Not +only is this often confessed and deplored, but the incessant +compromises the best male teachers of mixed classes must make with +their pedagogic convictions in both teaching and discipline make the +profession less attractive to manly men of large caliber and of sound +fiber. Again, the recent rapid increase of girls, the percentage of +which to population in high schools has in many communities doubled in +but little more than a decade, almost necessarily involves a decline +in the average quality of girls, perhaps as much greater for them as +compared with boys as their increase has been greater. When but few +were found in these institutions they were usually picked girls with +superior tastes and ability, but now the average girl of the rank and +file is, despite advanced standard, of admission, of an order natively +lower. From this deterioration both boys and teachers suffer, even +though the greatest good for the greatest number may be enhanced. Once +more, it is generally admitted that girls in good boarding-schools, +where evenings, food, and regimen are controlled, are in better health +than day pupils with social, church, and domestic duties and perhaps +worries to which boys are less subject. This is the nascent stage of +periodicity to the slow normalization of which, during these few +critical years, everything that interferes should yield. Some kind of +tacit recognition of this is indispensable, but in mixed classes every +form of such concession is baffling and demoralizing to boys. + +The women who really achieve the higher culture should make it their +"cause" or "mission" to work out the new humanistic or liberal +education which the old college claimed to stand for and which now +needs radical reconstruction to meet the demands of modern life. In +science they should aim to restore the humanistic elements of its +history, biography, its popular features at their best, and its +applications in all the more non-technical fields, as described in +Chapter XII, and feel responsibility not to let the moral, religious, +and poetic aspects of nature be lost in utilities. Woman should be +true to her generic nature and take her stand against all premature +specialization, and when the _Zeitgeist_ [Spirit of the Times] insists +on specialized training for occupative pursuits without waiting for +broad foundations to be laid, she should resist all these influences +that make for psychological precocity. _Das Ewig-Weibliche_ [The +eternal womanly] is no iridescent fiction but a very definable +reality, and means perennial youth. It means that woman at her best +never outgrows adolescence as man does, but lingers in, magnifies and +glorifies this culminating stage of life with its all-sided interests, +its convertibility of emotions, its enthusiasm, and zest for all that +is good, beautiful, true, and heroic. This constitutes her freshness +and charm, even in age, and makes her by nature more humanistic than +man, more sympathetic and appreciative. It is not chiefly the 70,000 +superfluous Massachusetts women of the last census, but +representatives of every class and age in the 4,000 women's clubs of +this country that now find some leisure for general culture in all +fields, and in which most of them no doubt surpass their husbands. +Those who still say that men do not like women to be their mental +superiors and that no man was ever won by the attraction of intellect, +on the one hand, and those who urge that women really want husbands to +be their intellectual superiors, both misapprehend. The male in all +the orders of life is the agent of variation and tends by nature to +expertness and specialisation, without which his individuality is +incomplete. In his chosen line he would lead and be authoritative, and +he rarely seeks partnership in it in marriage. This is no subjection, +but woman instinctively respects and even reveres, and perhaps +educated woman coming to demand, it in the man of her whole-hearted +choice. This granted, man was never more plastic to woman's great work +of creating in him all the wide range of secondary sex qualities which +constitute his essential manhood. In all this, the pedagogic fathers +we teach in the history of education are most of them about as +luminous and obsolete as is patristics for the religious teacher, or +as methods of other countries are coming to be in solving our own +peculiar pedagogic problems. The relation of the academically trained +sexes is faintly typified by that of the ideal college to the ideal +university, professional or technical school. This is the harmony of +counterparts and constitutes the best basis of psychic amphimixis. For +the reinstallation of the humanistic college, the time has come when +cultivated woman ought to come forward and render vital aid. If she +does so and helps to evolve a high school and an A.B. course that is +truly liberal, it will not only fit her nature and needs far better +than anything now existing, but young men at the humanistic stage of +their own education will seek to profit by it, and she will thus repay +her debt to man in the past by aiding him to de-universitize the +college and to rescue secondary education from its gravest dangers. + +But even should all this be done, coeducation would by means be thus +justified. If adolescent boys normally pass through a generalized or +even feminized stage of psychic development in which they are +peculiarly plastic to the guidance of older women who have such rare +insight into their nature, such infinite sympathy and patience with +all the symptoms of their storm and stress metamorphosis, when they +seek everything by turns and nothing long, and if young men will +forever afterward understand woman's nature better for living out more +fully this stage of their lives and will fail to do so if it is +abridged or dwarfed, it by no means follows that intimate daily and +class-room association with girls of their own age is necessary or +best. The danger of this is that the boy's instinct to assert his own +manhood will thus be made premature and excessive, that he will react +against general culture, in the capacity for which girls, who are +older than boys at the same age, naturally excel them. Companionship +and comparisons incline him to take premature refuge in some one +talent that emphasizes his psycho-sexual difference too soon. Again, +he is farther from nubile maturity than the girl classmate of his own +age, and coeducation and marriage between them are prone to violate +the important physiological law of disparity that requires the husband +to be some years the wife's senior, both in their own interests, as +maturity begins to decline to age, and in those of their offspring. +Thus the young man with his years of restraint and probation ahead, +and his inflammable desires, is best removed from the half-conscious +cerebrations about wedlock, inevitably more insistent with constant +girl companionship. If he resists this during all the years of his +apprenticeship, he grows more immune and inhibitive of it when its +proper hour arrives, and perhaps becomes in soul a bachelor before his +time. In this side of his nature he is forever incommensurate with and +unintelligible to woman, be she even teacher, sister, or mother. +Better some risk of gross thoughts and even acts, to which phylogeny +and recapitulation so strongly incline him, than this subtle +eviration. But if the boy is unduly repelled from the sphere of girls' +interests, the girl is in some danger of being unduly drawn to his, +and, as we saw above, of forgetting some of the ideals of her own sex. +Riper in mind and body than her male classmate, and often excelling +him in the capacity of acquisition, nearer the age of her full +maturity than he to his, he seems a little too crude and callow to +fulfil the ideals of manhood normal to her age which point to older +and riper men. In all that makes sexual attraction best, a classmate +of her own age is too undeveloped, and so she often suffers mute +disenchantment, and even if engagement be dreamed of, it would be, on +her part, with unconscious reservations if not with some conscious +renunciation of ideals. Thus the boy is correct in feeling himself +understood and seen through by his girl classmates to a degree that is +sometimes quite distasteful to him, while the girl finds herself +misunderstood by and disappointed in men. Boys arrive at the +humanistic stage of culture later than girls and pass it sooner; and +to find them already there and with their greater aptitude excelling +him, is not an inviting situation, and so he is tempted to abridge or +cut it out and to hasten on and be mature and professional before his +time, for thus he gravitates toward his normal relation to her sex of +expert mastership on some bread- or fame-winning line. Of course, +these influences are not patent, demonstrable by experiment, or +measurable by statistics; but I have come to believe that, like many +other facts and laws, they have a reality and a dominance that is +all-pervasive and inescapable, and that they will ultimately prevail +over economic motives and traditions. + +To be a true woman means to be yet more mother than wife. The madonna +conception expresses man's highest comprehension of woman's real +nature. Sexual relations are brief, but love and care of offspring are +long. The elimination of maternity is one of the great calamities, if +not diseases, of our age. Marholm[4] points out at length how art +again to-day gives woman a waspish waist with no abdomen, as if to +carefully score away every trace of her mission; usually with no child +in her arms or even in sight; a mere figurine, calculated perhaps to +entice, but not to bear; incidentally degrading the artist who depicts +her to a fashion-plate painter, perhaps with suggestions of the arts +of toilet, cosmetics, and coquetry, as if to promote decadent reaction +to decadent stimuli. As in the Munchausen tale, the wolf slowly ate +the running nag from behind until he found himself in the harness, so +in the disoriented woman the mistress, virtuous and otherwise, is +slowly supplanting the mother. Please she must, even though she can +not admire, and can so easily despise men who can not lead her, +although she become thereby lax and vapid. + +The more exhausted men become, whether by overwork, unnatural city +life, alcohol, recrudescent polygamic inclinations, exclusive devotion +to greed and pelf; whether they become weak, stooping, blear-eyed, +bald-headed, bow-legged, thin-shanked, or gross, coarse, barbaric, and +bestial, the more they lose the power to lead woman or to arouse her +nature, which is essentially passive. Thus her perversions are his +fault. Man, before he lost the soil and piety, was not only her +protector and provider, but her priest. He not only supported and +defended, but inspired the souls of women, so admirably calculated to +receive and elaborate suggestions, but not to originate them. In their +inmost souls even young girls often experience disenchantment, find +men little and no heroes, and so cease to revere and begin to think +stupidly of them as they think coarsely of her. Sometimes the girlish +conceptions of men are too romantic and exalted; often the intimacy of +school and college wear off a charm, while man must not forget that +to-day he too often fails to realize the just and legitimate +expectations and ideals of women. If women confide themselves, body +and soul, less to him than he desires, it is not she, but he, who is +often chiefly to blame. Indeed, in some psychic respects, it seems as +if in human society the processes of subordinating the male to the +female, carried so far in some of the animal species, had already +begun. If he is not worshiped as formerly, it is because he is less +worshipful or more effeminate, less vigorous and less able to excite +and retain the great love of true, not to say great, women. Where +marriage and maternity are of less supreme interest to an increasing +number of women, there are various results, the chief of which are as +follows: + +1. Women grow dollish; sink more or less consciously to man's level; +gratify his desires and even his selfish caprices, but exact in return +luxury and display, growing vain as he grows sordid; thus, while +submitting, conquering, and tyrannizing over him, content with present +worldly pleasure, unmindful of the past, the future, or the above. +This may react to intersexual antagonism until man comes to hate woman +as a witch, or, as in the days of celibacy, consider sex a wile of the +devil. Along these lines even the stage is beginning to represent the +tragedies of life. + +2. The disappointed woman in whom something is dying comes to assert +her own ego and more or less consciously to make it an end, aiming to +possess and realize herself fully rather than to transmit. Despairing +of herself as a woman, she asserts her lower rights in the place of +her one great right to be loved. The desire for love may be transmuted +into the desire for knowledge, or outward achievement become a +substitute for inner content. Failing to respect herself as a +productive organism, she gives vent to personal solutions; seeks +independence; comes to know very plainly what she wants; perhaps +becomes intellectually emancipated, and substitutes science for +religion, or the doctor for the priest, with the all-sided +impressionability characteristic of her sex which, when cultivated, is +so like an awakened child. She perhaps even affects mannish ways, +unconsciously copying from those not most manly, or comes to feel that +she has been robbed of something; competes with men, but sometimes +where they are most sordid, brutish, and strongest; always expecting, +but never finding, she turns successively to art, science, literature, +and reforms; craves especially work that she can not do; and seeks +stimuli for feelings which have never found their legitimate +expression. + +3. Another type, truer to woman's nature, subordinates self; goes +beyond personal happiness; adopts the motto of self-immolation; enters +a life of service, denial, and perhaps mortification, like the +Countess Schimmelmann; and perhaps becomes a devotee, a saint, and, if +need be, a martyr, but all with modesty, humility, and with a +shrinking from publicity. + +In our civilization, I believe that bright girls of good environment +of eighteen or nineteen, or even seventeen, have already reached the +above-mentioned peculiar stage of first maturity, when they see the +world at first hand, when the senses are at their very best, their +susceptibilities and their insights the keenest, tension at its +highest, plasticity and all-sided interests most developed, and their +whole psychic soil richest and rankest and sprouting everywhere with +the tender shoots of everything both good and bad. Some such--Stella +Klive, Mary MacLane, Hilma Strandberg, Marie Bashkirtseff--have +been veritable epics upon woman's nature; have revealed the +characterlessness normal to the prenubile period in which everything +is kept tentative and plastic, and where life seems to have least +unity, aim, or purpose. By and by perhaps they will see in all their +scrappy past, if not order and coherence, a justification, and then +alone will they realize that life is governed by motives deeper than +those which are conscious or even personal. This is the age when, if +ever, no girl should be compelled. It is the experiences of this age, +never entirely obliterated in women, that enable them to take +adolescent boys seriously, as men can rarely do, in whom these +experiences are more limited in range though no less intense. It is +this stage in woman which is most unintelligible to man and even +unrealized to herself. It is the echoes from it that make vast numbers +of mothers pursue the various branches of culture, often half +secretly, to maintain their position with their college sons and +daughters, with their husbands, or with society. + +But in a very few years, I believe even in the early twenties with +American girls, along with rapidly in creasing development of capacity +there is also observable the beginnings of loss and deterioration. +Unless marriage comes there is lassitude, subtle symptoms of +invalidism, the germs of a rather aimless dissatisfaction with life, a +little less interest, curiosity, and courage, certain forms of +self-pampering, the resolution to be happy, though at too great cost; +and thus the clear air of morning begins to haze over and +unconsciously she begins to grope. By thirty, she is perhaps goaded +into more or less sourness; has developed more petty self-indulgences; +has come to feel a right to happiness almost as passionately as the +men of the French Revolution and as the women in their late movement +for enfranchisement felt for liberty. Very likely she has turned to +other women and entered into innocent Platonic pairing-off relations +with some one. There is a little more affectation, playing a role, and +interest in dress and appearance is either less or more specialized +and definite. Perhaps she has already begun to be a seeker who will +perhaps find, lose, and seek again. Her temper is modified; there is a +slight stagnation of soul; a craving for work or travel; a love of +children with flitting thoughts of adopting one, or else aversion to +them; an analysis of psychic processes until they are weakened and +insight becomes too clear; sense of responsibility without an object; +a slight general _malaise_ and a sense that society is a false +"margarine" affair; revolt against those that insist that in her child +the real value of a woman is revealed. There are alternations between +excessive self-respect which demands something almost like adoration +of the other sex and self-distrust, with, it may be, many dreameries +about forbidden subjects and about the relations of the sexes +generally. + +A new danger, the greatest in the history of her sex, now impends, +viz., arrest, complacency, and a sense of finality in the most +perilous first stage of higher education for girls, when, after all, +little has actually yet been won save only the right and opportunity +to begin reconstructions, so that now, for the first time in history, +methods and matter could be radically transformed to fit the nature +and needs of girls. Now most female faculties, trustees, and students +are content to ape the newest departures in some one or more male +institutions as far as their means or obvious limitations make +possible with a servility which is often abject and with rarely ever a +thought of any adjustment, save the most superficial, to sex. It is +the easiest, and therefore the most common, view typically expressed +by the female head of a very successful institution,[5] who was "early +convinced in my teaching experience that the methods for mental +development for boys and girls applied equally without regard to sex, +and I have carried the same thought when I began to develop the +physical, and filled my gymnasium with the ordinary appliances used in +men's gymnasia." There is no sex in mind or in science, it is said, +but it might as well be urged that there is no age, and hence that all +methods adapted to teaching at different stages of development may be +ignored. That woman can do many things as well as man does not prove +that she ought to do the same things, or that man-made ways are the +best for her. Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer[6] was right in saying that +woman's education has all the perplexities of that of man, and many +more, still more difficult and intricate, of its own. + +Hence, we must conclude that, while women's colleges have to a great +extent solved the problem of special technical training, they have +done as yet very little to solve the larger one of the proper +education of woman. To assume that the latter question is settled, as +is so often done, is disastrous. I have forced myself to go through +many elaborate reports of meetings where female education was +discussed by those supposed to be competent; but as a rule, not +without rare, striking exceptions, these proceedings are smitten with +the same sterile and complacent artificiality that was so long the +curse of woman's life. I deem it almost reprehensible that, save a few +general statistics, the women's colleges have not only made no study +themselves of the larger problems that impend, but have often +maintained a repellent attitude toward others who wished to do so. No +one that I know of connected with any of these institutions, where the +richest material is going to waste, is making any serious and +competent research on lines calculated to bring out the +psycho-physiological differences between the sexes and those in +authority are either conservative by constitution or else intimidated +because public opinion is still liable to panics if discussion here +becomes scientific and fundamental, and so tend to keep prudery and +the old habit of ignoring everything that pertains to sex in +countenance. + +Again, while I sympathize profoundly with the claim of woman for every +opportunity which she can fill, and yield to none in appreciation of +her ability, I insist that the cardinal defect in the woman's college +is that it is based upon the assumption, implied and often expressed, +if not almost universally acknowledged, that girls should primarily be +trained to independence and self-support, and that matrimony and +motherhood, if it come, will take care of itself, or, as some even +urge, is thus best provided for. If these colleges are, as the above +statistics indicate, chiefly devoted to the training of those who do +not marry, or if they are to educate for celibacy, this is right. +These institutions may perhaps come to be training stations of a +new-old type, the agamic or even agenic woman, be she nut, maid--old +or young--nun, school-teacher, or bachelor woman. I recognize the very +great debt the world owes to members of this very diverse class in the +past. Some of them have illustrated the very highest ideals of +self-sacrifice, service, and devotion in giving to mankind what was +meant for husband and children. Some of them belong to the class of +superfluous women, and others illustrate the noblest type of altruism +and have impoverished the heredity of the world to its loss, as did +the monks, who Leslie Stephens thinks contributed to bring about the +Dark Ages, because they were the best and most highly selected men of +their age and, by withdrawing from the function of heredity and +leaving no posterity, caused Europe to degenerate. Modern ideas and +training are now doing this, whether for racial weal or woe, can not +yet be determined, for many whom nature designed for model mothers. + +The bachelor woman is an interesting illustration of Spencer's law of +the inverse relation of individuation and genesis. The completely +developed individual is always a terminal representative in her line +of descent. She has taken up and utilized in her own life all that was +meant for her descendants, and has so overdrawn her account with +heredity that, like every perfectly and completely developed +individual, she is also completely sterile. This is the very +apotheosis of selfishness from the standpoint of every biological +ethics. While the complete man can do and sometimes does this, woman +has a far greater and very peculiar power of overdrawing her reserves. +First she loses mammary functions, so that should she undertake +maternity its functions are incompletely performed because she can not +nurse, and this implies defective motherhood and leaves love of the +child itself defective and maimed, for the mother who has never nursed +can not love or be loved aright by her child. It crops out again in +the abnormal or especially incomplete development of her offspring, in +the critical years of adolescence, although they may have been +healthful before, and a less degree of it perhaps is seen in the +diminishing families of cultivated mothers in the one-child system. +These women are the intellectual equals and often the superiors of the +men they meet; they are very attractive as companions, like Miss Mehr, +the university student, in Hauptmann's "Lonely Lives," who alienated +the young husband from his noble wife; they enjoy all the keen +pleasures of intellectual activity; their very look, step, and bearing +is free; their mentality makes them good fellows and companionable in +all the broad intellectual spheres; to converse with them is as +charming and attractive for the best men as was Socrates's discourse +with the accomplished hetaerae; they are at home with the racquet and +on the golf links; they are splendid friends; their minds, in all +their widening areas of contact, are as attractive as their bodies; +and the world owes much and is likely to owe far more to high Platonic +friendships of this kind. These women are often in every way +magnificent, only they are not mothers, and sometimes have very little +wifehood in them, and to attempt to marry them to develop these +functions is one of the unique and too frequent tragedies of modern +life and literature. Some, though by no means all, of them are +functionally castrated; some actively deplore the necessity of +child-bearing, and perhaps are parturition phobiacs, and abhor the +limitations of married life; they are incensed whenever attention is +called to the functions peculiar to their sex, and the careful +consideration of problems of the monthly rest are thought "not fit for +cultivated women." + +The slow evolution of this type is probably inevitable as civilization +advances, and their training is a noble function. Already it has +produced minds of the greatest acumen who have made very valuable +contributions to science, and far more is to be expected of them in +the future. Indeed, it may be their noble function to lead their sex +out into the higher, larger life, and the deeper sense of its true +position and function, for which I plead. Hitherto woman has not been +able to solve her own problems. While she has been more religious than +man, there have been few great women preachers; while she has excelled +in teaching young children, there have been few Pestalozzis, or even +Froebels; while her invalidism is a complex problem, she has turned to +man in her diseases. This is due to the very intuitiveness and naivete +of her nature. But now that her world is so rapidly widening, she is +in danger of losing her cue. She must be studied objectively and +laboriously as we study children, and partly by men, because their sex +must of necessity always remain objective and incommensurate with +regard to woman, and therefore more or less theoretical. Again, in +these days of intense new interest in feelings, emotions, and +sentiments, when many a psychologist now envies and, like +Schleiermacher, devoutly wishes he could become a woman, he can never +really understand _das Ewig-Weibliche_, [The eternal womanly] one of +the two supreme oracles of guidance in life, because he is a man; and +here the cultivated woman must explore the nature of her sex as man +can not, and become its mouthpiece. In many of the new fields opening +in biology since Darwin, in embryology, botany, the study of children, +animals, savages (witness Miss Fletcher), sociological investigation, +to say nothing of all the vast body of work that requires painstaking +detail, perseverance, and conscience, woman has superior ability, or +her very sex gives her peculiar advantages where she is to lead and +achieve great things in enlarging the kingdom of man. Perhaps, too, +the present training of women may in the end develop those who shall +one day attain a true self-knowledge and lead n the next step of +devising a scheme that shall fit woman's nature and needs. + +For the slow evolution of such a scheme, we must first of all +distinctly and ostensively invert the present maxim, and educate +primarily and chiefly for motherhood, assuming that, if that does not +come, single life can best take care of itself, because it is less +intricate and lower and its needs far more easily met. While girls may +be trained with boys, coeducation should cease at the dawn of +adolescence, at least for a season. Great daily intimacy between the +sexes in high school, if not in college, tends to rub of the bloom and +delicacy which can develop in each, and girls suffer in this respect, +let us repeat, far more than boys. The familiar comradeship that +ignores sex should be left to the agenic class. To the care of their +institutions, we leave with pious and reverent hands the ideals +inspired by characters like Hypatia, Madame de Stael, the Misses Cobb, +Martineau, Fuller, Bronte, by George Eliot, George Sand, and Mrs. +Browning; and while accepting and profiting by what they have done, +and acknowledging every claim for their abilities and achievements, +prospective mothers must not be allowed to forget a still larger class +of ideal women, both in history and literature, from the Holy Mother +to Beatrice Clotilda de Vaux, and all those who have inspired men to +great deeds, and the choice and far richer anthology of noble mothers. + +We must premise, too, that she must not be petted or pampered with +regimen or diet unsuited to her needs; left to find out as best she +can, from surreptitious or worthy sources, what she most of all needs +to know; must recognize that our present civilization is hard on woman +and that she is not yet adjusted to her social environment; that as +she was of old accused of having given man the apple of knowledge of +good and evil, so he now is liable to a perhaps no less serious +indictment of having given her the apple of intellectualism and +encouraged her to assume his standards at the expense of health. We +must recognize that riches are probably harder on her, on the whole, +than poverty, and that poor parents should not labor too hard to +exempt her from its wholesome discipline. The expectancy of change so +stamped upon her sex by heredity as she advances into maturity must +not be perverted into uneasiness or her soul sown with the tares of +ambition or fired by intersexual competition and driven on, to quote +Dr. R.T. Edes, "by a tireless sort of energy which is a compound of +conscience, ambition, and desire to please, plus a peculiar female +obstinacy." If she is bright, she must not be overworked in the school +factory, studying in a way which parodies Hood's "Song of the Shirt"; +and if dull or feeble, she should not be worried by preceptresses like +a eminent lady principal,[7] who thought girls' weakness is usually +imaginary or laziness, and that doctors are to blame for suggesting +illness and for intimating that men will have to choose between a +healthy animal and an educated invalid for a wife. + +Without specifying here details or curricula, the ideals that should +be striven toward in the intermediate and collegiate education of +adolescent girls with the proper presupposition of motherhood, and +which are already just as practicable as Abbotsholme[8] or _L'Ecole +des Roches_,[9] may be rudely indicated somewhat as follows. + +First, the ideal institution for the training of girls from twelve or +thirteen on into the twenties, when the period most favorable to +motherhood begins, should be in the country in the midst of hills, the +climbing of which is the best stimulus for heart and lungs, and tends +to mental elevation and breadth of view. There should be water for +boating, bathing, and skating, aquaria and aquatic life; gardens both +for kitchen vegetables and horticulture; forests for their seclusion +and religious awe; good roads, walks, and paths that tempt to walking +and wheeling: playgrounds and space for golf and tennis, with large +covered but unheated space favorable for recreations in weather really +too bad for out-of-door life and for those indisposed; and plenty of +nooks that permit each to be alone with nature, for this develops +inwardness, poise, and character, yet not too great remoteness from +the city for a wise utilization of its advantages at intervals. All +that can be called environment is even more important for girls than +boys, significant as it is for the latter. + +The first aim, which should dominate every item, pedagogic method and +matter, should be health--a momentous word that looms up beside +holiness, to which it is etymologically akin. The new hygiene of the +last few years should be supreme and make these academic areas soared +to the cult of the goddess Hygeia. Only those who realize what +advances have been made in health culture and know something of its +vast new literature can realize all that this means. The health of +woman is, as we have seen, if possible even more important for the +welfare of the race than that of man; and the influence of her body +upon her mind is, in a sense, greater, so that its needs should be +supreme and primary. Foods should favor the completest digestion, so +that metabolism be on the highest plane. The dietary should be +abundant, plain, and varied, and cooked with all the refinements +possible in the modern cooking-school, which should be one of its +departments, with limited use of rich foods or desserts and +stimulating drinks, but with wholesome proximity to dairy and farm. +Nutrition is the first law of health and happiness, the prime +condition and creator of euphoria; and the appetite should be, as it +always is if unperverted, like a kind of somatic conscience +steadfastly pointing toward the true pole of needs. + +Sleep should be regular, with a fixed retiring hour and curfew, on +plain beds in rooms of scrupulous neatness reserved chiefly for it +with every precaution for quiet, and, if possible, with windows more +or less open the year round, and, like other rooms, never overheated. +Bathing in moderation, and especially dress and toilet should be +almost raised to fine arts and objects of constant suggestion. Each +student should have three rooms, for bath, sleep, and study, +respectively, and be responsible for their care, with every +encouragement for expressing individual tastes; but will, an +all-dominant idea of simplicity, convenience, refinement, and +elegance, without luxury. Girls need to go away from home a good part +of every year to escape the indiscretion and often the coddling of +parents and to learn self-reliance; and a family dormitory system, +with but few, twelve to twenty, in each building, to escape nervous +wear and distraction, to secure intimacy and acquaintance with one or +more matrons or teachers and to ensure the most pedagogic dietetics, +is suggested. + +Exercise comes after regimen, of which it is a special reform. Swedish +gymnastics should be abandoned or reduced to a minimum of best points, +because it is too severe and, in forbidding music, lays too little +stress upon the rhythm element. Out-of-door walks and games should +have precedence over all else. The principle sometimes advocated, that +methods of physical training should apply to both boys and girls +without regard to sex, and with all the ordinary appliances found in +the men's gymnasia introduced, should be reversed and every possible +adjustment made to sex. Free plays and games should always have +precedence over indoor or uniform _commando_ exercises. Boating and +basket-ball should be allowed, but with the competition element +sedulously reduced, and with dancing of many kinds and forms the most +prominent of indoor exercises. The dance cadences the soul; the +stately minuet gives poise; the figure dances train the mind; and +pantomime and dramatic features should be introduced and even +specialties, if there are strong individual predispositions. The +history of the dance, which has often been a mode of worship, a school +of morals, and which is the root of the best that is in the drama, the +best of all exercises and that could be again the heart of our whole +educational system, should be exploited, and the dancing school and +class rescued from its present degradation. No girl is educated who +can not dance, although she need not know the ballroom in its modern +form.[10] + +Manners, a word too often relegated to the past as savoring of the +primness of the ancient dame school or female seminary, are really +minor or sometimes major morals. They can express everything in the +whole range of the impulsive or emotional life. Now that we understand +the primacy of movement over feeling, we can appreciate what a school +of bearing and repose in daily converse with others means. I would +revive some of the ancient casuistry of details, but less the rules of +the drawing-room, call and party, although these should not be +neglected, than the deeper expressions of true ladyhood seen in an +exquisite, tender and unselfish regard for the feelings of others. +Women's ideal of compelling every one whom they meet to like them is a +noble one, and the control of every automatism is not only a part of +good breeding, but nervous health. + +Regularity should be another all-pervading norm. In the main, even +though he may have "played his sex symphony too harshly," E.H. Clark +was right. Periodicity, perhaps the deepest law of the cosmos, +celebrates its highest triumphs in woman's life. For years everything +must give way to its thorough and settled establishment. In the +monthly Sabbaths of rest, the ideal school should revert to the +meaning of the word leisure. The paradise of stated rest should be +revisited, idleness be actively cultivated; reverie, in which the +soul, which needs these seasons of withdrawal for its own development, +expatiates over the whole life of the race, should be provided for and +encouraged in every legitimate way, for, in rest, the whole momentum +of heredity is felt in ways most favorable to full and complete +development. Then woman should realize that _to be_ is greater than +_to do_; should step reverently aside from her daily routine and let +Lord Nature work. In this time of sensitiveness and perturbation, when +anemia and chlorosis are so peculiarly immanent to her sex, remission +of toil should not only be permitted, but required; and yet the +greatest individual liberty should be allowed to adjust itself to the +vast diversities of individual constitutional needs. (See Chapter VII +on this point.) The cottage home, which should take the place of the +dormitory, should always have special interest and attractions for +these seasons. + +There should always be some personal instruction at these seasons +during earlier adolescent years. I have glanced over nearly a score of +books and pamphlets that are especially written for girls; while all +are well meant and far better than the ordinary modes by which girls +acquire knowledge of their own nature if left to themselves, they are, +like books for boys, far too prolix, and most are too scientific and +plain and direct. Moreover, no two girls need just the same +instruction, and to leave it to reading is too indirect and causes the +mind to dwell on it for too long periods. Best of all is individual +instruction at the time, concise, practical, and never, especially in +the early years, without a certain mystic and religious tone which +should pervade all and make everything sacred. This should not be +given by male physicians--and indeed most female doctors would make it +too professional, and the maiden teacher must forever lack reverence +for it--but it should come from one whose soul and body are full of +wifehood and motherhood and who is old enough to know and is not +without the necessary technical knowledge. + +Another principle should be to broaden by retarding; to keep the +purely mental back and by every method to bring the intuitions to the +front; appeals to tact and taste should be incessant; a purely +intellectual man is no doubt biologically a deformity, but a purely +intellectual woman is far more so. Bookishness is probably a bad sign +in a girl; it suggests artificiality, pedantry, the lugging of dead +knowledge. Mere learning is not the ideal, and prodigies of +scholarship are always morbid. The rule should be to keep nothing that +is not to become practical; to open no brain tracts which are not to +be highways for the daily traffic of thought and conduct; not to +overburden the soul with the impedimenta of libraries and records of +what is afar off in time or zest, and always to follow truly the +guidance of normal and spontaneous interests wisely interpreted. + +Religion will always bold as prominent a place in woman's life as +politics does in man's, and adolescence is still more its seedtime +with girls than with boys. Its roots are the sentiment of awe and +reverence, and it is the great agent in the world for transforming +life from its earlier selfish to its only really mature form of +altruism. The tales of the heroes of virtue, duty, devotion, and +self-sacrifice from the Old Testament come naturally first; then +perhaps the prophets paraphrased as in the pedagogic triumph of Kent +and Saunders's little series; and when adolescence is at its height +then the chief stress of religious instruction should be laid upon +Jesus's life and work. He should be taught first humanly, and only +later when the limitations of manhood seem exhausted should His Deity +be adduced as welcome surplusage. The supernatural is a reflex of the +heart; each sustains and neither can exist without the other. If the +transcendent and supernal had no objective existence, we should have +to invent and teach it or dwarf the life of feeling and sentiment. +Whatever else religion is, therefore, it is the supremest poetry of +the soul, reflecting like nothing else all that is deepest, most +generic and racial in it. Theology should be reduced to a minimum, but +nothing denied where wanted. Paul and his works and ways should be for +the most part deferred until after eighteen. The juvenile well as the +cyclone revivalist should be very carefully excluded; and yet in every +springtime, when nature is recreated, service and teaching should +gently encourage the revival and even the regeneration of all the +religious instincts. The mission recruiter should be allowed to do his +work outside these halls, and everything in the way of infection and +all that brings religion into conflict with good taste and good sense +should be excluded, while esthetics should supplement, reenforce, and +go hand in hand with piety. Religion is in its infancy; and woman, who +has sustained it in the past, must be the chief agent in its further +and higher development. Orthodoxies and all narrowness should forever +give place to cordial hospitality toward every serious view, which +should be met by the method of greater sympathy rather than by that of +criticism. + +Nature in her many phases should, of course, make up a large part of +the entire curriculum, but here again the methods of the sexes should +differ somewhat after puberty. The poetic and mythic factors and some +glimpses of the history of science should be given more prominence; +the field naturalist rather than the laboratory man of technic should +be the ideal especially at first; nature should be taught as God's +first revelation, as an Old Testament related to the Bible as a +primordial dispensation to a later and clearer and more special one. +Reverence and love should be the motive powers, and no aspect should +be studied without beginning and culminating in interests akin to +devotion. Mathematics should be taught only in its rudiments, and +those with special talents or tastes for it should go to agamic +schools. Chemistry, too, although not excluded, should have a +subordinate place. The average girl has little love of sozzling and +mussing with the elements, and cooking involves problems in organic +chemistry too complex to be understood very profoundly, but the +rudiments of household chemistry should be taught. Physics, too, +should be kept to elementary stages. Meteorology should have a larger, +and geology and astronomy increasingly larger places, and are +especially valuable because, and largely in proportion as, they are +taught out of doors, but the general principles and the untechnical +and practical aspects should be kept in the foreground. With botany +more serious work should be done. Plant-lore and the poetic aspect, as +in astronomy, should have attention throughout, while Latin +nomenclature and microscopic technic should come late if at all, and +vulgar names should have precedence over Latin terminology. Flowers, +gardening, and excursions should never be wanting. Economic and even +medical aspects should appear, and prominent and early should come the +whole matter of self cross-fertilization and that by insects. The +moral value of this subject will never be fully understood till we +have what might almost be called a woman's botany, constructed on +lines different from any of the text-books I have glanced at. Here +much knowledge interesting in itself can be early taught, which will +spring up into a world of serviceable insights as adolescence develops +and the great law of sex unfolds. + +Zoology should always be taught with plenty of pets, menagerie +resources, and with aquaria, aviaries, apiaries, formicaries, etc., as +adjuncts. It should start in the environment like everything else. +Bird and animal lore, books, and pictures should abound in the early +stages, and the very prolific chapter of instincts should have ample +illustration, while the morphological nomenclature and details of +structure should be less essential. Woman has domesticated nearly all +the animals, and is so superior to man in insight into their modes of +life and psychoses that many of them are almost exemplifications of +moral qualities to her even more than to man. The peacock is an +embodied expression of pride; the pig, of filth; the fox, of cunning; +the serpent, of subtle danger; the eagle, of sublimity; the goose, of +stupidity; and so on through all the range of human qualities, as we +have seen. At bottom, however, the study of animal life is coming to +be more and more a problem of heredity, and its problems should have +dominant position and to them the other matter should grade up. + +This shades over into and prepares for the study of the primitive man +and child so closely related to each other. The myth, custom, belief, +domestic practises of savages, vegetative and animal traits in infancy +and childhood, the development of which is a priceless boon for the +higher education of women, open of themselves a great field of human +interest where she needs to know the great results, the striking +details, the salient illustrations, the basal principles rather than +to be entangled in the details of anthropometry, craniometry, +philology, etc. + +All this lays the basis for a larger study of modern man--history, +with the biographical element very prominent throughout, with plenty +of stories of heroes of virtue, acts of valor, tales of saintly lives +and the personal element more prominent, and specialization in the +study of dynasties, wars, authorities, and controversies relegated to +a very subordinate place. Sociology, undeveloped, rudimentary, and in +some places suspected as it is, should have in the curriculum of her +higher education a place above political economy. The stories of the +great reforms, and accounts of the constitution of society, of the +home, church, state, and school, and philanthropies and ideals, should +to the fore. + +Art in all its forms should be opened at least in a propaedeutic way +and individual tastes amply and judiciously fed, but there should be +no special training in music without some taste and gift, and the aim +should be to develop critical and discriminative appreciation and the +good taste that sees the vast superiority of all that is good and +classic over what is cheap and fustian. + +In literature, myth, poetry, and drama should perhaps lead, and the +knowledge of the great authors in the vernacular be fostered. Greek, +Hebrew, and perhaps Latin languages should be entirely excluded, not +but that they are of great value and have their place, but because a +smattering knowledge is bought at too high a price of ignorance of +more valuable things. German, French, and Italian should be allowed +and provided for by native teachers and by conversational methods if +desired, and in their proper season. + +In the studies of the soul of man, generally called the philosophic +branches, metaphysics and epistemology should have the smallest, and +logic the next least place. Psychology should be taught on the genetic +basis of animals and children, and one of its tap-roots should be +developed from the love of infancy and youth, than which nothing in +all the world is more worthy. If a woman Descartes ever arises, she +will put life before theory, and her watchword will be not _cogito, +ergo sum_, [I think, therefore I am] but _sum, ergo cogito_ [I am, +therefore I think]. The psychology of sentiments and feelings and +intuitions will take precedence of that of pure intellect; ethics will +be taught on the basis of the whole series of practical duties and +problems, and the theories of the ultimate nature of right or the +constitution of conscience will have small place. + +Domesticity will be taught by example in some ideal home building by a +kind of laboratory method. A nursery with all carefully selected +appliances and adjuncts, a dining-room, a kitchen, bedroom, closets, +cellars, outhouses, building, its material, the grounds, lawn, +shrubbery, hothouse, library, and all the other adjuncts of the hearth +will be both exemplified and taught. A general course in pedagogy, +especially its history and ideals, another in child study, and finally +a course in maternity the last year taught broadly, and not without +practical details of nursing, should be comprehensive and culminating. +In its largest sense maternity might be the heart of all the higher +training of young women. + +Applied knowledge will thus be brought to a focus in a department of +teaching as one of the specialties of motherhood and not as a vocation +apart. The training should aim to develop power of maternity in soul +as well as in body, so that home influence may extend on and up +through the plastic years of pubescence, and future generations shall +not rebel against these influences until they have wrought their +perfect work. + +The methods throughout should be objective, with copious illustrations +by way of object-lessons, apparatus, charts, pictures, diagrams, and +lectures, far less book work and recitation, only a limited amount of +room study, the function of examination reduced to a minimum, and +everything as suggestive and germinal as possible. Hints that are not +followed up; information not elaborated into a thin pedagogic sillabub +or froth; seed that is sown on the waters with no thought of reaping; +faith in a God who does not pay at the end of each week, month, or +year, but who always pays abundantly some time; training which does +not develop hypertrophied memory-pouches that carry, or creative +powers that discover and produce--these are lines on which such an +institution should develop. Specialization has its place, but it +always hurts a woman's soul more than a man's, should always come +later, and if there is special capacity it should be trained +elsewhere. Unconscious education is a power of which we have yet to +learn the full ranges. + +In most groups in this series of ideal departments there should be at +least one healthful, wise, large-souled, honorable, married and +attractive man, and, if possible, several of them. His very presence +in an institution for young women gives poise, polarizes the soul, and +gives wholesome but long-circuited tension at root no doubt sexual, +but all unconsciously so. This mentor should not be more father than +brother, though he should combine the best of each, but should add +another element. He need not be a doctor, a clergyman, or even a great +scholar, but should be accessible for confidential conferences even +though intimate. He should know the soul of the adolescent girl and +how to prescribe; he should be wise and fruitful in advice, but +especially should be to all a source of contagion and inspiration for +poise and courage even though religious or medical problems be +involved. But even if he lack all these latter qualities, though be so +poised that impulsive girls can turn their hearts inside out in his +presence and perhaps even weep on his shoulder, the presence of such a +being, though a complete realization of this ideal could be only +remotely approximated, would be the center of an atmosphere most +wholesomely tonic. + +In these all too meager outlines I have sketched a humanistic and +liberal education and have refrained from all details and special +curriculization. Many of the above features I believe would be as +helpful for boys as for girls, but woman has here an opportunity to +resume her exalted and supreme position, to be the first in this +higher field, to lead man and pay her debt to his educational +institutions, by resuming her crown. The ideal institutions, however, +for the two will always be radically and probably always increasingly +divergent. + +As a psychologist, penetrated with the growing sense of the +predominance of the heart over the mere intellect, I believe myself +not alone in desiring to make a tender declaration of being more and +more passionately in love with woman as I conceive she came from the +hand of God. I keenly envy my Catholic friends their Maryolatry. Who +ever asked if the Holy Mother, whom the wise men adored, knew the +astronomy of the Chaldees or had studied Egyptian or Babylonian, or +even whether she knew how to read or write her own tongue, and who has +ever thought of caring? We can not conceive that she bemoaned any +limitations of her sex, but she has been an object of adoration all +these centuries because she glorified womanhood by being more generic, +nearer the race, and richer in love, pity, unselfish devotion and +intuition than man. The glorified madonna ideal shows us how much more +whole and holy it is to be a woman than to be artist, orator, +professor, or expert, and suggests to our own sex that to be a man is +larger than to be gentleman, philosopher, general, president, or +millionaire. + +But with all this love and hunger in my heart, I can not help sharing +in the growing fear that modern woman, at least in more ways and +places than one, is in danger of declining from her orbit; that she is +coming to lack just confidence and pride in her sex as such, and is +just now in danger of lapsing to mannish ways, methods, and ideals, +until her original divinity may become obscured. But, if our worship +at her shrine is with a love and adoration a little qualified and +unsteady, we have a fixed and abiding faith without which we should +have no resource against pessimism for the future of our race, that +she will ere long evolve a sphere of life and even education which +fits her needs as well as, if not better than those of man fit his. + +Meanwhile, if the eternally womanly seems somewhat less divine, we can +turn with unabated faith to the eternally childish, the best of which +in each are so closely related. The oracles of infancy and childhood +will never fail. Distracted as we are in the maze of new sciences, +skills, ideals, knowledges that we can not fully cooerdinate by our +logic or curriculize by our pedagogy; confused between the claims of +old and new methods; needing desperately, for survival as a nation and +a race, some clue to thrid the mazes of the manifold modern cultures, +we have now at least one source to which we can turn--we have found +the only magnet in all the universe that points steadfastly to the +undiscovered pole of human destiny. We know what can and will +ultimately cooerdinate in the generic, which is larger than the logical +order, all that is worth knowing, teaching, or doing by the best +methods, that will save us from misfits and the waste ineffable of +premature and belated knowledge, and that is in the interests and line +of normal development in the child in our midst that must henceforth +ever lead us which epitomizes in its development all the stages, human +and prehuman; that is the proper object of all that strange new love +of everything that is naive, spontaneous, and unsophisticated in human +nature. The heart and soul of growing childhood is the criterion by +which we judge the larger heart and soul of mature womanhood; and +these are ultimately the only guide into the heart of the new +education which is to be, when the school becomes what Melanchthon +said it must be--a true workshop of the Holy Ghost--and what the new +psychology, when it rises to the heights of prophecy, foresees as the +true paradise of restored intuitive human nature. + + +[Footnote 1: David Starr Jordan: The Higher Education of Women. +Popular Science Monthly, December, 1902, vol. 62, pp. 97-107. See also +my article on this subject in Munsey's Magazine, February, 1906, and +President Jordan's reply in the March number, 1906.] + +[Footnote 2: Coeducation. A series of essays by various authors, +edited by Alice Woods, with an introduction by M.E. Sadler. Longmans, +Green and Co., London 1903, p. 148 _et seq_.] + +[Footnote 3: The Evolution of Ideals. W.G. Chambers, Pedagogical +Seminary, March, 1903, vol. 10, pp. 101-143. Also, B.E. Warner: The +Young Woman in Modern Life. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1903, p. 218.] + +[Footnote 4: The Psychology of Woman. Translated by G.A. Etchison. +Richards, London, 1899.] + +[Footnote 5: Physical Development of Women and Children. By Miss M.E. +Allen. American Association for Physical Education., April, 1890.] + +[Footnote 6: A Review of the Higher Education of Women. Forum, +September, 1891, vol. 12, pp 25-40. See also G. von Bunge: Die +zunehmende Unfaehigkeit der Frauen ihre Kinder zu stillen. Muenchen +Reinhardt, 1903, 3d ed. Also President Harper's Decennial Report, pp. +xciv-cxi.] + +[Footnote 7: Physical Hindrances to Teaching Girls, by Charlotte W. +Porter. Forum, September, 1891, vol. 12, pp. 41-49.] + +[Footnote 8: Abbotsholme, 1889-1899: or Ten Years' Work in an +Educational Laboratory, by Cecil Reddie, G. Allen London, 1900.] + +[Footnote 9: See L'Ecole des Roches, a school of the Twentieth +Century, by T.R. Croswell. Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1900, vol. +7, pp. 479-491.] + +[Footnote 10: See Chapter VI.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING + + +Dangers of muscular degeneration and overstimulus of brain--Difficulties +in teaching morals--Methods in Europe--Obedience to commands--Good +habits should be mechanized--Value of scolding--How to flog aright--Its +dangers--Moral precepts and proverbs--Habituation--Training will through +intellect--Examinations--Concentration--Originality--Froebel and the +naive--First ideas of God--Conscience--Importance of Old and New +Testaments--Sex dangers--Love and religion--Conversion. + +From its nature as well as from its central importance it might be +easily shown that the will is no less dependent on the culture it +receives than is the mind. It is fast becoming as absurd to suppose +that men can survive in the great practical strain to which American +life subjects all who would succeed, if the will is left to take its +doubtful chances of training and discipline, as to suppose that the +mind develops in neglect. Our changed conditions make this chance of +will-culture more doubtful than formerly. A generation or two ago[1] +most school-boys had either farm work, chores, errands, jobs +self-imposed, or required by less tender parents; they _made_ things, +either toys or tools, out of school. Most school-girls did house-work, +more or less of which is, like farm-work, perhaps the most varied and +most salutary as well as most venerable of all schools for the +youthful body and mind. They undertook extensive works of embroidery, +bed-quilting, knitting, sewing, mending, if not cleaning, and even +spinning and weaving their own or others' clothing, and cared for the +younger children. The wealthier devised or imposed tasks for +will-culture, as the German Kaiser has his children taught a trade as +part of their education. Ten days at the hoe-handle, axe, or +pitchfork, said an eminent educator lately in substance, with no new +impression from without, and one constant and only duty, is a +schooling in perseverance and sustained effort such as few boys now +get in any shape; while city instead of country life brings so many +new, heterogeneous and distracting impressions of motion rather than +rest, and so many privileges with so few corresponding duties, that +with artificial life and bad air the will is weakened, and eupeptic +minds and stomachs, on which its vigor so depends, are rare. Machines +supersede muscles, and perhaps our athleticism gives skill too great +preponderance over strength, or favors intense rather than constant, +long-sustained, unintermittent energy. Perhaps too many of our courses +of study are better fitted to turn out many-sided but superficial +paragraphists, than men who can lay deep plans, and subordinate many +complex means to one remote end. Meanwhile, if there is any one thing +of which our industries and practical arts are in more crying need +than another, it is the old-fashioned virtue of thoroughness, of a +kind and degree which does not address merely the eye, is not limited +by the letter of a contract, but which has some regard for its +products for their own sake, and some sense for the future. Whether in +science, philosophy, morals, or business, the fields for long-ranged +cumulative efforts are wider, more numerous, and far more needy than +in the days when it was the fashion for men contentedly to concentrate +themselves to one vocation, life-work, or mission, or when cathedrals +or other yet vaster public works were transmitted, unfinished but ever +advancing, from one generation of men to another. + +It is because the brain is developed, while the muscles are allowed to +grow flabby and atrophied, that the deplored chasm between knowing and +doing is so often fatal to the practical effectiveness of mental and +moral culture. The great increase of city and sedentary life has been +far too sudden for the human body--which was developed by hunting, +war, agriculture, and manifold industries now given over to steam and +machinery--to adapt itself healthfully or naturally to its new +environment. Let any of us take down an anatomical chart of the human +muscles, and reflect what movements we habitually make each day, and +realize how disproportionately our activities are distributed compared +with the size or importance of the muscles, and how greatly modern +specialization of work has deformed our bodies. The muscles that move +the scribbling pen are insignificant fraction of those in the whole +body, and those that wag the tongue and adjust the larynx are also +comparatively few and small. Their importance is, of course, not +underrated, but it is disastrous to concentrate education upon them +too exclusively or too early in life. The trouble is that few realize +what physical vigor is in man or woman, or how dangerously near +weakness often is to wickedness, how impossible healthful energy of +will is without strong muscles which are its organ, or how endurance +and self-control, no less than great achievement, depend on +muscle-habits. Both in Germany and Greece, a golden age of letters was +preceded, by about a generation, by a golden age of national gymnastic +enthusiasm which constitutes, especially in the former country, one of +the most unique and suggestive chapters in the history of pedagogy. +Symmetry and grace, hardihood and courage, the power to do everything +that the human body can do with and without all conceivable apparatus, +instruments, and even tools, are culture ideals that in Greece, Rome, +and Germany respectively have influenced, as they might again +influence, young men, as intellectual ideals never can do save in a +select few. We do not want "will-virtuosos," who perform feats hard to +learn, but then easy to do and good for show; nor spurtiness of any +sort which develops an erethic habit of work, temper, and circulation, +and is favored by some of our popular sports but too soon reacts into +fatigue. Even will-training does not reach its end till it leads the +young up to taking a intelligent, serious and life-long interest in +their own physical culture and development. This is higher than +interest in success in school or college sport; and, though naturally +later than these, is one of the earliest forms of will-culture in +which it is safe and wise to attempt to interest the young for its own +sake alone. In our exciting life and trying climate, in which the +experiment of civilization has never been tried before, these thoughts +are merely exercises. + +But this is, of course, preliminary. Great as is the need, the +practical difficulties in the way are very great. First, there are not +only no good text-books in ethics, but no good manual to guide +teachers. Some give so many virtues or good habits to be taught per +term, ignoring the unity of virtue as well as the order in which the +child's capacities for real virtue unfold. Advanced text-books discuss +the grounds of obligation, the nature of choice or freedom, or the +hedonistic calculus, as if pleasures and pains could be balanced as +measurable quantities, etc., so that philosophic morality is clearly +not for children or teachers. Secondly, evolution encourages too often +the doubt whether virtue can be taught, when it should have the +opposite effect. Perversity and viciousness of will are too often +treated as constitutional disease; and insubordination or obstinacy, +especially in school, are secretly admired as strength, instead of +being vigorously treated as crampy disorders of will, and the child is +coddled into flaccidity. Becomes the lowest develops first, there is +danger that it will interfere with the development of the higher, and +thus, if left to his own, the child may come to have no will. The +third and greatest difficulty is, that with the best effort to do so, +so few teachers can separate morality from religious creed. So vital +is the religions sentiment here that it is hard to divorce the end of +education from the end of life, proximate from ultimate grounds of +obligation, or finite from infinite duties. Those whose training has +been more religious than ethical can hardly teach morality _per se_ +satisfactorily to the _noli me tangere_ [Touch me not] spirit of +denominational freedom so wisely jealous of conflicting standards and +sanctions for the young. + +How then can we ever hope to secure proper training for the will? + +More than a generation ago Germany developed the following method: +Children of Lutheran, Catholic and Jewish parentage, which include +most German children, were allowed one afternoon a week for several +years, and two afternoons a week for a few months preceding +confirmation, to spend half of a school day with instructors of these +respective professions, who were nominated by the church, but examined +by the state as to their competence. These teachers are as +professional, therefore, as those in the regular class work. Each +religion is allowed to determine its own course of religious +instruction, subject only to the approval of the cultus minister or +the local authorities. In this way a rupture between the religious +sentiments and teaching of successive generations is avoided and it is +sought to bring religious training to bear upon morals. These classes +learn Scripture, hymns, church service,--the Catholics in Latin and +the Jewish in Hebrew,--the history of their church and people, and +sometimes a little systematic theology. In some of these schools, +there are prizes and diplomas, and the spirit of competition is +appealed to. A criticism sometimes made against them, especially +against the Lutheran religious pedagogy, is that it is too +intellectual. It is, of course, far more systematic and effective from +this point of view than the American Sunday School, so that whatever +may be said of its edifying effects, the German child knows these +topics far better than the American. This system, with modifications, +has been adopted in some places in France, England and in America, +more often in private than in public schools, however. + +The other system originated in France some years after the +Franco-Prussian War when the clerical influence in French education +gave way to the lay and secular spirit. In these classes, for which +also stated times are set apart and which are continued through all +the required grades under the name of moral and civic instruction, the +religious element is entirely absent, except that there are a few +hymns, Bible passages and stories which all agree upon as valuable. +Most of the course is made up of carefully selected maxims and +especially stories of virtue, records of heroic achievements in French +history and even in literature and the drama. Everything, however, has +a distinct moral lesson, although that lesson is not made offensively +prominent. We have here nearly a score of these textbooks, large and +small. It would seen as though the resources of the French records and +literature had been ransacked, and indeed many deeds of heroism are +culled from the daily press. The matter is often arranged under +headings such as cleanliness, acts of kindness, courage, truthfulness +versus lying, respect for age, good manners, etc. Each virtue is thus +taught in a way appropriate to each stage of childhood, and quite +often bands of mercy, rescue leagues and other societies are the +outgrowth of this instruction. It is, of course, exposed to much +criticism from the clergy on the cogent ground that morality needs the +support of religion, at the very least, in childhood. This system has +had much influence in England where several similar courses have been +evolved, and in this country we have at least one very praiseworthy +effort in this direction, addressed mainly, however, to older +children. + +Besides this, two ways suggest themselves. First, we may try to +assume, or tediously enucleate a consensus of religious truth as a +basis of will training, e.g., God and immortality, and, ignoring the +minority who doubt these, vote them into the public school. Pedagogy +need have nothing whatever to say respecting the absolute truth or +falsity of these ideas, but there is little doubt that they have an +influence on the will, at a certain stage of average development, +greater and more essential than any other; so great that even were +their vitality to decay like the faith in the Greek or German +mythology, we should still have to teach God and a future life as the +most imperative of all hypotheses in a field where, as in morals, +nothing is so practical as a good theory; and we should have to fall +to teaching the Bible as a moral classic, and cultivate a critical +sympathy for its view of life. But this way ignores revelation and +supernatural claims, while some have other objections to emancipating +or "rescuing" the Bible from theology just yet. Indeed, the problem +how to teach anything that the mind could not have found out for +itself, but that had to be revealed, has not been solved by modern +pedagogy, which, since Pestalozzi, has been more and more devoted to +natural and developing methods. The latter teaches that there must not +be too much seed sown, too much or too high precept, or too much +iteration, and that, in Jean Paul's phrase, the hammer must not rest +on bell, but only tap and rebound, to bring out a clear tone. Again, a +consensus of this content would either have to be carefully defined +and would be too generic and abstract for school uses, or else +differences of interpretation, which so pervade and are modified by +character, culture, temperament, and feeling, would make the consensus +itself nugatory. Religious training must be specific at first, and, +omitting qualifications, the more explicit the denominational faith +the earlier may religious motives affect the will. + +This is the way of our hopes, to the closer consideration of which we +intend to return in the future, though it must be expected that the +happiest consensus will be long quarantined from most schools. +Meanwhile a second way, however unpromising, is still open. Noble +types of character may rest on only the native instincts of the soul +or even on broadly interpreted utilitarian considerations. But if +morality without religion were only a bloodless corpse or a plank in a +shipwreck, there is now need enough for teachers to study its form, +drift, and uses by itself alone. This, at least, is our purpose in +considering the will, and this only. + +The will, purpose, and even mood of small children when alone, are +fickle, fluctuating, contradictory. Our very presence imposes one +general law on them, viz., that of keeping our good will and avoiding +our displeasure. As the plant grows towards the light, so they unfold +in the direction of our wishes, felt as by divination. They respect +all you smile at, even buffoonery; look up in their play to call your +notice, to study the lines of your sympathy, as if their chief +vocation was to learn your desires. Their early lies are often saying +what they think will please us, knowing no higher touchstones of +truth. If we are careful to be wisely and without excess happy and +affectionate when they are good, and saddened and slightly cooled in +manifestations of love if they do wrong, the power of association in +the normal, eupeptic child will early choose right as surely as +pleasure increases vitality. If our love is deep, obedience is an +instinct if not a religion. The child learns that while it can not +excite our fear, resentment or admiration, etc., it can act on our +love, and this should be the first sense of its own efficiency. Thus, +too, it first learns that the way of passion and impulse is not the +only rule of life, and that something is gained by resisting them. It +imitates our acts long before it can understand our words. As if it +felt its insignificance, and dreaded to be arrested in some lower +phase of its development, its instinct for obedience becomes almost a +passion. As the vine must twine or grovel, so the child comes +unconsciously to worship idols, and imitates bad patterns and examples +in the absence of worthy ones. He obeys as with a deep sense of being +our chattel, and, at bottom, admires those who coerce him, if the +means be wisely chosen. The authority must, of course, be ascendancy +over heart and mind. The more absolute such authority the more the +will is saved from caprice and feels the power of steadiness. Such +authority excites the unique, unfathomable sense of reverence, which +measures the capacity for will-culture, and is the strongest and +soundest of all moral motives. It is also the most comprehensive, for +it is first felt only towards persons, and personality is a bond, +enabling any number of complex elements to act or be treated as whole, +as everything does and is in the child's soul, instead of in isolation +and detail. In the feeling of respect culminating in worship almost +all educational motives are involved, but especially those which alone +can bring the will to maturity; and happy the child who is bound by +the mysterious and constraining sympathy of dependence, by which, if +unblighted by cynicism, a worthy mentor directs and lifts the will. +This unconscious reflection of our character and wishes is the diviner +side of childhood, by which it is quick and responsive to everything +in its moral environment. The child may not be able to tell whether +its teacher often smiles, dresses in this way or that, speaks loud or +low, has many rules or not, though every element of her personality +affects him profoundly. His acts of will have not been _choices_, but +a mass of psychic causes far greater than consciousness can estimate +have laid a basis of character, than which heredity alone is deeper, +before the child knows he has a will. These influences are not +transient but life-long, for if the conscious and intentional may +anywhere be said to be only a superficial wave over the depths of the +unconscious, it is in the sphere of will-culture. + +But command and obedience must also be specific to supplant nature. +Here begins the difficulty. A young child can know no general +commands. "Sit in your chair," means sit a moment, a sort of trick, +with no prohibition to stand the next instant. Any just-forbidden act +may be done in the next room. All is here and now, and patient +reiteration, till habit is formed, and no havoc-making rules which it +cannot understand or remember, is our cue. Obedience can, however, be +instinct even here, and is its chief virtue, and there is no more fear +of weakening the will by it than in the case of soldiers. As the child +grows older, however, and as the acts commanded are repugnant, or +unusual, there should be increasing care, lest authority be +compromised, sympathy ruptured, or lest mutual timidity and +indecision, if not mutual insincerity and dissimulation, as well as +parodied disobedience, etc., to test us, result. We should, of course, +watch for favorable moods, assume no unwonted or preternatural dignity +or owlish air of wisdom, and command in a low voice which does not too +rudely break in upon the child's train of impressions. The acts we +command or forbid should be very few at first, but inexorable. We +should be careful not to forbid where we cannot follow a untrusty +child, or what we can not prevent. Our own will should be a rock and +not a wave. Our requirements should be uniform, with no whim, mood, or +periodicity of any sort about them. If we alternate from caresses to +severity, are fields and capricious instead of commanding by a fixed +and settled plan, if we only now and then take the child in hand, so +he does not know precisely what to expect, we really require the child +to change its nature with every change in us, and well for the child +who can defy such a changeable authority, which not only unsettles but +breaks up character anew when it is just at the beginning of the +formative period. Neglect is better than this, and fear of +inconsistency of authority makes the best parents often jealous of +arbitrariness in teachers. Only thus can we develop general habits of +will and bring the child to know general maxims of conduct +inductively, and only thus by judicious boldness and hardihood in +command can we bring the child to feel the conscious strength that +comes only from doing unpleasant things. Even if instant obedience be +only external at first, it will work inward, for moods are controlled +by work, and it is only will which enlarges the bounds of personality. + +Yet we must not forget that even morality is relative, and is one +thing for adults and often quite another for children. The child knows +nothing of absolute truth, justice, or virtues. The various stimuli of +discipline are to enforce the higher though weaker insights which the +child has already unfolded, rather than to engraft entirely unintuited +good. The command must find some ally, feeble though it be, in the +child's own soul. We should strive to fill each moment with as little +sacrifice or subordination, as mere means or conditions to the future, +as possible, for fear of affectation and insincerity. But yet the +hardier and sounder the nature, the more we may address training to +barely nascent intuitions, with a less ingredient of immediate +satisfaction, and the deeper the higher element Of interest will be +grounded in the end. The child must find as he advances towards +maturity, that every new insight, or realization of his own reveals +the fact that you have been there before with commands, cultivating +sentiments and habits, and not that he was led to mistake your +convenience or hobby for duty, or failed to temper the will by +temporizing with it. The young are apt to be most sincere at an age +when they are also most mistaken, but if sincerity be kept at its +deepest and best, will be least harmful and easiest overcome. If +authority supplement rather than supersede good motives, the child +will so love authority as to overcome your reluctance to apply it +directly, and as a final result will choose the state and act you have +pre-formed in its slowly-widening margin of freedom, and will be all +the less liable to undue subservience to priest or boss, or fashion or +tradition later, as obedience gives place to normal, manly +independence. + +In these and many other ways everything in conduct should be +mechanized as early and completely as possible. The child's notion of +what is right is what is habitual, and the simple, to which all else +is reduced in thought, is identified with the familiar. It is this +primitive stratum of habits which principally determines our deepest +belief which all must have over and above knowledge--to which men +revert in mature years from youthful vagaries. If good acts are a diet +and not a medicine, are repeated over and over again, as every new +beat of the loom pounds in one new thread, and sense of justice and +right is wrought into the very nerve-cells and fibers; if this ground +texture of the soul, this "memory and habit-plexus," this sphere of +thoughts we oftenest think and acts we oftenest do, is early, rightly +and indiscerptibly wrought, not only does it become a web of destiny +for us, so all-determining is it, but we have something perdurable to +fall back on if moral shock or crisis or change or calamity shall have +rudely broken up the whole structure of later associations. Not only +the more we mechanize thus, the more force of soul is freed for higher +work, but we are insured against emergencies in which the choice and +deed is likely to follow the nearest motive, or that which acts +quickest, rather than to pause and be influenced by higher and perhaps +intrinsically stronger motives. Reflection always brings in a new set +of later-acquired motives and considerations, and if these are better +than habit-mechanism, then pause is good; if not, he who deliberates +is lost. Our purposive volitions are very few compared with the long +series of desires, acts and reactions, often contradictory, many of +which were never conscious, and many once willed but now lapsed to +reflexes, the traces of which crowding the unknown margins of the +soul, constitute the organ of the conscious will. + +It is only so far as this primitive will is wrong by nature or +training, that drastic reconstructions of any sort are needed. Only +those who mistake weakness for innocence, or simplicity for candor, or +forget that childish faults are no less serious because universal, +deny the, at least, occasional depravity of all children, or fail to +see that fear and pain are among the indispensables of education, +while a parent, teacher, or even a God, _all_ love, weakens and +relaxes the will. Children do not cry for the alphabet; the +multiplication table is more like medicine than confectionery, and it +is only affected thoroughness that omits all that is hard. "The fruits +of learning may be sweet, but its roots are always bitter," and it is +this alone that makes it possible to strengthen the will while +instructing the mind. The well-schooled will comes, like Herder, to +scorn the luxury of knowing without the labor of learning. We must +anticipate the future penalties of sloth as well as of badness. The +will especially is a trust we are to administer for the child, not as +he may now wish, but as he will wish when more mature. We must now +compel what he will later wish to compel himself to do. To find his +habits already formed to the same law that his mature will and the +world later enjoin, cements the strongest of all bonds between mentor +and child. Nothing, however, must be so individual as punishment. For +some, a threat at rare intervals is enough; while for others, however +ominous threats may be, they become at once "like scarecrows, on which +the foulest birds soonest learn to perch." To scold well and wisely is +an art by itself. For some children, pardon is the worst punishment; +for others, ignoring or neglect; for others, isolation from friends, +suspension from duties; for others, seclusion--which last, however, is +for certain ages beset with extreme danger--and for still others, +shame from being made conspicuous. Mr. Spencer's "natural penalties" +can be applied to but few kinds of wrong, and those not the worst. +Basedow tied boys who fell into temptation to a strong pillar to brace +them up; if stupid and careless, put on a fool's cap and bells; if +they were proud, they were suspended near the ceiling in a basket, as +Aristophanes represented Socrates. Two boys who quarreled, were made +to look into each other's eyes before the whole school till their +angry expressions gave way before the general sense of the ridiculous. +This is more ingenious than wise. The object of discipline is to avoid +punishment, but even flogging should never be forbidden. It maybe +reserved, like a sword in its scabbard, but should not get so rusted +in that it can not be drawn on occasion. The law might even limit the +size and length of the rod, and place of application, as in Germany, +but it should be of no less liberal dimensions here than there. +punishment should, of course, be minatory and reformatory, and not +vindictive, and we should not forget that certainty is more effective +than severity, nor that it is apt to make motives sensuous, and delay +the psychic restraint which should early preponderate over the +physical. But will-culture for boys is rarely as thorough as it should +be without more or less flogging. I would not, of course, urge the +extremes of the past. The Spartan beating as a gymnastic drill to +toughen, the severity which prevailed in Germany for a long time after +its Thirty Years' Wars,[2] the former fashion in many English schools +of walking up not infrequently to take a flogging as a plucky thing to +do, and with no notion of disgrace attaching to it, shows at least an +admirable strength of will. Severe constraint gives poise, inwardness, +self-control, inhibition, and not-willingness, if not willingness, +while the now too common habit of coquetting for the child's favor, +and tickling its ego with praises and prizes, and pedagogic +pettifogging for its good-will, and sentimental fear of a judicious +slap to rouse a spoiled child with no will to break, to make it keep +step with the rest in conduct, instead of delaying a whole school-room +to apply a subtle psychology of motives on it, is bad. This reminds +one of the Jain who sweeps the ground before him lest he unconsciously +tread on a worm. Possibly it may be well, as Schleiermacher suggests, +not to repress some one nascent bad act in some natures, but let it +and the punishment ensue for the sake of Dr. Spankster's tonic. Dermal +pain is not the worst thing in the world, and by a judicious knowledge +of how it feels at both ends of the rod, by flogging and being +flogged, far deeper pains may be forefended. Insulting defiance, +deliberative disobedience, ostentatious carelessness and bravado, are +diseases of the will, and, in very rare cases of Promethean obstinacy, +the severe process of breaking the will is needful, just as in surgery +it is occasionally needful to rebreak a limb wrongly set, or deformed, +to set it over better. It is a cruel process, but a crampy will in +childhood means moral traumatism of some sort in the adult. Few +parents have the nerve to do this, or the insight to see just when it +is needed. It is, as some one has said, like knocking a man down to +save him from stepping off a precipice. Even the worst punishments are +but very faint types of what nature has in store in later life for +some forms of perversity of will, and are better than sarcasm, +ridicule, or tasks, as penalties. The strength of obstinacy is +admirable, and every one ought to have his own will; but a false +direction, though almost always the result of faulty previous training +when the soul more fluid and mobile, is all the more fatal. While so +few intelligent parents are able to refrain from the self-indulgence +of too much rewarding or giving, even though it injures the child, it +is perhaps too much to expect the hardihood which can be justly cold +to the caresses of a child who seeks, by displaying all its stock of +goodness and arts of endearment, to buy back good-will after +punishment has been deserved. If we wait too long, and punish in cold +blood, a young child may hate us; while, if we punish on the instant, +and with passion, a little of which is always salutary, on the +principle, _ohne Affekt kein Effekt_, [Without passion, no effect] an +older child may fail of the natural reactions of conscience, which +should always be secured. The maxim, _summum jus summa injuria_, [The +rigor of the law may be the greatest wrong] we are often told, is +peculiarly true in school, and so it is; but to forego all punishment +is no less injustice to the average child, for it is to abandon one of +the most effective means of will-culture. We never punish but a part, +as it were, of the child's nature; he has lied, but is not therefore a +liar, and we deal only with the specific act, and must love all the +rest of him. + +And yet, after all, indiscriminate flogging is so bad, and the average +teacher is so inadequate to that hardest and most tactful of all his +varied duties, viz., selecting the right outcrop of the right fault of +the right child at the right time and place, mood, etc., for best +effect, that the bold statement of such principles as above is perhaps +not entirely without practical danger, especially in two cases which +Madame Necker and Sigismund have pointed out, and in several cases of +which the present writer has notes. First, an habitually good child +sometimes has a saturnalia of defiance and disobedience; a series of +insubordinate acts are suddenly committed which really mark the first +sudden epochful and belated birth of the instinct of independence and +self-regulation, on which his future manliness will depend. He is +quite irresponsible, the acts are never repeated, and very lenient +treatment causes him, after the conflict of tumultuous feelings has +expanded his soul, to react healthfully into habitual docility again, +if some small field for independent action be at once opened him. The +other case is that of _ennui_, of which children suffer such nameless +qualms. When I should open half a dozen books, start for a walk, and +then turn back, wander about in mind or body, seeking but not finding +content in anything, a child in my mood will wish for a toy, an +amusement, food, a rare indulgence, only to neglect or even reject it +petulantly when granted. These flitting "will-spectres" are physical, +are a mild form of the many fatal dangers of fatigue; and punishment +is the worst of treatment. Rest or diversion is the only cure, and the +teacher's mind must be fruitful of purposes to that end. Perhaps a +third case for palliative treatment is, those lies which attend the +first sense of badness. The desire to conceal it occasionally +accompanies the nascent effort to reform and make the lie true. These +cases are probably rare, while the temptation to lie is far greater +for one who does ill than for one who does well, for fear is the chief +motive, and a successful lie which concealed would weaken the desire +to cure a fault. + +We have thus far spoken of obedience, and come now to the later +necessity of self-guidance, which, if obedience has wrought its +perfect work, will be natural and inevitable. It is very hard to +combine reason and coercion, yet it is needful that children think +themselves free long before we cease to determine them. As we slowly +cease to prescribe and begin to inspire, a very few well-chosen +mottoes, proverbs, maxims, should be taught very simply, so that they +will sink deep. Education has been defined as working against the +chance influences of life, and it is certain that without some +precepts and rules the will will not exert itself. If reasons are +given, and energy is much absorbed in understanding, the child will +assent but will not do. If the mind is not strong, many wide ideas are +very dangerous. Strong wills are not fond of arguments, and if a young +person falls to talking or thinking beyond his experience, subjective +or objective, both conduct and thought are soon confused by chaotic +and incongruous opinions and beliefs; and false expectations, which +are the very seducers of the will, arise. There can be little +will-training by words, and the understanding can not realize the +ideals of the will. All great things are dangerous, as Plato said, and +the truth itself is not only false but actually immoral to unexpanded +minds. Will-culture is intensive, not extensive, and the writer knows +a case in which even a vacation ramble with a moralizing fabulist has +undermined the work of years. Our precepts must be made very familiar, +copiously illustrated, well wrought together by habit and attentive +thought, and above all clear cut, that the pain of violating them may +be sharp and poignant. Vague and too general precepts beyond the +horizon of the child's real experience do not haunt him if they are +outraged. Now the child must obey these, and will, if he has learned +to obey well the command of others. + +One of the best sureties that he will do so is muscle-culture, for if +the latter are weaker than the nerves and brain, the gap between +knowing and doing appears and the will stagnates. Gutsmuths, the +father of gymnastics in Germany before Jahn, used to warn men not to +fancy that the few tiny muscles that moved the pen or tongue had power +to elevate men. They might titillate the soul with words and ideas; +but rigorous, symmetrical muscle-culture alone, he and his Turner +societies believed, could regenerate the Fatherland, for it was one +thing to paint the conflict of life, and quite another to bear arms in +it. They said, "The weaker the body the more it commands; the stronger +it is the more it obeys." + +In this way we shall have a strong, well-knit soul-texture, made up of +volitions and ideas like warp and woof. Mind and will will be so +compactly organized that all their forces can be brought to a single +point. Each concept or purpose will call up those related to it, and +once strongly set toward its object, the soul will find itself borne +along by unexpected forces. This power of totalizing, rather than any +transcendent relation of elements, constitutes at least the practical +unity of the soul, and this unimpeded association of its elements is +true or inner freedom of will. Nothing is wanting or lost when the +powers of the soul are mobilized for a great task, and its substance +is impervious to passion. With this organization, men of really little +power accomplish wonders. Without it great minds are confused and +lost. They have only velleity or caprice. The will makes a series of +vigorous, perhaps almost convulsive, but short, inconsistent efforts. +As Jean Paul says, there is sulphur, charcoal, and saltpetre in the +soul, but powder is not made, for they never find each other. To +understand this will-plexus is preeminent among the new demands now +laid on educators. + +But, although this focalizing power of acting with the whole rather +than with a part of the soul, gives independence of many external, +conventional, proximate standards of conduct, deepening our interests +in life, and securing us against disappointment by defining our +expectations, while such a sound and simple will-philosophy is proof +against considerable shock and has firmness of texture enough to bear +much responsibility, there is, of course, something deeper, without +which all our good conduct is more or less hollow. This is that better +purity established by mothers in the plastic heart, before the +superfoetation of precept is possible, or even before the "soul takes +flight in language"; it is perhaps pre-natal or hereditary. Much every +way depends on how aboriginal our goodness is, whether the will acts +with effort, as we solve an intricate problem, in solitude, or as we +say the multiplication table, which only much distraction can confuse, +or as we repeat the alphabet, which the din of battle could not +hinder. Later and earlier training should harmonize with each other +and with nature. Thrice happy he who is so wisely trained that he +comes to believe he believes what his soul deeply does believe, to say +what he feels and feel what he really does feel, and chiefly whose +express volitions square with the profounder drift of his will as the +resultant of all he has desired or wished, expected, attended to, or +striven for. When such an one comes to his moral majority by standing +for the first time upon his own careful conviction, against the +popular cry, or against his own material interests or predaceous +passions, and feels the constraint and joy of pure obligation which +comes up from this deep source, a new, original force is brought into +the world of wills. Call it inspiration, or Kant's transcendental +impulse above and outside of experience, or Spencer's deep +reverberations from a vast and mysterious past of compacted ancestral +experiences, the most concentrated, distilled and instinctive of all +psychic products, and as old as Mr. Tyndall's "fiery cloud"--the name +or even source is little. We would call it the purest, freest, most +prevailing, because most inward, will or conscience. + +This free, habitual guidance by the highest and best, by conviction +with no sense of compulsion or obligation, impractical if not +dangerous ideal, for it can be actually realized only by the rarest +moral genius. For most of us, the best education is that which makes +us the best and most obedient servants. This is the way of peace and +the way of nature, for even if we seriously try to keep up a private +conscience at all, apart from feeling, faction, party or class spirit, +or even habit, which are our habitual guides, the difficulties are so +great that most hasten, more or less consciously and voluntarily, to +put themselves under authority again, serving only the smallest margin +of independence in material interests, choice of masters, etc, and +yielding to the pleasing and easy illusion that inflates the minimum +to seem the maximum of freedom, and uses the noblest ideal of history, +viz., that of pure autonomous oughtness, as a pedestal for idols of +selfishness, caprice and conceit. The trouble is in interpreting these +moral instincts, for even the authorities lack the requisite +self-knowledge in which all wisdom culminates. The moral interregnum +which the _Aufklaerung_ [Enlightenment] has brought will not end till +these instincts are rightly interpreted by in intelligence. The +richest streams of thought must flow about them, the best methods must +peep and pry till their secrets are found and put into the +idea-pictures in which most men think. + +This brings us, finally, to the highest and also immediately practical +method of moral education, viz., training the will by and for +intellectual work. Youth and childhood must not be subordinated as +means to maturity. Learning is more useful than knowing. It is the way +and not the goal, the work and not the product, the acquiring and not +the acquisition, that educates will and character. To teach only +results, which are so simple, without methods by which they were +obtained, which are so complex and hard, to develop the sense of +possession without the strain of activity, to teach great matters too +easily or even as play, always to wind along the lines of least +resistance into the child's mind, is imply to add another and most +enervating luxury to child-life. Only the sense and power of effort, +which made Lessing prefer the search to the possession of truth, which +trains the will in the intellectual field, which is becoming more and +more the field of its activity, counts for character and makes +instruction really educating. This makes mental work a series of acts, +or living thoughts, and not merely words. Real education, that we can +really teach, and that which is really most examinable, is what we do, +while those who acquire without effort may be extremely instructed +without being truly educated. + +It is those who have been trained to put forth mental power that come +to the front later, while it is only those whose acquisitions are not +transpeciated into power who are in danger of early collapse. + +It is because of this imperfect appropriation through lack of +volitional reaction that mental training is so often dangerous, +especially in its higher grades. Especially wherever good precepts are +allowed to rest peacefully beside undiscarded bad habits, moral +weakness is directly cultivated. Volitional recollection, or forcing +the mind to reproduce a train of impressions, strengthens what we may +call the mental will; while if multifarious impressions which excite +at the time are left to take their chances, at best, fragmentary +reproduction, incipient amnesia, the prelude of mental decay, may be +soon detected. Few can endure the long working over of ideas, +especially if at all fundamental, which is needful to full maturity of +mind, without grave moral danger. New standpoints and ideas require +new combinations of the mental elements, with constant risk that +during the process, what was already secured will fall back into its +lower components. Even oar immigrants suffer morally from the change +of manners and customs and ideas, and yet education menus change; the +more training the more change, as a rule, and the more danger during +the critical transition period while we oscillate between control by +old habits, or association within the old circle of thought, and by +the new insights, as a medical student often suffers from trying to +bring the regulation of his physical functions under new and imperfect +hygienic insights. Thus most especially if old questions, concerning +which we have long since ceased to trust ourselves to give reasons, +need to be reopened, there is especial danger that the new equilibrium +about which the dynamic is to be re-resolved into static power will be +established, if at all, with loss instead of with gain. Indeed, it is +a question not of schools but of civilization, whether mental +training, from the three R's to science and philosophy, shall really +make men better, as the theory of popular education assumes, and +whether the genius and talent of the few who can receive and bear it +can be brought to the full maturity of a knowledge fully facultized--a +question paramount, even in a republic, to the general education of +the many. + +The illusion is that beginnings are hard. They are easy. Almost any +mind can advance a little way into almost any subject. The feeblest +youth can push on briskly in the beginning of a new subject, but he +forgets, and so does the examiner who marks him, that difficulties +increase not in arithmetical but in almost geometrical ratio as he +advances. The fact, too, that all topics are taught by all teachers +and that we have no specialized teaching in elementary branches, and +that examinations are placed in the most debilitating part of our +peculiarly debilitating spring, these help us to solve the problem +which China has solved so well, viz., how to instruct and not to +educate. A pass mark, say of fifty, should be given not for mastery of +the first half of the book, or for knowledge of half the matter in it, +but for that of three-fourths or more. Suppose one choose the easier +method of tattooing his mind by attaining the easy early stages of +proficiency in many subjects, as is possible and even encouraged in +too many of our school and college curricula, he weakens the +will-quality of his mind. Smattering is dissipation of energy. Only +great, concentrated and prolonged efforts in one direction really +train the mind, because only _they_ train the will beneath it. Many +little, heterogeneous efforts of different sorts leave the mind in a +muddle of heterogeneous impressions, and the will like a rubber band +is stretched to flaccidity around one after another bundle of objects +too large for it to clasp into unity. Here again, _in der Beschraenkung +zeigt sich der Meister_ [The master shows himself in self-limitation]; +all-sidedness through one-sidedness; by stalking the horse or cow out +in the spring time, till he gnaws his small allotted circle of grass +to the ground, and not by roving and cropping at will, can he be +taught that the sweetest joint is nearest the root, are convenient +symbols of will-culture in the intellectual field. Even a long cram, +if only on one subject, which brings out the relations of the parts, +or a "one-study college," as is already devised in the West, or the +combination of several subjects even in primary school grades into a +"concentration series," as devised by Ziller and Rein, the university +purpose as defined by Ziller of so combining studies that each shall +stand in the course next to that with which it is inherently closest +connected by matter and method, or the requirements of one central and +two collateral branches for the doctorate examination--all these devices +no doubt tend to give a sense of efficiency, which is one of the +deepest and proudest joys of life, in the place of a sense of +possession so often attended by the exquisite misery of conscious +weakness. The unity of almost any even ideal purpose is better than +none, if it tend to check the superficial one of learning to repeat +again or of boxing the whole compass of sciences and liberal arts, as +so many of our high schools or colleges attempt. + +Finally, in the sphere of mental productivity and originality, a just +preponderance of the will-element makes men distrust new insights, +quick methods, and short cuts, and trust chiefly to the genius of +honest and sustained work, in power of which perhaps lies the greatest +intellectual difference between men. When ideas are ripe for +promulgation they have been condensed and concentrated, thought +traverses them quickly and easily--in a word, they have become +practical, and the will that waits over a new idea patiently and +silently, without anxiety, even though with a deepening sense of +responsibility, till all sides have been seen, all authorities +consulted, all its latent mental reserves heard from, is the man who +"talks with the rifle and not with the water-hose," or, in a rough +farmer's phrase, "boils his words till he can give his hearers sugar +and not sap." Several of the more important discoveries of the present +generation, which cost many weary months of toil, have been enumerated +in a score or two of lines, so that every experimenter could set up +his apparatus and get the results in a few minutes. Let us not forget +that, in most departments of mental work, the more we revise and +reconstruct our thought, the longer we inhibit its final expression, +while the oftener we return to it refreshed from other interests, the +clearer and more permeable for other minds it becomes, because the +more it tends to express itself in terms of willed action, which is +"the language of complete men." + +So closely bound together are moral and religious training that a +discussion of one without the other would be incomplete. In a word, +religion is the most generic kind of culture as opposed to all systems +or departments which are one sided. All education culminates in it +because it is chief among human interests, and because it gives inner +unity to the mind, heart, and will. How now should this common element +of union be taught? + +To be really effective and lasting, moral and religious training must +begin in the cradle. It was a profound remark of Froebel that _the +unconsciousness of a child is rest in God_. This need not be +understood in guy pantheistic sense. From this rest in God the +childish soul should not be abruptly or prematurely aroused. Even the +primeval stages of psychic growth are rarely so all-sided, so purely +unsolicited, spontaneous, and unprecocious, as not to be in a sense a +fall from Froebel's unconsciousness or rest in God. The sense of +touch, the mother of all the other senses, is the only one which the +child brings into the world already experienced; but by the pats, +caresses, hugs, etc., so instinctive with young mothers, varied +feelings and sentiments are communicated to the child long before it +recognizes its own body as distinct from things about it. The mother's +face and voice are the first conscious objects as the infant soul +unfolds, and she soon comes to stand in the very place of God to her +child. All the religion of which the child is capable during this by +no means brief stage of its development consists of those +sentiments--gratitude, trust, dependence, love, etc., now felt only +for her--which are later directed toward God. The less these are now +cultivated toward the mother, who is now their only fitting if not +their only possible object, the more feebly they will later be felt +toward God. This, too, adds greatly to the sacredness and the +responsibilities of motherhood. Froebel perhaps is right that thus +fundamental religious sentiments can be cultivated in the earliest +months of infancy. It is of course impossible not to seem, perhaps +even not to be, sentimental upon this theme, for the infant soul has +no other content than sentiments, and because upon these rests the +whole superstructure of religion in child or adult. The mother's +emotions, and physical and mental states, indeed, imparted and +reproduced in the infant so immediately, unconsciously, and through so +many avenues, that it is no wonder that these relations see mystic. +Whether the mother is habitually under the influence of calm and +tranquil emotions, or her temper is fluctuating or violent, or her +movements are habitually energetic or soft and caressing, or she be +regular or irregular in her ministrations to the infant in her arms, +all these characteristics and habits are registered in the primeval +language of touch upon the nervous system of the child. From this +point of view, poise and calmness, the absence of all intense annuli +and of sensations or transitions which are abrupt or sudden, and an +atmosphere of quieting influences, like everything which retards by +broadening, is in the general line of religious culture. The soul of +an infant is well compared to a seed planted in a garden. It is not +pressed or moved by the breezes which rustle the leaves overhead. The +sunlight does not fall upon it, and even dew and evening coolness +scarcely reach it; but yet there is not a breath of air or a ray of +sunshine, nor a drop of moisture to which it is responsive, and which +does not stir all its germinant forces. The child is a plant, must +live out of doors in proper season, and there must be no forcing. +Religion, then, at this important stage, at least, is naturalism pure +and simple, and religious training is the supreme art of standing out +of nature's way. So implicit is the unity of soul and body at this +formative age that care of the body is the most effective +ethico-religious culture. + +Next to be considered are the sentiments which unfold under the +influence of that fresh and naive curiosity which attends the first +impressions of natural objects from which both religion and science +spring as from one common root. The awe and sublimity of a +thunderstorm, the sights and sounds of a spring morning, objects which +lead the child's thoughts to what is remote in time and space, old +trees, ruins, the rocks, and, above all, the heavenly bodies--the +utilization of these lessons is the most important task of the +religious teacher during the _kindergarten_ stage of childhood. Still +more than the undevout astronomer, the undevout child under such +influences is abnormal. In these directions the mind of the child is +as open and plastic as that of the ancient prophet to the promptings +of the inspiring Spirit. The child can recognize no essential +difference between nature and the supernatural, and the products of +mythopoeic fancy which have been spun about natural objects, and which +have lain so long and so warm about the hearts of generations and +races of men, are now the best of all nutriments for the soul. To +teach scientific rudiments only about nature, on the shallow principle +that nothing should be taught which must be unlearned, or to encourage +the child to assume the critical attitude of mind, is dwarfing the +heart and prematurely forcing the head. It has been said that country +life is religion for children at this stage. However this may be, it +is clear that natural religion is rooted in such experiences, and +precedes revealed religion in the order of growth and education, +whatever its logical order in systems of thought may be. A little +later, habits of truthfulness[3] are best cultivated by the use of the +senses in exact observation. To see a simple phenomenon in nature and +report it fully and correctly is no easy matter, but the habit of +trying to do so teaches what truthfulness is and leaves the impress of +truth upon the whole life and character. I do not hesitate to say, +therefore, that elements of science should be taught to children for +the moral effects of its influences. At the same time all truth is not +sensuous, and this training alone at this age tends to make the mind +pragmatic, dry, and insensitive or unresponsive to that other kind of +truth the value of which is not measured by its certainty so much as +by its effect upon us. We must learn to interpret the heart and our +native instincts as truthfully as we do external nature, for our +happiness in life depends quite as largely upon bringing our beliefs +into harmony with the deeper feelings of our nature as it does upon +the ability to adapt ourselves to our physical environment. Thus not +only all religious beliefs and moral acts will strengthen if they +truly express the character instead of cultivating affectation and +insincerity in opinion, word, and deed, as with mistaken pedagogic +methods they may do. This latter can be avoided only by leaving all to +naturalism and spontaneity at first, and feeding the soul only +according to its appetites and stage of growth. No religious truth +must be taught as fundamental--especially as fundamental to +morality--which can be seriously doubted or even misunderstood. Yet it +must be expected that convictions will be transformed and worked over +and over again, and only late, if at all, will an equilibrium between +the heart and the truth it clings to as finally satisfying be +attained. Hence most positive religious instruction, or public piety, +if taught at all, should be taught briefly as most serious but too +high for the child yet, or as rewards to stimulate curiosity for them +later, but sacred things should not become too familiar or be +conventionalized before they can be felt or understood. + +The child's conception of God should not be personal or too familiar +_at first_, but He should appear distant and vague, inspiring awe and +reverence far more than love; in a word, as the God of nature rather +than as devoted to serviceable ministrations to the child's individual +wants. The latter should be taught to be a faithful servant rather +than a favorite of God. The inestimable pedagogic value of the +God-idea consists in that it widens the child's glimpse of the whole, +and gives the first presentment of the universality of laws, such as +are observed in its experiences and that of others, so that all things +seem comprehended under one stable system or government. The slow +realization that God's laws are not like those of parents and +teachers, evadible, suspensible, but changeless, and their penalties +sure as the laws of nature, is most important factor of moral +training. First the law, the schoolmaster, then the Gospel; first +nature, then grace, is the order of growth. + +The pains or pleasures which follow many acts are immediate, while the +results that follow others are so remote or so serious that the child +must utilize the experience of others. Artificial rewards and +punishments must be cunningly devised so as to simulate and typify as +closely as possible the real natural penalty, and they must be +administered uniformly and impartially like laws of nature. As +commands are just, and as they are gradually perceived to spring from +superior wisdom, respect arises, which Kant called the bottom motive +of duty, and defined as the immediate determination of the will by +law, thwarting self-love. Here the child reverences what is not +understood as authority, and to the childish "Why?" which always +implies imperfect respect for the authority, however displeasing its +behest, the teacher or parent should always reply, "You cannot +understand why yet," unless quite sure that a convincing and +controlling insight can be given, such as shall make all future +exercise of outward authority in this particular unnecessary. From +this standpoint the great importance of the character and native +dignity of the teacher is best seen. Daily contact with some teachers +is itself all-sided ethical education for the child without a spoken +precept. Here, too, the real advantage of male over female teachers, +especially for boys, is seen in their superior physical strength, +which often, if highly estimated, gives real dignity and commands real +respect, and especially in the unquestionably greater uniformity of +their moods and their discipline. + +During the first years of school life, a point of prime importance in +ethico-religious training is the education of conscience. This latter +is the most complex and perhaps the most educable of all our so-called +"faculties." A system of carefully arranged talks, with copious +illustrations from history and literature, about such topics as fair +play, slang, cronies, dress, teasing, getting mad, prompting in class, +white lies, affectation, cleanliness, order, honor, taste, +self-respect, treatment of animals, reading, vacation pursuits, etc., +can be brought quite within the range of boy-and-girl interests by a +sympathetic and tactful teacher, and be made immediately and obviously +practical. All this is nothing more or less than conscience-building. +The old superstition that children have innate faculties of such a +finished sort that they flash up and grasp the principle of things by +a rapid sort of first "intellection," an error that made all +departments of education so trivial, assumptive and dogmatic for +centuries before Comenius, Basedow and Pestalozzi, has been banished +everywhere save from moral and religious training, where it still +persists in full force. The senses develop first, and all the higher +intuitions called by the collective name of conscience gradually and +later in life. They first take the form of sentiments without much +insight, and are hence liable to be unconscious affectation, and are +caught insensibly from the environment with the aid of inherited +predisposition, and only made more definite by such talks as the +above. But parents are prone to forget that healthful and correct +sentiments concerning matters of conduct are, at first, very feeble, +and that the sense of obligation needs the long and careful +guardianship of external authority. Just as a young medical student +with a rudimentary notion of physiology and hygiene is sometimes +disposed to undertake a more or less complete reform of his diet, +regimen, etc., to make it "scientific" in a way that an older and a +more learned physician would shrink from, so the half-insights of boys +into matters of moral regimen are far too apt, in the American +temperament, to expend, in precocious emancipation and crude attempts +at practical realization, the force which is needed to bring their +insights to maturity. Authority should be relaxed gradually, +explicitly, and provisionally over one definite department of conduct +at a time. To distinguish right and wrong in their own nature is the +highest and most complex of intellectual processes. Most men and all +children are guided only by associations of greater or less subtlety. +Perhaps the whole round of human duties might be best taught by +gathering illustrations of selfishness and tracing it in its countless +disguises and ramifications through every stage of life. Selfishness +is opposed to a sense of the infinite and is inversely as real +religion, and the study of it is not, like systematic ethics, apt to +be confused and made unpractical by conflicting theories. + +The Bible, the great instrument in the education of conscience, is far +less juvenile than it is now the fashion to suppose. At the very +least, it expresses the result of the ripest human experience, the +noblest traditions of humanity. Old Testament history, even more than +most very ancient history, is distilled to an almost purely ethical +content. For centuries Scripture was withheld from the masses for the +same reason that Plato refused at first to put his thoughts into +writing, because it would be sure to be misunderstood by very many and +lead to that worst of errors and fanaticism caused by half-truths. +Children should not approach it too lightly. + +The Old Testament, perhaps before or more than the New, is the Bible +for childhood. A good, protracted course of the law pedagogically +prepares the way for the apprehension of the Gospel. Then the study of +the Old Testament should begin with selected tales, told, as in the +German schools, impressively, in the teacher's language, but +objectively, and without exegetical or hortatory comment. The appeal +is directly to the understanding only at first, but the moral lesson +is brought clearly and surely within the child's reach, but not +personally applied after the manner common with us. + +Probably the most important changes for the educator to study are +those which begin between the ages of twelve and sixteen and are +completed only some years later, when the young adolescent receives +from nature a new capital of energy and altruistic feeling. It is +physiological second birth, and success in life depends upon the care +and wisdom with which this new and final invoice of energy is +husbanded. These changes constitute a natural predisposition to a +change of heart, and may perhaps be called, in Kantian phrase, its +_schema_. Even from the psychophysic standpoint it is a correct +instinct which has slowly led churches to center so much of their +cultus upon regeneration. In this I, of course, only assert here the +neurophysical side, which is everywhere present, even if everywhere +subordinate to the spiritual side. As everywhere, so here, too, the +physical may be called in a sense regulative rather than constitutive. +It is therefore not surprising that statistics show that far more +conversions, proportionately, take place during the adolescent period, +which does not normally end before the age of twenty-four or five, +than during any other period of equal length. At this age most +churches confirm. + +Before this age the child lives in the present, is normally selfish, +deficient in sympathy, but frank and confidential, obedient to +authority, and without affectation save the supreme affectation of +childhood, viz., assuming the words, manners, habits, etc., of those +older than itself. But now stature suddenly increases, and the power +of physical and mental endurance and effort diminishes for a time; +larynx, nose, chin change, and normal and morbid ancestral traits and +features appear. Far greater and more protracted, though unseen, are +the changes which take place in the nervous system, both in the +development of the cortex and expansion of the convolutions and the +growth of association-fibers by which the elements shoot together and +relation of things are seen, which hitherto seemed independent, to +which it seems as if for a few years the energies of growth were +chiefly directed. Hence this period is so critical and changes in +character are so rapid. No matter how confidential the relations with +the parent may have been, an important domain of the soul now declares +its independence. Confidences are shared with those of equal age and +withheld from parents, especially by boys, to an extent probably +little suspected by most parents. Education must be addressed to +freedom, which recognizes only self-made law, and spontaneity of +opinion and conduct is manifested, often in extravagant and grotesque +forms. There is now a longing for that kind of close sympathy and +friendship which makes cronies and intimates; there is a craving for +strong emotions which gives pleasure in exaggerations; and there are +nameless longings for what is far, remote, strange, which emphasizes +the self-estrangement which Hegel so well describes, and which marks +the normal rise of the presentiment of something higher than self. +Instincts of rivalry and competition now grow strong in boys, and +girls grow more conscientious and inward, and begin to feel their +music, reading, religion, painting, etc., and to realize the bearing +of these upon their future adult life. There is often a strong +instinct of devotion and self-sacrifice toward some, perhaps almost +any, object, or in almost any cause which circumstances may present. +Moodiness and perhaps a love of solitude are developed. "Growing fits" +make hard and severe labor of body and mind impossible without +dwarfing or arresting the development, by robbing of its nutrition +some part of the organism--stomach, lungs, chest, heart, back, brain, +etc.--which is peculiarly liable to disease later. It is never so hard +to tell the truth plainly and objectively and without any subjective +twist. The life of the mere individual ceases and that of person, or +better, of the race, begins. It is a period of realization, and hence +often of introspection. In healthy natures it is the golden age of +life, in which enthusiasm, sympathy, generosity, and curiosity are at +their strongest and best, and when growth is so rapid that, e.g., each +college class is conscious of a vast interval of development which +separates it from the class below; but it is also a period subject to +Wertherian crises, such as Hume, Richter, J.S. Mill, and others passed +through, and all depends on the direction given to these new forces. + +The dangers of this period are great and manifest. The chief of these, +far greater even than the dangers of intemperance, is that the sexual +elements of soul and body will be developed prematurely and +disproportionately. Indeed, early maturity in this respect is itself +bad. If it occurs before other compensating and controlling powers are +unfolded, this element is hypertrophied and absorbs and dwarfs their +energy and it is then more likely to be uninstructed and to suck up +all that is vile in the environment. Far more than we realize, the +thoughts and feelings of youth center about this factor of his nature. +Quite apart, therefore, from its intrinsic value, education should +serve the purpose of preoccupation, and should divert attention from +an element of our nature the premature or excessive development of +which dwarfs every part of soul and body. Intellectual interests, +athleticism, social and esthetic tastes, should be cultivated. There +should be some change in external life. Previous routine and +drill-work must be broken through and new occupations resorted to, +that the mind may not be left idle while the hands are mechanically +employed. Attractive home-life, friendships well chosen and on a high +plane, and regular habits, should of course be cultivated. Now, too, +though the intellect is not frequently judged insane, so that +pubescent insanity is comparatively rare, the feelings, which are yet +more fundamental to mental sanity, are most often perverted, and lack +of emotional steadiness, violent and dangerous impulses, unreasonable +conduct, lack of enthusiasm and sympathy, are very commonly caused by +abnormalities here. Neurotic disturbances, such as hysteria, chorea, +and, in the opinion of some physicians, sick-headache and early +dementia are peculiarly liable to appear and become seated during this +period. In short, the previous selfhood is broken up like the +regulation copy handwriting of early school years, and a new +individual is in process of crystallization. All is solvent, plastic, +peculiarly susceptible to external influences. + +Between love and religion, God and nature have wrought a strong and +indissoluble bond. Flagellations, fasts, exposure, excessive penances +of many kinds, the Hindoo cultus of quietude, and mental absorption in +vacuity and even one pedagogic motive of a cultus of the spiritual and +supernatural, e. g. in the symposium of Plato, are all designed as +palliatives and alteratives of degraded love. Change of heart before +pubescent years, there are several scientific reasons for thinking +means precocity and forcing. The age signalized by the ancient Greeks +as that at which the study of what was comprehensively called music +should begin, the age at which Roman guardianship ended, as explained +by Sir Henry Maine, at which boys are confirmed in the modern Greek, +Catholic, Lutheran and Episcopal churches, and at which the child +Jesus entered the temple, is as early as any child ought consciously +to go about his heavenly Father's business. If children are instructed +in the language of these sentiments too early, the all-sided deepening +and broadening of soul and of conscience which should come with +adolescent years will be incomplete. Revival sermon which the writer +has heard preached to very young children are analogous to exhorting +them to imagine themselves married people and inculcating the duties +of that relation. It is because this precept is violated in the +intemperate haste for immediate results that we may so often hear +childish sentiments and puerile expressions so strangely mingled in +the religious experience of otherwise apparently mature adults, which +remind one of a male voice constantly modulating from manly tones into +boyish falsetto. Some one has said of very early risers that they were +apt to be conceited all the forenoon, and stupid and uninteresting all +the afternoon and evening. So, too, precocious infant Christians are +apt to be conceited and full of pious affectations all the forenoon of +life, and thereafter commonplace enough in their religious life. One +is reminded of Aristotle's theory of Catharsis, according to which the +soul was purged of strong or bad passions by listening to vivid +representations of them on the stage. So, by the forcing method we +deprecate, the soul is given just enough religious stimulus to act as +an inoculation against deeper and more serious interest later. At this +age the prescription of a series of strong feelings is very apt to +cause attention to concentrate on physical states in a way which may +culminate in the increased activity of the passional nature, or may +induce that sort of self-flirtation which is expressed in morbid love +of autobiographic confessional outpourings, or may issue in the +supreme selfishness of incipient and often unsuspected hysteria. Those +who are led to Christ normally by obeying conscience are not apt to +endanger the foundation of their moral character if they should later +chance to doubt the doctrine of verbal inspiration or some of the +miracles, or even get confused about the Trinity, because their +religious nature is not built on the sand. The art of leading young +men through college without ennobling or enlarging any of the +religious notions of childhood is anti-pedagogic and unworthy +philosophy, and is to leave men puerile in the highest department of +their nature. + +At the age we have indicated, when the young man instinctively takes +the control of himself into his own hands, previous ethico-religious +training should be brought to a focus and given a personal +application, which, to be most effective, should probably, in most +cases, be according to the creed of the parent. It is a serious and +solemn epoch, and ought to be fittingly signalised. Morality now needs +religion, which cannot have affected life much before. Now duties +should be recognised as divine commands, for the strongest motives, +natural and supernatural, are needed for the regulation of the new +impulses, passions, desires, half insights, ambitions, etc., which +come to the American temperament so suddenly before the methods of +self-regulation can become established and operative. Now a deep +personal sense of purity and impurity are first possible, and indeed +inevitable, and this natural moral tension is a great opportunity to +the religious teacher. A serious sense of God within, and of +responsibilities which transcend this life as they do the adolescent's +power of comprehension; a feeling for duties deepened by a realization +and experience of their conflict such as some have thought to be the +origin of religion itself in the soul--these, too, are elements of the +"theology of the heart" revealed at this age to every serious youth, +but to the judicious emphasis and utilization of which, the teacher +should lend his consummate skill. While special lines of interest +leading to a career must be now well grounded, there must also be a +culture of the ideal and an absorption in general views and remote and +universal ends. If all that is pure and disciplining in what is +transcendent, whether to the Christian believers, the poet or the +philosopher, had even been devised only for the better regulation of +human energies set free at this age, but not yet fully defined or +realized, they would still have a most potent justification on this +ground alone. At any rate, what is often wasted in excess here, if +husbanded, ripens into philosophy, the larger love to the world, the +true and the good, in a sense not unlike that in the symposium of +Plato. + +Finally, there is danger lest this change, as prescribed and +formulated by the church, be too sudden and violent, and the capital +of moral force which should last a lifetime be consumed in a brief, +convulsive effort, like the sudden running down of a watch if its +spring be broken. Piety is naturally the slowest because the most +comprehensive kind of growth. Quetelet says that the measure of the +state of civilization in a nation is the way in which it achieves its +revolutions. As it becomes truly civilized, revolutions cease to be +sudden and violent, and become gradually transitory and without abrupt +change. The same is true of that individual crisis which +psycho-physiology describes as adolescence, and of which theology +formulates a higher spiritual potency as conversion. The adolescent +period lasts ten years or more, during all of which development of +every sort is very rapid and constant, and it is, as already remarked, +intemperate haste for immediate results, of reaping without sowing, +which has made so many regard change of heart as an instantaneous +conquest rather than as a growth, and persistently to forget that +there is something of importance before and after it in healthful +religious experience. + + +[Footnote 1: See author's Boy Life, in Massachusetts Country Town +Forty Years Ago. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1906, vol. 13, pp. +192-207.] + +[Footnote 2: Those interested in school statistics may value the +record kept by a Swabian schoolmaster named Hauberle, extending over +fifty-one years and seven months' experience as a teacher, as follows: +911,527 blows with a cane; 124,010 with a rod; 20,939 with a ruler; +136,715 with the hand; 19,295 over the mouth; 7,905 boxes on the ear; +1,115,800 snaps on the head; 22,763 nota benes with Bible, catechism, +hymnbook and grammar; 777 times boys had to kneel on peas; 613 times +on triangular blocks of wand; 5,001 had to carry a timber mare; and, +7,701 hold the rod high; the last two being punishments of his own +invention. Of the blows with the cane 800,000 were for Latin vowels, +and 76,000 of those with the rod for Bible verses and hymns. He used a +scolding vocabulary of over 3,000 terms, of which one-third were of +his own invention.] + +[Footnote 3: For most recent and elaborate study of children's lies +see Zeitschrift fuer paedagogische Psychologie, Pathologie und Hygiene, +Juli, 1905. Jahrgang 7, Heft 3, pp. 177-205.] + + * * * * * + + + + +GLOSSARY + + +AGAMIC. Unmarried; unmarriageable, sometimes non-sexed. + +AGENIC. Lacking in reproductive power; sterile. + +AMPHIMIXIS. That form of reproduction which involves the +mingling of substance from two individuals so as to effect +a mixture of hereditary characteristics. It includes the +phenomena of conjugation and fertilization among both +unicellular and multicellular organisms. + +ANABOLISM. _See_ METABOLISM. + +ANAMNESIC. Pertaining to or aiding recollection. + +ANEMIC. Deficient in blood; bloodless. + +ANTHROPOMORPHISM. The attributing of human characteristics +to natural, supernatural, or divine beings. + +ANTHROPOMETRY. Science of measurement of the human body. + +ARTIFACT. Any artificial product. + +APHASIA. Impairment or lose of the ability to understand or +use speech. + +ASSOCIATIONISM. The psychological theory which regards the +laws of association as the fundamental laws of mental action +and development. + +ATAVISTIC. Pertaining to reversion through the influence of +heredity to remote ancestral characteristics. + +ATAXIC. Pertaining to inability to cooerdinate voluntary movements; +irregular. + +CALAMO-PAPYRUS. Reed papyrus or pen-paper. + +CATABOLISM. _See_ METABOLISM. + +CATHARSIS. Purgation or cleansing. Aristotle's esthetic theory +that little renders immune for much. + +CEREBRATION. Brain action, conscious or unconscious. + +CHOREA. St. Vitus's dance; a nervous disease marked by irregular +and involuntary movements of the limbs and face. + +CHRESTOMATHY. A collection of extracts and choice pieces. + +CHRISTENTHUM. The Christian belief; the spirit of Christianity. + +COMMANDO EXERCISES. Gymnastic exercises whose order is dependent +upon the spoken command of the director. + +CORTEX. The gray matter of the brain, mostly on its surface. + +CORTICAL. Pertaining to the cortex. + +CRANIOMETRY. The measurement of skulls. + +CRYPTOGAMOUS. Having an obscure mode of fertilization; or, +of plants that do not blossom. + +CULTUS. A system of religious belief and worship. + +DEUTSCHENTHUM. The spirit of the German people. + +DIATHESIS. A constitutional predisposition. + +EPHEBIC. Pertaining to the Greek system of instruction given +to young men to fit them for citizenship; adolescent. + +EPIGONI. Successors; followers who only follow. + +EPISTEMOLOGY. The theory of knowledge; that branch of logic +which undertakes to explain how knowledge is possible and +to define its limitations, meaning, and worth. + +EUPEPTIC. Having good digestion. + +EUPHORIA. The sense of well-being; of fullness of life. + +EVIRATION. Emasculation; loss of manly characteristics. + +FERAL. Wild by nature; untamed; undomesticated. + +FORMICARY. An artificial ants' nest. + +GEMUeTH. Disposition; the entire affective soul and its habitual +state. + +HEBETUDE. Dullness; stupidity. + +HEDONISTIC. Relating to hedonism, that form of Greek philosophy +which taught that pleasure is the chief end of +existence. + +HETAERA. A Greek courtesan. This class was often highly +trained in music and social art, and represented the highest +grade of culture among Greek women. + +HETEROGENY. (1) The spontaneous generation of animals and +vegetables, low in the scale of organization, from inorganic +elements. (2) That kind of generation in which the parent, +whether plant or animal, produces offspring differing in +structure or habit from itself, but in which after one or +more generations the original form reappears. + +HETERONOMOUS. Having a different name. + +HOROLOGY. The science of measuring time and of constructing +instruments for that purpose. + +HYGEIA. The Greek goddess of health; health. + +HYPERMETHODIC. Methodic to excess; overmethodic. + +HYPERTROPHY. Excessive growth. + +INDISCERPTIBLE. Incapable of being destroyed by separation of +parts. + +INHIBITION. Interference with the normal result of a nervous +excitement by an opposing force. + +IRRADIATION. The diffusion of nervous stimuli out of the path of +normal discharge which, as a result of the excitation of a +peripheral end organ may excite other central organs than +those directly connected with it. + +KINESOLOGICAL. Pertaining to the science of tests and +measurements of bodily strength. + +KINESOMETER. An instrument for measuring muscular strength. + +MEDULLATION. The investment of nerve fibers with a protective +covering or medullary sheath, consisting of white, fat-like +matter. + +MERISTIC. Pertaining to the levels or spinal and cerebral +segments of the body. + +METABOLISM. The act or process by which, on the one hand, dead +food is built up into living matter--anabolism, and by +which, on the other, the living matter is broken down into +simpler products within a cell or organism--catabolism. + +METAMORPHOSIS. Change of form or structure; transformation. + +METEMPSYCHOSIS. The doctrine of the transmigration of the +soul from one body to another. + +MONOPHRASTIC. Pertaining to or consisting of a single phrase. + +MONOTECHNIC. Pertaining to a single art or craft. + +MORPHOLOGY. The science of form and structure of plants and +animals without regard to function. + +MYOLOGY. The scientific knowledge of the muscular system. + +MYTHOPOEIC. Producing or having a tendency to produce myths. + +NOETIC. Of, pertaining to, or conceived by, mind. + +NUANCE. Slight shade; difference; distinction; degree. + +ORTHOGENIC. Pertaining to right beginning and development. + +ORTHOPEDIC. Relating to the art of curing deformities. + +OSSUARY. A depository of dry bones. + +PALEOPSYCHIC. Pertaining to the antiquity of the soul. + +PANTHEISTIC. Relating to that doctrine which holds that the +entire phenomenal universe, including man and nature, is +the ever-changing manifestation of God, who rises to +self-consciousness and personality only in man. + +PATRISTICS. That department of study occupied with the +doctrines and writings of the fathers of the Christian Church. + +PHOBIA. Excessive or morbid fear of anything. + +PHYLETICALLY. In accordance with the phylum or race; racially. + +PHYLETIC. Pertaining to a race or clan. + +PHYLOGENY. The history of the evolution of a species or group; +tribal history; ancestral development as opposed to ontogeny +or the development of the individual. + +PHYLUM. A term introduced by Haeckel to designate the great +branches of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Each phylum +may include several classes. + +PICKELHAUBE. The spiked helmet of the German army. + +PLANKTON. Sea animals and plants collectively; distinguished +from coast or bottom forms and floating in a great mass. + +POLYGAMIC (LOVE). Pertaining to the habit of having more than +one mate of the opposite sex. + +POLYPHRASTIC. Having many phrases; pertaining to rambling, +incoherent speech. + +POST-SIMIAN. Pertaining to an age later than that in which +simian or monkey-like forms prevailed. + +PRENUBILE. Pertaining to the age before sexual maturity or +marriageability is reached. + +PRIE DIEU. A praying desk. + +PROPEDEUTIC. Preliminary; introductory. + +PROPHYLACTIC. Any medicine or measure efficacious in preventing +disease. + +PSEUDOPHOBIAC. Pertaining to a morbid condition in which the +subject is continually in fear of having said something not +strictly true. + +PSYCHOGENESIS. The origin and development of soul. + +PSYCHONOMIC. Pertaining to the laws of mind. + +PSYCHOSIS. Mental constitution or condition; any change in +consciousness, especially if abnormal. + +PUBERTY. The age of sexual maturity. + +PUBESCENT. Relating to the dawning of puberty. + +PYGMOID. Of pygmy size and form. + +RABULIST. A chronic wrangler; one who argues about everything. + +SCHEMA. A synopsis; a summary. In the Kantian sense, a +general type. + +SCHEMATISM. An outline of any systematic arrangement; an +outline. + +SUPERFOETATION. A second conception some time after a prior +one, by which two foetuses of different age exist together +in the same female. Often used figuratively. + +TEMIBILITY. (From Italian _temibile_, to be feared.) The principle +of adjustment of penalty to crime in just that degree necessary +to prevent a repetition of the criminal act. + +TIC. A nervous affection of the muscles; a twitching. + +TRANSCENDENTAL. In the Kantian system having an _a priori_ +character, transcending experience, presupposed in and +necessary to experience. + +TRAUMATA. Wounds. + +TRAUMATISM. A wound; any morbid condition produced by +wounds or other external violence. + +VERBIGERATION. The continual utterance of certain words or +phrases at short intervals, without reference to their meaning, +as seen in insane _Gedankenflucht_ or rapid flight of +thought. + + + +INDEX + + * * * * * + +Abstract words, need of +Accessory and fundamental movement +Accuracy of memory + overdone +Activity of children, motor +Adolescence + biography and literature of + characterized +Agriculture +Alternations of physical and psychic states +Altruism of country children + of woman, cutlet for +Amphimixis, psychic, basis of +Anger +Anthropometry and ideal of gymnastics +Arboreal life and the hand +Art study +Arts and crafts movement +Associations devised or guided by adults +Astronomy +Athletic festivals in Greece +Athletics as a conversation topic + dangers and defects of + records in +Attention + fostered by _commando_ exercises + rhythm in + spontaneous +Authority and adolescence +Autobiographies of boyhood +Automatisms + motor, causes and kinds of + control and serialization of + danger of premature control of + desirable + +Bachelor women +Basal muscles, development of +Basal powers, development of +Bathing +Beauty, age of feminine +Belief, habit and muscle determining +Bible, the + influence of, in adolescence + methods of teaching + study of, for girls + study of, in German method of will training + study of, order in + study of, postponed + study of, preparation for +Biography and adolescence +Blood vessels, expansion at puberty +Blushing, characteristic of puberty +Body training, Greek +Botany +Boxing +Boys + age of little affection in + dangers of coeducation for + differences between, and girls + latitude in conduct and studies of, before puberty + puberty in, characteristics of +Brain action, unity in +Bullying +Bushido + +Cakewalk +Castration, functional in women +Catharsis, Aristotle's theory of +Character and muscles +Children + faults and crimes of + motor activity of + motor defects of + selfishness of +Chivalry, medieval +Chorea +Christianity, muscular +Chums and cronies +Church, feminity in the +City children vs. country children +Civilized men, savages physically superior to +Climbing + hill + muscles, age for exercise of +Coeducation, dangers in +College + coeducation in + English requirements of + woman's ideal school and +Combat, personal, as exercise +_Commando_ exercises + restricted for girls +Concentration +Concreteness in modern language study, criticized +Conduct + mechanized + of Italian schoolboys tabulated + weather and +Confessionalism + of young women + passional inducement to +Conflict, _see_ Combat +Control + nervous, through dancing + of anger + of brute instincts + of children's movements +Conversation, athletics in + degeneration in, causes of +Conversion +Cooerdination loosened at adolescence + inherited tendencies of muscular +Corporal punishment +Country children vs. city children +Crime, juvenile + causes of + education and + reading and +Cruelty, a juvenile fault +Culture heroes + +Dancing +Deadly sins, the seven, vs. modern juvenile faults +Debate and will-training +Doll curve +Domesticity +Dramatic instinct of puberty +Drawing, curve of stages of +Dueling + +Education + art in + crime and + industrial + intellectual + manual + moral and religious + of boys + of girls + physical +Effort, as a developing force +Emotions + dancing completest language of the + religion directed to +Endurance +Energy and laziness +English + language and literature, pedagogy of + pedagogic degeneration in, causes of + requirements of college + sense language, dangers of +_Ennui_ +Erect position and true life +Ethics, study of, criticized +Ethical judgments of children +Euphoria and exercise +Evolution, movement as a measure of +Exercise + health and + measurements and + music and + nascent periods and + rhythm and + +Farm work +Fatigue + at puberty + chores and + not a cause for punishment + play and + restlessness expressive of + result of labor with defective psychic impulsion + rhythm of activity and + will-culture and +Faults of children +Favorite sounds and words +Fecundity of college women +Femininity in the church + in the school and college +Feminists +Fighting +Flogging +Foreign languages, dangers of +France, religious training in +Friendships of adolescence +Fundamental and accessory +Future life, as a school teaching + +Games + groups + Panhellenic +Gangs, organized juvenile +Genius, early development of +Germany, will-training in +Girl graduates + aversion to marriage of + fecundity of + sterility of +Girls + and boys, differences between + coeducation for, dangers of + education of + education of, humanistic + education of, manners in + education of, more difficult than of boys + education of, nature in + education of, regularity in + education of, religion in + ideal school and curriculum for + overdrawing their energy +Grammar, place of +Greece, athletic festivals in +Greek body training +Group games +Growth + at puberty + gymnastics and its effect on + of muscle structure and function, measure of + periods + rhythmic +Gymnastics + effect on growth, its + ideal of, and anthropometry + ideals, its four unharmonized, and + military ideals and + nascent periods and + patriotism and + proportion and measurement for, criticized + Swedish + +Habits and muscle +Hand and arboreal life +Health, exercise and + of girls +Heredity, a factor in development +High School, the coeducation in + language study and +Hill-climbing +Historic interest, growth of +Home, restraint of, detrimental +Honor, among hoodlums + in sports +Hoodlums +Hysteria + +Imagination, at puberty + of children + play and +Individuality, growth of, at puberty +Industrial education +Industry and movement +Inhibition +Intellect, adolescence in +Intemperance + +Knightly ideas of youth +Knowing and doing + +Language, concreteness in, degeneration through + dangers of, through eye and hand + precision curve of + _vs_. literature +Latin, danger of +Laughter +Laziness and energy +Lies +Literary men, youth of + women, youth of +Literature and adolescence + language _vs_. + +Machinery and movement +Mammae, loss of function of +Manners + in girls' education +Manual training + defects and criticisms of + difficulties of +Marriage, dangers in delay of + influenced by coeducation + influenced by college training +Mastery in art-craft, equipment for +Maternity, dangers of deferred +Measurements and exercise +Memory, accuracy, age, and kinds of + sex curve of types of +Military drill + ideals and gymnastics +Mind and motility +Money sense +Monthly period and Sabbath +Motherhood, training for +Motor, activity, primitive + automatisms + defects of children + defects, general + economies + powers, general growth of + precocity + psychoses, muscles and + recaptulation + regularity +Movement and industry +Movements, passive + precocity of +Muscle tension and thought +Muscles, per cent by weight of body + character and + motor psychoses and + small, and thought + will and +Muscular Christianity +Music and exercise +Myths, study of + +Nascent periods and exercises +Nature in girls' education + +Obedience + +Panhellenic games +Passive movements +Patriotism and gymnastics +Peace, man's normal state +Periodicity in growth + in women +Philology, dangers of +Plasticity of growth at puberty +Play + course of study + imagination and + prehistoric activity and + problem + sex and + stages and ages of + work and +Plays and games, codification of +Precocity, motor + in the motor sphere +Predatory organizations +Primitive motor activity +Punishments + in school, causes of + +Reading age + crime and + curve +Reason, development of +Recapitulation and motor heredity +Records in athletics +Regularity in education of girls +Religious training, age for + for girls + in Europe + premature + two methods of +Retardation as a means of broadening +Revivalists +Rhythm, exercise and + in primitive activities + of work and rest + +Savages physically superior to civilized men +School, language study in + need of enthusiasm in + punishments in, causes of + reading in +Scientific men, youth of +Sedentary life +Selfishness of children +Sex, play and + sports and +Slang curve + value of +Sleep, in education of girls +Sloyd, origin, aims, criticism of +Social activities + organizations of youth +Solitude +Sounds, favorite, and words +Sports, values of different + codification of + sexual influence in + team work in +Spurtiness +Sterility of girl graduates +Story-telling, interest in +Struggle-for-lifeurs +Students' associations +Stuttering and stammering +Swedish gymnastics +Swimming + +Talent, early development of +Teachers, aversions to +Team spirit +Technical courses, need of +Telegraphic skill +Temibility +Theft, juvenile +Thought and muscle tension +Transitory nature of youthful experiences +Tree life and erect posture +Truancy +Truth-telling +Turner movement + +Unmarried women, dangers to + +Vagabondage +Vagrancy +Virility in the Church + +Weather and conduct +Will, muscles and + training +Womanly, the eternal +Women, bachelors + dangers to, in not marrying + education of, ideal + young, confessionalism of +Work at its best, play + play and + rest and, rhythm of +Wrestling + +Young Men's Christian Association + + + + * * * * * + +INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES. + + * * * * * + +AN IDEAL SCHOOL; OR, LOOKING FORWARD. + +By Preston W. Search, Honorary Fellow in Clark University. With an +Introduction by Pres. G. Stanley Hall. Vol. 52. 12mo. Cloth, $1.20 +net. + +"I am not concerned that the things presented in this little +constructive endeavor will not find bodily incorporation in schools; +for it is cross-fertilization and not grafting that has given us our +richest varieties of fruits and flowers. This work is an attempt at +spirit, not letter; at principle, not method."--_From the Author's +Preface_. + +"A book I wish I could have written myself; and I can think of no +single educational volume in the world-wide range of literature in +this field that I believe so well calculated to do so much good at the +present time, and which I could so heartily advise every teacher in +the land, of whatever grade, to read and ponder."--_Pres. G. Stanley +Hall, Clark University_. + +"It is to my mind the most stimulating book that has appeared for a +long time. The conception here set forth of the function of the school +is, I believe, the broadest and best that has been formulated. The +chapter on Illustrative Methods is worth more than all the books on +'Method' that I know of. The diagrams and tables are very convincing. +I am satisfied that the author has given us an epoch-making +book."--_Henry H. Goddard, Ph.D., State Normal School, West Chester, +Pa_. + +"I received a copy of 'An Ideal School,' and I am satisfied that I +made no mistake when I, with the other two members of the book +committee, recommended the book to the 310 teachers in our +county."--_J.G. Dundore, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania_. + +"Certainly one of the most notable books on education published in +many years"--_P.P. Claxton, Editor Atlantic Educational Journal_. + +"You have done the cause of real education an important service. This +book is, in my opinion, one of the most useful in the International +Education Series."--_Albert Leonard, Editor of the Journals of +Pedagogy_. + + * * * * * + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + + +DICKENS AS AN EDUCATOR. + +By JAMES I. HUGHES, Inspector of Schools, Toronto. Vol. 49. 12mo. +Cloth, $1.50. + +ADOPTED BY SEVERAL STATE TEACHERS' READING CIRCLES. + +All teachers have read Dickens's novels with pleasure. Probably few, +however have presumably thought definitely of him as a great +educational reformer. But Inspector Hughes demonstrates that such is +his just title. William T. Harris says of "Dickens as an Educator": +"This book is sufficient to establish the claim for Dickens as an +educational reformer. He has done more than any one else to secure for +the child considerate treatment of his tender age. Dickens stands +apart and alone as one of the most potent influences of social reform +in the nineteenth century, and therefore deserves to be read and +studied by all who have to do with schools, and by all parents +everywhere in our day and generation." Professor Hughes asserts that +"Dickens was the most profound exponent of the kindergarten and the +most comprehensive student of childhood that England has yet +produced." The book brings into connected form, under proper headings, +the educational principles of this most sympathetic friend of +children. + +"Mr. James L. Hughes has just published a book that will rank as one +of the finest appreciations of Dickens ever written."--_Colorado +School Journal._ + +"Mr. Hughes has brought together in an interesting and most effective +manner the chief teachings of Dickens on educational subjects. His +extracts make the reader feel again the reality of Dickens's +descriptions and the power of the appeal that he made for a saner, +kindlier, more inspiring pedagogy, and thus became, through his +immense vogue, one of the chief instrumentalities working for the new +education."--_Wisconsin Journal of Education._ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and +Hygiene, by G. Stanley Hall + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION *** + +This file should be named 7yuth10.txt or 7yuth10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7yuth11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7yuth10a.txt + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Shawn Wheeler and Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene + +Author: G. Stanley Hall + +Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9173] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on September 10, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION *** + + + + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Shawn Wheeler and Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +YOUTH + +ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE + + +BY +G. STANLEY HALL, Ph.D., LL.D. +President of Clark University and +Professor of Psychology +And Pedagogy + + + +PREFACE + + +I have often been asked to select and epitomize the practical and +especially the pedagogical conclusions of my large volumes on +Adolescence, published in 1904, in such form that they may be +available at a minimum cost to parents, teachers, reading circles, +normal schools, and college classes, by whom even the larger volumes +have been often used. This, with the coöperation of the publishers and +with the valuable aid of Superintendent C.N. Kendall of Indianapolis, +I have tried to do, following in the main the original text, with only +such minor changes and additions as were necessary to bring the topics +up to date, and adding a new chapter on moral and religions education. +For the scientific justification of my educational conclusions I must, +of course, refer to the larger volumes. The last chapter is not in +"Adolescence," but is revised from a paper printed elsewhere. I am +indebted to Dr. Theodore L. Smith of Clark University for verification +of all references, proof-reading, and many minor changes. + +G. STANLEY HALL. + + + +CONTENTS + + +I.--PRE-ADOLESCENCE + +Introduction: Characterization of the age from eight to twelve--The +era of recapitulating the stages of primitive human development--Life +close to nature--The age also for drill, habituation, memory work, and +regermination--Adolescence superposed upon this stage of life, but +very distinct from it + + +II.--THE MUSCLES AND MOTOR POWERS IN GENERAL + +Muscles as organs of the will, of character, and even of thought--The +muscular virtues--Fundamental and accessory muscles and functions--The +development of the mind and of the upright position--Small muscles as +organs of thought--School lays too much stress upon these--Chorea--Vast +numbers of automatic movements in children--Great variety of +spontaneous activities--Poise, control, and spurtiness--Pen and tongue +wagging--Sedentary school life vs. free out-of-door activities--Modern +decay of muscles, especially in girls--Plasticity of motor habits at +puberty + + +III.--INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. + +Trade classes and schools, their importance in the international +market--Our dangers and the superiority of German workmen--The effects +of a tariff--Description of schools between the kindergarten and the +industrial school--Equal salaries for teachers in France--Dangers from +machinery--The advantages of life on the old New England farm--Its +resemblance to the education we now give negroes and Indians--Its +advantage for all-sided muscular development + + +IV.--MANUAL TRAINING AND SLOYD. + +History of the movement--Its philosophy--The value of hand training in +the development of the brain and its significance in the making of +man--A grammar of our many industries hard--The best we do can reach +but few--Very great defects in manual training methods which do not +base on science and make nothing salable--The Leipzig system--Sloyd is +hypermethodic--These crude peasant industries can never satisfy +educational needs--The gospel of work; William Morris and the arts and +crafts movement--Its spirit desirable--The magic effects of a brief +period of intense work--The natural development of the drawing +instinct in the child + + +V.--GYMNASTICS + +The story of Jahn and the Turners--The enthusiasm which this movement +generated in Germany--The ideal of bringing out latent powers--The +concept of more perfect voluntary control--Swedish gymnastics--Doing +everything possible for the body as a machine--Liberal physical +culture--Ling's orthogenic scheme of economic postures and movements +and correcting defects--The ideal of symmetry and prescribing +exercises to bring the body to a standard--Lamentable lack of +correlation between these four systems--Illustrations of the great +good that a systematic training can effect--Athletic records--Greek +physical training + + +VI.--PLAY, SPORTS, AND GAMES + +The view of Groos partial, and a better explanation of play proposed +as rehearsing ancestral activities--The glory of Greek physical +training, its ideals and results--The first spontaneous movements of +infancy as keys to the past--Necessity of developing basal powers +before those that are later and peculiar to the individual--Plays that +interest due to their antiquity--Play with dolls--Play distinguished +by age--Play preferences of children and their reasons--The profound +significance of rhythm--The value of dancing and also its +significance, history, and the desirability of reintroducing +it--Fighting--Boxing--Wrestling--Bushido--Foot-ball--Military +ideals--Showing off--Cold baths--Hill climbing--The playground +movement--The psychology of play--Its relation to work + + +VII.--FAULTS, LIES, AND CRIMES. + +Classification of children's faults--Peculiar children--Real fault as +distinguished from interference with the teacher's ease--Truancy, its +nature and effects--The genesis of crime--The lie, its classes and +relations to imagination--Predatory activities--Gangs--Causes of +crime--The effects of stories of crime--Temibility--Juvenile crime and +its treatment + + +VIII.--BIOGRAPHIES OF YOUTH. + +Knightly ideals and honor--Thirty adolescents from +Shakespeare--Goethe--C.D. Warner--Aldrich--The fugitive nature of +adolescent experience--Extravagance of autobiographies--Stories that +attach to great names--Some typical crazes--Illustrations from George +Eliot, Edison, Chatterton, Hawthorne, Whittier, Spencer, Huxley, +Lyell, Byron, Heine, Napoleon, Darwin, Martineau, Agassiz, Madame +Roland, Louisa Alcott, F.H. Burnett, Helen Keller, Marie Bashkirtseff, +Mary MacLane, Ada Negri, De Quincey, Stuart Mill, Jefferies, and +scores of others + + +IX.--THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL IDEALS. + +Change from childish to adult friends--Influence of favorite +teachers--What children wish or plan to do or be--Property and the +money sense--Social judgments--The only child--First social +organizations--Student life--Associations for youth controlled by +adults + + +X.--INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION AND SCHOOL WORK. + +The general change and plasticity at puberty--English teaching--Causes +of its failure, (1) too much time to other languages, (2) +subordination of literary content to form, (3) too early stress on eye +and hand instead of ear and mouth, (4) excessive use of concrete +words--Children's interest in words--Their favorites--Slang--Story +telling--Age of reading crazes--What to read--The historic +sense--Growth of memory span + + +XI.--THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS. + +Equal opportunities of higher education now open--Brings new dangers +to women--Ineradicable sex differences begin at puberty, when the +sexes should and do diverge--Different interests--Sex tension--Girls +more mature than boys at the same age--Radical psychic and +physiological differences between the sexes--The bachelor women--Needed +reconstruction--Food--Sleep--Regimen--Manners--Religion--Regularity-- +The topics for a girls' curriculum--The eternally womanly + + +XII.--MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING. + +Dangers of muscular degeneration and overstimulus of +brain--Difficulties in teaching morals--Methods in Europe--Obedience +to commands--Good habits should be mechanized--Value of scolding--How +to flog aright--Its dangers--Moral precepts and +proverbs--Habituation--Training will through +intellect--Examinations--Concentration--Originality--Froebel and the +naive--First ideas of God--Conscience--Importance of Old and New +Testaments--Sex dangers--Love and religion--Conversion + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +PRE-ADOLESCENCE + + +Introduction: Characterization of the age from eight to twelve--The +era of recapitulating the stages of primitive human development--Life +close to nature--The age also for drill, habituation, memory, work and +regermination--Adolescence superposed upon this stage of life, but +very distinct from it. + +The years from about eight to twelve constitute a unique period of +human life. The acute stage of teething is passing, the brain has +acquired nearly its adult size and weight, health is almost at its +best, activity is greater and more varied than it ever was before or +ever will be again, and there is peculiar endurance, vitality, and +resistance to fatigue. The child develops a life of its own outside +the home circle, and its natural interests are never so independent of +adult influence. Perception is very acute, and there is great immunity +to exposure, danger, accident, as well as to temptation. Reason, true +morality, religion, sympathy, love, and esthetic enjoyment are but +very slightly developed. + +Everything, in short, suggests that this period may represent in the +individual what was once for a very protracted and relatively +stationary period an age of maturity in the remote ancestors of our +race, when the young of our species, who were perhaps pygmoid, shifted +for themselves independently of further parental aid. The qualities +developed during pre-adolescence are, in the evolutionary history of +the race, far older than hereditary traits of body and mind which +develop later and which may be compared to a new and higher story +built upon our primal nature. Heredity is so far both more stable and +more secure. The elements of personality are few, but are well +organised on a simple, effective plan. The momentum of these traits +inherited from our indefinitely remote ancestors is great, and they +are often clearly distinguishable from those to be added later. Thus +the boy is father of the man in a new sense, in that his qualities are +indefinitely older and existed, well compacted, untold ages before the +more distinctly human attributes were developed. Indeed there are a +few faint indications of an earlier age node, at about the age of six, +as if amid the instabilities of health we could detect signs that this +may have been the age of puberty in remote ages of the past. I have +also given reasons that lead me to the conclusion that, despite its +dominance, the function of sexual maturity and procreative power is +peculiarly mobile up and down the age-line independently of many of +the qualities usually so closely associated with it, so that much that +sex created in the phylum now precedes it in the individual. + +Rousseau would leave prepubescent years to nature and to these primal +hereditary impulsions and allow the fundamental traits of savagery +their fling till twelve. Biological psychology finds many and cogent +reasons to confirm this view _if only a proper environment could be +provided_. The child revels in savagery; and if its tribal, predatory, +hunting, fishing, fighting, roving, idle, playing proclivities could +be indulged in the country and under conditions that now, alas! seem +hopelessly ideal, they could conceivably be so organized and directed +as to be far more truly humanistic and liberal than all that the best +modern school can provide. Rudimentary organs of the soul, now +suppressed, perverted, or delayed, to crop out in menacing forms +later, would be developed in their season so that we should be immune +to them in maturer years, on the principle of the Aristotelian +catharsis for which I have tried to suggest a far broader application +than the Stagirite could see in his day. + +These inborn and more or less savage instincts can and should be +allowed some scope. The deep and strong cravings in the individual for +those primitive experiences and occupations in which his ancestors +became skilful through the pressure of necessity should not be +ignored, but can and should be, at least partially, satisfied in a +vicarious way, by tales from literature, history, and tradition which +present the crude and primitive virtues of the heroes of the world's +childhood. In this way, aided by his vivid visual imagination, the +child may enter upon his heritage from the past, live out each stage +of life to its fullest and realize in himself all its manifold +tendencies. Echoes only of the vaster, richer life of the remote past +of the race they must remain, but just these are the murmurings of the +only muse that can save from the omnipresent dangers of precocity. +Thus we not only rescue from the danger of loss, but utilize for +further psychic growth the results of the higher heredity, which are +the most precious and potential things on earth. So, too, in our +urbanized hothouse life, that tends to ripen everything before its +time, we must teach nature, although the very phrase is ominous. But +we must not, in so doing, wean still more from, but perpetually incite +to visit, field, forest, hill, shore, the water, flowers, animals, the +true homes of childhood in this wild, undomesticated stage from which +modern conditions have kidnapped and transported him. Books and +reading are distasteful, for the very soul and body cry out for a more +active, objective life, and to know nature and man at first hand. +These two staples, stories and nature, by these informal methods of +the home and the environment, constitute fundamental education. + +But now another remove from nature seems to be made necessary by the +manifold knowledges and skills of our highly complex civilization. We +should transplant the human sapling, I concede reluctantly, as early +as eight, but not before, to the schoolhouse with its imperfect +lighting, ventilation, temperature. We must shut out nature and open +books. The child must sit on unhygienic benches and work the tiny +muscles that wag the tongue and pen, and let all the others, which +constitute nearly half its weight, decay. Even if it be prematurely, +he must be subjected to special disciplines and be apprenticed to the +higher qualities of adulthood; for he is not only a product of nature, +but a candidate for a highly developed humanity. To many, if not most, +of the influences here there can be at first but little inner +response. Insight, understanding, interest, sentiment, are for the +most part only nascent; and most that pertains to the true kingdom of +mature manhood is embryonic. The wisest requirements seem to the child +more or less alien, arbitrary, heteronomous, artificial, falsetto. +There is much passivity, often active resistance and evasion, and +perhaps spasms of obstinacy, to it all. But the senses are keen and +alert, reactions immediate and vigorous; and the memory is quick, sure +and lasting; and ideas of space, time, and physical causation, and of +many a moral and social licit and non-licit, are rapidly unfolding. +Never again will there be such susceptibility to drill and discipline, +such plasticity to habituation, or such ready adjustment to new +conditions. It is the age of external and mechanical training. +Reading, writing, drawing, manual training, musical technic, foreign +tongues and their pronunciations, the manipulation of numbers and of +geometrical elements, and many kinds of skill have now their golden +hour; and if it passes unimproved, all these can never be acquired +later without a heavy handicap of disadvantage and loss. These +necessities may be hard for the health of body, sense, mind, as well +as for morals; and pedagogic art consists in breaking the child into +them betimes as intensely and as quickly as possible with minimal +strain and with the least amount of explanation or coquetting for +natural interest, and in calling medicine confectionery. This is not +teaching in its true sense so much as it is drill, inculcation, and +regimentation. The method should be mechanical, repetitive, +authoritative, dogmatic. The automatic powers are now at their very +apex, and they can do and bear more than our degenerate pedagogy knows +or dreams of. Here we have something to learn from the schoolmasters +of the past back to the middle ages, and even from the ancients. The +greatest stress, with short periods and few hours, incessant +insistence, incitement, and little reliance upon interest, reason or +work done without the presence of the teacher, should be the guiding +principles for pressure in these essentially formal and, to the child, +contentless elements of knowledge. These should be sharply +distinguished from the indigenous, evoking, and more truly educational +factors described in the last paragraph, which are meaty, +content-full, and relatively formless as to time of day, method, +spirit, and perhaps environment and personnel of teacher, and possibly +somewhat in season of the year, almost as sharply as work differs from +play, or perhaps as the virility of man that loves to command a +phalanx, be a martinet and drill-master, differs from femininity which +excels in persuasion, sympathetic insight, story-telling, and in the +tact that discerns and utilizes spontaneous interests in the young. + +Adolescence is a new birth, for the higher and more completely human +traits are now born. The qualities of body and soul that now emerge +are far newer. The child comes from and harks back to a remoter past; +the adolescent is neo-atavistic, and in him the later acquisitions of +the race slowly become prepotent. Development is less gradual and more +saltatory, suggestive of some ancient period of storm and stress when +old moorings were broken and a higher level attained. The annual rate +of growth in height, weight, and strength is increased and often +doubled, and even more. Important functions, previously non-existent, +arise. Growth of parts and organs loses its former proportions, some +permanently and some for a season. Some of these are still growing in +old age and others are soon arrested and atrophy. The old measures of +dimensions become obsolete, and old harmonies are broken. The range of +individual differences and average errors in all physical measurements +and all psychic tests increases. Some linger long in the childish +stage and advance late or slowly, while others push on with a sudden +outburst of impulsion to early maturity. Bones and muscles lead all +other tissues, as if they vied with each other; and there is frequent +flabbiness or tension as one or the other leads. Nature arms youth for +conflict with all the resources at her command--speed, power of +shoulder, biceps, back, leg, jaw--strengthens and enlarges skull, +thorax, hips, makes man aggressive and prepares woman's frame for +maternity. + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE MUSCLES AND MOTOR POWERS IN GENERAL + + +Muscles as organs of the will, of character and even of thought--The +muscular virtues--Fundamental and accessory muscles and functions--The +development of the mind and of the upright position--Small +muscles as organs of thought--School lays too much stress upon +these--Chorea--vast numbers of automatic movements in children--Great +variety of spontaneous activities--Poise, control and spurtiness--Pen +and tongue wagging--Sedentary school life _vs_ free out-of-door +activities--Modern decay of muscles, especially in girls--Plasticity +of motor habits at puberty. + +The muscles are by weight about forty-three per cent. of the average +adult male human body. They expend a large fraction of all the kinetic +energy of the adult body, which a recent estimate places as high as +one-fifth. The cortical centers for the voluntary muscles extend over +most of the lateral psychic zones of the brain, so that their culture +is brain building. In a sense they are organs of digestion, for which +function they play a very important rôle. Muscles are in a most +intimate and peculiar sense the organs of the will. They have built +all the roads, cities, and machines in the world, written all the +books, spoken all the words, and, in fact, done everything that man +has accomplished with matter. If they are undeveloped or grow relaxed +and flabby, the dreadful chasm between good intentions and their +execution is liable to appear and widen. Character might be in a sense +defined as a plexus of motor habits. To call conduct three-fourths of +life, with Matthew Arnold; to describe man as one-third intellect and +two-thirds will, with Schopenhauer; to urge that man is what he does +or that he is the sum of his movements, with F.W. Robertson; that +character is simply muscle habits, with Maudsley; that the age of art +is now slowly superseding the age of science, and that the artist will +drive out with the professor, with the anonymous author of "Rembrandt +als Erzicher";[1] that history is consciously willed movements, with +Bluntschli; or that we could form no conception of force or energy in +the world but for our own muscular effort; to hold that most thought +involves change of muscle tension as more or less integral to it--all +this shows how we have modified the antique Ciceronian conception +_vivere est cogitari_, [To live is to think] to _vivere est velle_, +[To live is to will] and gives us a new sense of the importance of +muscular development and regimen.[2] + +Modern psychology thus sees in muscles organs of expression for all +efferent processes. Beyond all their demonstrable functions, every +change of attention and of psychic states generally plays upon them +unconsciously, modifying their tension in subtle ways so that they may +be called organs of thought and feeling as well as of will, in which +some now see the true Kantian thing-in-itself the real substance of +the world, in the anthropomorphism of force. Habits even determine the +deeper strata of belief; thought is repressed action; and deeds, not +words, are the language of complete men. The motor areas are closely +related and largely identical with the psychic, and muscle culture +develops brain-centers as nothing else yet demonstrably does. Muscles +are the vehicles of habituation, imitation, obedience, character, and +even of manners and customs. For the young, motor education is +cardinal, and is now coming to due recognition; and, for all, +education is incomplete without a motor side. Skill, endurance, and +perseverance may almost be called muscular virtues; and fatigue, +velleity, caprice, _ennui_, restlessness, lack of control and poise, +muscular faults. + +To understand the momentous changes of motor functions that +characterize adolescence we must consider other than the measurable +aspects of the subject. Perhaps the best scale on which to measure all +normal growth of muscle structure and functions is found in the +progress from fundamental to accessory. The former designates the +muscles and movements of the trunk and large joints, neck, back, hips, +shoulders, knees, and elbows, sometimes called central, and which in +general man has in common with the higher and larger animals. Their +activities are few, mostly simultaneous, alternating and rhythmic, as +of the legs in walking, and predominate in hard-working men and women +with little culture or intelligence, and often in idiots. The latter +or accessory movements are those of the hand, tongue, face, and +articulatory organs, and these may be connected into a long and +greatly diversified series, as those used in writing, talking, +piano-playing. They are represented by smaller and more numerous +muscles, whose functions develop later in life and represent a higher +standpoint of evolution. These smaller muscles for finer movements +come into function later and are chiefly associated with psychic +activity, which plays upon them by incessantly changing their +tensions, if not causing actual movement. It is these that are so +liable to disorder in the many automatisms and choreic tics we see in +school children, especially if excited or fatigued. General paralysis +usually begins in the higher levels by breaking these down, so that +the first symptom of its insidious and never interrupted progress is +inability to execute the more exact and delicate movements of tongue +or hand, or both. Starting with the latest evolutionary level, it is a +devolution that may work downward till very many of the fundamental +activities are lost before death. + +Nothing better illustrates this distinction than the difference +between the fore foot of animals and the human hand. The first begins +as a fin or paddle or is armed with a hoof, and is used solely for +locomotion. Some carnivora with claws use the fore limb also for +holding well as tearing, and others for digging. Arboreal life seems +to have almost created the simian hand and to have wrought a +revolution in the form and use of the forearm and its accessory +organs, the fingers. Apes and other tree-climbing creatures must not +only adjust their prehensile organ to a wide variety of distances and +sizes of branches, but must use the hands more or less freely for +picking, transporting, and eating fruit; and this has probably been a +prime factor in lifting man to the erect position, without which human +intelligence as we know it could have hardly been possible. "When we +attempt to measure the gap between man and the lower animals in terms +of the form of movement, the wonder is no less great than when we use +the term of mentality."[3] The degree of approximation to human +intelligence in anthropoid animals follows very closely the degree of +approximation to human movements. + +The gradual acquirement of the erect position by the human infant +admirably repeats this long phylogenetic evolution.[4] At first the +limbs are of almost no use in locomotion, but the fundamental trunk +muscles with those that move the large joints are more or less +spasmodically active. Then comes creeping, with use of the hip +muscles, while all below the knee is useless, as also are the fingers. +Slowly the leg and foot are degraded to locomotion, slowly the great +toe becomes more limited in its action, the thumb increases in +flexibility and strength of opposition, and the fingers grow more +mobile and controllable. As the body slowly assumes the vertical +attitude, the form of the chest changes till its greatest diameter is +transverse instead of from front to back. The shoulder-blades are less +parallel than in quadrupeds, and spread out till they approximate the +same plane. This gives the arm freedom of movement laterally, so that +it can be rotated one hundred and eighty degrees in man as contrasted +to one hundred degrees in apes, thus giving man the command of almost +any point within a sphere of which the two arms are radii. The power +of grasping was partly developed from and partly added to the old +locomotor function of the fore limbs; the jerky aimless automatisms, +as well as the slow rhythmic flexion and extension of the fingers and +hand, movements which are perhaps survivals of arboreal or of even +earlier aquatic life, are coördinated; and the bilateral and +simultaneous rhythmic movements of the heavier muscles are +supplemented by the more finely adjusted and specialized activities +which as the end of the growth period is approached are determined +less by heredity and more by environment. In a sense, a child or a man +is the sum total of his movements or tendencies to move; and nature +and instinct chiefly determine the basal, and education the accessory +parts of our activities. + +The entire accessory system is thus of vital importance for the +development of all of the arts of expression. These smaller muscles +might almost be called organs of thought. Their tension is modified +with the faintest change of soul, such as is seen in accent, +inflection, facial expressions, handwriting, and many forms of +so-called mind-reading, which, in fact, is always muscle-reading. The +day-laborer of low intelligence, with a practical vocabulary of not +over five hundred words, who can hardly move each of his fingers +without moving others or all of them, who can not move his brows or +corrugate his forehead at will, and whose inflection is very +monotonous, illustrates a condition of arrest or atrophy of this +later, finer, accessory system of muscles. On the other hand, the +child, precocious in any or all of these later respects, is very +liable to be undeveloped in the larger and more fundamental parts and +functions. The full unfoldment of each is, in fact, an inexorable +condition precedent for the normal development to full and abiding +maturity of the higher and more refined muscularity, just as +conversely the awkwardness and clumsiness of adolescence mark a +temporary loss of balance in the opposite direction. If this general +conception be correct, then nature does not finish the basis of her +pyramid in the way Ross, Mercier, and others have assumed, but lays a +part of the foundation and, after carrying it to an apex, normally +goes back and adds to the foundation to carry up the apex still higher +and, if prevented from so doing, expends her energy in building the +apex up at a sharper angle till instability results. School and +kindergarten often lay a disproportionate strain on the tiny accessory +muscles, weighing altogether but a few ounces, that wag the tongue, +move the pen, and do fine work requiring accuracy. But still at this +stage prolonged work requiring great accuracy is irksome and brings +dangers homologous to those caused by too much fine work in the +kindergarten before the first adjustment of large to small muscles, +which lasts until adolescence, is established. Then disproportion +between function and growth often causes symptoms of chorea. The chief +danger is arrest of the development and control of the smaller +muscles. Many occupations and forms of athletics, on the contrary, +place the stress mainly upon groups of fundamental muscles to the +neglect of finer motor possibilities. Some who excel in heavy +athletics no doubt coarsen their motor reactions, become not only +inexact and heavy but unresponsive to finer stimuli, as if the large +muscles were hypertrophied and the small ones arrested. On the other +hand, many young men, and probably more young women, expend too little +of their available active energy upon basal and massive muscle work, +and cultivate too much, and above all too early, the delicate +responsive work. This is, perhaps, the best physiological +characterization of precocity and issues in excessive nervous and +muscular irritability. The great influx of muscular vigor that unfolds +during adolescent years and which was originally not only necessary to +successful propagation, but expressive of virility, seems to be a very +plastic quantity, so that motor regimen and exercise at this stage is +probably more important and all-conditioning for mentality, sexuality, +and health than at any other period of life. Intensity, and for a time +a spurty diathesis, is as instinctive and desirable as are the copious +minor automatisms which spontaneously give the alphabet out of which +complex and finer motor series are later spelled by the conscious +will. Mercier and others have pointed out that, as most skilled labor, +so school work and modern activities in civilized life generally lay +premature and disproportionate strains upon those kinds of movement +requiring exactness. Stress upon basal movements is not only +compensating but is of higher therapeutic value against the disorders +of the accessory system; it constitutes the best core or prophylactic +for fidgets and tense states, and directly develops poise, control, +and psycho-physical equilibrium. Even when contractions reach choreic +intensity the best treatment is to throw activities down the scale +that measures the difference between primary and secondary movements +and to make the former predominate. + +The number of movements, the frequency with which they are repeated, +their diversity, the number of combinations, and their total kinetic +quantum in young children, whether we consider movements of the body +as a whole, fundamental movements of large limbs, or finer accessory +motions, is amazing. Nearly every external stimulus is answered by a +motor response. Dresslar[5] observed a thirteen months' old baby for +four hours, and found, to follow Preyer's classification, impulsive or +spontaneous, reflex, instinctive, imitative, inhibitive, expressive, +and even deliberative movements, with marked satisfaction in rhythm, +attempts to do almost anything which appealed to him, and almost +inexhaustible efferent resources. A friend has tried to record every +word uttered by a four-year-old girl during a portion of a day, and +finds nothing less than verbigerations. A teacher noted the activities +of a fourteen-year-old boy during the study time of a single school +day[6], with similar results. + +Lindley[7] studied 897 common motor automatisms in children, which he +divided into 92 classes: 45 in the region of the head, 20 in the feet +and legs, 19 in the hands and fingers. Arranged in the order of +frequency with which each was found, the list stood as follows: +fingers, feet, lips, tongue, head, body, hands, mouth, eyes, jaws, +legs, forehead, face, arms, ears. In the last five alone adolescents +exceeded children, the latter excelling the former most in those of +head, mouth, legs, and tongue, in this order. The writer believes that +there are many more automatisms than appeared in his returns. + +School life, especially in the lower grades, is a rich field for the +study of these activities. They are familiar, as licking things, +clicking with the tongue, grinding the teeth, scratching, tapping, +twirling a lock of hair or chewing it, biting the nails (Bérillon's +onychophagia), shrugging, corrugating, pulling buttons or twisting +garments, strings, etc., twirling pencils, thumbs, rotating, nodding +and shaking the head, squinting and winking, swaying, pouting and +grimacing, scraping the floor, rubbing hands, stroking, patting, +flicking the fingers, wagging, snapping the fingers, muffling, +squinting, picking the face, interlacing the fingers, cracking the +joints, finger plays, biting and nibbling, trotting the leg, sucking +things, etc. + +The average number of automatisms per 100 persons Smith found to be in +children 176, in adolescents 110. Swaying is chiefly with children; +playing and drumming with the fingers is more common among +adolescents; the movements of fingers and feet decline little with +age, and those of eyes and forehead increase, which is significant for +the development of attention. Girls excel greatly in swaying, and +also, although less, in finger automatism; and boys lead in movements +of tongue, feet, and hands. Such movements increase, with too much +sitting, intensity of effort, such as to fix attention, and vary with +the nature of the activity willed, but involve few muscles directly +used in a given task. They increase up the kindergarten grades and +fall off rapidly in the primary grades; are greater with tasks +requiring fine and exact movements than with those involving large +movements. Automatisms are often a sign of the difficulty of tasks. +The restlessness that they often express is one of the commonest signs +of fatigue. They are mostly in the accessory muscles, while those of +the fundamental muscles (body, legs, and arms) disappear rapidly with +age; those of eye, brow, and jaw show greatest increase with age, but +their frequency in general declines with growing maturity, although +there is increased frequency of certain specialized contractions, +which indicate the gradual settling of expression in the face. + +Often such movements pass over by insensible gradation into the morbid +automatism of chorea, and in yet lower levels of decay we see them in +the aimless picking and plucking movements of the fingers of the sick. +In idiots[8] arrest of higher powers often goes with hypertrophy of +these movements, as seen in head-beaters (as if, just as nature impels +those partially blind to rub the eyes for "light-hunger," so it +prompts the feeble-minded to strike the head for cerebrations), +rockers, rackers, shakers, biters, etc. Movements often pass to fixed +attitudes and postures of limbs or body, disturbing the normal balance +between flexors and extensors, the significance of which as nerve +signs or exponents of habitual brain states and tensions Warner has so +admirably shown. + +Abundance and vigor of automatic movements are desirable, and even a +considerable degree of restlessness is a good sign in young children. +Many of what are now often called nerve signs and even choreic +symptoms, the fidgetiness in school on cloudy days and often after a +vacation, the motor superfluities of awkwardness, embarrassment, +extreme effort, excitement, fatigue, sleepiness, etc., are simply the +forms in which we receive the full momentum of heredity and mark a +natural richness of the raw material of intellect, feeling, and +especially of will. Hence they must be abundant. All parts should act +in all possible ways at first and untrammeled by the activity of all +other parts and functions. Some of these activities are more essential +for growth in size than are later and more conscious movements. Here +as everywhere the rule holds that powers themselves must be unfolded +before the ability to check or even to use them can develop. All +movements arising from spontaneous activity of nerve cells or centers +must be made in order even to avoid the atrophy of disease. Not only +so, but this purer kind of innateness must often be helped out to some +extent in some children by stimulating reflexes; a rich and wide +repertory of sensation must be made familiar; more or less and very +guarded, watched and limited experiences of hunger, thirst, cold, +heat, tastes, sounds, smells, colors, brightnesses, tactile +irritations, and perhaps even occasional tickling and pain to play off +the vastly complex function of laughing, crying, etc., may in some +cases be judicious. Conscious and unconscious imitation or repetition +of every sort of copy may also help to establish the immediate and +low-level connection between afferent and efferent processes that +brings the organism into direct _rapport_ and harmony with the whole +world of sense. Perhaps the more rankly and independently they are +developed to full functional integrity, each in its season, if we only +knew that season, the better. Premature control by higher centers, or +coördination into higher compounds of habits and ordered serial +activities, is repressive and wasteful, and the mature will of which +they are components, or which must at least domesticate them, is +stronger and more forcible if this serial stage is not unduly +abridged. + +But, secondly, many, if not most, of these activities when developed a +little, group after group, as they arise, must be controlled, checked, +and organized into higher and often more serial compounds. The +inhibiting functions are at first hard. In trying to sit still the +child sets its teeth, holds the breath, clenches its fists and perhaps +makes every muscle tense with a great effort that very soon exhausts. +This repressive function is probably not worked from special nervous +centers, nor can we speak with confidence of collisions with "sums of +arrest" in a sense analogous to that of Herbart, or of stimuli that +normally cause catabolic molecular processes in the cell, being +mysteriously diverted to produce increased instability or anabolic +lability in the sense of Wundt's _Mechanik der Nerven_. The concept +now suggested by many facts is that inhibition is irradiation or long +circuiting to higher and more complex brain areas, so that the energy, +whether spontaneous or reflex, is diverted to be used elsewhere. These +combinations are of a higher order, more remote from reflex action, +and modified by some Jacksonian third level.[9] Action is now not from +independent centers, but these are slowly associated, so that +excitation may flow off from one point to any other and any reaction +may result from any stimulus. + +The more unified the brain the less it suffers from localization, and +the lower is the level to which any one function can exhaust the +whole. The tendency of each group of cells to discharge or overflow +into those of lower tension than themselves increases as +correspondence in time and space widens. The more one of a number of +activities gains in power to draw on all the brain, or the more +readily the active parts are fed at cost of the resting parts, the +less is rest to be found in change from one of these activities to +another, and the less do concentration and specialization prove to be +dangerous. Before, the aim was to wake all parts to function; now it +is to connect them. Intensity of this cross-section activity now tends +to unity, so that all parts of the brain energize together. In a brain +with this switchboard function well organized, each reaction has grown +independent of its own stimulus and may result from any stimulation, +and each act, e.g., a finger movement of a peculiar nature, may tire +the whole brain. This helps us to understand why brain-workers so +often excel laborers not only in sudden dynamometric strength test, +but in sustained and long-enduring effort. In a good brain or in a +good machine, power may thus be developed over a large surface, and +all of it applied to a small one, and hence the dangers of +specialization are lessened in exact proportion as the elements of our +ego are thus compacted together. It is in the variety and delicacy of +these combinations and all that they imply, far more than in the +elements of which they are composed, that man rises farthest above the +higher animals; and of these powers later adolescence is the golden +age. The aimless and archaic movements of infancy, whether massive and +complex or in the form of isolated automatic tweaks or twinges, are +thus, by slow processes of combined analysis and synthesis, involving +changes as radical as any in all the world of growth, made over into +habits and conduct that fit the world of present environment. + +But, thirdly, this long process carried out with all degrees of +completeness may be arrested at any unfinished stage. Some automatisms +refuse to be controlled by the will, and both they and it are often +overworked. Here we must distinguish constantly between (1) those +growing rankly in order to be later organized under the will, and (2) +those that have become feral after this domestication of them has lost +power from disease or fatigue, and (3) those that have never been +subjugated because the central power that should have used them to +weave the texture of willed action--the proper language of complete +manhood--was itself arrested or degenerate. With regard to many of +these movements these distinctions can be made with confidence, and in +some children more certainly than in others. In childhood, before +twelve, the efferent patterns should be developed into many more or +less indelible habits, and their colors set fast. Motor specialties +requiring exactness and grace like piano-playing, drawing, writing, +pronunciation of a foreign tongue, dancing, acting, singing, and a +host of virtuosities, must be well begun before the relative arrest of +accessory growth at the dawn of the ephebic regeneration and before +its great afflux of strength. The facts seem to show that children of +this age, such as Hancock[10] described, who could not stand with feet +close together and eyes closed without swaying much, could not walk +backward, sit still half a minute, dress alone, tie two ends of a +string together, interlace slats, wind thread, spin a top, stand on +toes or heels, hop on each foot, drive a nail, roll a hoop, skate, hit +fingers together rapidly in succession beginning at the little finger +and then reversing, etc., are the very ones in whom automatisms are +most marked or else they are those constitutionally inert, dull, or +uneducable. + +In children these motor residua may persist as characteristic features +of inflection, accent, or manners; automatisms may become morbid in +stammering or stuttering, or they may be seen in gait, handwriting, +tics or tweaks, etc. Instead of disappearing with age, as they should, +they are seen in the blind as facial grimaces uncorrected by the +mirror or facial consciousness, in the deaf as inarticulate noises; +and they may tend to grow monstrous with age as if they were +disintegrated fragments of our personality, split off and aborted, or +motor parasites leaving our psycho-physic ego poorer in energy and +plasticity of adaptation, till the distraction and anarchy of the +individual nature becomes conspicuous and pathetic. + +At puberty, however, when muscle habits are so plastic, when there is +a new relation between quantity or volume of motor energy and +qualitative differentiation, and between volitional control and reflex +activities, these kinetic remnants strongly tend to shoot together +into wrong aggregates if right ones are not formed. Good manners and +correct motor form generally, as well as skill, are the most economic +ways of doing things; but this is the age of wasteful ways, +awkwardness mannerisms, tensions that are a constant leakage of vital +energy, perhaps semi-imperative acts, contortions, quaint movements, +more elaborated than in childhood and often highly anesthetic and +disagreeable, motor coördinations that will need laborious +decomposition later. The avoidable factor in their causation is, with +some modification, not unlike that of the simpler feral movements and +faulty attitudes, carriage, and postures in children; viz., some form +of overpressure or misfit between environment and nature. As during +the years from four to eight there is great danger that overemphasis +of the activities of the accessory muscles will sow the seeds of +chorea, or aggravate predispositions to it, now again comes a greatly +increased danger, hardly existing from eight to twelve, that +overprecision, especially if fundamental activities are neglected, +will bring nervous strain and stunting precocity. This is again the +age of the basal, e.g., hill-climbing muscle, of leg and back and +shoulder work, and of the yet more fundamental heart, lung, and chest +muscles. Now again, the study of a book, under the usual conditions of +sitting in a closed space and using pen, tongue, and eye combined, has +a tendency to overstimulate the accessory muscles. This is especially +harmful for city children who are too prone to the distraction of +overmobility at an age especially exposed to maladjustment of motor +income and expenditure; and it constitutes not a liberal or +power-generating, but a highly and prematurely specialized, narrowing, +and weakening education unless offset by safeguards better than any +system of gymnastics, which is at best artificial and exaggerated. + +As Bryan well says, "The efficiency of a machine depends so far as we +know upon the maximum force, rate, amplitude, and variety of direction +of its movements and upon the exactness with which below these maxima +the force, rate, amplitude, and direction of the movements can be +controlled." The motor efficiency of a man depends upon his ability in +all these respects. Moreover, the education of the small muscles and +fine adjustments of larger ones is as near mental training as physical +culture can get; for these are the thought-muscles and movements, and +their perfected function is to reflect and express by slight +modifications of tension and tone every psychic change. Only the brain +itself is more closely and immediately an organ of thought than are +these muscles and their activity, reflex, spontaneous, or imitative in +origin. Whether any of them are of value, as Lindley thinks, in +arousing the brain to activity, or as Müller suggests, in drawing off +sensations or venting efferent impulses that would otherwise distract, +we need not here discuss. If so, this is, of course, a secondary and +late function--nature's way of making the best of things and utilizing +remnants. + +With these facts and their implications in mind we can next pass to +consider the conditions under which the adolescent muscles best +develop. Here we confront one of the greatest and most difficult +problems of our age. Changes in modern motor life have been so vast +and sudden as to present some of the most comprehensive and +all-conditioning dangers that threaten civilized races. Not only have +the forms of labor been radically changed within a generation or two, +but the basal activities that shaped the body of primitive man have +been suddenly swept away by the new methods of modern industry. Even +popular sports, games, and recreations, so abundant in the early life +of all progressive peoples, have been reduced and transformed; and the +play age, that once extended on to middle life and often old age, has +been restricted. Sedentary life in schools and offices, as we have +seen, is reducing the vigor and size of our lower limbs. Our industry +is no longer under hygienic conditions; and instead of being out of +doors, in the country, or of highly diversified kinds, it is now +specialized, monotonous, carried on in closed spaces, bad air, and +perhaps poor light, especially in cities. The diseases and arrest bred +in the young by life in shops, offices, factories, and schools +increase. Work is rigidly bound to fixed hours, uniform standards, +stints and piece-products; and instead of a finished article, each +individual now achieves a part of a single process and knows little of +those that precede or follow. Machinery has relieved the large basal +muscles and laid more stress upon fine and exact movements that +involve nerve strain. The coarser forms of work that involve hard +lifting, carrying, digging, etc., are themselves specialized, and +skilled labor requires more and more brain-work. It has been estimated +that "the diminution of manual labor required to do a given quantity +of work in 1884 as compared with 1870 is no less than 70 per +cent."[11] Personal interest in and the old native sense of +responsibility for results, ownership and use of the finished +products, which have been the inspiration and soul of work in all the +past, are in more and more fields gone. Those who realize how small a +proportion of the young male population train or even engage in +amateur sports with zest and regularity, how very few and picked men +strive for records, and how immediate and amazing are the results of +judicious training, can best understand how far below his +possibilities as a motor being the average modern man goes through +life, and how far short in this respect he falls from fulfilling +nature's design for him. + +For unnumbered generations primitive man in the nomad age wandered, +made perhaps annual migrations, and bore heavy burdens, while we ride +relatively unencumbered. He tilled the reluctant soil, digging with +rude implements where we use machines of many man-power. In the stone, +iron, and bronze age, he shaped stone and metals, and wrought with +infinite pains and effort, products that we buy without even knowledge +of the processes by which they are made. As hunter he followed game, +which, when found, he chased, fought, and overcame in a struggle +perhaps desperate, while we shoot it at a distance with little risk or +effort. In warfare he fought hand to hand and eye to eye, while we +kill "with as much black powder as can be put in a woman's thimble." +He caught and domesticated scores of species of wild animals and +taught them to serve him; fished with patience and skill that +compensated his crude tools, weapons, implements, and tackle; danced +to exhaustion in the service of his gods or in memory of his forebears +imitating every animal, rehearsing all his own activities in mimic +form to the point of exhaustion, while we move through a few figures +in closed spaces. He dressed hides, wove baskets which we can not +reproduce, and fabrics which we only poorly imitate by machinery, made +pottery which set our fashions, played games that invigorated body and +soul. His courtship was with feats of prowess and skill, and meant +physical effort and endurance. + +Adolescent girls, especially in the middle classes, in upper grammar +and high school grades, during the golden age for nascent muscular +development, suffer perhaps most of all in this respect. Grave as are +the evils of child labor, I believe far more pubescents in this +country now suffer from too little than from too much physical +exercise, while most who suffer from work do so because it is too +uniform, one-sided, accessory, or performed under unwholesome +conditions, and not because it is excessive in amount. Modern industry +has thus largely ceased to be a means of physical development and +needs to be offset by compensating modes of activity. Many +labor-saving devices increase neural strain, so that one of the +problems of our time is how to preserve and restore nerve energy. +Under present industrial systems this must grow worse and not better +in the future. Healthy natural industries will be less and less open +to the young. This is the new situation that now confronts those +concerned for motor education, if they would only make good what is +lost. + +Some of the results of these conditions are seen in average +measurements of dimensions, proportions, strength, skill, and control. +Despite the excellence of the few, the testimony of those most +familiar with the bodies of children and adults, and their physical +powers, gives evidence of the ravages of modern modes of life that, +without a wide-spread motor revival, can bode only degeneration for +our nation and our race. The number of common things that can not be +done at all; the large proportion of our youth who must be exempted +from any kinds of activity or a great amount of any; the thin limbs, +collapsed shoulders or chests, the bilateral asymmetry, weak hearts, +lungs, eyes, puny and bad muddy or pallid complexions, tired ways, +automatism, dyspeptic stomachs, the effects of youthful error or of +impoverished heredity, delicate and tender nurture, often, alas, only +too necessary, show the lamentable and cumulative effects of long +neglect of the motor abilities, the most educable of all man's powers, +and perhaps the most important for his well-being. If the unfaithful +stewards of these puny and shameful bodies had again, as in Sparta, to +strip and stand before stern judges and render them account, and be +smitten with a conviction of their weakness, guilty deformity, and +arrest of growth; if they were brought to realize how they are fallen +beings, as weak as stern theologians once deemed them depraved, and +how great their need of physical salvation, we might hope again for a +physical renaissance. Such a rebirth the world has seen but twice or +perhaps thrice, and each was followed by the two or three of the +brightest culture periods of history, and formed an epoch in the +advancement of the kingdom of man. A vast body of evidence could be +collected from the writings of anthropologists showing how superior +unspoiled savages are to civilized man in correct or esthetic +proportions of body, in many forms of endurance of fatigue, hardship, +and power to bear exposure, in the development and preservation of +teeth and hair, in keenness of senses, absence of deformities, as well +as immunity to many of our diseases. Their women are stronger and bear +hardship and exposure, monthly periods and childbirth, better. +Civilization is so hard on the body that some have called it a +disease, despite the arts that keep puny bodies alive to a greater +average age, and our greater protection from contagious and germ +diseases. + +The progressive realization of these tendencies has prompted most of +the best recent and great changes motor-ward in education and also in +personal regimen. Health- and strength-giving agencies have put to +school the large motor areas of the brain, so long neglected, and have +vastly enlarged their scope. Thousands of youth are now inspired with +new enthusiasm for physical development; and new institutions of many +kinds and grades have arisen, with a voluminous literature, unnumbered +specialists, specialties, new apparatus, tests, movements, methods, +and theories; and the press, the public, and the church are awakened +to a fresh interest in the body and its powers. All this is +magnificent, but sadly inadequate to cope with the new needs and +dangers, which are vastly greater. + +[Footnote 1: Dieterich. Göttingen, 1886.] + +[Footnote 2: See Chap. xii.] + +[Footnote 3: F. Burk in From Fundamental to Accessory. Pedagogical +Seminary, Oct., 1898, vol. 6, pp. 5-64.] + +[Footnote 4: Creeping and Walking, by A.W. Trettien. American Journal +of Psychology, October, 1900, vol. 12, pp. 1-57.] + +[Footnote 5: A Morning Observation of a Baby. Pedagogical Seminary, +December 1901, vol. 8, pp. 469-481.] + +[Footnote 6: Kate Carman. Notes on School Activity. Pedagogical +Seminary, March, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 106-117.] + +[Footnote 7: A Preliminary Study of Some of the Motor Phenomena of +Mental Effort. American Journal of Psychology, July, 1896, vol. 7, pp. +491-517.] + +[Footnote 8: G.E. Johnson. Psychology and Pegagogy of Feeble-Minded +Children. Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1895, vol. 3, pp. 246-301.] + +[Footnote 9: Dr. Hughlings Jackson, the eminent English pathologist, +was the first to make practical application of the evolutionary theory +of the nervous system to the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsies and +mental diseases. The practical success of this application was so +great that the Hughlings-Jackson "three-level theory" is now the +established basis of English diagnosis. He conceived the nervous +mechanism as composed of three systems, arranged in the form of a +hierarchy, the higher including the lower, and yet each having a +certain degree of independence. The first level represents the type of +simplest reflex and involuntary movement and is localized in the gray +matter of the spinal cord, medulla, and pons. The second, or middle +level, comprises those structures which receive sensory impulses from +the cells of the lowest level instead of directly from the periphery +or the non-nervous tissues. The motor cells of this middle level also +discharge into the motor mechanisms of the lowest level. Jackson +located these middle level structures in the cortex of the central +convolutions, the basal ganglia and the centers of the special senses +in the cortex. The highest level bears the same relation to the middle +level that it bears to the lowest i.e., no continuous connection +between the highest and the lowest is assumed; the structures of the +middle level mediate between them as a system of relays. According to +this hierarchical arrangement of the nervous system, the lowest level +which is the simplest and oldest "contains the mechanism for the +simple fundamental movements in reflexes and involuntary reactions. +The second level regroups these simple movements by combinations and +associations of cortical structure in wider, more complex mechanisms, +producing a higher class of movements. The highest level unifies the +whole nervous system and, according to Jackson, is the anatomical +basis of mind." + +For a fuller account of this theory see Burk: From Fundamental to +Accessory in the Nervous System and of Movements. Pedagogical +Seminary, October, 1898, vol. 6, pp. 17-23.] + +[Footnote 10: A Preliminary Study of Some of the Motor Phenomena of +Mental Effort. American Journal of Psychology, July, 1896, vol. 7, pp. +491-517.] + +[Footnote 11: Encyclopedia of Social Reform, Funk and Wagnalls, 1896, +p. 1095] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION + + +Trade classes and schools, their importance in the international +market--Our dangers and the superiority of German workmen--The effects +of a tariff--Description of schools between the kindergarten and the +industrial school--Equal salaries for teachers in France--Dangers from +machinery--The advantages of life on the old New England farm--Its +resemblance to the education we now give negroes and Indians--Its +advantage for all-sided muscular development. + +We must glance at a few of the best and most typical methods of +muscular development, following the order: industrial education, +manual training, gymnastics, and play, sports, and games. + +Industrial education is now imperative for every nation that would +excel in agriculture, manufacture, and trade, not only because of the +growing intensity of competition, but because of the decline of the +apprentice system and the growing intricacy of processes, requiring +only the skill needed for livelihood. Thousands of our youth of late +have been diverted from secondary schools to the monotechnic or trade +classes now established for horology, glass-work, brick-laying, +carpentry, forging, dressmaking, cooking, typesetting, bookbinding, +brewing, seamanship, work in leather, rubber, horticulture, gardening, +photography, basketry, stock-raising, typewriting, stenography and +bookkeeping, elementary commercial training for practical preparation +for clerkships, etc. In this work not only is Boston, our most +advanced city, as President Pritchett[1] has shown in detail, far +behind Berlin, but German workmen and shopmen a slowly taking the best +places even in England; and but for a high tariff, which protects our +inferiority, the competitive pressure would be still greater. In +Germany, especially, this training is far more diversified than here, +always being colored if not determined by the prevalent industry of +the region and more specialised and helped out by evening and even +Sunday classes in the school buildings, and by the still strong +apprentice system. Froebelian influence in manual training reaches +through the eight school years and is in some respects better than +ours in lower grades, but is very rarely coeducational, girls' work of +sewing, knitting, crocheting, weaving, etc., not being considered +manual training. There are now over 1,500 schools and workshops in +Germany where manual training is taught; twenty-five of these are +independent schools. The work really began in 1875 with v. Kass, and +is promoted by the great Society for Boys' Handwork. Much stress is +laid on paper and pasteboard work in lower grades, under the influence +of Kurufa of Darmstadt. Many objects for illustrating science are +made, and one course embraces the Seyner water-wheel.[2] + +In France it is made more effective by the equal salaries of teachers +everywhere, thus securing better instruction in the country. +Adolescence is the golden period for acquiring the skill that comes by +practice, so essential in the struggle for survival. In general this +kind of motor education is least of all free, but subservient to the +tool, machine, process, finished product, or end in view; and to these +health and development are subordinated, so that they tend to be ever +more narrow and special. The standard here is maximal efficiency of +the capacities that earn. It may favor bad habitual attitudes, +muscular development of but one part, excessive large or small +muscles, involve too much time or effort, unhealthful conditions, +etc., but it has the great advantage of utility, which is the +mainspring of all industry. In a very few departments and places this +training has felt the influence of the arts and crafts movement and +has been faintly touched with the inspiration of beauty. While such +courses give those who follow them marked advantage over those who do +not, they are chiefly utilitarian and do little to mature or unfold +the physical powers, and may involve arrest or degeneration. + +Where not one but several or many professes are taught, the case is +far better. Of all work-schools, a good farm is probably the best for +motor development. This is due to its great variety of occupations, +healthful conditions, and the incalculable phyletic reënforcement from +immemorial times. I have computed some three-score industries[3] as +the census now classifies them; that were more or less generally known +and practiced sixty years ago in a little township, which not only in +this but in other respects has many features of an ideal educational +environment for adolescent boys, combining as it does not only +physical and industrial, but civil and religious elements in wise +proportions and with pedagogic objectivity, and representing the ideal +of such a state of intelligent citizen voters as was contemplated by +the framers of our Constitution. + +Contrast this life with that of a "hand" in a modern shoe factory, who +does all day but one of the eighty-one stages or processes from a +tanned hide to a finished shoe, or of a man in a shirt shop who is one +of thirty-nine, each of whom does as piece-work a single step +requiring great exactness, speed, and skill, and who never knows how a +whole shirt is made, and we shall see that the present beginning of a +revival of interest in muscular development comes none too early. So +liberal is muscular education of this kind that its work in somewhat +primitive form has been restored and copied many features by many +educational institutions for adolescents, of the Abbotsholme type and +grade, and several others, whose purpose is to train for primitive +conditions of colonial life. Thousands of school gardens have also +been lately developed for lower grades, which have given a new impetus +to the study of nature. Farm training at its best instills love of +country, ruralizes taste, borrows some of its ideals from Goethe's +pedagogic province, and perhaps even from Gilman's pie-shaped +communities, with villages at the center irradiating to farms in all +directions. In England, where by the law of primogeniture holdings are +large and in few hands, this training has never flourished, as it has +greatly in France, where nearly every adult male may own land and a +large proportion will come to do so. So of processes. As a student in +Germany I took a few lessons each of a bookbinder, a glassblower, a +shoemaker, a plumber, and a blacksmith, and here I have learned in a +crude way the technique of the gold-beater and old-fashioned +broom-maker, etc., none of which come amiss in the laboratory; and I +am proud that I can still mow and keep my scythe sharp, chop, plow, +milk, churn, make cheese and soap, braid a palm-leaf hat complete, +knit, spin and even "put in a piece" in an old-fashioned hand loom, +and weave frocking. But thus pride bows low before the pupils of our +best institutions for negroes, Indians, and juvenile delinquents, +whose training is often in more than a score of industries and who +to-day in my judgment receive the best training in the land, if judged +by the annual growth in mind, morals, health, physique, ability, and +knowledge, all taken together. Instead of seeking soft, ready-made +places near home, such education impels to the frontier, to strike out +new careers, to start at the bottom and rise by merit, beginning so +low that every change must be a rise. Wherever youth thus trained are +thrown, they land like a cat on all-fours and are armed _cap-à-pie_ +for the struggle of life. Agriculture, manufacture, and commerce are +the bases of national prosperity; and on them all professions, +institutions, and even culture, are more and more dependent, while the +old ideals of mere study and brain-work are fast becoming obsolete. We +really retain only the knowledge we apply. We should get up interest +in new processes like that of a naturalist in new species. Those who +leave school at any age or stage should be best fitted to take up +their life work instead of leaving unfitted for it, aimless and +discouraged. Instead of dropping out limp and disheartened, we should +train "struggle-for-lifeurs," in Daudet's phrase, and that betimes, so +that the young come back to it not too late for securing the best +benefits, after having wasted the years best fitted for it in +profitless studies or in the hard school of failure. By such methods +many of our flabby, undeveloped, anemic, easy-living city youth would +be regenerated in body and spirit. Some of the now oldest, richest, +and most famous schools of the world were at first established by +charity for poor boys who worked their way, and such institutions have +an undreamed-of future. No others so well fit for a life of +respectable and successful muscle work, and perhaps this should be +central for all at this stage. This diversity of training develops the +muscular activities rendered necessary by man's early development, +which were so largely concerned with food, shelter, clothing, making +and selling commodities necessary for life, comfort and safety. The +natural state of man is not war, hot peace; and perhaps Dawson[4] is +right in thinking that three-fourths of man's physical activities in +the past have gone into such vocations. Industry has determined the +nature and trend of muscular development; and youth, who have pets, +till the soil, build, manufacture, use tools, and master elementary +processes and skills, are most truly repeating the history of the +race. This, too, lays the best foundation for intellectual careers. +The study of pure science, as well as its higher technology, follows +rather than precedes this. In the largest sense this is the order of +nature, from fundamental and generalized to finer accessory and +specialized organs and functions; and such a sequence best weeds out +and subordinates automatisms. The age of stress in most of these kinds +of training is that of most rapid increment of muscular power, as we +have seen in the middle and later teens rather than childhood, as some +recent methods have mistakenly assumed; and this prepolytechnic work, +wherever and in whatever degree it is possible, is a better adjunct of +secondary courses than manual training, the sad fact being that, +according to the best estimates, only a fraction of one per cent of +those who need this training in this country are now receiving it. + +[Footnote 1: The Place of Industrial and Technical Training in Public +Education. Technology Review, January, 1902, vol. 4, pp. 10-37.] + +[Footnote 2: See an article by Dr. H.E. Kock, Education, December, +1902, vol. 23, pp. 193-203.] + +[Footnote 3: See my Boy Life in a Massachusetts Country Town Forty +Years Ago. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1906, vol. 13, pp. 192-207.] + +[Footnote 4: The Muscular Activities Rendered Necessary by Man's Early +Environment, American Physical Education Review, June, 1902, vol. 7, +pp. 80-85.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +MANUAL TRAINING AND SLOYD + + +History of the movement--Its philosophy--The value of hand training in +the development of the brain and its significance in the making of +man--A grammar of our many industries hard--The best we do can reach +but few--Very great defects in our manual training methods which do +not base on science and make nothing salable--The Leipzig +system--Sloyd is hypermethodic--These crude peasant industries can +never satisfy educational needs--The gospel of work, William Morris +and the arts and crafts movement--Its spirit desirable--The magic +effects of a brief period of intense work--The natural development of +the drawing instinct in the child. + +Manual training has many origins; but in its now most widely accepted +form it came to us more than a generation ago from Moscow, and has its +best representation here in our new and often magnificent +manual-training high schools and in many courses in other public +schools. This work meets the growing demand of the country for a more +practical education, a demand which often greatly exceeds the +accommodations. The philosophy, if such it may be called, that +underlies the movement, is simple, forcible, and sound, and not unlike +Pestalozzi's "_keine Kentnisse ohne Fertigkeiten_," [No knowledge +without skill] in that it lessens the interval between thinking and +doing; helps to give control, dexterity, and skill an industrial trend +to taste; interests many not successful in ordinary school; tends to +the better appreciation of good, honest work; imparts new zest for +some studies; adds somewhat to the average length of the school +period; gives a sense of capacity and effectiveness, and is a useful +preparation for a number of vocations. These claims are all well +founded, and this work is a valuable addition to the pedagogic +agencies of any country or state. As man excels the higher anthropoids +perhaps almost as much in hand power as in mind, and since the manual +areas of the brain are wide near the psychic zones, and the cortical +centers are thus directly developed, the hand is a potent instrument +in opening the intellect as well as in training sense and will. It is +no reproach to these schools that, full as they are, they provide for +but an insignificant fraction of the nearly sixteen millions or twenty +per cent of the young people of the country between fifteen and +twenty-four. + +When we turn to the needs of these pupils, the errors and limitations +of the method are painful to contemplate. The work is essentially +manual and offers little for the legs, where most of the muscular +tissues of the body lie, those which respond most to training and are +now most in danger of degeneration at this age; the back and trunk +also are little trained. Consideration of proportion and bilateral +asymmetry are practically ignored. Almost in proportion as these +schools have multiplied, the rage for uniformity, together with +motives of economy and administrative efficiency on account of +overcrowding, have made them rigid and inflexible, on the principle +that as the line lengthens the stake must be strengthened. This is a +double misfortune; for the courses were not sufficiently considered at +first and the plastic stage of adaptation was too short, while the +methods of industry have undergone vast changes since they were given +shape. There are now between three and four hundred occupations in the +census, more than half of these involving manual work, so that never +perhaps was there so great a pedagogic problem as to make these +natural developments into conscious art, to extract what may be called +basal types. This requires an effort not without analogy to +Aristotle's attempt to extract from the topics of the marketplace the +underlying categories eternally conditioning all thought, or to +construct a grammar of speech. Hardly an attempt worthy the name, not +even the very inadequate one of a committee, has been made in this +field to study the conditions and to meet them. Like Froebel's gifts +and occupations, deemed by their author the very roots of human +occupations in infant form, the processes selected are underived and +find their justification rather in their logical sequence and +coherence than in being true norms of work. If these latter be +attainable at all, it is not likely that they will fit so snugly in a +brief curriculum, so that its simplicity is suspicious. The wards of +the keys that lock the secrets of nature and human life are more +intricate and mazy. As H.T. Bailey well puts it in substance, a master +in any art-craft must have a fourfold equipment: 1. Ability to grasp +an idea and embody it. 2. Power to utilize all nerve, and a wide +repertory of methods, devices, recipes, discoveries, machines, etc. 3. +Knowledge of the history of the craft. 4. Skill in technical +processes. American schools emphasize chiefly only the last. + +The actual result is thus a course rich in details representing wood +and iron chiefly, and mostly ignoring other materials; the part of the +course treating of the former, wooden in its teachings and distinctly +tending to make joiners, carpenters, and cabinet-makers; that of the +latter, iron in its rigidity and an excellent school for smiths, +mechanics, and machinists. These courses are not liberal because they +hardly touch science, which is rapidly becoming the real basis of +every industry. Almost nothing that can be called scientific knowledge +is required or even much favored, save some geometrical and mechanical +drawing and its implicates. These schools instinctively fear and +repudiate plain and direct utility, or suspect its educational value +or repute in the community because of this strong bias toward a few +trades. This tendency also they even fear, less often because +unfortunately trade-unions in this country sometimes jealously suspect +it and might vote down supplies, than because the teachers in these +schools were generally trained in older scholastic and even classic +methods and matter. Industry is everywhere and always for the sake of +the product, and to cut loose from this as if it were a contamination +is a fatal mistake. To focus on process only, with no reference to the +object made, is here an almost tragic case of the sacrifice of content +to form, which in all history has been the chief stigma of +degeneration in education. Man is a tool-using animal; but tools are +always only a means to an end, the latter prompting even their +invention. Hence a course in tool manipulation only, with persistent +refusal to consider the product lest features of trade-schools be +introduced, has made most of our manual-training high schools ghastly, +hollow, artificial institutions. Instead of making in the lower grades +certain toys which are masterpieces of mechanical simplification, as +tops and kites, and introducing such processes as glass-making and +photography, and in higher grades making simple scientific apparatus +more generic than machines, to open the great principles of the +material universe, all is sacrificed to supernormalized method. + +As in all hypermethodic schemes, the thought side is feeble. There is +no control of the work of these schools by the higher technical +institutions such as the college exercises over the high school, so +that few of them do work that fits for advanced training or is thought +best by technical faculties. In most of its current narrow forms, +manual training will prove to be historically, as it is educationally, +extemporized and tentative, and will soon be superseded by broader +methods and be forgotten and obsolete, or cited only as a low point of +departure from which future progress will loom up. + +Indeed in more progressive centers, many new departures are now in the +experimental stage. Goetze at Leipzig, as a result of long and +original studies and trials, has developed courses in which pasteboard +work and modeling are made of equal rank with wood and iron, and he +has connected them even with the kindergarten below. In general the +whole industrial life of our day is being slowly explored in the quest +of new educational elements; and rubber, lead, glass, textiles, +metallurgical operations, agriculture, every tool and many machines, +etc., are sure to contribute their choicest pedagogical factors to the +final result. In every detail the prime consideration should be the +nature and needs of the youthful body and will at each age, their +hygiene and fullest development; and next, the closest connection with +science at every point should do the same for the intellect. Each +operation and each tool--the saw, knife, plane, screw, hammer, chisel, +draw-shave, sandpaper, lathe--will be studied with reference to its +orthopedic value, bilateral asymmetry, the muscles it develops, and +the attitudes and motor habits it favors; and uniformity, which in +France often requires classes to saw, strike, plane up, down, right, +left, all together, upon count and command, will give place to +individuality. + +Sloyd has certain special features and claims. The word means skilful, +deft. The movement was organised in Sweden a quarter of a century ago +as an effort to prevent the extinction by machinery of peasant home +industry during the long winter night. Home sloyd was installed in an +institution of its own for training teachers at Nääs. It works in wood +only, with little machinery, and is best developed for children of +from eleven to fifteen. It no longer aims to make artisans; but its +manipulations are meant to be developmental, to teach both sexes not +only to be useful but self-active and self-respecting, and to revere +exactness as a form of truthfulness. It assumes that all and +especially the motor-minded can really understand only what they make, +and that one can work like a peasant and think like a philosopher. It +aims to produce wholes rather than parts like the Russian system, and +to be so essentially educational that, as a leading exponent says, its +best effects would be conserved if the hands were cut off. This change +of its original utilitarianism from the lower to the liberal motor +development of the middle and upper classes and from the land where it +originated to another, has not eliminated the dominant marks of its +origin in its models, the Penates of the sloyd household, the unique +features of which persist like a national school of art, despite +transplantation and transformation.[1] + +Sloyd at its best tries to correlate several series, viz., exercises, +tools, drawing, and models. Each must be progressive, so that every +new step in each series involves a new and next developmental step in +all the others, and all together, it is claimed, fit the order and +degree of development of each power appealed to in the child. Yet +there has been hardly an attempt to justify either the physiological +or the psychological reason of a single step in any of these series, +and the coördination of the series even with each other, to say +nothing of their adaptation to the stages of the child's development. +This, if as pat and complete as is urged, would indeed constitute on +the whole a paragon of all the harmony, beauty, totality in variety, +etc., which make it so magnificent in the admirer's eyes. But the "45 +tools, 72 exercises, 31 models, 15 of which are joints," all learned +by teachers in one school year of daily work and by pupils in four +years, are overmethodic; and such correlation is impossible in so many +series at once. Every dual order, even of work and unfoldment of +powers, is hard enough, since the fall lost us Eden; and woodwork, +could it be upon that of the tree of knowledge itself, incompatible +with enjoying its fruit. Although a philosopher may see the whole +universe in its smallest part, all his theory can not reproduce +educational wholes from fragments of it. The real merits of sloyd have +caused its enthusiastic leaders to magnify its scope and claims far +beyond their modest bounds; and although its field covers the great +transition from childhood to youth, one searches in vain both its +literature and practise for the slightest recognition of the new +motives and methods that puberty suggests. Especially in its partially +acclimatized forms to American conditions, it is all adult and almost +scholastic; and as the most elaborate machinery may sometimes be run +by a poor power-wheel, if the stream be swift and copious enough, so +the mighty rent that sets toward motor education would give it some +degree of success were it worse and less economic of pedagogic +momentum than it is. It holds singularly aloof from other methods of +efferent training and resists coördination with them, and its +provisions for other than hand development are slight. It will be one +of the last to accept its true but modest place as contributing +certain few but precious elements in the greater synthesis that +impends. Indian industries, basketry, pottery, bead, leather, bows and +arrows, bark, etc., which our civilization is making lost arts by +forcing the white man's industries upon red men at reservation schools +and elsewhere, need only a small part of the systemization that +Swedish peasant work has received to develop even greater educational +values; and the same is true of the indigenous household work of the +old New England farm, the real worth and possibilities of which are +only now, and perhaps too late, beginning to be seen by a few +educators. + +This brings us to the arts and crafts movement, originating with +Carlyle's gospel of work and Ruskin's medievalism, developed by +William Morris and his disciples at the Red House, checked awhile by +the ridicule of the comic opera "Patience," and lately revived in some +of its features by Cobden-Sanderson, and of late to some extent in +various centers in this country. Its ideal was to restore the day of +the seven ancient guilds and of Hans Sachs, the poet cobbler, when +conscience and beauty inspired work, and the hand did what machines +only imitate and vulgarize. In the past, which this school of motor +culture harks back to, work, for which our degenerate age lacks even +respect, was indeed praise. Refined men and women have remembered +these early days, when their race was in its prime, as a lost paradise +which they would regain by designing and even weaving tapestries and +muslins; experimenting in vats with dyes to rival Tyrian purple; +printing and binding by hand books that surpass the best of the +Aldine, and Elzevirs; carving in old oak; hammering brass; forging +locks, irons, and candlesticks; becoming artists in burned wood and +leather; seeking old effects of simplicity and solidity in furniture +and decoration, as well as architecture, stained glass, and to some +extent in dress and manners; and all this toil and moil was _ad +majorem gloriam hominis_ [To the greater glory of man] in a new +socialistic state, where the artist, and even the artisan, should take +his rightful place above the man who merely knows. The day of the mere +professor, who deals in knowledge, is gone; and the day of the doer, +who creates, has come. The brain and the hand, too long divorced and +each weak and mean without the other; use and beauty, each alone +vulgar; letters and labor, each soulless without the other, are +henceforth to be one and inseparable; and this union will lift man to +a higher level. The workman in his apron and paper hat, inspired by +the new socialism and the old spirit of chivalry as revived by Scott, +revering Wagner's revival of the old _Deutschenthum_ that was to +conquer _Christenthum_, or Tennyson's Arthurian cycle--this was its +ideal; even as the Jews rekindled their loyalty to the ancient +traditions of their race and made their Bible under Ezra; as we begin +to revere the day of the farmer-citizen, who made our institutions, or +as some of us would revive his vanishing industrial life for the red +man. + +Although this movement was by older men and women and had in it +something of the longing regret of senescence for days that are no +more, it shows us the glory which invests racial adolescence when it +is recalled in maturity, the time when the soul can best appreciate +the value of its creations and its possibilities, and really lives +again in its glamour and finds in it its greatest inspiration. Hence +it has its lessons for us here. A touch, but not too much of it, +should be felt in all manual education, which is just as capable of +idealism as literary education. This gives soul, interest, content, +beauty, taste. If not a polyphrastic philosophy seeking to dignify the +occupation of the workshop by a pretentious Volapük of reasons and +abstract theories, we have here the pregnant suggestion of a +psychological quarry of motives and spirit opened and ready to be +worked. Thus the best forces from the past should be turned on to +shape and reinforce the best tendencies of the present. The writings +of the above gospelers of work not only could and should, but will be +used to inspire manual-training high schools, sloyd and even some of +the less scholastic industrial courses; but each is incomplete without +the other. These books and those that breathe their spirit should be +the mental workshop of all who do tool, lathe, and forge work; who +design and draw patterns, carve or mold; or of those who study how to +shape matter for human uses, and whose aim is to obtain diplomas or +certificates of fitness to teach all such things. The muse of art and +even of music will have some voice in the great synthesis which is to +gather up the scattered, hence ineffective, elements of secondary +motor training, in forms which shall represent all the needs of +adolescents in the order and proportion that nature and growth stages +indicate, drawing, with this end supreme, upon all the resources that +history and reform offer to our selection. All this can never make +work become play. Indeed it will and should make work harder and more +unlike play and of another genus, because the former is thus given its +own proper soul and leads its own distinct, but richer, and more +abounding life. + +I must not close this section without brief mention of two important +studies that have supplied each a new and important determination +concerning laws of work peculiar to adolescence. + +The main telegraphic line requires a speed of over seventy letters per +minute of all whom they will employ. As a sending rate this is not +very difficult and is often attained after two months' practise. This +standard for a receiving rate is harder and later, and inquiry at +schools where it is taught shows that about seventy-five per cent of +those who begin the study fail to reach this speed and so are not +employed. Bryan and Harter[2] explained the rate of improvement in +both sending and receiving, with results represented for one typical +subject in the curve on the following page. + +From the first, sending improves most rapidly and crosses the +dead-line a few months before the receiving rate, which may fall +short. Curves 1 and 2 represent the same student. I have added line 3 +to illustrate the three-fourths who fail. Receiving is far less +pleasant than sending, and years of daily practise at ordinary rates +will not bring a man to his maximum rate; he remains on the low +plateau with no progress beyond a certain point. If forced by stress +of work, danger of being dropped, or by will power to make a prolonged +and intense effort, he breaks through his hidebound rate and +permanently attains a faster pace. This is true at each step, and +every advance seems to cost even more intensive effort than the former +one. At length, for those who go on, the rate of receiving, which is a +more complex process, exceeds that of sending; and the curves of the +above figure would cross if prolonged. The expert receives so much +faster than he sends that abbreviated codes are used, and he may take +eighty to eighty-five words a minute on a typewriter in correct form. + +[Illustration: Letters per Minute x Weeks of Practice.] + +The motor curve seems to asymptotically approach a perhaps +physiological limit, which the receiving curve does not suggest. This +seems a special case of a general though not yet explained law. In +learning a foreign language, speaking is first and easiest, and +hearing takes a late but often sudden start to independence. Perhaps +this holds of every ability. To Bryan this suggests as a hierarchy of +habits, the plateau of little or no improvement, meaning that lower +order habits are approaching their maximum but are not yet automatic +enough to leave the attention free to attack higher order habits. The +second ascent from drudgery to freedom, which comes through +automatism, is often as sudden as the first ascent. One stroke of +attention comes to do what once took many. To attain such effective +speed is not dependent on reaction time. This shooting together of +units distinguishes the master from the man, the genius from the hack. +In many, if not all, skills where expertness is sought, there is a +long discouraging level, and then for the best a sudden ascent, as if +here, too, as we have reason to think in the growth of both the body +as a whole and in that of its parts, nature does make leaps and +attains her ends by alternate rests and rushes. Youth lives along on a +low level of interest and accomplishment and then starts onward, is +transformed, converted; the hard becomes easy; the old life sinks to a +lower stratum; and a new and higher order, perhaps a higher brain +level and functions, is evolved. The practical implication here of the +necessity of hard concentrative effort as a condition of advancement +is re-enforced by a quotation from Senator Stanford on the effect of +early and rather intensive work at not too long periods in training +colts for racing. Let-ups are especially dangerous. He says, "It is +the supreme effort that develops." This, I may add, suggests what is +developed elsewhere, that truly spontaneous attention is conditioned +by spontaneous muscle tension, which is a function of growth, and that +muscles are thus organs of the mind; and also that even voluntary +attention is motivated by the same nisus of development even in its +most adult form, and that the products of science, invention, +discovery, as well as the association plexus of all that was +originally determined in the form of consciousness, are made by +rhythmic alternation of attack, as it moves from point to point +creating diversions and recurrence. + +The other study, although quite independent, is part a special +application and illustration of the same principle. + +At the age of four or five, when they can do little more than +scribble, children's chief interest in pictures is as finished +products; but in the second period, which Lange calls that of artistic +illusion, the child sees in his own work not merely what it +represents, but an image of fancy back of it. This, then, is the +golden period for the development of power to create artistically. The +child loves to draw everything with the pleasure chiefly in the act, +and he cares little for the finished picture. He draws out of his own +head, and not from copy before his eye. Anything and everything is +attempted in bold lines in this golden age of drawing. If he followed +the teacher, looked carefully and drew what he saw, he would be +abashed at his production. Indians, conflagrations, games, brownies, +trains, pageants, battles--everything is graphically portrayed; but +only the little artist himself sees the full meaning of his lines. +Criticism or drawing strictly after nature breaks this charm, since it +gives place to mechanical reproduction in which the child has little +interest. Thus awakens him from his dream to a realization that he can +not draw, and from ten to fifteen his power of perceiving things +steadily increases and he makes almost no progress in drawing. +Adolescence arouses the creative faculty and the desire and ability to +draw are checked and decline after thirteen or fourteen. The curve is +the plateau which Barnes has described. The child has measured his own +productions upon the object they reproduced and found them wanting, is +discouraged and dislikes drawing. From twelve on, Barnes found drawing +more and more distasteful; and this, too, Lukens found to be the +opinion of our art teachers. The pupils may draw very properly and +improve in technique, but the interest is gone. This is the condition +in which most men remain all their lives. Their power to appreciate +steadily increases. Only a few gifted adolescents about this age begin +a to develop a new zest in production, rivaling that of the period +from five to ten, when their satisfaction is again chiefly in +creation. These are the artists whose active powers dominate. + +Lukens[3] finds in his studies of drawing, that in what he calls his +fourth period of artistic development, there are those "who during +adolescence experience a rebirth of creative power." Zest in creation +then often becomes a stronger incentive to work than any pleasure or +profit to be derived from the finished product, so that in this the +propitious conditions of the first golden age of childhood are +repeated and the deepest satisfaction is again found in the work +itself. At about fourteen or fifteen, which is the transition period, +nascent faculties sometimes develop very rapidly. Lukens[4] draws the +interesting curve shown on the following page. + +[Illustration: Motor, creative or productive power. Sensory or +receptive interest in the finished product.] + +The reciprocity between the power to produce and that to appreciate, +roughly represented in the above curve, likely is true also in the +domain of music, and may be, perhaps, a general law of development. +Certain it is that the adolescent power to apperceive and appreciate +never so far outstrips his power to produce or reproduce as about +midway in the teens. Now impressions sink deepest. The greatest +artists are usually those who paint later, when the expressive powers +are developed, what they have felt most deeply and known best at this +age, and not those who in the late twenties, or still later, have gone +to new environments and sought to depict them. All young people draw +best those objects they love most, and their proficiency should be +some test of the contents of their minds. They must put their own +consciousness into a picture. At the dawn of this stage of +appreciation the esthetic tastes should be stimulated by exposure to, +and instructed in feeling for, the subject-matter of masterpieces; and +instruction in technique, detail, criticism, and learned +discrimination of schools of painting should be given intermittently. +Art should not now be for art's sake, but for the sake of feeling and +character, life, and conduct; it should be adjunct to morals, history, +and literature; and in all, edification should be the goal; and +personal interest, and not that of the teacher, should be the guide. +Insistence on production should be eased, and the receptive +imagination, now so hungry, should be fed and reinforced by story and +all other accessories. By such a curriculum, potential creativeness, +if it exists, will surely be evoked in its own good time. It will, at +first, attempt no commonplace drawing-master themes, but will essay +the highest that the imagination can bode forth. It may be crude and +lame in execution, but it will be lofty, perhaps grand; and if it is +original in consciousness, it will be in effect. Most creative +painters before twenty have grappled with the greatest scenes in +literature or turning points in history, representations of the +loftiest truths, embodiments of the most inspiring ideals. None who +deserve the name of artist copy anything now, and least of all with +objective fidelity to nature; and the teacher that represses or +criticizes this first point of genius, or who can not pardon the grave +faults of technique inevitable at this age when ambition ought to be +too great for power, is not an educator but a repressor, a pedagogic +Philistine committing, like so many of his calling in other fields, +the unpardonable sin against budding promise, always at this age so +easily blighted. Just as the child of six or seven should be +encouraged in his strong instinct to draw the most complex scenes of +his daily life, so now the inner life should find graphic utterance in +all its intricacy up to the full limit of unrepressed courage. For the +great majority, on the other hand, who only appreciate and will never +create, the mind, if it have its rights, will be stored with the best +images and sentiments of art; for at this time they are best +remembered and sink deepest into heart and life. Now, although the +hand may refuse, the fancy paints the world in brightest hues and +fairest forms; and such an opportunity for infecting the soul with +vaccine of ideality, hope, optimism, and courage in adversity, will +never come again. I believe that in few departments are current +educational theories and practises so hard on youth of superior gifts, +just at the age when all become geniuses for a season, very brief for +most, prolonged for some, and permanent for the best. We do not know +how to teach to, see, hear, and feel when the sense centers are most +indelibly impressible, and to give relative rest to the hand during +the years when its power of accuracy is abated and when all that is +good is idealized furthest, and confidence in ability to produce is at +its lowest ebb. + +Finally, our divorce between industrial and manual training is +abnormal, and higher technical education is the chief sufferer. +Professor Thurston, of Cornell, who has lately returned from a tour of +inspection abroad, reported that to equal Germany we now need: "1. +Twenty technical universities, having in their schools of engineering +50 instructors and 500 students each. 2. Two thousand technical high +schools or manual-training schools, each having not less than 200 +students and 10 instructors." If we have elementary trade-schools, +this would mean technical high schools enough to accommodate 700,000 +students, served by 20,000 teachers. With the strong economic +arguments in this direction we are not here concerned; but that there +are tendencies to unfit youth for life by educational method and +matter shown in strong relief from this standpoint, we shall point out +in a later chapter. + +[Footnote 1: This I have elsewhere tried to show in detail. Criticisms +of High School Physics and Manual Training and Mechanic Arts in High +Schools. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 193-204.] + +[Footnote 2: Studies in the Physiology and Psychology of the +Telegraphic Language. Psychological Review, January, 1897, vol. 4, pp. +27-53, and July, 1899, vol. 6, pp. 344-375.] + +[Footnote 3: A Study of Children's Drawings in the Early Years. +Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1896, vol. 4, pp. 79-101. See also +Drawing in the Early Years, Proceedings of the National Educational +Association, 1899, pp. 946-953. Das Kind als Künstler, von C. Götze. +Hamburg, 1898. The Genetic _vs._ the Logical Order in Drawing, by F. +Burk. Pedagogical Seminary, September, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 296-323.] + +[Footnote 4: Die Entwickelungsstufen beim Zeichnen. Die Kinderfehler, +September, 1897, vol. 2, pp. 166-179.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +GYMNASTICS + + +The story of Jahn and the Turners--The enthusiasm which this movement +generated in Germany--The ideal of bringing out latent powers--The +concept of more perfect voluntary control--Swedish gymnastics--Doing +everything possible for the body as a machine--Liberal physical +culture--Ling's orthogenic scheme of economic postures and movements +and correcting defects--The ideal of symmetry and prescribing +exercises to bring the body to a standard--Lamentable lack of +correlation between these four systems--Illustrations of the great +good that a systematic training can effect--Athletic records--Greek +physical training. + +Under the term gymnastics, literally naked exercises, we here include +those denuded of all utilities or ulterior ends save those of physical +culture. This is essentially modern and was unknown in antiquity, +where training was for games, for war, etc. Several ideals underlie +this movement, which although closely related are distinct and as yet +by no means entirely harmonized. These may be described as follows: + +A. One aim of Jahn, more developed by Spiess, and their successors, +was to do everything physically possible for the body as a mechanism. +Many postures and attitudes are assumed and many movements made that +are never called for in life. Some of these are so novel that a great +variety of new apparatus had to be devised to bring them out; and Jahn +invented many new names, some of them without etymologies, to +designate the repertory of his discoveries and inventions that +extended the range of motor life. Common movements, industries, and +even games, train only a limited number of muscles, activities, and +coördinations, and leave more or less unused groups and combinations, +so that many latent possibilities slumber, and powers slowly lapse +through disuse. Not only must these be rescued, but the new nascent +possibilities of modern progressive man must be addressed and +developed. Even the common things that the average untrained youth can +not do are legion, and each of these should be a new incentive to the +trainer as he realizes how very far below their motor possibilities +meet men live. The man of the future may, and even must, do things +impossible in the past and acquire new motor variations not given by +heredity. Our somatic frame and its powers must therefore be carefully +studied, inventoried, and assessed afresh, and a kind and amount of +exercise required that is exactly proportioned, not perhaps to the +size but to the capability of each voluntary muscle. Thus only can we +have a truly humanistic physical development, analogous to the +training of all the powers of the mind in a broad, truly liberal, and +non-professional or non-vocational educational curriculum. The body +will thus have its rightful share in the pedagogic traditions and +inspirations of the renaissance. Thus only can we have a true scale of +standardised culture values for efferent processes; and from this we +can measure the degrees of departure, both in the direction of excess +and defect, of each form of work, motor habit; and even play. Many +modern Epigoni in the wake of this great ideal, where its momentum was +early spent, feeling that new activities might be discovered with +virtues hitherto undreamed of, have almost made fetiches of special +disciplines, both developmental and corrective, that are pictured and +landed in scores of manuals. Others have had expectations no less +excessive in the opposite direction and have argued that the greatest +possible variety of movements best developed the greatest total of +motor energy. Jahn especially thus made gymnastics a special art and +inspired great enthusiasm of humanity, and the songs of his pupils +were of a better race of man and a greater and united fatherland. It +was this feature that made his work unique in the world, and his +disciples are fond of reminding us of the fact that it was just about +one generation of men after the acme of influence of his system that, +in 1870, Germany showed herself the greatest military power since +ancient Rome, and took the acknowledged leadership of the world both +in education and science. + +These theorizations even in their extreme forms have been not only +highly suggestive but have brought great and new enthusiasms and +ideals into the educational world that admirably fit adolescence. The +motive of bringing out latent, decaying, or even new powers, skills, +knacks, and feats, is full of inspiration. Patriotism is aroused, for +thus the country can be better served; thus the German Fatherland was +to be restored and unified after the dark days that followed the +humiliation of Jena. Now the ideals of religion are invoked that the +soul may have a better and regenerated somatic organism with which to +serve Jesus and the Church. Exercise is made a form of praise to God +and of service to man, and these motives are reënforced by those of +the new hygiene which strives for a new wholeness-holiness, and would +purify the body as the temple of the Holy Ghost. Thus in Young Men's +Christian Association training schools and gymnasiums the gospel of +Christianity is preached anew and seeks to bring salvation to man's +physical frame, which the still lingering effects of asceticism have +caused to be too long neglected in its progressive degeneration. As +the Greek games were in honor of the gods, so now the body is trained +to better glorify God; and regimen, chastity, and temperance are given +a new momentum. The physical salvation thus wrought will be, when +adequately written, one of the most splendid chapters in the modern +history of Christianity. Military ideals have been revived in cult and +song to hearten the warfare against evil within and without. Strength +is prayed for as well as worked for, and consecrated to the highest +uses. Last but not least, power thus developed over a large surface +may be applied to athletic contests in the field, and victories here +are valuable as fore-gleams of how sweet the glory of achievements in +higher moral and spiritual tasks will taste later. + +The dangers and sources of error in this ideal of all-sided training +are, alas, only too obvious, although they only qualify its paramount +good. First, it is impossible thus to measure the quanta of training +needed so as rightly to assign to each its modicum and best modality +of training. Indeed no method of doing this has ever been attempted, +but the assessments have been arbitrary and conjectural, probably +right in some and wrong in other respects, with no adequate criterion +or test for either save only empirical experience. Secondly, heredity, +which lays its heavy ictus upon some neglected forms of activity and +fails of all support for others, has been ignored. As we shall see +later, one of the best norms here is phyletic emphasis, and what lacks +this must at best be feeble; and if new powers are unfolding, their +growth must be very slow and they must be nurtured as tender buds for +generations. Thirdly, too little regard is had for the vast +differences in individuals, most of whom need much personal +prescription. + +B. In practise the above ideal is never isolated from others. Perhaps +the most closely associated with it is that of increased volitional +control. Man is largely a creature of habit, and many of his +activities are more or less automatic reflexes from the stimuli of his +environment. Every new power of controlling these by the will frees +man from slavery and widens the field of freedom. To acquire the power +of doing all with consciousness and volition mentalizes the body, +gives control over to higher brain levels, and develops them by +rescuing activities from the dominance of lower centers. Thus _mens +agitat molem._ [Footnote: Mind rules the body.] This end is favored by +the Swedish _commando_ exercises, which require great alertness of +attention to translate instantly a verbal order into an act and also, +although in somewhat less degree, by quick imitation of a leader. The +stimulus of music and rhythm are excluded because thought to interfere +with this end. A somewhat sophisticated form of this goal is sought by +several Delsartian schemes of relaxation, decomposition, and +recomposition of movements. To do all things with consciousness and to +encroach on the field of instinct involves new and more vivid sense +impressions, the range of which is increased directly as that of +motion, the more closely it approaches the focus of attention. By thus +analyzing settled and established coördinations, their elements are +set free and may be organized into new combinations, so that the +former is the first stage toward becoming a virtuoso with new special +skills. This is the road to inner secrets or intellectual rules of +professional and expert successes, such as older athletes often rely +upon when their strength begins to wane. Every untrained automatism +must be domesticated, and every striated muscle capable of direct +muscular control must be dominated by volition. Thus tensions and +incipient contractures that drain off energy can be relaxed by fiat. +Sandow's "muscle dance," the differentiation of movements of the +right and left hand--one, e.g., writing a French madrigal while the +other is drawing a picture of a country dance, or each playing +tunes of disparate rhythm and character simultaneously on the +piano--controlling heart rate, moving the ears, crying, laughing, +blushing, moving the bowels, etc., at will, feats of inhibition of +reflexes, stunts of all kinds, proficiency with many tools, deftness +in sports--these altogether would mark the extremes in this direction. + +This, too, has its inspiration for youth. To be a universal adept like +Hippias suggests Diderot and the encyclopedists in the intellectual +realm. To do all with consciousness is a means to both remedial and +expert ends. Motor life often needs to be made over to a greater or +less extent; and that possibilities of vastly greater accomplishments +exist than are at present realized, is undoubted, even in manners and +morals, which are both at root only motor habits. Indeed consciousness +itself is largely and perhaps wholly corrective in its very essence +and origin. Thus life is adjusted to new environments; and if the +Platonic postulate be correct, that untaught virtues that come by +nature and instinct are no virtues, but must be made products of +reflection and reason, the sphere and need of this principle is great +indeed. But this implies a distrust of physical human nature as +deep-seated and radical as that of Calvinism for the unregenerate +heart, against which modern common sense, so often the best muse of +both psychophysics and pedagogy, protests. Individual prescription is +here as imperative as it is difficult. Wonders that now seem to be +most incredible, both of hurt and help, can undoubtedly be wrought, +but analysis should always be for the sake of synthesis and never be +beyond its need and assured completion. No thoughtful student fully +informed of the facts and tentatives in this field can doubt that here +lies one of the most promising fields of future development, full of +far-reaching and rich results for those, as yet far too few, experts +in physical training, who have philosophic minds, command the facts of +modern psychology, and whom the world awaits now as never before. + +C. Another yet closely correlated ideal is that of economic postures +and movements. The system of Ling is less orthopedic than orthogenic, +although he sought primarily to correct bad attitudes and perverted +growth. Starting from the respiratory and proceeding to the muscular +system, he and his immediate pupils were content to refer to the +ill-shapen bodies of most men about them. One of their important aims +was to relax the flexor and tone up the extensor muscles and to open +the human form into postures as opposite as possible to those of the +embryo, which it tends so persistently to approximate in sitting, and +in fatigue and collapse attitudes generally. The head must balance on +the cervical vertebra and not call upon the muscles of the neck to +keep it from rolling off; the weight of the shoulders must be thrown +back off the thorax; the spine be erect to allow the abdomen free +action; the joints of the thigh extended; the hand and arm supinated, +etc. Bones must relieve muscles and nerves. Thus an erect, +self-respecting carriage must be given, and the unfortunate +association, so difficult to overcome, between effort and an involuted +posture must be broken up. This means economy and a great saving of +vital energy. Extensor action goes with expansive, flexor with +depressive states of mind; hence courage, buoyancy, hope, are favored +and handicaps removed. All that is done with great effort causes wide +irradiation of tensions to the other half of the body and also +sympathetic activities in those not involved; the law of maximal ease +and minimal expenditure of energy must be always striven for, and the +interests of the viscera never lost sight of. This involves educating +weak and neglected muscles, and like the next ideal, often shades over +by almost imperceptible gradation into the passive movements by the +Zander machines. Realizing that certain activities are sufficiently or +too much emphasized in ordinary life, stress is laid upon those which +are complemental to them, so that there is no pretense of taking +charge of the totality of motor processes, the intention being +principally to supplement deficiencies, to insure men against being +warped, distorted, or deformed by their work in life, to compensate +specialties and perform more exactly what recreation to some extent +aims at. + +This wholesome but less inspiring endeavor, which combats one of the +greatest evils that under modern civilization threatens man's physical +weal, is in some respects as easy and practical as it is useful. The +great majority of city bred men, as well as all students, are prone to +deleterious effects from too much sitting; and indeed there is +anatomical evidence in the structure of the tissues, and especially +the blood-vessels of the groins, that, at his best, man is not yet +entirely adjusted to the upright position. So a method that +straightens knees, hips, spine, and shoulders, or combats the +school-desk attitude, is a most salutary contribution to a great and +growing need. In the very act of stretching, and perhaps yawning, for +which much is to be said, nature itself suggests such correctives and +preventives. To save men from being victims of their occupations is +often to add a better and larger half to their motor development. The +danger of the system, which now best represents this ideal, is +inflexibility and overscholastic treatment. It needs a great range of +individual variations if it would do more than increase circulation, +respiration, and health, or the normal functions of internal organs +and fundamental physiological activities. To clothe the frame with +honest muscles that are faithful servants of the will adds not only +strength, more active habits and efficiency, but health; and in its +material installation this system is financially economic. Personal +faults and shortcomings are constantly pointed out where this work is +best represented, and it has a distinct advantage in inciting an +acquaintance with physiology and inviting the larger fields of medical +knowledge. + +D. The fourth gymnastic aim is symmetry and correct proportions. +Anthropometry and average girths and dimensions, strength, etc., of +the parts of the body are first charted in percentile grades; and each +individual is referred to the apparatus and exercises best fitted to +correct weaknesses and subnormalities. The norms here followed are not +the canons of Greek art, but those established by the measurement of +the largest numbers properly grouped by age, weight, height, etc. +Young men are found to differ very widely. Some can lift 1,000 pounds, +and some not 100; some can lift their weight between twenty and forty +times, and some not once; some are most deficient in legs, others in +shoulders, arms, backs, chests. By photography, tape, and scales, each +is interested in his own bodily condition and incited to overcome his +greatest defects; and those best endowed by nature to attain ideal +dimensions and make new records are encouraged along these lines. Thus +this ideal is also largely though not exclusively remedial. + +This system can arouse youth to the greatest pitch of zest in watching +their own rapidly multiplying curves of growth in dimensions and +capacities, in plotting curves that record their own increment in +girths, lifts, and other tests, and in observing the effects of sleep, +food, correct and incorrect living upon a system so exquisitely +responsive to all these influences as are the muscles. To learn to +know and grade excellence and defect, to be known for the list of +things one can do and to have a record, or to realize what we lack of +power to break best records, even to know that we are strengthening +some point where heredity has left us with some shortage and perhaps +danger, the realization of all this may bring the first real and deep +feeling for growth that may become a passion later in things of the +soul. Growth always has its selfish aspects, and to be constantly +passing our own examination in this respect is a new and perhaps +sometimes too self-conscious endeavor of our young college barbarians; +but it is on the whole a healthful regulative, and this form of the +struggle toward perfection and escape from the handicap of birth will +later move upward to the intellectual and moral plane. To kindle a +sense of physical beauty of form in every part, such as a sculptor +has, may be to start youth on the lowest round of the Platonic ladder +that leads up to the vision of ideal beauty of soul, if his ideal be +not excess of brawn, or mere brute strength, but the true proportion +represented by the classic or mean temperance balanced like justice +between all extremes. Hard, patient, regular work, with the right +dosage for this self-cultural end, has thus at the same time a unique +moral effect. + +The dangers of this system are also obvious. Nature's intent can not +be too far thwarted; and as in mental training the question is always +pertinent, so here we may ask whether it be not best in all cases to +some extent, and in some cases almost exclusively, to develop in the +direction in which we most excel, to emphasize physical individuality +and even idiosyncrasy, rather than to strive for monotonous +uniformity. Weaknesses and parts that lag behind are the most easily +overworked to the point of reaction and perhaps permanent injury. +Again, work for curative purposes lacks the exuberance of free sports: +it is not inspiring to make up areas; and therapeutic exercises +imposed like a sentence for the shortcomings of our forebears bring a +whiff of the atmosphere of the hospital, if not of the prison, into +the gymnasium. + +These four ideals, while so closely interrelated, are as yet far from +harmonized. Swedish, Turner, Sargent, and American systems are each, +most unfortunately, still too blind to the others' merits and too +conscious of the others' shortcomings. To some extent they are +prevented from getting together by narrow devotion to a single cult, +aided sometimes by a pecuniary interest in the sale of their own +apparatus and books or in the training of teachers according to one +set of rubrics. The real elephant is neither a fan, a rope, a tree nor +a log, as the blind men in the fable contended, each thinking the part +he had touched to be the whole. This inability of leaders to combine +causes uncertainty and lack of confidence in, and of enthusiastic +support for, any system on the part of the public. Even the radically +different needs of the sexes have failed of recognition from the same +partisanship. All together represent only a fraction of the nature and +needs of youth. The world now demands what this country has never had, +a man who, knowing the human body, gymnastic history, and the various +great athletic traditions of the past, shall study anew the whole +motor field, as a few great leaders early in the last century tried to +do; who shall gather and correlate the literature and experiences of +the past and present with a deep sense of responsibility to the +future; who shall examine martial training with all the inspirations, +warnings, and new demands; and who shall know how to revive the +inspiration of the past animated by the same spirit as the Turners, +who were almost inflamed by referring back to the hardy life of the +early Teutons and trying to reproduce its best features; who shall +catch the spirit of, and make due connections with, popular sports +past and present, study both industry and education to compensate +their debilitating effects, and be himself animated by a great ethical +and humanistic hope and faith in a better future. Such a man, if he +ever walks the earth, will be the idol of youth, will know their +physical secrets, will come almost as a savior to the bodies of men, +and will, like Jahn, feel his calling and work sacred, and his +institution a temple in which every physical act will be for the sake +of the soul. The world of adolescence, especially that part which sits +in closed spaces conning books, groans and travails all the more +grievously and yearningly, because unconsciously, waiting for a +redeemer for its body. Till he appears, our culture must remain for +most a little hollow, falsetto, and handicapped by school-bred +diseases. The modern gymnasium performs its chief service during +adolescence and is one of the most beneficent agencies of which not a +few, but every youth, should make large use. Its spirit should be +instinct with euphoria, where the joy of being alive reaches a point +of high, although not quite its highest, intensity. While the stimulus +of rivalry and even of records is not excluded, and social feelings +may be appealed to by unison exercises and by the club spirit, and +while competitions, tournaments, and the artificial motives of prizes +and exhibitions may be invoked, the culture is in fact largely +individual. And yet in this country the annual _Turnerfest_ brings +4,000 or 5,000 men from all parts of the Union, who sometimes all +deploy and go through some of the standard exercises together under +one leader. Instead of training a few athletes, the real problem now +presented is how to raise the general level of vitality so that +children and youth may be fitted to stand the strain of modern +civilization, resist zymotic diseases, and overcome the deleterious +influences of city life. The almost immediate effects of systematic +training are surprising and would hardly be inferred from the annual +increments tabled earlier in this chapter. Sandow was a rather weakly +boy and ascribes his development chiefly to systematic training. + +We have space but for two reports believed to be typical. Enebuske +reports on the effects of seven months' training on young women +averaging 22.3 years. The figures are based on the 50 percentile +column. + +----------------+--------+----------------------------------+-------- + | | Strength of | + |Lung | | | |right |left |Total + |capacity| legs |back |chest|forearm|forearm|Strength +----------------+--------+------+-----+-----+-------+-------+-------- +Before training | 2.65 | 93 |65.5 | 27 | 26 | 23 | 230 +After six months| 2.87 | 120 |81.5 | 32 | 28 | 25 | 293 +----------------+--------+------+-----+-----+-------+-------+-------- + +By comparing records of what he deems standard normal growth with that +of 188 naval cadets from sixteen to twenty-one, who had special and +systematic training, just after the period of most rapid growth in +height, Beyer concluded that the effect of four years of this added a +little over an inch of stature, and that this gain as greatest at the +beginning. This increase was greatest for the youngest cadets. He +found also a marked increase in weight, nearly the same for each year +from seventeen to twenty one. This he thought more easily influenced +by exercise than height. A high vital index ratio of lung capacity to +weight is a very important attribute of good training. Beyer[1] found, +however, that the addition of lung area gained by exercise did not +keep up with the increase thus caused in muscular substance, and that +the vital index always became smaller in those who had gained weight +and strength by special physical training. How much gain in weight is +desirable beyond the point where the lung capacity increases at an +equal rate is unknown. If such measurements were applied to the +different gymnastic systems, we might be able to compare their +efficiency, which would be a great desideratum in view of the +unfortunate rivalry between them. Total strength, too, can be greatly +increased. Beyer thinks that from sixteen to twenty-one it may exceed +the average or normal increment fivefold, and he adds, "I firmly +believe that the now so wonderful performances of most of our strong +men are well within the reach of the majority of healthy men, if such +performances were a serious enough part of their ambition +to make them do the exercises necessary to develop them." Power of the +organs to respond to good training by increased strength probably +reaches well into middle life. + +It is not encouraging to learn that, according to a recent writer,[2] +we now have seventy times as many physicians in proportion to the +general population as there are physical directors, even for the +school population alone considered. We have twice as many physicians +per population as Great Britain, four times a many as Germany, or 2 +physicians, 1.8 ministers, 1.4 lawyers per thousand of the general +population; while even if all male teachers of physical training +taught only males of the military age, we should have but 0.05 of a +teacher per thousand, or if the school population alone be considered, +20 teachers per million pupils. Hence, it is inferred that the need of +wise and classified teachers in this field is at present greater than +in any other. But fortunately while spontaneous, unsystematic exercise +in a well-equipped modern gymnasium may in rare cases do harm, so far +from sharing the prejudice often felt for it by professional trainers, +we believe that free access to it without control or direction is +unquestionably a boon to youth. Even if its use be sporadic and +occasional, as it is likely to be with equal opportunity for +out-of-door exercises and especially sports, practise is sometimes +hygienic almost inversely to its amount, while even lameness from +initial excess has its lessons, and the sense of manifoldness of +inferiorities brought home by experiences gives a wholesome +self-knowledge and stimulus. + +In this country more than elsewhere, especially in high school and +college, gymnasium work has been brought into healthful connection +with field sports and record competitions for both teams and +individuals who aspire to championship. This has given the former a +healthful stimulus although it is felt only by a picked few. Scores of +records have been established for running, walking, hurdling, +throwing, putting, swimming, rowing, skating, etc., each for various +shorter and longer distances and under manifold conditions, and for +both amateurs and professionals, who are easily accessible. These, in +general, show a slow but steady advance in this country since 1876, +when athletics were established here. In that year there was not a +single world's best record held by an American amateur, and +high-school boys of to-day could in most, though not in all lines, +have won the American championship twenty-five years ago. Of course, +in a strict sense, intercollegiate contests do not show the real +advance in athletics, because it is not necessary for a man in order +to win a championship to do his best; but they do show general +improvement. + +We select for our purpose a few of those records longest kept. Not +dependent on external conditions like boat-racing, or on improved +apparatus like bicycling, we have interesting data of a very different +order for physical measurements. These down to present writing--July, +1906--are as follows: For the 100-yard dash, every annual record from +1876 to 1895 is 10 or 11 seconds, or between these, save in 1890, +where Owen's record of 9-4/5 seconds still stands. In the 220-yard run +there is slight improvement since 1877, but here the record of 1896 +(Wefers, 21-1/5 seconds) has not been surpassed. In the quarter-mile +run, the beet record was in 1900 (Long, 47 seconds). The half-mile +record, which still stands, was made in 1895 (Kilpatrick, 1 minute +52-2/5 seconds); the mile run in 1895 (Conneff, 4 minutes 15-3/5 +seconds). The running broad jump shows a very steady improvement, with +the best record in 1900 (Prinstein, 24 feet 7-1/4 inches). The running +high jump shows improvement, but less, with the record of 1895 still +standing (Sweeney, 6 feet 5-5/8 inches). The record for pole vaulting, +corrected to November, 1905, is 12 feet 132/100 inches (Dole); for +throwing the 16-pound hammer head, 100 feet 5 inches (Queckberner); +for putting the 16-pound shot, 49 feet 6 inches (Coe, 1905); the +standing high jump, 5 feet 5-1/2 inches (Ewry); for the running high +jump, 6 feet 5-5/8 inches (Sweeney). We also find that if we extend +our purview to include all kinds of records for physical achievement, +that not a few of the amateur records for activities involving +strength combined with rapid rhythm movement are held by young men of +twenty or even less. + +In putting the 16-pound shot under uniform conditions the record has +improved since the early years nearly 10 feet (Coe, 49 feet 6 inches, +best at present writing, 1906). Pole vaulting shows a very marked +advance culminating in 1904 (Dole, 12 feet 132/100 inches). Most +marked of all perhaps is the great advance in throwing the 16-pound +hammer. Beginning between 70 and 80 feet in the early years, the +record is now 172 feet 11 inches (Flanagan, 1904). The two-mile +bicycle race also shows marked gain, partly, of course, due to +improvement in the wheel, the early records being nearly 7 minutes, +and the best being 2 minutes 19 seconds (McLean, 1903). Some of these +are world records, and more exceed professional records.[3] These, of +course, no more indicate general improvement than the steady reduction +of time in horse-racing suggests betterment in horses generally. + +In Panhellenic games as well as at present, athleticism in its +manifold forms was one of the most characteristic expressions of +adolescent nature and needs. Not a single time or distance record of +antiquity has been preserved, although Grasberger[4] and other writers +would have us believe that in those that are comparable, ancient +youthful champions greatly excelled ours, especially in leaping and +running. While we are far from cultivating mere strength, our training +is very one-sided from the Greek norm of unity or of the ideals that +develop the body only for the salve of the soul. While gymnastics in +our sense, with apparatus, exercises, and measurements independently +of games was unknown, the ideal and motive were as different from ours +as was its method. Nothing, so far as is known, was done for +correcting the ravages of work, or for overcoming hereditary defects; +and until athletics degenerated there were Do exercises for the sole +purpose of developing muscle. + +On the whole, while modern gymnastics has done more for the trunk, +shoulders, and arms than for the legs, it is now too selfish and +ego-centric, deficient on the side of psychic impulsion, and but +little subordinated to ethical or intellectual development. Yet it +does a great physical service to all who cultivate it, and is a +safeguard of virtue and temperance. Its need is radical revision and +coordination of various cults and theories in the light of the latest +psycho-physiological science. + +Gymnastics allies itself to biometric work. The present academic zeal +for physical development is in great need of closer affiliation with +anthropometry. This important and growing department will be +represented in the ideal gymnasium of the future--First, by courses, +if not by a chair, devoted to the apparatus of measurements of human +proportions and symmetry, with a kinesological cabinet where young men +are instructed in the elements of auscultation, the use of calipers, +the sphygmograph, spirometer, plethysmograph, kinesometer to plot +graphic curves, compute average errors, and tables of percentile +grades and in statistical methods, etc. Second, anatomy, especially of +muscles, bones, heart, and skin, will be taught, and also their +physiology, with stress upon myology, the effects of exercise on the +flow of blood and lymph, not excluding the development of the upright +position, and all that it involves and implies. Third, hygiene will be +prominent and comprehensive enough to cover all that pertains to +body-keeping, regimen, sleep, connecting with school and domestic and +public hygiene--all on the basis of modern as distinct from the +archaic physiology of Ling, who, it is sufficient to remember, died in +1839, before this science was recreated, and the persistence of whose +concepts are an anomalous survival to-day. Mechanico-therapeutics, the +purpose and service of each chief kind of apparatus and exercise, the +value of work on stall bars with chest weights, of chinning, use of +the quarter-staff, somersaults, rings, clubs, dumb-bells, work with +straight and flexed knees on machinery, etc., will be taught. Fourth, +the history of gymnastics from the time of its highest development in +Greece to the present is full of interest and has a very high and not +yet developed culture value for youth. This department, both in its +practical and theoretical side, should have its full share of prizes +and scholarships to stimulate the seventy to seventy-five per cent of +students who are now unaffected by the influence of athletics. By +these methods the motivation of gymnastics, which now in large measure +goes to waste in enthusiasm, could be utilised to aid the greatly +needed intellectualization of those exercises which in their nature +are more akin to work than play. Indeed, Gutsmuths's first definition +of athletics was "work under the garb of youthful pleasure." So to +develop these courses that they could chiefly, if not entirely, +satisfy the requirements for the A.B. degree, would coordinate the +work of the now isolated curriculum of the training-schools with that +of the college and thus broaden the sphere of the latter; but besides +its culture value, which I hold very high, such a step would prepare +for the new, important, and, as we have seen, very inadequately manned +profession of physical trainers. This has, moreover, great but yet +latent and even unsuspected capacities for the morals of our academic +youth. Grote states that among the ancient Greeks one-half of all +education as devoted to the body, and Galton urges that they as much +excelled us as we do the African negro. They held that if physical +perfection was cultivated, moral and mental excellence would follow; +and that, without this, national culture rests on an insecure basis. +In our day there are many new reasons to believe that the best nations +of the future will be those which give most intelligent care to the +body. + +[Footnote 1: See H.G. Beyer. The Influence of Exercise on Growth. +American Physical Education Review, September-December, 1896, vol. I, +pp. 76-87.] + +[Footnote 2: J.H. McCurdy, Physical Training as a Profession. +Association Seminar, March, 1902, vol. 10, pp. 11-24.] + +[Footnote 3: These records are taken from the World Almanac, 1906, and +Olympic Games of 1906 at Athens. Edited by J.E. Sullivan, Commissioner +from the United States to the Olympic Games. Spalding's Athletic +Library, New York, July, 1906.] + +[Footnote 4: O.H. Jaeger, Die Gymnastik der Hellenen. Heitz, +Stuttgart 1881. L. Grasberger's great standard work, Erziehung und +Untericht im klassischen Alterthum. Würzburg, 1864-81, 3 vols.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +PLAY, SPORTS, AND GAMES + + +The view of Groos partial and a better explanation of play proposed as +rehearsing ancestral activities--The glory of Greek physical training, +its ideals and results--The first spontaneous movements of infancy as +keys to the past--Necessity of developing basal powers before those +that are later and peculiar to the individual--Plays that interest due +to their antiquity--Play with dolls--Play distinguished by age--Play +preferences of children and their reasons--The profound +significance of rhythm--The value of dancing and also its +significance, history, and the desirability of re-introducing +it--Fighting--Boxing--Wrestling--Bushido--Foot-ball--Military +ideals--Showing off--Cold baths--Hill climbing--The playground +movement--The psychology of play--Its relation to work. + +Play, sports, and games constitute a more varied, far older, and more +popular field. Here a very different spirit of joy and gladness rules. +Artifacts often enter but can not survive unless based upon pretty +purely hereditary momentum. Thus our first problem is to seek both the +motor tendencies and the psychic motives bequeathed to us from the +past. The view of Groos that play is practise for future adult +activities is very partial, superficial, and perverse. It ignores the +past where lie the keys to all play activities. True play never +practises what is phyletically new; and this, industrial life often +calls for. It exercises many atavistic and rudimentary functions, a +number of which will abort before maturity, but which live themselves +out in play like the tadpole's tail, that must be both developed and +used as a stimulus to the growth of legs which will otherwise never +mature. In place of this mistaken and misleading view, I regard play +as the motor habits and spirit of the past of the race, persisting in +the present, as rudimentary functions sometimes of and always akin to +rudimentary organs. The best index and guide to the stated activities +of adults in past ages is found in the instinctive, untaught, and +non-imitative plays of children which are the most spontaneous and +exact expressions of their motor needs. The young grow up into the +same forms of motor activity, as did generations that have long +preceded them, only to a limited extent; and if the form of every +human occupation were to change to-day, play would be unaffected save +in some of its superficial imitative forms. It would develop the motor +capacities, impulses, and fundamental forms of our past heritage, and +the transformation of these into later acquired adult forms is +progressively later. In play every mood and movement is instinct with +heredity. Thus we rehearse the activities of our ancestors, back we +know not how far, and repeat their life work in summative and +adumbrated ways. It is reminiscent albeit unconsciously, of our line +of descent; and each is the key to the other. The psycho-motive +impulses that prompt it are the forms in which our forebears have +transmitted to us their habitual activities. Thus stage by stage we +reënact their lives. Once in the phylon many of these activities were +elaborated in the life and death struggle for existence. Now the +elements and combinations oldest in the muscle history of the race are +rerepresented earliest in the individual, and those later follow in +order. This is why the heart of youth goes out into play as into +nothing else, as if in it man remembered a lost paradise. This is why, +unlike gymnastics, play has as much soul as body, and also why it so +makes for unity of body and soul that the proverb "Man is whole only +when he plays" suggests that the purest plays are those that enlist +both alike. To address the body predominantly strengthens unduly the +fleshy elements, and to overemphasize the soul causes weakness and +automatisms. Thus understood, play is the ideal type of exercise for +the young, most favorable for growth, and most self-regulating in both +kind and amount. For its forms the pulse of adolescent enthusiasm +beats highest. It is unconstrained and free to follow any outer or +inner impulse. The zest of it vents and satisfies the strong passion +of youth for intense erethic and perhaps orgiastic states, gives an +exaltation of self-feeling so craved that with no vicarious outlet it +often impels to drink, and best of all realizes the watchword of the +Turners, _frisch, frei, fröhlich, fromm_ [Fresh, free, jovial, +pious.]. + +Ancient Greece, the history and literature of which owe their +perennial charm for all later ages to the fact that they represent the +eternal adolescence of the world, best illustrates what this +enthusiasm means for youth. Jäger and Guildersleeve, and yet better +Grasberger, would have us believe that the Panhellenic and especially +the Olympic games combined many of the best features of a modern prize +exhibition, a camp-meeting, fair, Derby day, a Wagner festival, a +meeting of the British Association, a country cattle show, +intercollegiate games, and medieval tournament; that they were the +"acme of festive life" and drew all who loved gold and glory, and that +night and death never seemed so black as by contrast with their +splendor. The deeds of the young athletes were ascribed to the +inspiration of the gods, whose abodes they lit up with glory; and in +doing them honor these discordant states found a bond of unity. The +victor was crowned with a simple spray of laurel; cities vied with +each other for the honor of having given him birth, their walls were +taken down for his entry and immediately rebuilt; sculptors, for whom +the five ancient games were schools of posture, competed in the +representation of his form; poets gave him a pedigree reaching back to +the gods, and Pindar, who sang that only he is great who is great with +his hands and feet, raised his victory to symbolize the eternal +prevalence of good over evil. The best body implied the best mind; and +even Plato, to whom tradition gives not only one of the fairest souls, +but a body remarkable for both strength and beauty, and for whom +weakness was perilously near to wickedness, and ugliness to sin, +argues that education must be so conducted that the body can be safely +entrusted to the care of the soul and suggests, what later became a +slogan of a more degenerate gladiatorial athleticism, that to be well +and strong is to be a philosopher--_valare est philosophari_. The +Greeks could hardly conceive bodily apart from psychic education, and +physical was for the sake of mental training. A sane, whole mind could +hardly reside in an unsound body upon the integrity of which it was +dependent. Knowledge for its own sake, from this standpoint, is a +dangerous superstition, for what frees the mind is disastrous if it +does not give self-control; better ignorance than knowledge that does +not develop a motor side. Body culture is ultimately only for the sake +of the mind and soul, for body is only its other ego. Not only is all +muscle culture at the same time brain-building, but a book-worm with +soft hands, tender feet, and tough rump from much sitting, or an +anemic girl prodigy, "in the morning hectic, in the evening electric," +is a monster. Play at its best is only a school of ethics. It gives +not only strength but courage and confidence, tends to simplify life +and habits, gives energy, decision, and promptness to the will, brings +consolation and peace of mind in evil days, is a resource in trouble +and brings out individuality. + +How the ideals of physical preformed those of moral and mental +training in the land and day of Socrates is seen in the identification +of knowledge and virtue, "_Kennen und Können_." [To know and to have +the power to do] Only an extreme and one-sided intellectualism +separates them and assumes that it is easy to know and hard to do. +From the ethical standpoint, philosophy, and indeed all knowledge, is +the art of being and doing good, conduct is the only real subject of +knowledge, and there is no science but morals. He is the best man, +says Xenophon, who is always studying how to improve, and he is the +happiest who feels that he is improving. Life is a skill, an art like +a handicraft, and true knowledge a form of will. Good moral and +physical development are more than analogous; and where intelligence +is separated from action the former becomes mystic, abstract, and +desiccated, and the latter formal routine. Thus mere conscience and +psychological integrity and righteousness are allied and mutually +inspiring. + +Not only play, which is the purest expression of motor heredity, but +work and all exercise owe most of whatever pleasure they bring to the +past. The first influence of all right exercise for those in health is +feeling of well-being and exhilaration. This is one chief source of +the strange enthusiasm felt for many special forms of activity, and +the feeling is so strong that it animates many forms of it that are +hygienically unfit. To act vigorously from a full store of energy +gives a reflex of pleasure that is sometimes a passion and may fairly +intoxicate. Animals must move or cease growing and die. While to be +weak is to be miserable, to feel strong is a joy and glory. It gives a +sense of superiority, dignity, endurance, courage, confidence, +enterprise, power, personal validity, virility, and virtue in the +etymological sense of that noble word. To be active, agile, strong, is +especially the glory of young men. Our nature and history have so +disposed our frame that thus all physiological and psychic processes +are stimulated, products of decomposition are washed out by +oxygenation and elimination, the best reaction of all the ganglionic +and sympathetic activities is accused, and vegetative processes are +normalized. Activity may exalt the spirit almost to the point of +ecstasy, and the physical pleasure of it diffuse, irradiate, and +mitigate the sexual stress just at the age when its premature +localization is most deleterious. Just enough at the proper time and +rate contributes to permanent elasticity of mood and disposition, +gives moral self-control, rouses a love of freedom with all that that +great word means, and favors all higher human aspirations. + +In all these modes of developing our efferent powers, we conceive that +the race comes very close to the individual youth, and that ancestral +momenta animate motor neurons and muscles and preside over most of the +combinations. Some of the elements speak with a still small voice +raucous with age. The first spontaneous movements of infancy are +hieroglyphs, to most of which we have as yet no good key. Many +elements are so impacted and felted together that we can not analyze +them. Many are extinct and many perhaps made but once and only hint +things we can not apprehend. Later the rehearsals are fuller, and +their significance more intelligible, and in boyhood and youth the +correspondences are plain to all who have eyes to see. Pleasure is +always exactly proportional to the directness and force of the current +of heredity, and in play we feel most fully and intensely ancestral +joys. The pain of toil died with our forebears; its vestiges in our +play give pure delight. Its variety prompts to diversity that enlarges +our life. Primitive men and animals played, and that too has left its +traces in us. Some urge that work was evolved or degenerated from +play; but the play field broadens with succeeding generations youth is +prolonged, for play is always and everywhere the best synonym of +youth. All are young at play and only in play, and the best possible +characterization of old age is the absence of the soul and body of +play. Only senile and overspecialized tissues of brain, heart, and +muscles know it not. + +Gulick[1] has urged that what makes certain exercises more interesting +than others is to be found in the phylon. The power to throw with +accuracy and speed was once pivotal for survival, and non-throwers +were eliminated. Those who could throw unusually well best overcame +enemies, killed game, and sheltered family. The nervous and muscular +systems are organized with certain definite tendencies and have back +of them a racial setting. So running and dodging with speed and +endurance, and hitting with a club, were also basal to hunting and +fighting. Now that the need of these is leas urgent for utilitarian +purposes, they are still necessary for perfecting the organism. This +makes, for instance, baseball racially familiar, because it represents +activities that were once and for a long time necessary for survival. +We inherit tendencies of muscular coördination that have been of great +racial utility. The best athletic sports and games a composed of these +racially old elements, so that phylogenetic muscular history is of +great importance. Why is it, this writer asks, that a city man so +loves to sit all day and fish! It is because this interest dates back +to time immemorial. We are the sons of fishermen, and early life was +by the water's side, and this is our food supply. This explains why +certain exercises are more interesting than others. It is because they +touch and revive the deep basic emotions of the race. Thus we see that +play is not doing things to be useful later, but it is rehearsing +racial history. Plays and games change only in their external form, +but the underlying neuro-muscular activities, and also the psychic +content of them, are the same. Just as psychic states must be lived +out up through the grades, so the physical activities most be played +off, each in its own time. + +The best exercise for the young should thus be more directed to +develop the basal powers old to the race than those peculiar to the +individual, and it should enforce those psycho-neural and muscular +forms which race habit has banded down rather than insist upon those +arbitrarily designed to develop our ideas of symmetry regardless of +heredity. The best guide to the former is _interest_, zest, and +spontaneity. Hereditary moment, really determine, too, the order in +which nerve centers come into function. The oldest, racial parts come +first, and those which are higher and represent volition come in much +later.[2] As Hughlings Jackson has well shown, speech uses most of the +same organs as does eating, but those concerned with the former are +controlled from a higher level of nerve-cells. By right mastication, +deglutition, etc., we are thus developing speech organs. Thus not only +the kind but the time of forms and degrees of exercise is best +prescribed by heredity. All growth is more or less rhythmic. There are +seasons of rapid increment followed by rest and then perhaps succeeded +by a period of augmentation, and this may occur several times. +Roberts's fifth parliamentary report shows that systematic gymnastics, +which, if applied at the right age, produce such immediate and often +surprising development of lung capacity, utterly fail with boys of +twelve, because this nascent period has not yet come. Donaldson showed +that if the eyelid of a young kitten be forced open prematurely at +birth and stimulated with light, medullation was premature and +imperfect; so, too, if proper exercise is deferred too long, we know +that little result is achieved. The sequence in which the maturation +of levels, nerve areas, and bundles of fibers develop may be, as +Flechsig thinks, causal; or, according to Cajal, energy, originally +employed in growth by cell division, later passes to fiber extension +and the development of latent cells; or as in young children, the +nascent period of finger movements may stimulate that of the thumb +which comes later, and the independent movement of the two eyes, their +subsequent coördination, and so on to perhaps a third and yet higher +level. Thus exercise ought to develop nature's first intention and +fulfil the law of nascent periods, or else not only no good but great +harm may be done. Hence every determination of these periods is of +great practical as well as scientific importance. The following are +the chief attempts yet made to fix them, which show the significance +of adolescence. + +The doll curve reaches its point of highest intensity between eight +and nine,[3] and it is nearly ended at fifteen, although it may +persist. Children can give no better reason why they stop playing with +dolls than because other things are liked better, or they are too old, +ashamed, love real babies, etc. The Roman girl, when ripe for +marriage, hung up her childhood doll as a votive offering to Venus. +Mrs. Carlyle, who was compelled to stop, made sumptuous dresses and a +four-post bed, and made her doll die upon a funeral pyre like Dido, +after speaking her last farewell and stabbing herself with a penknife +by way of Tyrian sword. At thirteen or fourteen it is more distinctly +realized that dolls are not real, because they have no inner life or +feeling, yet many continue to play with them with great pleasure, in +secret, till well on in the teens or twenties. Occasionally single +women or married women with no children, and in rare cases even those +who have children, play dolls all their lives. Gales's[4] student +concluded that the girls who played with dolls up to or into pubescent +years were usually those who had the fewest number, that they played +with them in the most realistic manner, kept them because actually +most fond of them, and were likely to be more scientific, steady, and +less sentimental than those who dropped them early. But the instinct +that "dollifies" new or most unfit things is gone, as also the subtle +points of contact between doll play and idolatry. Before puberty dolls +are more likely to be adults; after puberty they are almost always +children or babies. There is no longer a struggle between doubt and +reality in the doll cosmos, no more abandon to the doll illusion; but +where it lingers it is a more atavistic rudiment, and just as at the +height of the fever dolls are only in small part representatives of +future children, the saying that the first child is the last doll is +probably false. Nor are doll and child comparable to first and second +dentition, and it is doubtful if children who play with dolls as +children with too great abandonment are those who make the best +mothers later, or if it has any value as a preliminary practise of +motherhood. The number of motor activities that are both inspired and +unified by this form of play and that can always be given wholesome +direction is almost incredible, and has been too long neglected both +by psychologists and teachers. Few purer types of the rehearsal by the +individual of the history of the race can probably be found even +though we can not yet analyze the many elements involved and assign to +each its phyletic correlate. + +In an interesting paper Dr. Gulick[5] divides play into three childish +periods, separated by the ages three and seven, and attempts to +characterize the plays of early adolescence from twelve to seventeen and +of later adolescence from seventeen to twenty-three. Of the first two +periods he says, children before seven rarely play games spontaneously, +but often do so under the stimulus of older persons. From seven to +twelve, games are almost exclusively individualistic and competitive, +but in early adolescence "two elements predominate--first, the plays are +predominantly team games, in which the individual is more or less +sacrificed for the whole, in which there is obedience to a captain, in +which there is coöperation among a number for a given end, in which play +has a program and an end. The second characteristic of the period is +with reference to its plays, and there seems to be all of savage +out-of-door life--hunting, fishing, stealing, swimming, rowing, sailing, +fighting, hero-worship, adventure, love of animals, etc. This +characteristic obtains more with boys than with girls." "The plays of +adolescence are socialistic, demanding the heathen virtues of courage, +endurance, self-control, bravery, loyalty, enthusiasm." + +Croswell[6] found that among 2,000 children familiar with 700 kinds of +amusements, those involving physical exercises predominated over all +others, and that "at every age after the eighth year they were +represented as almost two to one and in the sixteenth year rose among +boys as four to one." The age of the greatest number of different +amusements is from ten to eleven, nearly fifteen being mentioned, but +for the next eight or nine years there is a steady decline of number, +and progressive specialisation occurs. The games of chase, which are +suggestive on the recapitulation theory, rise from eleven per cent in +boys of six to nineteen per cent at nine, but soon after decline, and +at sixteen have fallen to less than four per cent. Toys and original +make-believe games decline still earlier, while ball rises steadily +and rapidly to eighteen, and card and table games rise very steadily +from ten to fifteen in girls, but the increment is much less in boys. +"A third or more of all the amusements of boys just entering their +teens are games of contest--games in which the end is in one way or +another to gain an advantage one's fellows, in which the interest is n +the struggle between peers." "As children approach the teens, a +tendency arises that is well expressed by one of the girls who no +longer makes playthings but things that are useful." Parents and +society must, therefore, provide the most favorable conditions for the +kind of amusement fitting at each age. As the child grows older, +society plays a larger rôle in all the child's amusements, and from +the thirteenth year "amusements take on a decidedly coöperative and +competitive character, and efforts are ore and more confined to the +accomplishments of some definite aim. The course for this period will +concentrate the effort upon fewer lines," and more time will be +devoted to each. The desire for mastery is now at its height. The +instinct is to maintain one's self independently and ask no odds. At +fourteen, especially, the impulse is, in manual training, to make +something and perhaps to coöperate. + +McGhee[7] collected the play preferences of 15,718 children, and found +a very steady decline in running plays among girls from nine to +eighteen, but a far more rapid rise in plays of chance from eleven to +fifteen, and a very rapid rise from sixteen to eighteen. From eleven +onward with the most marked fall before fourteen, there was a distinct +decline in imitative games for girls and a slower one for boys. Games +involving rivalry increased rapidly among boys from eleven to sixteen +and still more rapidly among girls, their percentage of preference +even exceeding that of boys at eighteen, when it reached nearly +seventy per cent. With adolescence, specialization upon a few plays +was markedly increased in the teens among boys, whereas with girls in +general there were a large number of plays which were popular with +none preëminent. Even at this age the principle of organization in +games so strong with boys is very slight with girls. Puberty showed +the greatest increase of interest among pubescent girls for croquet, +and among boys for swimming, although baseball and football, the most +favored for boys, rose rapidly. Although the author does not state it, +it would seem from his data that plays peculiar to the different +seasons were most marked among boys, in part, at least, because their +activities are more out of doors. + +Ferrero and others have shown that the more intense activities of +primitive people tend to be rhythmic and with strongly automatic +features. No form of activity is more universal than the dance, which +is not only intense but may express chiefly in terms of fundamental +movements, stripped of their accessory finish and detail, every +important act, vocation, sentiment, or event in the life of man in +language so universal and symbolic that music and poetry themselves +seem to have arisen out of it. Before it became specialized much labor +was cast in rhythmic form and often accompanied by time-marking and +even tone to secure the stimulus of concert on both economic and +social principles. In the dark background of history there is now much +evidence that at some point, play, art, and work were not divorced. +They all may have sprung from rhythmic movement which is so +deep-seated in biology because it secures most joy of life with least +expense. By it Eros of old ordered chaos, and by its judicious use the +human soul is cadenced to great efforts toward high ideals. The many +work-songs to secure concerted action in lifting, pulling, stepping, +the use of flail, lever, saw, ax, hammer, hoe, loom, etc., show that +areas and thesis represent flexion and extension, that accent +originated in the acme of muscular stress, as well as how rhythm eases +work and also makes it social. Most of the old work-canticles are +lost, and machines have made work more serial, while rhythms are +obscured or imposed from without so as to limit the freedom they used +to express. Now all basal, central, or strength movements tend to be +oscillatory, automatically repetitive, or rhythmic like savage music, +as if the waves of the primeval sea whence we came still beat in them, +just as all fine peripheral and late movements tend to be serial, +special, vastly complex, end diversified. It is thus natural that +during the period of greatest strength increment in muscular +development, the rhythmic function of nearly all fundamental movements +should be strongly accentuated. At the dawn of this age boys love +marching; and, as our returns show, there is a very remarkable rise in +the passion for beating time, jigging, double shuffling, rhythmic +clapping, etc. The more prominent the factor of repetition the more +automatic and the less strenuous is the hard and new effort of +constant psychic adjustment and attention. College yells, cheers, +rowing, marching, processions, bicycling, running, tug-of-war, +calisthenics and class gymnastics with counting, and especially with +music, horseback riding, etc., are rhythmic; tennis, baseball and +football, basketball, golf, polo, etc., are less rhythmic, but are +concerted and intense. These latter emphasise the conflict factor, +best brought out in fencing, boxing, and wrestling, and lay more +stress on the psychic elements of attention and skill. The effect of +musical accompaniment, which the Swedish system wrongly rejects, is to +make the exercises more fundamental and automatic, and to +proportionately diminish the conscious effort and relieve the +neuro-muscular mechanism involved in fine movements. + +Adolescence is the golden period of nascency for rhythm. Before this +change many children have a very imperfect sense of it, and even those +who march, sing, play, or read poetry with correct and overemphasised +time marking, experience a great broadening of the horizon of +consciousness, and a marked, and, for mental power and scope, +all-conditioning increase in the carrying power of attention and the +sentence-sense. The soul now feels the beauty of cadences, good +ascension, and the symmetry of well-developed periods--and all, as I +am convinced, because this is the springtime of the strength movements +which are predominantly rhythmic. Not only does music start in time +marking, the drum being the oldest instrument, but quantity long took +precedence of sense and form of content, both melody and words coming +later. Even rhythmic tapping or beating of the foot (whence the poetic +feet of prosody and meter thus later imposed monotonous prose to make +poetry) exhilarates, makes glad the soul and inspires it to attack, +gives compulsion and a sense of unity. The psychology of rhythm shows +its basal value in cadencing the soul. We can not conceive what war, +love, and religion would be without it. The old adage that "the parent +of prose is poetry, the parent of poetry is music, the parent of music +is rhythm, and the parent of rhythm is God" seems borne out not only +in history, but by the nature of thought and attention that does not +move in a continuum, but flies and perches alternately, or on +stepping-stones and as if influenced by the tempo of the leg swinging +as a compound pendulum. + +Dancing is one of the best expressions of pure play and of the motor +needs of youth. Perhaps it is the most liberal of all forms of motor +education. Schopenhauer thought it the apex of physiological +irritability and that it made animal life most vividly conscious of +its existence and most exultant in exhibiting it. In very ancient +times China ritualised it in the spring and made it a large part of +the education of boys after the age of thirteen. Neale thinks it was +originally circular or orbicular worship, which he deems oldest. In +Japan, in the priestly Salic College of ancient Rome, in Egypt, in the +Greek Apollo cult, it was a form of worship. St. Basil advised it; St. +Gregory introduced it into religious services. The early Christian +bishops, called præsuls, led the sacred dance around the altar; and +only in 692, and again in 1617, was it forbidden in church. Neale and +others have shown how the choral processionals with all the added +charm of vestment and intonation have had far more to do in +Christianizing many low tribes, who could not understand the language +of the church, than has preaching. Savages are nearly all great +dancers, imitating every animal they know, dancing out their own +legends, with ritual sometimes so exacting that error means death. The +character of people is often learned from their dances, and Molière +says the destiny of nations depends on them. The gayest dancers are +often among the most downtrodden and unhappy people. Some mysteries +can be revealed only in them, as holy passion-plays. If we consider +the history of secular dances, we find that some of them, when first +invented or in vogue, evoked the greatest enthusiasm. One writer says +that the polka so delighted France and England that statesmen forgot +politics. The spirit of the old Polish aristocracy still lives in the +polonaise. The gipsy dances have inspired a new school of music. The +Greek drama grew out of the evolution of the tragic chorus. National +dances like the hornpipe and reel of Scotland, the _Reihen_, of +Germany, the _rondes_ of France, the Spanish tarantella and +_chaconne_, the strathspey from the Spey Valley, the Irish jig, etc., +express racial traits. Instead of the former vast repertory, the +stately pavone, the graceful and dignified saraband, the wild +_salterrelle_, the bourrée with song and strong rhythm, the light and +skippy bolero, the courtly bayedere, the dramatic plugge, gavotte, and +other peasant dances in costume, the fast and furious fandango, weapon +and military dances; in place of the pristine power to express love, +mourning, justice, penalty, fear, anger, consolation, divine service, +symbolic and philosophical conceptions, and every industry or +characteristic act of life in pantomime and gesture, we have in the +dance of the modern ballroom only a degenerate relict, with at best +but a very insignificant culture value, and too often stained with bad +associations. This is most unfortunate for youth, and for their sake a +work of rescue and revival is greatly needed; for it is perhaps, not +excepting even music, the completest language of the emotions and can +be made one of the best schools of sentiment and even will, +inculcating good states of mind and exorcising bad ones as few other +agencies have power to do. Right dancing can cadence the very soul, +give nervous poise and control, bring harmony between basal and finer +muscles, and also between feeling and intellect, body and mind. It can +serve both as an awakener and a test of intelligence, predispose the +heart against vice, and turn the springs of character toward virtue. +That its present decadent forms, for those too devitalized to dance +aright, can be demoralizing, we know in this day too well, although +even questionable dances may sometimes work off vicious propensities +in ways more harmless than those in which they would otherwise find +vent. Its utilization for and influence on the insane would be another +interesting chapter. + +Very interesting scientifically and suggestive practically is another +correspondence which I believe to be new, between the mode of +spontaneous activity in youth and that of labor in the early history +of the race. One of the most marked distinctions between savage and +civilized races is in the longer rhythm of work and relaxation. The +former are idle and lazy for days, weeks, and perhaps months, and then +put forth intense and prolonged effort in dance, hunt, warfare, +migration, or construction, sometimes dispensing with sleep and +manifesting remarkable endurance. As civilization and specialization +advance, hours become regular. The cultured man is less desultory in +all his habits, from eating and sleeping to performing social and +religious duties, although he may put forth no more aggregate energy +in a year than the savage. Women are schooled to regular work long +before men, and the difficulty of imposing civilization upon low races +is compared by Bücher[8] to that of training a eat to work when +harnessed to a dog-cart. It is not dread of fatigue but of the +monotony of method makes them hate labor. The effort of savages is +more intense and their periods of rest more prolonged and inert. +Darwin thinks all vital function bred to go in periods, as vertebrates +are descended from tidal ascidian.[9] There is indeed much that +suggests some other irregular rhythm more or less independent of day +and night, and perhaps sexual in its nature, but not lunar, and for +males. This mode of life not only preceded the industrial and +commercial period of which regularity is a prime condition, but it +lasted indefinitely longer than the latter has yet existed; during +this early time great exertion, sometimes to the point of utter +exhaustion and collapse, alternated with seasons of almost vegetative +existence. We see abundant traces of this psychosis in the muscle +habits of adolescents, and, I think, in student and particularly in +college life, which can enforce regularity only to a limited extent. +This is not reversion, but partly expression of the nature and perhaps +the needs of this stage of immaturity, and partly the same instinct of +revolt against uniformity imposed from without, which rob life of +variety and extinguish the spirit of adventure and untrammeled +freedom, and make the savage hard to break to the harness of +civilization. The hunger for fatigue, too, can become a veritable +passion and is quite distinct from either the impulse for activity for +its own sake or the desire of achievement. To shout and put forth the +utmost possible strength in crude ways is erethic intoxication at a +stage when every tissue can become erectile and seems, like the crying +of infants, to have a legitimate function in causing tension and +flushing, enlarging the caliber of blood vessels, and forcing the +blood perhaps even to the point of extravasation to irrigate newly +growing fibers, cells, and organs which atrophy if not thus fed. When +maturity is complete this need abates. If this be correct, the +phenomenon of second breath, so characteristic of adolescence, and one +factor in the inebriate's propensity, is ontogenetic expression of a +rhythm trait of a long racial period. Youth needs overexertion to +compensate for underexertion, to undersleep in order to offset +oversleep at times. This seems to be nature's provision to expand in +all directions its possibilities of the body and soul in this plastic +period when, without this occasional excess, powers would atrophy or +suffer arrest for want of use, or larger possibilities world not be +realized without this regimen peculiar to nascent periods. This is +treated more fully elsewhere. + +Perhaps next to dancing in phyletic motivation come personal +conflicts, such as wrestling, fighting, boxing, dueling, and in some +sense, hunting. The animal world is full of struggle for survival, and +primitive warfare is a wager of battle, of personal combat of foes +contesting eye to eye and hand to hand, where victory of one is the +defeat and perhaps death of the other, and where life is often staked +against life. In its more brutal forms we see one of the most +degrading of all the aspects of human nature. Burk[10] has shown how +the most bestial of these instincts survive and crop out irresistibly +in boyhood, where fights are often engaged in with desperate abandon. +Noses are bitten, ears torn, sensitive places kicked, hair pulled, +arms twisted, the head stamped on and pounded on stones, fingers +twisted, and hoodlums sometimes deliberately try to strangle, gouge +out an eye, pull off an ear, pull out the tongue, break teeth, nose, +or bones, or dislocate jaws or other joints, wring the neck, bite off +a lip, and torture in utterly nameless ways. In unrestrained anger, +man becomes a demon in love with the blood of his victim. The face is +distorted, and there are yells, oaths, animal snorts and grunts, +cries, and then exultant laughter at pain, and each is bruised, dirty, +disheveled and panting with exhaustion. For coarser natures, the +spectacle of such conflicts has an intense attraction, while some +morbid souls are scarred by a distinct phobia for everything +suggestive of even lower degrees of opposition. These instincts, more +or less developed in boyhood, are repressed in normal cases before +strength and skill are sufficiently developed to inflict serious +bodily injury, while without the reductives that orthogenetic growth +brings they become criminal. Repulsive as are these grosser and animal +manifestations of anger, its impulsion can not and should not be +eliminated, but its expression transformed and directed toward evils +that need all its antagonism. To be angry aright is a good part of +moral education, and non-resistance under all provocations is unmanly, +craven, and cowardly.[11] An able-bodied young man, who can not fight +physically, can hardly have a high and true sense of honor, and is +generally a milksop, a lady-boy, or sneak. He lacks virility, his +masculinity does not ring true, his honesty can not be sound to the +core. Hence, instead of eradicating this instinct, one of the great +problems of physical and moral pedagogy is rightly to temper and +direct it. + +Sparta sedulously cultivated it in boys; and in the great English +schools, where for generations it has been more or less tacitly +recognized, it is regulated by custom, and their literature and +traditions abound in illustrations of its man-making and often +transforming influence in ways well appreciated by Hughes and Arnold. +It makes against degeneration, the essential feature of which is +weakening of will and loss of honor. Real virtue requires enemies, and +women and effeminate and old men want placid, comfortable peace, while +a real man rejoices in noble strife which sanctifies all great causes, +casts out fear, and is the chief school of courage. Bad as is +overpugnacity, a scrapping boy is better than one who funks a fight, +and I have no patience with the sentimentality that would here "pour +out the child with the bath," but would have every healthy boy taught +boxing at adolescence if not before. The prize-ring is degrading and +brutal, but in lieu of better illustrations of the spirit of personal +contest I would interest a certain class of boys in it and try to +devise modes of pedagogic utilization of the immense store of interest +it generates. Like dancing it should be rescued from its evil +associations, and its educational force put to do moral work, even +though it be by way of individual prescriptions for specific defects +of character. At its best, it is indeed a manly art, a superb school +for quickness of eye and hand, decision, force of will, and +self-control. The moment this is lost stinging punishment follows. +Hence it is the surest of all cures for excessive irascibility and has +been found to have a most beneficent effect upon a peevish or unmanly +disposition. It has no mean theoretic side, of rules, kinds of blow +and counters, arts of drawing out and tiring an opponent, hindering +but not injuring him, defensive and offensive tactics, etc., and it +addresses chiefly the fundamental muscles in both training and +conflict. I do not underestimate the many and great difficulties of +proper purgation, but I know from both personal practise and +observation that they are not unconquerable. + +This form of personal conflict is better than dueling even in its +comparatively harmless German student form, although this has been +warmly defended by Jacob Grimm, Bismarck, and Treitschke, while +Paulsen, Professor of Philosophy and Pedagogy, and Schrempf, of +Theology, have pronounced it but a slight evil, and several Americans +have thought it better than hazing, which it makes impossible. The +dark side of dueling is seen in the hypertrophied sense of honor which +under the code of the corps becomes an intricate and fantastic thing, +prompting, according to Ziegler,[12] a club of sixteen students to +fight over two hundred duels in four weeks in Jena early in this +century. It is prone to degenerate to an artificial etiquette +demanding satisfaction for slight and unintended offenses. Although +this professor who had his own face scarred on the _mensur_, pleaded +for a student court of honor, with power to brand acts as infamous and +even to expel students, on the ground that honor had grown more +inward, the traditions in favor of dueling were too strong. The duel +had a religious romantic origin as revealing God's judgment, and means +that the victim of an insult is ready to stake body, or even life, and +this is still its ideal side. Anachronism as it now is and +degenerating readily to sport or spectacle, overpunishing what is +often mere awkwardness or ignorance, it still impresses a certain +sense of responsibility for conduct and gives some physical training, +slight and specialized though it be. The code is conventional, drawn +directly from old French military life, and is not true to the line +that separates real honor from dishonor, deliberate insult that wounds +normal self-respect from injury fancied by oversensitiveness or +feigned by arrogance; so that in its present form it is not the best +safeguard of the sacred shrine of personality against invasion of ifs +rights. If, as is claimed, it is some diversion from or fortification +against corrosive sensuality, it has generally allied itself with +excessive beer-drinking. Fencing, while an art susceptible of high +development and valuable for both pose and poise, and requiring great +quickness of eye, arm, and wrist, is unilateral and robbed of the vest +of inflicting real pain on an antagonist. + +Bushido,[13] which means military-knightly ways, designates the +Japanese conception of honor in behavior and in fighting. The youth is +inspired by the ideal of Tom Brown "to leave behind him the name of a +fellow who never bullied a little boy or turned his back on a big +one." It expresses the race ideal of justice, patriotism, and the duty +of living aright and dying nobly. It means also sympathy, pity, and +love, for only the bravest can be the tenderest, and those most in +love are most daring, and it includes politeness and the art of +poetry. Honor is a sense of personal dignity and worth, so the _bushi_ +is truthful without an oath. At the tender age of five the _samurai_ +is given a real sword, and this gives self-respect and responsibility. +At fifteen, two sharp and artistic ones, long and short, are given +him, which must be his companions for life. They were made by a smith +whose shop is a sanctuary and who begins his work with prayer. They +have the finest hilts and scabbards, and are besung as invested with a +charm or spell, and symbolic of loyalty and self-control, for they +must never be drawn lightly. He is taught fencing, archery, +horsemanship, tactics, the spear, ethics and literature, anatomy, for +offence and defense; he must be indifferent to money, hold his life +cheap beside honor, and die if it is gone. This chivalry is called the +soul of Japan, and if it fades life is vulgarised. It is a code of +ethics and physical training. + +Football is a magnificent game if played on honor. An English tennis +champion was lately playing a rubber game with the American champion. +They were even and near the end when the American made a bad fluke +which would have lost this country its championship. The English +player, scorning to win on an accident, intentionally made a similar +mistake that the best man might win. The chief evil of modern American +football which now threatens its suppression in some colleges is the +lust to win at any price, and results in tricks and secret practise. +These sneaky methods impair the sentiment of honor which is the best +and most potent of all the moral safeguards of youth, so that a young +man can not be a true gentleman on the gridiron. This ethical +degeneration is far worse than all the braises, sprains, broken bones +and even deaths it causes. + +Wrestling is a form of personal encounter which in antiquity reached a +high development, and which, although now more known and practised as +athletics of the body than of the soul, has certain special +disciplinary capacities in its various forms. It represents the most +primitive type of the struggle of unarmed and unprotected man with +man. Purged of its barbarities, and in its Greco-Roman form and +properly subject to rules, it cultivates more kinds of movements than +any other form--for limbs, trunk, neck, hand, foot, and all in the +upright and in every prone position. It, too, has its manual of +feints, holds, tricks, and specialties, and calls out wariness, +quickness, strength, and shiftiness. Victory need involve no cruelty +or even pain to the vanquished. The very closeness of body to body, +emphasizing flexor rather than extensor arm muscles, imparts to it a +peculiar tone, gives it a vast variety of possible activities, +developing many alternatives at every stage, and tempts to many +undiscovered forms of permanent mayhem. Its struggle is usually longer +and less interrupted by pauses than pugilism, and its situations and +conclusions often develop slowly, so that all in all, its character +among contests is unique. As a school of posture for art, its +varieties are extremely manifold and by no means developed, for it +contains every kind of emphasis of every part and calls out every +muscle group and attitude of the human body; hence its training is +most generic and least specialized, and victories have been won by +very many kinds of excellence. + +Perhaps nothing is more opposed to the idea of a gentleman than the +_sæva animi tempestas_ [Fierce tempest of the soul] of anger. A testy, +quarrelsome, mucky humor is antisocial, and an outburst of rage is +repulsive. Even non-resistance, turning the other cheek, has its +victories and may be a method of moral combat. A strong temper well +controlled and kept in leash makes a kinetic character; but in view of +bullying, unfair play, cruel injustice to the weak and defenseless, of +outrageous wrong that the law can not reach, patience and forbearance +may cease to be virtues, and summary redress may have a distinct +advantage to the ethical nature of man and to social order, and the +strenuous soul must fight or grow stagnant or flabby. If too +repressed, righteous indignation may turn to sourness and sulks, and +the disposition be spoiled. Hence the relief and exhilaration of an +outbreak that often clears the psychic atmosphere like a thunderstorm, +and gives the "peace that passeth understanding" so often dilated on +by our correspondents. Rather than the abject fear of making enemies +whatever the provocation, I would praise those whose best title of +honor is the kind of enemies they make. Better even an occasional nose +dented by a fist, a broken bone, a rapier-scarred face, or even +sometimes the sacrifice of the life of one of our best academic youth +than stagnation, general cynicism and censoriousness, bodily and +psychic cowardice, and moral corruption, if this indeed be, as it +sometimes is, its real alternative. + +So closely are love and war connected that not only is individual +pugnacity greatly increased at the period of sexual maturity, when +animals acquire or develop horns, fangs, claws, spurs, and weapons of +offense and defense, but a new spirit of organization arises which +makes teams possible or more permanent. Football, baseball, cricket, +etc., and even boating can become schools of mental and moral +training. First, the rules of the game are often intricate, and to +master and observe them effectively is no mean training for the mind +controlling the body. These are steadily being revised and improved, +and the reasons for each detail of construction and conduct of the +game require experience and insight into human nature. Then the +subordination of each member to the whole and to a leader cultivates +the social and coöperative instincts, while the honor of the school, +college, or city, which each team represents, is confided to each and +all. Group loyalty in Anglo-Saxon games, which shows such a marked +increment in coördination and self-subordination at the dawn of +puberty as to constitute a distinct change in the character of sports +at this age, can be so utilized as to develop a spirit of service and +devotion not only to town, country, and race, but to God and the +church. Self must be merged and a sportsmanlike spirit cultivated that +prefers defeat to tricks and secret practise, and a clean game to the +applause of rooters and fans, intent only on victory, however won. The +long, hard fight against professionalism that brings in husky muckers, +who by every rule of true courtesy and chivalry belong outside +academic circles, scrapping and underhand advantages, is a sad comment +on the character and spirit of these games, and eliminates the best of +their educational advantages. The necessity of intervention, which has +imposed such great burdens on faculties and brought so much friction +with the frenzy of scholastic sentiment in the hot stage of seasonal +enthusiasms, when fanned to a white heat by the excessive interest of +friends and patrons and the injurious exploitation of the press, bears +sad testimony to the strength and persistence of warlike instincts +from our heredity. But even thus the good far predominates. The +elective system has destroyed the class games, and our institutions +have no units like the English colleges to be pitted against each +other, and so colleges grow, an ever smaller percentage of students +obtain the benefit of practise on the teams, while electioneering +methods often place second-best men in place of the best. But both +students and teachers are slowly learning wisdom in the dear school of +experience. On the whole, there is less license in "breaking training" +and in celebrating victories, and even at their worst, good probably +predominates, while the progress of recent years bids us hope. + +Finally, military ideals and methods of psycho-physical education are +helpful regulations of the appetite for combat, and on the whole more +wholesome and robust than those which are merely esthetic. Marching in +step gives proper and uniform movement of legs, arms, and carriage of +body; the manual of arms, with evolution and involution of figures in +the ranks, gives each a corporate feeling of membership, and involves +care of personal appearance and accouterments, while the uniform +levels social distinction in dress. For the French and Italian and +especially the German and Russian adolescent of the lower classes, the +two or three years of compulsory military service is often compared to +an academic course, and the army is called, not without some +justification, the poor man's university. It gives severe drill, +strict discipline, good and regular hours, plain but wholesome fare +and out-of-door exercise, exposure, travel, habits of neatness, many +useful knacks and devices, tournaments and mimic or play battles; +these, apart from its other functions, make this system a great +promoter of national health and intelligence. Naval schools for +midshipmen, who serve before the mast, schools on board ship that +visit a wide curriculum of ports each year, cavalry schools, where +each boy is given a horse to care for, study and train, artillery +courses and even an army drill-master in an academy, or uniform, and a +few exterior features of soldierly life, all give a distinct character +to the spirit of any institution. The very fancy of being in any sense +a soldier opens up a new range of interests too seldom utilized; and +tactics, army life and service, military history, battles, patriotism, +the flag, and duties to country, should always erect a new standard of +honor. Youth should embrace every opportunity that offers in this +line, and instruction should greatly increase the intellectual +opportunities created by every interest in warfare. It would be easy +to create pregnant courses on how soldiers down the course of history +have lived, thought, felt, fought, and died, how great battles were +won and what causes triumphed in them, and to generalize many of the +best things taught in detail in the best schools of war in different +grades and lands. + +A subtle but potent intersexual influence is among the strongest +factors of all adolescent sport. Male birds and beasts show off their +charms of beauty and accomplishment in many a liturgy of love antics +in the presence of the female. This instinct seems somehow continuous +with the growth of ornaments in the mating season. Song, tumbling, +balking, mock fights, etc., are forms of animal courtship. The boy who +turns cartwheels past the home of the girl of his fancy, is brilliant, +brave, witty, erect, strong in her presence, and elsewhere dull and +commonplace enough, illustrates the same principle. The true cake-walk +as seen in the South is perhaps the purest expression of this impulse +to courtship antics seen in man, but its irradiations are many and +pervasive. The presence of the fair sex gives tonicity to youth's +muscles and tension to his arteries to a degree of which he is rarely +conscious. Defeat in all contests is more humiliating and victory more +glorious thereby. Each sex is constantly passing the examination of +the other, and each judges the other by standards different from its +own. Alas for the young people who are not different with the other +sex from what they are with their own!--and some are transformed into +different beings. Achievement proclaims ability to support, defend, +bring credit and even fame to the object of future choice, and no good +point is lost. Physical force and skill, and above all, victory and +glory, make a hero and invest him with a romantic glamour, which, even +though concealed by conventionality or etiquette, is profoundly felt +and makes the winner more or less irresistible. The applause of men +and of mates is sweet and even intoxicating, but that of ladies is +ravishing. By universal acclaim the fair belong to the brave, strong, +and victorious. This stimulus is wholesome and refining. As is shown +later, a bashful youth often selects a maiden onlooker and is +sometimes quite unconsciously dominated in his every movement by a +sense of her presence, stranger and apparently unnoticed though she +be, although in the intellectual work of coeducation girls are most +influenced thus. In athletics this motive makes for refinement and +good form. The ideal knight, however fierce and terrible, must not be +brutal, but show capacity for fine feeling, tenderness, magnanimity, +and forbearance. Evolutionists tell us that woman has domesticated and +educated savage man and taught him all his virtues by exercising her +royal prerogative of selecting in her mate just those qualities that +pleased her for transmission to future generations and eliminating +others distasteful to her. If so, she is still engaged in this work as +much as ever, and in his dull, slow way man feels that her presence +enforces her standards, abhorrent though it would be to him to +compromise in one iota his masculinity. Most plays and games in which +both sexes participate have some of the advantages with some of the +disadvantages of coeducation. Where both are partners rather than +antagonists, there is less eviration. A gallant man would do his best +to help, but his worst not to beat a lady. Thus, in general, the +latter performs her best in her true rule of sympathetic spectator +rather than as fellow player, and is now an important factor in the +physical education of adolescents. + +How pervasive this femininity is, which is slowly transforming our +schools, is strikingly seen in the church. Gulick holds that the +reason why only some seven per cent of the young men of the country +are in the churches, while most members and workers are women, is that +the qualities demanded are the feminine ones of love, rest, prayer, +trust, desire for fortitude to endure, a sense of atonement--traits +not involving ideals that most stir young men. The church has not yet +learned to appeal to the more virile qualities. Fielding Hall[14] asks +why Christ and Buddha alone of great religious teachers were rejected +by their own race and accepted elsewhere. He answers that these mild +beliefs of peace, nonresistance, and submission, rejected by virile +warrior races, Jews and ancient Hindus, were adopted where women were +free and led in these matters. Confucianism, Mohammedanism, etc., are +virile, and so indigenous, and in such forms of faith and worship +women have small place. This again suggests how the sex that rules the +heart controls men. + +Too much can hardly be said in favor of cold baths and swimming at +this age. Marro[15] quotes Father Kneipp, and almost rivals his +hydrotherapeutic enthusiasm. Cold bathing sends the blood inward +partly by the cold which contracts the capillaries of the skin and +tissue immediately underlying it, and partly by the pressure of the +water over all the dermal surface, quickens the activity of kidneys, +lungs, and digestive apparatus, and the reactive glow is the best +possible tonic for dermal circulation. It is the best of all +gymnastics for the nonstriated or involuntary muscles and for the +heart and blood vessels. This and the removal of the products of +excretion preserve all the important dermal functions which are so +easily and so often impaired in modern life, lessen the liability to +skin diseases, promote freshness of complexion; and the moral effects +of plunging into cold and supporting the body in deep water is not +inconsiderable in strengthening a spirit of hardihood and reducing +overtenderness to sensory discomforts. The exercise of swimming is +unique in that nearly all the movements and combinations are such as +are rarely used otherwise, and are perhaps in a sense ancestral and +liberal rather than directly preparatory for future avocations. Its +stimulus for heart and lungs is, by general consent of all writers +upon the subject, most wholesome and beneficial. Nothing so directly +or quickly reduces to the lowest point the plethora of the sex organs. +The very absence of clothes and running on the beach is exhilarating +and gives a sense of freedom. Where practicable it is well to dispense +with bathing suits, even the scantiest. The warm bath tub is +enfeebling and degenerative, despite the cold spray later, while the +free swim in cold water is most invigorating. + +Happily, city officials, teachers, and sanitarians are now slowly +realizing the great improvement in health and temper that comes from +bathing and are establishing beach and surf, spray, floating and +plunge summer baths and swimming pools; often providing instruction +even in swimming in clothes, undressing in the water, treading water, +and rescue work, free as well as fee days, bathing suits, and, in +London, places for nude bathing after dark; establishing time and +distance standards with certificates and even prizes; annexing +toboggan slides, swings, etc., realizing that in both the preference +of youth and in healthful and moral effects, probably nothing outranks +this form of exercise. Such is its strange fascination that, according +to one comprehensive census, the passion to get to the water outranks +all other causes of truancy, and plays an important part in the +motivation of runaways. In the immense public establishment near San +Francisco, provided by private munificence, there are accommodations +for all kinds of bathing in hot and cold and in various degrees of +fresh and salt water, in closed spaces and in the open sea, for small +children and adults, with many appliances and instructors, all in one +great covered arena with seats in an amphitheater for two thousand +spectators, and many adjuncts and accessories. So elsewhere the +presence of visitors is now often invited and provided for. Sometimes +wash-houses and public laundries are annexed. Open hours and longer +evenings and seasons are being prolonged. + +Prominent among the favorite games of early puberty and the years just +before are those that involve passive motion and falling, like +swinging in its many forms, including the May-pole and single rope +varieties. Mr. Lee reports that children wait late in the evening and +in cold weather for a turn at a park swing. Psychologically allied to +these are wheeling and skating. Places for the latter are now often +provided by the fire department, which in many cities floods hundreds +of empty lots. Ponds are cleared of snow and horse-plowed, perhaps by +the park commission, which often provides lights and perhaps ices the +walks and streets for coasting, erects shelters, and devises space +economy for as many diamonds, bleachers, etc., as possible. Games of +hitting, striking, and throwing balls and other objects, hockey, +tennis, all the courts of which are usually crowded, golf and croquet, +and sometimes fives, cricket, bowling, quoits, curling, etc., have +great "thumogenic" or emotional power. + +Leg exercise has perhaps a higher value than that of any other part. +Man is by definition an upright being, but only after a long +apprenticeship.[16] Thus the hand was freed from the necessity of +locomotion and made the servant of the mind. Locomotion overcomes the +tendency to sedentary habits in modern schools and life, and helps the +mind to helpful action, so that a peripatetic philosophy is more +normal than that of the easy chair and the study lamp. Hill-climbing +is unexcelled as a stimulus at once of heart, lungs, and blood. If +Hippocrates is right, inspiration is possible only on a mountain-top. +Walking, running, dancing, skating, coasting are also alterative and +regulative of sex, and there is a deep and close though not yet fully +explained reciprocity between the two. Arm work is relatively too +prominent a feature in gymnasia. Those who lead excessively sedentary +lives are prone to be turbulent and extreme in both passion and +opinion, as witness the oft-adduced revolutionary disposition of +cobblers. + +The play problem is now fairly open and is vast in its relation to +many other things. Roof playgrounds, recreation piers, schoolyards and +even school-buildings, open before and after school hours; excursions +and outings of many kinds and with many purposes, which seem to +distinctly augment growth; occupation during the long vacation when, +beginning with spring, most juvenile crime is committed; theatricals, +which according to some police testimony lessen the number of juvenile +delinquents; boys' clubs with more or less self-government of the +George Junior Republic and other types, treated in another chapter; +nature-study; the distinctly different needs and propensities of both +good and evil in different nationalities; the advantages of playground +fences and exclusion, their disciplinary worth, and their value as +resting places; the liability that "the boy without a playground will +become the father without a job"; the relation of play and its slow +transition to manual and industrial education at the savage age when a +boy abhors all regular occupation; the necessity of exciting interest, +not by what is done for boys, but by what they do; the adjustment of +play to sex; the determination of the proper average age of maximal +zest in and good from sandbox, ring-toss, bean-bag, shuffle-board, peg +top, charity, funeral play, prisoner's base, hill-dill; the value and +right use of apparatus, and of rabbits, pigeons, bees, and a small +menagerie in the playground; tan-bark, clay, the proper alternation of +excessive freedom, that often turns boys stale through the summer, +with regulated activities; the disciplined "work of play" and +sedentary games; the value of the washboard rubbing and of the hand +and knee exercise of scrubbing, which a late writer would restore for +all girls with clever and Greek-named play apparatus; as well as +digging, shoveling, tamping, pick-chopping, and hod-carrying exercises +in the form of games for boys; the relations of women's clubs, +parents' clubs, citizens' leagues and unions, etc., to all this +work--such are the practical problems. + +The playground movement encounters its chief obstacles in the most +crowded and slum districts, where its greatest value and success was +expected for boys in the early teens, who without supervision are +prone to commit abuses upon property and upon younger children,[17] +and are so disorderly as to make the place a nuisance, and who resent +the "fathering" of the police, without, at least, the minimum control +of a system of permits and exclusions. If hoodlums play at all, they +become infatuated with baseball and football, especially punting; they +do not take kindly to the soft large ball of the Hall House or the +Civic League, and prefer at first scrub games with individual +self-exhibition to organized teams. Lee sees the "arboreal instincts +of our progenitors" in the very strong propensity of boys from ten to +fourteen to climb in any form; to use traveling rings, generally +occupied constantly to their fullest extent; to jump from steps and +catch a swinging trapeze; to go up a ladder and slide down poles; to +use horizontal and parallel bars. The city boy has plenty of daring at +this age, but does not know what he can do and needs more supervision +than the country youth. The young tough is commonly present, and +though admired and copied by younger boys, it is, perhaps, as often +for his heroic as for his bad traits. + +Dr. Sargent and others have well pointed out that athletics afford a +wealth of new and profitable topics for discussion and enthusiasm +which helps against the triviality and mental vacuity into which the +intercourse of students is prone to lapse. It prompts to discussion of +diet and regimen. It gives a new standard of honor. For a member of a +team to break training would bring reprobation and ostracism, for he +is set apart to win fame for his class or college. It supplies a +splendid motive against all errors and vices that weaken or corrupt +the body. It is a wholesome vent for the reckless courage that would +otherwise go to disorder or riotous excess. It supplies new and +advantageous topics for compositions and for terse, vigorous, and +idiomatic theme-writing, is a great aid to discipline, teaches respect +for deeds rather than words or promises, lays instructors under the +necessity of being more interesting, that their work be not jejune or +dull by contrast; again the business side of managing great contests +has been an admirable school for training young men to conduct great +and difficult financial operations, sometimes involving $100,000 or +more, and has thus prepared some for successful careers. It furnishes +now the closest of all links between high school and college, reduces +the number of those physically unfit for college, and should give +education generally a more real and vigorous ideal. Its obvious +dangers are distraction from study and overestimation of the value of +victory, especially in the artificial glamours which the press and the +popular furor give to great games; unsportsmanlike secret tricks and +methods, over-emphasis of combative and too stalwart impulses, and a +disposition to carry things by storm, by rush-line tactics; friction +with faculties, and censure or neglect of instructors who take +unpopular sides on hot questions; action toward license after games, +spasmodic excitement culminating in excessive strain for body and +mind, with alternations of reaction; "beefiness"; overdevelopment of +the physical side of life, and, in some cases, premature features of +senility in later life, undergrowth of the accessory motor parts and +powers, and erethic diathesis that makes steady and continued mental +toil seem monotonous, dull, and boresome. + +The propensity to codify sports, to standardize the weight and size of +their implements, and to reduce them to what Spencer calls +regimentation, is a outcrop of uniformitarianism that works against +that individuation which is one of the chief advantages of free play. +This, to be sure, has developed old-fashioned rounders to modern +baseball, and this is well, but it is seen in the elaborate Draconian +laws, diplomacy, judicial and legislative procedures, concerning +"eligibility, transfer, and even sale of players." In some games +international conformity is gravely discussed. Even where there is no +tyranny and oppression, good form is steadily hampering nature and the +free play of personality. Togs and targets, balls and bats, rackets +and oars are graded or numbered, weighed, and measured, and every +emergency is legislated on and judged by an autocratic martinet, +jealous of every prerogative and conscious of his dignity. All this +separates games from the majority and makes for specialism and +professionalism. Not only this, but men are coming to be sized up for +hereditary fitness in each point and for each sport. Runners, +sprinters, and jumpers,[18] we are told, on the basis of many careful +measurements, must be tall, with slender bodies, narrow but deep +chests, longer legs than the average for their height, the lower leg +being especially long, with small calf, ankle, and feet, small arms, +narrow hips, with great power of thoracic inflation, and thighs of +small girth. Every player must be studied by trainers for ever finer +individual adjustments. His dosage of work must be kept well within +the limits of his vitality, and be carefully adjusted to his +recuperative power. His personal nascent periods must be noted, and +initial embarrassment carefully weeded out. + +The field of play is as wide as life and its varieties far outnumber +those of industries and occupations in the census. Plays and games +differ in seasons, sex, and age. McGhee[19] has shown on the basis of +some 8,000 children, that running plays are pretty constant for boys +from six to seventeen, but that girls are always far behind boys and +run steadily less from eight to eighteen. In games of choice, boys +showed a slight rise at sixteen and seventeen, and girls a rapid +increase at eleven and a still more rapid one after sixteen. In games +of imitation girls excel and show a marked, as boys do a slight, +pubescent fall. In those games involving rivalry boys at first greatly +excel girls, but are overtaken by the latter in the eighteenth year, +both showing marked pubescent increment. Girls have the largest number +of plays and specialise on a few less than boys, and most of these +plays are of the unorganized kinds. Johnson[20] selected from a far +larger number 440 plays and games and arranged the best of them in a +course by school grades, from the first to the eighth, inclusive, and +also according to their educational value as teaching observation, +reading and spelling, language, arithmetic, geography, history, and +biography, physical training, and specifically as training legs, hand, +arm, back, waist, abdominal muscles, chest, etc. Most of our best +games are very old and, Johnson thinks, have deteriorated. But +children are imitative and not inventive in their games, and easily +learn new ones. Since the Berlin Play Congress in 1894 the sentiment +has grown that these are of national importance and are preferable to +gymnastics both for soul and body. Hence we have play-schools, +teachers, yards, and courses, both for their own value and also to +turn on the play impulse to aid in the drudgery of school work. +Several have thought that a well-rounded, liberal education could be +given by plays and games alone on the principle that there is no +profit where there is no pleasure or true euphoria. + +Play is motor poetry. Too early distinction between play and work +should not be taught. Education perhaps should really begin with +directing childish sports aright. Froebel thought it the purest and +most spiritual activity of childhood, the germinal leaves of all later +life. Schooling that lacks recreation favors dulness, for play makes +the mind alert and its joy helps all anabolic activities. Says +Brinton, "the measure of value of work is the amount of play there is +in it, and the measure of value of play is the amount of work there is +in it." Johnson adds that "it is doubtful if a great man ever +accomplished his life work without having reached a play interest in +it." Sully[21] deplores the increase of "agolasts" or "non-laughers" +in our times in merry old England[22] every one played games; and +laughter, their natural accompaniment, abounded. Queen Elizabeth's +maids of honor played tag with hilarity, but the spirit of play with +full abandon seems taking its departure from our overworked, serious, +and tons, age. To requote Stevenson with variation, as _laborari_, [To +labor] so _ludere, et joculari orare sunt_. [To play and to jest are +to pray] Laughter itself, as Kühne long ago showed, is one of the most +precious forms of exercise, relieving the arteries of their +tension.[23] + +The antithesis between play and work is generally wrongly conceived, +for the difference is essentially in the degree of strength of the +psycho-physic motivations. The young often do their hardest work in +play. With interest, the most repellent tasks become pure sport, as in +the case Johnson reports of a man who wanted a pile of stone thrown +into a ditch and, by kindling a fire in the ditch and pretending the +stones were buckets of water, the heavy and long-shirked job was done +by tired boys with shouting and enthusiasm. Play, from one aspect of +it, is superfluous energy over and above what is necessary to digest, +breathe, keep the heart and organic processes going; and most children +who can not play, if they have opportunity, can neither study nor work +without overdrawing their resources of vitality. Bible psychology +conceives the fall of man as the necessity of doing things without +zest, and this is not only ever repeated but now greatly emphasized +when youth leaves the sheltered paradise of play to grind in the mills +of modern industrial civilization. The curse is overcome only by those +who come to love their tasks and redeem their toil again to play. +Play, hardly less than work, can be to utter exhaustion; and because +it draws upon older stores and strata of psycho-physic impulsion its +exhaustion may even more completely drain our kinetic resources, if it +is too abandoned or prolonged. Play can do just as hard and painful +tasks as work, for what we love is done with whole and undivided +personality. Work, as too often conceived, is all body and no soul, +and makes for duality and not totality. Its constraint is external, +mechanical, or it works by fear and not love. Not effort but zestless +endeavor is the tragedy of life. Interest and play are one and +inseparable as body and soul. Duty itself is not adequately conceived +and felt if it is not pleasure, and is generally too feeble and fitful +in the young to awaken much energy or duration of action. Play is from +within from congenital hereditary impulsion. It is the best of all +methods of organizing instincts. Its cathartic or purgative function +regulates irritability, which may otherwise be drained or vented in +wrong directions, exactly as Breuer[24] shows psychic traumata may, if +overtense, result in "hysterical convulsions." It is also the best +form of self-expression; and its advantage is variability, following +the impulsion of the idle, perhaps hyperemic, and overnourished +centers most ready to act. It involves play illusion and is the great +agent of unity and totalization of body and soul, while its social +function develops solidarity and unison of action between individuals. +The dances, feasts, and games of primitive people, wherein they +rehearse hunting and war and act and dance out their legends, bring +individuals and tribes together.[25] Work is menial, cheerless, +grinding, regular, and requires more precision and accuracy and, +because attended with less ease and pleasure and economy of movement, +is more liable to produce erratic habits. Antagonistic as the forms +often are, it may be that, as Carr says, we may sometimes so suffuse +work with the play spirit, and _vice versa_, that the present +distinction between work and play will vanish, the transition will be +less tragic and the activities of youth will be slowly systematised +into a whole that better fits his nature and needs; or, if not this, +we may at least find the true proportion and system between drudgery +and recreation. + +The worst product of striving to do things with defective psychic +impulsion is fatigue in its common forms, which slows down the pace, +multiplies errors and inaccuracies, and develops slovenly habits, +ennui, flitting will specters, velleities and caprices, and +neurasthenic symptoms generally. It brings restlessness, and a +tendency to many little heterogeneous, smattering efforts that weaken +the will and leave the mind like a piece of well-used blotting paper, +covered with traces and nothing legible. All beginnings are easy, and +only as we leave the early stages of proficiency behind and press on +in either physical or mental culture and encounter difficulties, do +individual differences and the tendency of weak will, to change and +turn to something else increase. Perhaps the greatest disparity +between men is the power to make a long concentrative, persevering +effort, for _In der Beschränkung zeigt sich der Meister_ [The master +shows himself in limitation]. Now no kind or line of culture is +complete till it issues in motor habits, and makes a well-knit soul +texture that admits concentration series in many directions and that +can bring all its resources to bear at any point. The brain +unorganized by training has, to recur to Richter's well-worn aphorism, +saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal, or all the ingredients of gunpowder, +but never makes a grain of it because they never get together. Thus +willed action is the language of complete men and the goal of +education. When things are mechanized by right habituation, there is +still further gain; for not only is the mind freed for further and +higher work, but this deepest stratum of motor association is a plexus +that determines not only conduct and character, but even beliefs. The +person who deliberates is lost, if the intellect that doubts and +weighs alternatives is less completely organised than habits. All will +culture is intensive and should safeguard us against the chance +influence of life and the insidious danger of great ideas in small and +feeble minds. Now fatigue, personal and perhaps racial, is just what +arrests in the incomplete and mere memory or noetic stage. It makes +weak bodies that command, and not strong ones that obey. It divorces +knowing and doing, _Kennen_ and _Können_, a separation which the +Greeks could not conceive because for them knowledge ended in skill or +was exemplified in precepts and proverbs that were so clear cut that +the pain of violating them was poignant. Ideas must be long worked +over till life speaks as with the rifle and not with the shotgun, and +still less with the water hose. The purest thought, if true, is only +action repressed to be ripened to more practical form. Not only do +muscles come before mind, will before intelligence, and sound ideas +rest on a motor basis, but all really useless knowledge tends to be +eliminated as error or superstition. The roots of play lie close to +those of creative imagination and idealism. + +The opposite extreme is the factitious and superficial motivation of +fear, prizes, examinations, artificial and immediate rewards and +penalties, which can only tattoo the mind and body with conventional +patterns pricked in, but which lead an unreal life in the soul because +they have no depth of soil in nature or heredity. However precious and +coherent in themselves, all subject-matters thus organized are mere +lugs, crimps, and frills. All such culture is spurious, unreal, and +parasitic. It may make a scholastic or sophistic mind, but a worm is +at the root and, with a dim sense of the vanity of all knowledge that +does not become a rule of life, some form of pessimism is sure to +supervene in every serious soul. With age a civilization accumulates +such impedimenta, traditional flotsam and jetsam, and race fatigue +proceeds with equal step with its increasing volume. Immediate +utilities are better, but yet not so much better than acquisitions +that have no other than a school or examination value. If, as Ruskin +says, all true work is praise, all true play is love and prayer. +Instil into a boy's soul learning which he sees and feels not to have +the highest worth and which can not become a part of his active life +and increase it, and his freshness, spontaneity, and the fountains of +play slowly run dry in him, and his youth fades to early desiccation. +The instincts, feelings, intuitions, the work of which is always play, +are superseded by method, grind, and education by instruction which is +only an effort to repair the defects of heredity, for which, at its +best, it is vulgar, pinchbeck substitute. The best play is true +genius, which always comes thus into the world, and has this way of +doing its work, and all the contents of the memory pouches is luggage +to be carried rather than the vital strength that carries burdens. +Grosswell says that children are young because they play, and not +_vice versa_; and he might have added, men grow old because they stop +playing, and not conversely, for play is, at bottom, growth, and at +the top of the intellectual scale it is the eternal type of research +from sheer love of truth. Home, school, church, state, civilization, +are measured in one supreme scale of values, viz., whether and how, +for they aid in bringing youth to its fullest maturity. Even vice, +crime, and decline are often only arrest or backsliding or reversion. +National and racial decline beginning in eliminating one by one the +last and highest styles of development of body and mind, mental +stimulus of excessive dosage lowers general nutrition. A psychologist +that turns his back on mere subtleties and goes to work in a life of +service has here a great opportunity, and should not forget, as Horace +Mann said, "that for all that grows, one former is worth one hundred +reformers." + +[Footnote 1: Interest in Relation to Muscular Exercise. American +Physical Education Review, June, 1902, vol. 7, pp. 57-65.] + +[Footnote 2: The Influence of Exercise upon Growth by Frederic Burk. +American Physical Education Review, December, 1899, vol. 4, pp. +340-349.] + +[Footnote 3: A Study of Dolls, by G. Stanley Hall and A.C. Ellis. +Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1896, vol. 4, pp. 129-175.] + +[Footnote 4: Studies in Imagination, by Lilian H. Chalmers. +Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 111-123.] + +[Footnote 5: Some Psychical Aspects of Physical Exercise. Popular +Science Monthly, October, 1898, vol. 53, pp. 703-805.] + +[Footnote 6: Amusements of Worcester School Children. Pedagogical +Seminary, September, 1899, vol. 6, pp. 314-371.] + +[Footnote 7: A Study in the Play Life of Some South Carolina Children. +Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 439-478.] + +[Footnote 8: Arbeit und Rythmus. Trubner, Leipzig, 1896.] + +[Footnote 9: Descent of Man. D. Appleton and Co., 1872, vol. 1, chap. +vi, p. 204 _et seq_] + +[Footnote 10: Teasing and Bullying. Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1897, +vol. 4, pp. 336-371.] + +[Footnote 11: See my Study of Anger. American Journal of Psychology, +July, 1899, vol. 10, pp. 516-591.] + +[Footnote 12: Der deutsche Student am Ende des 19 Jahrhunderts, 6th +ed., Göschen, Leipzig, 1896. See also H. P. Shelden: History and +Pedagogy of American Student Societies, New York, 1901, p. 31 _et +seq_.] + +[Footnote 13: Bushido: The Soul of Japan. An exposition of Japanese +thought, by Inazo Nitobé. New York, 1905, pp. 203 _et seq_.] + +[Footnote 14: The Hearts of Men. Macmillan, 1901, chap. xxii.] + +[Footnote 15: La Puberté. Schleicher Frères, éditeurs, Paris, 1902.] + +[Footnote 16: See A.W. Trettien. Creeping and Walking. American +Journal of Psychology, October, 1900, vol. 12, pp. 1-57.] + +[Footnote 17: Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy, by Joseph Lee. +Macmillan, New York, 1902, chaps. x and xi.] + +[Footnote 18: C.O. Bernies. Physical Characteristics of the Runner and +Jumper. American Physical Education Review, September, 1900, vol. 5, +pp. 235-245.] + +[Footnote 19: A Study in the Play Life of some South Carolina +Children. Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 459-478.] + +[Footnote 20: Education by Plays and Games. Pedagogical Seminary, +October, 1894, vol. 3, pp. 97-133.] + +[Footnote 21: An Essay on Laughter. Longmans, Green and Co., London, +1902, p. 427 _et seq_.] + +[Footnote 22: See Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, 3 +Vols., London, 1883.] + +[Footnote 23: Psychology of Tickling, Laughing, and the Comic, by G. +Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin. American Journal of Psychology, +October, 1897, vol. 9, pp. 1-41.] + +[Footnote 24: I. Breuer and S. Freud. Studien über Hysterie. F. +Deuticke, Wien, 1895. See especially p. 177 _et seq_.] + +[Footnote 25: See a valuable discussion by H. A. Carr. The Survival +Values of Play, Investigations of the Department of Psychology and +Education of the University of Colorado, Arthur Allin, Ph.D., Editor, +November, 1902, vol. 1, pp. 3-47] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +FAULTS, LIES, AND CRIMES + + +Classifications of children's faults--Peculiar children--Real faults +as distinguished from interference with the teacher's ease--Truancy, +its nature and effects--The genesis of crime--The lie, its classes and +relations to imagination--Predatory activities--Gangs--Causes of +crime--The effects of stories of crime--Temibility--Juvenile crime +and its treatment. + +Siegert[1] groups children of problematical nature into the following +sixteen classes: the sad, the extremely good or bad, star-gazers, +scatter-brains, apathetic, misanthropic, doubters and investigators, +reverent, critical, executive, stupid and clownish, naive, funny, +anamnesic, disposed to learn, and _blasé_; patience, foresight, and +self-control, he thinks, are chiefly needed. + +A unique and interesting study was undertaken by Közle[2] by +collecting and studying thirty German writers on pedagogical subjects +since Pestalozzi, and cataloguing all the words they use describing +the faults of children. In all, this gave 914 faults, far more in +number than their virtues. These were classified as native and of +external origin, acute and chronic, egoistic and altruistic, greed, +perverted honor, self-will, falsity, laziness, frivolity, distraction, +precocity, timidity, envy and malevolence, ingratitude, +quarrelsomeness, cruelty, superstition; and the latter fifteen were +settled on as resultant groups, and the authors who describe them best +are quoted. + +Bohannon[3] on the basis of _questionnaire_ returns classified +peculiar children as heavy, tall, short, small, strong, weak, deft, +agile, clumsy, beautiful, ugly, deformed, birthmarked, keen and +precocious, defective in sense, mind, and speech, nervous, clean, +dainty, dirty, orderly, obedient, disobedient, disorderly, teasing, +buoyant, buffoon, cruel, selfish, generous, sympathetic, inquisitive, +lying, ill-tempered, silent, dignified, frank, loquacious, courageous, +timid, whining, spoiled, gluttonous and only child. + +Marro[4] tabulated the conduct of 3,012 boys in gymnasial and lyceal +classes in Italy from eleven to eighteen years of age (see table given +above). Conduct was marked as good, bad, and indifferent, according to +the teacher's estimate, and was good at eighteen in 74 per cent of the +cases; at eleven in 70 per cent; at seventeen in 69 per cent; and at +fourteen in only 58 per cent. In positively bad conduct, the age of +fifteen led, thirteen and fourteen were but little better, while it +improved at sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen. In general, conduct was +good at eleven; declined at twelve and thirteen; said, to its worst at +fourteen; and then improved in yearly increments that did not differ +much, and at seventeen was nearly as good as at eleven, and at +eighteen four points better. + +[Illustration: Percentage x Age] + +He computed also the following percentage table of the causes of +punishments in certain Italian schools for girls and boys near +pubescent ages: + + Boys Girls +Quarrels and blows 53.90 17.4 +Laziness, negligence 1.80 21.3 +Untidiness 10.70 24.7 +Improper language .41 14.6 +Indecent acts and words 1.00 .24 +Refusal to work .82 1.26 +Various offenses against discipline 19.00 19.9 +Truancy 9.60 .0 +Plots to run away 1.70 .0 +Running away .72 .0 + +Mr. Sears[5] reports in percentages statistics of the punishments +received by a thousand children for the following offenses: Disorder, +17-1/3; disobedience, 16; carelessness, 13-1/3; running away, 12-2/3; +quarreling, 10; tardiness, 6-2/3; rudeness, 6; fighting, 5-1/3; lying, +4; stealing, 1; miscellaneous, 7-1/3. He names a long list of +punishable offenses, such as malice, swearing, obscenity, bullying, +lying, cheating, untidiness, insolence, insult, conspiracy, +disobedience, obstinacy, rudeness, noisiness, ridicule; injury to +books, building, or other property; and analyzes at length the kinds +of punishment, modes of making it fit the offense and the nature of +the child, the discipline of consequences, lapse of time between the +offense and its punishment, the principle of slight but sure tasks as +penalties, etc. + +Triplett[6] attempted a census of faults and defeats named by the +teacher. Here inattention by far led all others. Defects of sense and +speech, carelessness, indifference, lack of honor and of +self-restraint, laziness, dreamy listlessness, nervousness, mental +incapacity, lack of consideration for others, vanity, affectation, +disobedience, untruthfulness, grumbling, etc., follow. Inattention to +a degree that makes some children at the mercy of their environment +and all its changes, and their mental life one perpetual distraction, +is a fault which teachers, of course, naturally observe. Children's +views of their own faults and those of other children lay a very +different emphasis. Here fighting, bullying, and teasing lead all +others; then come stealing, bad manners, lying, disobedience, truancy, +cruelty to animals, untidiness, selfishness, etc. Parents' view of +this subject Triplett found still different. Here wilfulness and +obstinacy led all others with teasing, quarreling, dislike of +application and effort, and many others following. The vast number of +faults mentioned contrasts very strikingly with the seven deadly sins. + +In a suggestive statistical study on the relations of the conduct of +children to the weather, Dexter[7] found that excessive humidity was +most productive of misdemeanors; that when the temperature was between +90 and 100 the probability of bad conduct was increased 300 per cent, +when between 80 and 90 it was increased 104 per cent. Abnormal +barometric pressure, whether great or small, was found to increase +misconduct 50 per cent; abnormal movements of the wind increased it +from 20 to 66 per cent; while the time of year and precipitation +seemed to have almost no effect. While the effect of weather has been +generally recognized by superintendents and teachers and directors of +prisons and asylums, and even by banks, which in London do not permit +clerks to do the more important bookkeeping during very foggy days, +the statistical estimates of its effect in general need larger numbers +for more valuable determinations. Temperature is known to have a very +distinct effect upon crime, especially suicide and truancy. Workmen do +less in bad weather, blood pressure is modified, etc.[8] + +In his study of truancy, Kline[9] starts with the assumption that the +maximum metabolism is always consciously or unconsciously sought, and +that migrations are generally away from the extremes of hot and cold +toward an optimum temperature. The curve of truancies and runaways +increases in a marked ratio at puberty, which probably represents the +age of natural majority among primitive people. Dislike of school, the +passion for out-of-door life, and more universal interests in man and +nature now arise, so that runaways may be interpreted as an +instinctive rebellion against limitations of freedom and unnatural +methods of education as well as against poor homes. Hunger is one of +its most potent, although often unconscious causes. The habitual +environment now begins to seem dull and there is a great increase in +impatience at restraint. Sometimes there is a mania for simply going +away and enjoying the liberty of nomadic life. Just as good people in +foreign parts sometimes allow themselves unwonted liberties, so +vagrancy increases crime. The passion to get to and play at or in the +water is often strangely dominant. It seems so fine out of doors, +especially in the spring, and the woods and fields make it so hard to +voluntarily incarcerate oneself in the schoolroom, that pubescent boys +and even girls often feel like animals in captivity. They long +intensely for the utter abandon of a wilder life, and very +characteristic is the frequent discarding of foot and head dress and +even garments in the blind instinct to realise again the conditions of +primitive man. The manifestations of this impulse, if read aright, are +grave arraignments of the lack of adaptability of the child's +environment to his disposition and nature, and with home restraints +once broken, the liabilities to every crime, especially theft, are +enormously increased. The truant, although a cording to Kline's +measurements slightly smaller than the average child, is more +energetic and is generally capable of the greatest activity and +usefulness in more out-of-door vocations. Truancy is augmented, too, +just in proportion as legitimate and interesting physical exercise is +denied. + +The vagrant, itinerant, vagabond, gadabout, hobo, and tramp, that Riis +has made so interesting, is an arrested, degenerate, or perverted +being who abhors work; feels that the world owes him a living; and +generally has his first real nomad experience in the teens or earlier. +It is a chronic illusion of youth that gives "elsewhere" a special +charm. In the immediate present things are mean, dulled by wont, and +perhaps even nauseating because of familiarity. There must be a change +of scene to see the world; man is not sessile but locomotor; and the +moment his life becomes migratory all the restraints and +responsibilities of settled life vanish. It is possible to steal and +pass on undiscovered and unsuspected, and to steal again. The vagabond +escapes the control of public sentiment, which normally is an external +conscience, and having none of his own within him thus lapses to a +feral state. The constraint of city, home, and school is especially +irksome, and if to this repulsion is added the attraction of a love of +nature and of perpetual change, we have the diathesis of the roadsman +already developed. Adolescence is the normal time of emancipation from +the parental roof, when youth seeks to set up a home of its own, but +the apprentice to life must wander far and long enough to find the +best habitat in which to set up for himself. This is the spring season +of emigration; and it should be an indispensable part of every life +curriculum, just before settlement, to travel far and wide, if +resources and inclination permit. But this stage should end in wisely +chosen settlement where the young life can be independently developed, +and that with more complacency and satisfaction because the place has +been wisely chosen on the basis of a wide comparison. The chronic +vagrant has simply failed to develop the reductives of this normal +stage. + +Crime is cryptogamous and flourishes in concealment, so that not only +does falsehood facilitate it, but certain types of lies often cause +and are caused by it. The beginning of wisdom in treatment is to +discriminate between good and bad lies. My own study[10] of the lies +of 300 normal children, by a method carefully devised in order to +avoid all indelicacy to the childish consciousness, suggested the +following distinct species of lies. It is often a well-marked epoch +when the young child first learns that it can imagine and state things +that have no objective counterpart in its life, and there is often a +weird intoxication when some absurd and monstrous statement is made, +while the first sensation of a deliberate break with truth causes a +real excitement which is often the birth pang of the imagination. More +commonly this is seen in childish play, which owes a part of its charm +to self-deception. Children make believe they are animals, doctors, +ogres, play school, that they are dead, mimic all they see and hear. +Idealising temperaments sometimes prompt children of three or four +suddenly to assert that they saw a pig with five ears, apples on a +cherry tree, and other Munchausen wonders, which really means merely +that they have had a new mental combination independently of +experience. Sometimes their fancy is almost visualisation and develops +into a kind of mythopeic faculty which spins clever yarns and suggests +in a sense, quite as pregnant as Froschmer asserts of all mental +activity and of the universe itself, that all their life is +imagination. Its control and not its elimination in a Gradgrind age of +crass facts is what should be sought in the interests of the highest +truthfulness and of the evolution of thought as something above +reality, which prepares the way for imaginative literature. The life +of Hartley Coleridge,[11] by his brother, is one of many +illustrations. He fancied cataract of what he named "jug-force" would +burst out in a certain field and flow between populous banks, where an +ideal government, long wars, and even a reform in spelling, would +prevail, illustrated in a journal devoted to the affairs of this +realm--all these developed in his imagination, where they existed with +great reality for years. The vividness of this fancy resembles the +pseudo-hallucinations of Kandinsky. Two sisters used to say, "Let us +play we are sisters," as if this made the relation more real. +Cagliostro found adolescent boys particularly apt for training for his +exhibition of phrenological impostures, illustrating his thirty-five +faculties. "He lied when he confessed he had lied," said a young +Sancho Panza, who had believed the wild tales of another boy who later +admitted their falsity. Sir James Mackintosh, near puberty, after +reading Roman history, used to fancy himself the Emperor of +Constantinople, and carried on the administration of the realm for +hours at a time. His fancies never quite became convictions, but +adolescence is the golden age of this kind of dreamery and reverie +which supplements reality and totalizes our faculties, and often gives +a special charm to dramatic activities and in morbid cases to +simulation and dissimulation. It is a state from which some of the +bad, but far more of the good qualities of life and mind arise. These +are the noble lies of poetry, art, and idealism, but their pedagogic +regime must be wise. + +Again with children as with savages, truth depends largely upon +personal likes and dislikes. Truth is for friends, and lies are felt +to be quite right for enemies. The young often see no wrong in lies +their friends wish told, but may collapse and confess when asked if +they would have told their mother thus. Boys best keep up complotted +lies and are surer to own up if caught than girls. It is harder to +cheat in school with a teacher who is liked. Friendships are cemented +by confidences and secrets, and when they wane, promises not to tell +weaken in their validity. Lies to the priest, and above all to God, +are the worst. All this makes special attention to friendships, +leaders, and favorites important, and suggests the high value of +science for general veracity. + +The worst lies, perhaps, are those of selfishness. They ease children +over many hard places in life, and are convenient covers for weakness +and vice. These lies are, on the whole, judging from our census, most +prevalent. They are also most corrupting and hard to correct. All bad +habits particularly predispose to the lie of concealment; for those +who do wrong are almost certain to have recourse to falsehood, and the +sense of meanness thus slowly bred, which may be met by appeals to +honor, for so much of which school life is responsible, is often +mitigated by the fact that falsehoods are frequently resorted to in +moments of danger and excitement, are easily forgotten when it is +over, and rarely rankle. These, even more than the pseudomaniac cases +mentioned later, grow rankly in those with criminal predispositions. + +The lie heroic is often justified as a means of noble ends. Youth has +an instinct which is wholesome for viewing moral situations as wholes. +Callow casualists are fond of declaring that it would be a duty to +state that their mother was out when she was in, if it would save her +life, although they perhaps would not lie to save their own. A doctor, +many suggested, might tell an overanxious patient or friend that there +was hope, saving his conscience perhaps by reflecting that there was +hope, although they had it while he had none. The end at first in such +cases may be very noble and the fib or quibble very petty, but worse +lies for meaner objects may follow. Youth often describes such +situations with exhilaration as if there were a feeling of easement +from the monotonous and tedious obligation of rigorous literal +veracity, and here mentors are liable to become nervous and err. The +youth who really gets interested in the conflict of duties may +reverently be referred to the inner lie of his own conscience, the +need of keeping which as a private tribunal is now apparent. + +Many adolescents become craven literalists and distinctly morbid and +pseudophobiac, regarding every deviation from scrupulously literal +truth as alike heinous; and many systematized palliatives and +casuistic word-splittings, methods of whispering or silently +interpolating the words "not," "perhaps," or "I think," sometimes said +over hundreds of times to neutralize the guilt of intended or +unintended falsehoods, appear in our records as a sad product of bad +methods. + +Next to the selfish lie for protection--of special psychological +interest for adolescent crime--is what we may call pseudomania, seen +especially in pathological girls in their teens, who are honeycombed +with selfishness and affectation and have a passion for always acting +a part, attracting attention, etc. The recent literature of telepathy +and hypnotism furnishes many striking examples of this diathesis of +impostors of both sexes. It is a strange psychological paradox that +some can so deliberately prefer to call black white and find distinct +inebriation in flying diametrically in the face of truth and fact. The +great impostors, whose entire lives have been a fabric of lies, are +cases in point. They find a distinct pleasure not only in the sense of +power which their ability to make trouble gives, but in the sense of +making truth a lie, and of decreeing things into and out of existence. + +Sheldon's interesting statistics show that among the institutional +activities of American children,[12] predatory organizations culminate +from eleven to fifteen, and are chiefly among boys. These include +bands of robbers, clubs for hunting and fishing, play armies, +organized fighting bands between separate districts, associations for +building forts, etc. This form of association is the typical one for +boys of twelve. After this age their interests are gradually +transferred to less loosely organized athletic clubs. Sheldon's +statistics are as follows: + +Age 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Total +No. of +predatory 4 5 3 0 7 1 1 3 1 0 25 = Girls +societies 4 2 17 31 18 22 (11) 7 1 0 111 = Boys + +Innocent though these predatory habits may be in small boys, if they +are not naturally and normally reduced at the beginning of the teens +and their energy worked off into athletic societies, they become +dangerous. "The robber knight, the pirate chief, and the marauder +become the real models." The stealing clubs gather edibles and even +useless things, the loss of which causes mischief, into some den, +cellar, or camp in the woods, where the plunder of their raids is +collected. An organized gang of boy pilferers for the purpose of +entering stores had a cache, where the stolen goods were brought +together. Some of these bands have specialized on electric bells and +connections, or golf sticks and balls. Jacob Riis says that on the +East Side of New York, every corner has its gang with a program of +defiance of law and order, where the young tough who is a coward alone +becomes dangerous when he hunts with the pack. He is ambitious to get +"pinched" or arrested and to pose as a hero. His vanity may obliterate +common fear and custom as his mind becomes inflamed with flash +literature and "penny dreadfuls." Sometimes whole neighborhoods are +terrorized so that no one dares to testify against the atrocities they +commit. Riis even goes so far as to say that "a bare enumeration of +the names of the best-known gangs would occupy the pages of this +book."[13] The names are sufficiently suggestive--hell's kitchen gang, +stable gang, dead men, floaters, rock, pay, hock gang, the soup-house +gang, plug uglies, back-alley men, dead beats, cop beaters, and +roasters, hell benders, chain gang, sheeny skinners, street cleaners, +tough kids, sluggers, wild Indians, cave and cellar men, moonlight +howlers, junk club, crook gang, being some I have heard of. Some of +the members of these gangs never knew a home, were found perhaps as +babies wrapped in newspapers, survivors of the seventy-two dead +infants Riis says were picked up on the streets in New York in 1889, +or of baby farming. They grow up street arabs, slum waifs, the +driftwood of society, its flotsam and jetsam, or plankton, fighting +for a warn corner in their resorts or living in crowded +tenement-houses that rent for more than a house on Fifth Avenue. +Arrant cowards singly, they dare and do anything together. A gang +stole a team in East New York and drove down the avenue, shopping to +throw in supplies, one member sitting in the back of the wagon and +shooting at all who interfered. One gang specialized on stealing baby +carriages, depositing their inmates on the sidewalk. Another blew up a +grocery store because its owner refused a gift they demanded. Another +tried to saw off the head of a Jewish pedler. One member killed +another for calling him "no gent." Six murderous assaults were made at +one time by these gangs within a single week. One who is caught and +does his "bit" or "stretch" is a hero, and when a leader is hanged, as +has sometimes happened, he is almost envied for his notoriety. A +frequent ideal is to pound a policeman with his own club. The gang +federates all nationalities. Property is depreciated and may be ruined +if it is frequented by these gangs or becomes their lair or +"hang-out." A citizen residing on the Hudson procured a howitzer and +pointed it at a boat gang, forbidding them to land on his river +frontage. They have their calls, whistles, signs, rally suddenly from +no one knows where, and vanish in the alleys, basements, roofs, and +corridors they know so well. Their inordinate vanity is well called +the slum counterpart of self-esteem, and Riis calls the gang a club +run wild. They have their own ideality and a gaudy pinchbeck honor. A +young tough, when arrested, wrenched away the policeman's club, dashed +into the street, rescued a baby from a runaway, and came back and gave +himself up. They batten on the yellowest literature. Those of foreign +descent, who come to speak our language better than their parents, +early learn to despise them. Gangs emulate each other in hardihood, +and this is one cause of epidemics in crime. They passionately love +boundless independence, are sometimes very susceptible to good +influence if applied with great wisdom and discretion, but easily fall +away. What is the true moral antitoxin for this class, or at least +what is the safety-valve and how and when to pull it, we are now just +beginning to learn, but it is a new specialty in the great work of +salvage from the wreckage of city life. In London, where these groups +are better organised and yet more numerous, war is often waged between +them, weapons are used and murder is not so very infrequent. Normally +this instinct passes harmlessly over into associations for physical +training, which furnishes a safe outlet for these instincts, until the +reductives of maturer years have perfected their work. + +The causation of crime, which the cure seeks to remove, is a problem +comparable with the origin of sin and evil. First, of course, comes +heredity, bad antenatal conditions, bad homes, unhealthful infancy and +childhood, overcrowded slums with their promiscuity and squalor, which +are always near the border of lawlessness, and perhaps are the chief +cause of crime. A large per cent of juvenile offenders, variously +estimated, but probably one-tenth of all, are vagrants or without +homes, and divorce of parents and illegitimacy seem to be nearly equal +as causative agencies. If whatever is physiologically wrong is morally +wrong, and whatever is physiologically right is morally right, we have +an important ethical suggestion from somatic conditions. There is no +doubt that conscious intelligence during a certain early stage of its +development tends to deteriorate the strength and infallibility of +instinctive processes, so that education is always beset with the +danger of interfering with ancestral and congenital tendencies. Its +prime object ought to be moralization, but it can not be denied that +in conquering ignorance we do not thereby conquer poverty or vice. +After the free schools in London were opened there was an increase of +juvenile offenders. New kinds of crime, such as forgery, grand +larceny, intricate swindling schemes, were doubled, while sneak +thieves, drunkards, and pick-pockets decreased, and the proportion of +educated criminals was greatly augmented.[14] To collect masses of +children and ram them with the same unassimilated facts is not +education in this sense, and we ought to confess that youthful crime +is an expression of educational failure. Illiterate criminals are more +likely to be detected, and also to be condemned, than are educated +criminals. Every anthropologist knows that the deepest poverty and +ignorance among primitive people are in nowise incompatible with +honesty, integrity, and virtue. Indeed there is much reason to suspect +that the extremes of wealth and poverty are more productive of crime +than ignorance, or even intemperance. Educators have no doubt vastly +overestimated the moral efficiency of the three R's and forgotten that +character in infancy is all instinct; that in childhood it is slowly +made over into habits; while at adolescence more than at any other +period of life, it can be cultivated through ideals. The dawn of +puberty, although perhaps marked by a certain moral hebetude, is soon +followed by a stormy period of great agitation, when the very worst +and best impulses in the human soul struggle against each other for +its possession, and when there is peculiar proneness to be either very +good or very bad. As the agitation slowly subsides, it is found that +there has been a renaissance of either the best or the worst elements +of the soul, if not indeed of both. + +Although pedagogues make vast claims for the moralizing effect of +schooling, I cannot find a single criminologist who is satisfied with +the modern school, while most bring the severest indictments against +it for the blind and ignorant assumption that the three R's or any +merely intellectual training can moralize. By nature, children are +more or less morally blind, and statistics show that between thirteen +and sixteen incorrigibility is between two and three times as great as +at any other age. It is almost impossible for adults to realize the +irresponsibility and even moral neurasthenia incidental to this stage +of development. If we reflect what a girl would do if dressed like a +boy and leading his life and exposed to the same moral contagion, or +what a boy would do if corseted and compelled to live like a girl, +perhaps we can realize that whatever rôle heredity plays, the youth +who go wrong are, in the vast majority of cases, victims of +circumstances or of immaturity, and deserving of both pity and hope. +It was this sentiment that impelled Zarnadelli to reconstruct the +criminal law of Italy, in this respect, and it was this sympathy that +made Rollet a self-constituted advocate, pleading each morning for the +twenty or thirty boys and eight or ten girls arrested every day in +Paris. + +Those smitten with the institution craze or with any extreme +correctionalist views will never solve the problem of criminal youths. +First of all, they must be carefully and objectively studied, lived +with, and understood as in this country Gulick, Johnson, Forbush and +Yoder are doing in different ways, but each with success. Criminaloid +youth is more sharply individualized than the common good child, who +is less differentiated. Virtue is more uniform and monotonous than +sin. There is one right but there are many wrong ways, hence they need +to be individually studied by every paidological method, physical and +psychic. Keepers, attendants, and even sponsors who have to do with +these children should be educators with souls full of fatherhood and +motherhood, and they should understand that the darkest criminal +propensities are frequently offset by the very best qualities; that +juvenile murderers are often very tender-hearted to parents, sisters, +children, or pets;[15] they should understand that in the criminal +constitution there are precisely the same ingredients, although +perhaps differently compounded, accentuated, mutually controlled, +etc., by the environment, as in themselves, so that to know all would, +in the great majority of cases, be to pardon all; that the home +sentiments need emphasis; that a little less stress of misery to +overcome the effects of economic malaise and, above all, a friend, +mentor, adviser are needed. + +I incline to think that many children would be better and not worse +for reading, provided it can be done in tender years, stories like +those of Captain Kidd, Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin, and other gory +tales, and perhaps later tales like Eugene Aram, and the ophidian +medicated novel, Elsie Venner, etc., on the principle of the +Aristotelian catharsis to arouse betimes the higher faculties which +develop later, and whose function it is to deplete the bad centers and +suppress or inhibit their activity. Again, I believe that judicious +and incisive scolding is a moral tonic, which is often greatly needed, +and if rightly administered would be extremely effective, because it +shows the instinctive reaction of the sane conscience against evil +deeds and tendencies. Special pedagogic attention should be given to +the sentiment of justice, which is almost the beginning of personal +morals in boys; and plays should be chosen and encouraged that hold +the beam even, regardless of personal wish and interest. Further yet +benevolence and its underlying impulse to do more than justice to our +associates; to do good in the world; to give pleasure to those about, +and not pain, can be directly cultivated. Truth-telling presents a far +harder problem, as we have seen. It is no pedagogical triumph to clip +the wings of fancy, but effort should be directed almost solely +against the cowardly lies, which cover evil; and the heroism of +telling the truth and taking the consequences is another of the +elements of the moral sense, so complex, so late in development, and +so often permanently crippled. The money sense, by all the many means +now used for its development in school, is the surest safeguard +against the most common juvenile crime of theft, and much can be +taught by precept, example, and moral regimen of the sacredness of +property rights. The regularity of school work and its industry is a +valuable moralizing agent, but entirely inadequate and insufficient by +itself. Educators must face the fact that the ultimate verdict +concerning the utility of the school will be determined, as Talleck +well says, by its moral efficiency in saving children from personal +vice and crime. + +Wherever any source of pollution of school communities occurs, it must +be at once and effectively detected, and some artificial elements must +be introduced into the environment. In other words, there must be a +system of moral orthopedics. Garofalo's[16] new term and principle of +"temibility" is perhaps of great service. He would thus designate the +quantum of evil feared that is sufficient to restrain criminal +impulsion. We can not measure guilt or culpability, which may be of +all degrees from nothing to infinity perhaps, but we can to some +extent scale the effectiveness of restraint, if criminal impulse is +not absolutely irresistible. Pain then must be so organised as to +follow and measure the offense by as nearly a natural method as +possible, while on the other hand the rewards for good conduct must +also be more or less accentuated. Thus the problem of criminology for +youth can not be based on the principles now recognised for adults. +They can not be protective of society only, but must have marked +reformatory elements. Solitude[17] which tends to make weak, agitated, +and fearful, at this very gregarious age should be enforced with very +great discretion. There must be no personal and unmotivated clemency +or pardon in such scheme, for, according to the old saw, "Mercy but +murders, pardoning those who kill"; nor on the other hand should there +be the excessive disregard of personal adjustments, and the +uniformitarian, who perhaps celebrated his highest triumph in the old +sentence, "Kill all offenders and suspects, for God will know his +own," should have no part nor lot here. The philosopher Hartmann has a +suggestive article advocating that penal colonies made up of +transported criminals should be experimented upon by statesmen in +order to put various theories of self-government to a practical test. +However this may be, the penologist of youth must face some such +problem in the organization of the house of detention, boys' club, +farm, reformatory, etc. We must pass beyond the clumsy apparatus of a +term sentence., or the devices of a jury, clumsier yet, for this +purpose; we must admit the principle of regret, fear, penance, +material restoration of damage, and understand the sense in which, for +both society and for the individual, it makes no practical difference +whether experts think there is some taint of insanity, provided only +that irresponsibility is not hopelessly complete. + +In few aspects of this theme do conceptions of and practises in regard +to adolescence need more radical reconstruction. A mere accident of +circumstance often condemns to criminal careers youths capable of the +highest service to society, and for a mere brief season of +temperamental outbreak or obstreperousness exposes them to all the +infamy to which ignorant and cruel public opinion condemns all those +who have once been detected on the wrong side of the invisible and +arbitrary line of rectitude. The heart of criminal psychology is here; +and not only that, but I would conclude with a most earnest personal +protest against the current methods of teaching and studying ethics in +our academic institutions as a speculative, historical, and abstract +thing. Here in the concrete and saliently objective facts of crime it +should have its beginning, and have more blood and body in it by +getting again close to the hot battle line between vice and virtue, +and then only, when balanced and sanified by a rich ballast of facts, +can it with advantage slowly work its way over to the larger and +higher philosophy of conduct, which, when developed from this basis, +will be a radically different thing from the shadowy phantom, +schematic speculations of many contemporary moralists, taught in our +schools and colleges. + +[Footnote 1: Problematische Kindesnaturen. Eine Studie für Schule und +Haus. Voigtländer, Leipzig, 1889.] + +[Footnote 2: Die pädagogische Pathologie in der Erziehungskunde des 19 +Jahrhunderts. Bertelsman, Gütersloh, 1893, p. 494.] + +[Footnote 3: Peculiar and Exceptional Children. Pedagogical Seminary, +October, 1896, vol. 4, pp. 3-60.] + +[Footnote 4: La Puberté. Schleicher Frères, Paris, 1902, p. 72.] + +[Footnote 5: Home and School Punishments. Pedagogical Seminary, March, +1899, vol. 6, pp. 159-187.] + +[Footnote 6: A Study of the Faults of Children. Pedagogical Seminary, +June, 1903, vol. 10, p. 200 _et seq._] + +[Footnote 7: The Child and the Weather, by Edwin G. Dexter. +Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1898, vol. 5, pp. 512-522.] + +[Footnote 8: Psychic Effects of the Weather, by J.S. Lemon. American +Journal of Psychology, January, 1894, vol. 6, pp. 277-279.] + +[Footnote 9: Truancy as Related to the Migrating Instinct, by L.W. +Kline. Pedagogical Seminary, January, 1898, vol. 5, pp. 381-420.] + +[Footnote 10: Children's Lies. American Journal of Psychology, +January, 1890, vol. 3, pp. 59-70.] + +[Footnote 11: Poems. With memoir by his brother, 2 vols., London, +1851.] + +[Footnote 12: American Journal of Psychology, July, 1898, vol. 9, pp. +425-448.] + +[Footnote 13: How the Other Half Lives. Scribner's Sons, New York, +1890, p. 229.] + +[Footnote 14: The Curse in Education, by Rebecca Harding Davis. North +American Review, May, 1899, vol. 168, pp. 609-614.] + +[Footnote 15: Holtzendorff: Psychologie des Mordes. C. Pfeiffer, +Berlin, 1875] + +[Footnote 16: La Criminologie. Paris, Alcan, 1890, p. 332] + +[Footnote 17: See its psychology and dangers well pointed out by M.H. +Small: Psychical Relations of Society and Solitude. Pedagogical +Seminary, April, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 13-69] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +BIOGRAPHIES OF YOUTH + + +Knightly ideals and honor--Thirty adolescents from +Shakespeare--Goethe--C.D. Warner--Aldrich--The fugitive nature of +adolescent experience--Extravagance of autobiographies--Stories that +attach to great names--Some typical crazes--Illustrations from George +Eliot, Edison, Chatterton, Hawthorne, Whittier, Spencer, Huxley, +Lyell, Byron, Heine, Napoleon, Darwin, Martineau, Agassiz, Madame +Roland, Louisa Alcott, F.H. Burnett, Helen Keller, Marie Bashkirtseff, +Mary MacLane, Ada Negri, De Quincey, Stuart Mill, Jefferies, and +scores of others. + +The knightly ideals and those of secular life generally during the +middle ages and later were in striking contrast to the ascetic ideals +of the early Christian Church; in some respects they were like those +of the Greeks. Honor was the leading ideal, and muscular development +and that of the body were held in high respect; so that the spirit of +the age fostered conceptions not unlike those of the Japanese Bushido. +Where elements of Christianity were combined with this we have the +spirit of the pure chivalry of King Arthur and the Knights of the +Round Table, which affords perhaps the very best ideals for youth to +be found in history, as we shall see more fully later. + +In a very interesting paper, entitled "Shakespeare and Adolescence," +Dr. M.F. Libby[1] very roughly reckons "seventy-four interesting +adolescents among the comedies, forty-six among the tragedies, and +nineteen among the histories." He selects "thirty characters who, +either on account of direct references to their age, or because of +their love-stories, or because they show the emotional and +intellectual plasticity of youth, may be regarded as typical +adolescents." His list is as follows: Romeo, Juliet, Hamlet, Ophelia, +Imogen, Perdita, Arviragus, Guiderius, Palamon, Arcite, Emilia, +Ferdinand, Miranda, Isabella, Mariana, Orlando, Rosalind, Biron, +Portia, Jessica, Phebe, Katharine, Helena, Viola, Troilus, Cressida, +Cassio, Marina, Prince Hal, and Richard of Gloucester. The proof of +the youth of these characters, as set forth, is of various kinds, and +Libby holds that besides these, the sonnets and poems perhaps show a +yet greater, more profound and concentrated knowledge of adolescence. +He thinks "Venus and Adonis" a successful attempt to treat sex in a +candid, naive way, if it be read as it was meant, as a catharsis of +passion, in which is latent a whole philosophy of art. To some extent +he also finds the story of the Passionate Pilgrim "replete with the +deepest knowledge of the passions of early adolescence" The series +culminates in Sonnet 116, which makes love the sole beacon of +humanity. It might be said that it is connected by a straight line +with the best teachings of Plato, and that here humanity picked up the +clue, lost, save with some Italian poets, in the great interval. + +In looking over current autobiographies of well-known modern men who +deal with their boyhood, one finds curious extremes. On the one hand +are those of which Doctor's is a type, where details are dwelt upon at +great length with careful and suggestive philosophic reflections. The +development of his own tastes, capacities, and his entire adult +consciousness was assumed to be due to the incidents of childhood and +youth, and especially the latter stage was to him full of the most +serious problems essential to his self-knowledge; and in the story of +his life he has exploited all available resources of this genetic +period of storm and stress more fully perhaps than any other writer. +At the other extreme, we have writers like Charles Dudley Warner,[2] a +self-made man, whose early life was passed on the farm, and who holds +his own boyhood there in greater contempt than perhaps any other +reputable writer of such reminiscences. All the incidents are treated +not only with seriousness, but with a forced drollery and catchy +superficiality which reflect unfavorably at almost every point upon +the members of his household, who are caricatured; all the precious +associations of early life on a New England farm are not only made +absurd, but from beginning to end his book has not a scintilla of +instruction or suggestion for those that are interested in child life. +Aldrich[3] is better, and we have interesting glimpses of the pet +horse and monkeys, of his fighting the boy bully, running way, and +falling in love with an older girl whose engagement later blighted his +life. Howells,[4] White,[5] Mitter,[6] Grahame,[7] Heidi,[8] and Mrs. +Barnett,[9] might perhaps represent increasing grades of merit in this +field in this respect. + +Yoder,[10] in his interesting study of the boyhood of great men, has +called attention to the deplorable carelessness of their biographers +concerning the facts and influences of their youth. He advocates the +great pedagogic influence of biography, and would restore the high +appreciation of it felt by the Bolandists, which Comte's positivist +calendar, that renamed all the days of the year from three hundred and +sixty-five such accounts in 1849, also sought to revive. Yoder +selected fifty great modern biographies, autobiographies preferred, +for his study. He found a number of lives whose equipment and momentum +have been strikingly due to some devoted aunt, and that give many +glimpses of the first polarization of genius in the direction in which +fame is later achieved. He holds that, while the great men excelled in +memory, imagination is perhaps still more a youthful condition of +eminence; magnifies the stimulus of poverty, the fact that elder sons +become prominent nearly twice as often as younger ones; and raises the +question whether too exuberant physical development does not dull +genius and talent. + +One striking and cardinal fact never to be forgotten considering its +each and every phenomenon and stage is that the experiences of +adolescence are extremely transitory and very easily forgotten, so +that they are often totally lost to the adult consciousness. +Lancaster[11] observes that we are constantly told by adults past +thirty that they never had this and that experience, and that those +who have had them are abnormal; that they are far more rare than +students of childhood assert, etc. He says, "Not a single young person +with whom I have had free and open conversation has been free from +serious thoughts of suicide," but these are forgotten later. A typical +case of many I could gather is that of a lady, not yet in middle life, +precise and carefully trained, who, on hearing a lecture on the +typical phases of adolescence, declared that she must have been +abnormal, for she knew nothing of any of these experiences. Her +mother, however, produced her diary, and there she read for the first +time since it was written, beginning in the January of her thirteenth +year, a long series of resolutions which revealed a course of conduct +that brought the color to her face, that she should have found it +necessary to pledge not to swear, lie, etc., and which showed +conclusively that she had passed through about all the phases +described. These phenomena are sometimes very intense and may come +late in life, but it is impossible to remember feelings and emotions +with definiteness, and these now make up a large part of life. Hence +we are prone to look with some incredulity upon the immediate records +of the tragic emotions and experiences typical and normal at this +time, because development has scored away their traces from the +conscious soul. + +There is a wall around the town of Boyville, says White,[12] in +substance, which is impenetrable when its gates have once shut upon +youth. An adult may peer over the wall and try to ape the games +inside, but finds it all a mockery and himself banished among the +purblind grown-ups. The town of Boyville was old when Nineveh was a +hamlet; it is ruled by ancient laws; has its own rulers and idols; and +only the dim, unreal noises of the adult world about it have changed. + +In exploring such sources we soon see how few writers have given true +pictures of the chief traits of this developmental period, which can +rarely be ascertained with accuracy. The adult finds it hard to recall +the emotional and instinctive life of the teens which is banished +without a trace, save as scattered hints may be gathered from diaries, +chance experiences, or the recollections of others. But the best +observers see but very little of what goes on in the youthful soul, +the development of which is very largely subterranean. Only when the +feelings erupt in some surprising way is the process manifest. The +best of these sources are autobiographies, and of these only few are +full of the details of this stage. Just as in the mythic prehistoric +stage of many nations there is a body of legendary matter, which often +reappears in somewhat different form, so there is a floating +plankton-like mass of tradition and storiology that seems to attach to +eminence wherever it emerges and is repeated over and over again, +concerning the youth of men who later achieve distinction, which +biographers often incorporate and attach to the time, place, and +person of their heroes. + +As Burnham[13] well intimates, many of the literary characterizations +of adolescence are so marked by extravagance, and sometimes even by +the struggle for literary effects, that they are not always the best +documents, although often based on personal experience. +Confessionalism is generally overdrawn, distorted, and especially the +pains of this age are represented as too keen. Of George Eliot's types +of adolescent character, this may best be seen in Maggie Tulliver, +with her enthusiastic self-renunciation, with "her volcanic upheavings +of imprisoned passions," with her "wide, hopeless yearning for that +something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth," +and in Gwendolen, who, from the moment she caught Deronda's eye, was +"totally swayed in feeling and action by the presence of a person of +the other sex whom she had never seen before." There was "the resolute +action from instinct and the setting at defiance of calculation and +reason, the want of any definite desire to marry, while all her +conduct tended to promote proposals." Exaggeration, although not the +perversions of this age often found in adult characterizations, is +marked trait of the writings of adolescents, whose conduct meanwhile +may appear rational, so that this suggests that consciousness may at +this stage serve as a harmless vent for tendencies that would +otherwise cause great trouble if turned to practical affairs. If +Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the adolescent tyrant slayers of Greece, +had been theorists, they might have been harmless on the principle +that its analysis tends to dissipate emotion. + +Lancaster[14] gathered and glanced over a thousand biographies, from +which he selected 200 for careful study, choosing them to show +different typical directions of activity. Of these, 120 showed a +distinct craze for reading in adolescence; 109 became great lovers of +nature; 58 wrote poetry, 58 showed a great and sudden development of +energy; 55 showed great eagerness for school; 53 devoted themselves +for a season to art and music; 53 became very religious; 51 left home +in the teens; 51 showed dominant instincts of leadership; 49 had great +longings of many kinds; 46 developed scientific tastes; 41 grew very +anxious about the future; 34 developed increased keenness of sensation +or at least power of observation; in 32 cases health was better; 31 +were passionately altruistic; 23 became idealists; 23 showed powers of +invention; 17 were devoted to older friends; 15 would reform society; +7 hated school. These, like many other statistics, have only +indicative value, as they are based on numbers that are not large +enough and upon returns not always complete. + +A few typical instances from Lancaster must here suffice. Savonarola +was solitary, pondering, meditating, felt profoundly the evils of the +world and need of reform, and at twenty-two spent a whole night +planning his career. Shelley during these years was unsocial, much +alone, fantastic, wandered much by moonlight communing with stars and +moon, was attached to an older man. Beecher was intoxicated with +nature, which he declared afterward to have been the inspiration of +his life. George Eliot at thirteen had a passion for music and became +a clever pianist. At sixteen she was religious, founded societies for +the poor and for animals, and had fitting spells of misanthropy. +Edison undertook to read the Detroit Free Library through, read +fifteen solid feet as the books stand on the shelves, was stopped, and +says he has read comparatively little since. Tolstoi found the aspect +of things suddenly changed. Nature put on a new appearance. He felt he +might commit the most dreadful crimes with no purpose save curiosity +and the need of action. The future looked gloomy. He became furiously +angry without cause; thought he was lost, hated by everybody, was +perhaps not the son of his father, etc. At seventeen he was solitary, +musing about immortality, human destiny, feeling death at hand, giving +up his studies, fancying himself a great man with new truths for +humanity. By and by he took up the old virtuous course of life with +fresh power, new resolutions, with the feeling that he had lost much +time. He had a deep religious experience at seventeen and wept for joy +over his new life. He had a period before twenty when he told +desperate lies, for which he could not account, then a passion for +music, and later for French novels. Rousseau at this age was +discontented, immensely in love, wept often without cause, etc. Keats +had a great change at fourteen, wrestling with frequent obscure and +profound stirrings of soul, with a sudden hunger for knowledge which +consumed his days with fire, and "with passionate longing to drain the +cup of experience at a draft." He was "at the morning hour when the +whole world turns to gold." "The boy had suddenly become a poet." +Chatterton was too proud to eat a gift dinner, though nearly starved, +and committed suicide at seventeen for lack of appreciation. John +Hunter was dull and hated study, but at twenty his mind awoke as did +that of Patrick Henry, who before was a lonely wanderer, sitting idly +for hours under the trees. Alexander Murray awoke to life at fifteen +and acquired several languages in less than two years. Gifford was +distraught for lack of reading, went to sea at thirteen, became a +shoemaker, studying algebra late at night, was savagely unsociable, +sunk into torpor from which he was roused to do splenetic and +vexatious tricks, which alienated his friends. Rittenhouse at fourteen +was a plowboy, covering the fences with figures, musing on infinite +time and space. Benjamin Thompson was roused to a frenzy for sciences +at fifteen; at seventeen walked nine miles daily to attend lectures at +Cambridge; and at nineteen married a widow of thirty-three. Franklin +had a passion for the sea; at thirteen read poetry all night; wrote +verses and sold them on the streets of Boston; doubted everything at +fifteen; left home for good at seventeen; started the first public +library in Philadelphia before he was twenty-one. Robert Fulton was +poor, dreamy, mercurial, devoted to nature, art, and literature. He +became a painter of talent, then a poet, and left home at seventeen. +Bryant was sickly till fourteen and became permanently well +thereafter; was precociously devoted to nature, religion, prayed for +poetic genius and wrote Thanatopsis before he was eighteen. Jefferson +doted on animals and nature at fourteen, and at seventeen studied +fifteen hours a day. Garfield, though living in Ohio, longed for the +sea, and ever after this period the sight of a ship gave him a strange +thrill. Hawthorne was devoted to the sea and wanted to sail on and on +forever and never touch shore again. He would roam through the Maine +woods alone; was haunted by the fear that he would die before +twenty-five. Peter Cooper left home at seventeen; was passionately +altruistic; and at eighteen vowed he would build a place like his New +York Institute. Whittier at fourteen found a copy of Burns, which +excited him and changed the current of his life. Holmes had a passion +for flowers, broke into poetry at fifteen, and had very romantic +attachments to certain trees. J. T. Trowbridge learned German, French, +and Latin alone before twenty-one; composed poetry at the plow and +wrote it out in the evening. Henry followed a rabbit under the Public +Library at Albany, found a hole in the floor that admitted him to the +shelves, and, unknown to any one, read all the fiction the library +contained, then turned to physics, astronomy, and chemistry, and +developed a passion for the sciences. He was stage-struck, and became +a good amateur actor. H. H. Boyesen was thrilled by nature and by the +thought that he was a Norseman. He had several hundred pigeons, +rabbits, and other pets; loved to be in the woods at night; on leaving +home for school was found with his arms around the neck of a calf to +which he was saying good-by. Maxwell, at sixteen, had almost a horror +of destroying a leaf, flower, or fly. Jahn found growing in his heart, +at this age, an inextinguishable feeling for right and wrong--which +later he thought the cause of all his inner weal and outer woe. When +Nansen was in his teens he spent weeks at a time alone in the forest, +full of longings, courage, altruism, wanted to get away from every one +and live like Crusoe. T. B. Reed, at twelve and thirteen, had a +passion for reading; ran away at seventeen; painted, acted, and wrote +poetry. Cartwright, at sixteen, heard voices from the sky saying, +"Look above, thy sins are forgiven thee." Herbert Spencer became an +engineer at seventeen, after one idle year. He never went to school, +but was a private pupil of his uncle. Sir James Mackintosh grew fond +of history at eleven; fancied he was the Emperor of Constantinople; +loved solitude at thirteen; wrote poetry at fourteen; and fell in love +at seventeen. Thomas Buxton loved dogs, horses, and literature, and +combined these while riding on an old horse. At sixteen be fell in +love with an older literary woman, which aroused every latent power to +do or die, and thereafter he took all the school prizes. Scott began +to like poetry at thirteen. Pascal wrote treatises on conic sections +at sixteen and invented his arithmetical machine at nineteen. Nelson +went to sea at twelve; commanded a boat in peril at fifteen, which at +the same age he left to fight a polar bear. Banks, the botanist, was +idle and listless till fourteen, could not travel the road marked out +for him; when coming home from bathing, he was struck by the beauty of +the flowers and at once began his career. Montcalm and Wolfe both +distinguished themselves as leaders in battle at sixteen. Lafayette +came to America at nineteen, thrilled by our bold strike for liberty. +Gustavus Adolphus declared his own majority at seventeen and was soon +famous. Ida Lewis rescued four men in a boat at sixteen. Joan of Arc +began at thirteen to have the visions which were the later guide of +her life. + +Mr. Swift has collected interesting biographical material[15] to show +that school work is analytic, while life is synthetic, and how the +narrowness of the school enclosure prompts many youth in the wayward +age to jump fences and seek new and more alluring pastures. According +to school standards, many were dull and indolent, but their nature was +too large or their ideals too high to be satisfied with it. Wagner at +the Nikolaischule at Leipzig was relegated to the third form, having +already attained to the second at Dresden, which so embittered him +that he lost all taste for philology and, in his own words, "became +lazy and slovenly." Priestley never improved by any systematic course +of study. W.H. Gibson was very slow and was rebuked for wasting his +time in sketching. James Russell Lowell was reprimanded, at first +privately and then publicly, in his sophomore year "for general +negligence in themes, forensics, and recitations," and finally +suspended in 1838 "on account of continued neglect of his college +duties." In early life Goldsmith's teacher thought him the dullest boy +she had ever taught. His tutor called him ignorant and stupid. Irving +says that a lad "whose passions are not strong enough in youth to +mislead him from that path of science which his tutors, and not his +inclinations, have chalked out, by four or five years' perseverance, +will probably obtain every advantage and honor his college can bestow. +I would compare the man whose youth has been thus passed in the +tranquility of dispassionate prudence, to liquors that never ferment, +and, consequently, continue always muddy." Huxley detested writing +till past twenty. His schooling was very brief, and he declared that +those set over him "cared about as much for his intellectual and moral +welfare as if they were baby farmers." Humphry Davy was faithful but +showed no talent in school, having "the reputation of being an idle +boy, with a gift for making verses, but with no aptitude for studies +of a graver sort." Later in life he considered it fortunate that he +was left so much to himself. Byron was so poor a scholar that he only +stood at the head of the class when, as was the custom, it was +inverted, and the bantering master repeatedly said to him, "Now, +George, man, let me see how soon you'll be at the foot." Schiller's +negligence and lack of alertness called for repeated reproof, and his +final school thesis was unsatisfactory. Hegel was a poor scholar, and +at the university it was stated "that he was of middling industry and +knowledge but especially deficient in philosophy." John Hunter nearly +became a cabinetmaker. Lyell had excessive aversion to work. George +Combe wondered why he was so inferior to other boys in arithmetic. +Heine agreed with the monks that Greek was the invention of the devil. +"God knows what misery I suffered with it." He hated French meters, +and his teacher vowed he had no soul for poetry. He idled away his +time at Bonn, and was "horribly bored" by the "odious, stiff, +cut-and-dried tone" of the leathery professors. Humboldt was feeble as +a child and "had less facility in his studies than most children." +"Until I reached the age of sixteen," he says, "I showed little +inclination for scientific pursuits." He was essentially self-taught, +and acquired most of his knowledge rather late in life. At nineteen he +had never heard of botany. Sheridan was called inferior to many of his +schoolfellows. He was remarkable for nothing but idleness and winning +manners, and was "not only slovenly in construing, but unusually +defective in his Greek grammar." Swift was refused his degree because +of "dulness and insufficiency," but given it later as a special favor. +Wordsworth was disappointing. General Grant was never above +mediocrity, and was dropped as corporal in the junior class and served +the last year as a private. W. H. Seward was called "too stupid to +learn." Napoleon graduated forty-second in his class. "Who," asks +Swift, "were the forty-one above him?" Darwin was singularly incapable +of mastering any language. "When he left school," he says, "I was +considered by all my masters and by my father as a very ordinary boy, +rather below the common standard in intellect. To my deep +mortification, my father once said to me, 'You care for nothing but +shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to +yourself and to all your family.'" Harriet Martineau was thought very +dull. Though a horn musician, she could do absolutely nothing in the +presence of her irritable master. She wrote a cramped, untidy scrawl +until past twenty. A visit to some very brilliant cousins at the age +of sixteen had much to do in arousing her backward nature. At this age +J. Pierpont Morgan wrote poetry and was devoted to mathematics. Booker +T. Washington, at about thirteen or fourteen (he does not know the +date of his birth), felt the new meaning of life and started off on +foot to Hampton, five hundred miles away, not knowing even the +direction, sleeping under a sidewalk his first night in Richmond. +Vittorino da Feltre,[16] according to Dr. Burnham, had a low, tardy +development, lingering on a sluggish dead level from ten to fourteen, +which to his later unfoldment was as the barren, improving years +sometimes called the middle ages, compared with the remainder which +followed when a new world-consciousness intensified his personality. + +Lancaster's summaries show that of 100 actors, the average age of +their first great success was exactly 18 years. Those he chose had +taken to the stage of their own accord, for actors are more born than +made. Nearly half of them were Irish, the unemotional American stock +having furnished far less. Few make their first success on the stage +after 22, but from 16 to 20 is the time to expect talent in this line, +although there is a second rise in his curve before and still more +after 25, representing those whose success is more due to intellect. +Taking the average age of 100 novelists when their first story met +with public approval, the curve reaches its highest point between 30 +and 35. Averaging 53 poets, the age at which most first poems were +published falls between 15 and 20. The average age at which first +publication showed talent he places at 18, which is in striking +contrast with the average age of inventors at time of the first +patent, which is 33 years. + +A still more striking contrast is that between 100 musicians and 100 +professional men. Music is by far the most precocious and instinctive +of all talents. The average age when marked talent was first shown is +a little less than 10 years, 95 per cent showed rare talent before 16, +while the professional men graduated at an average age of 24 years and +11 months, and 10 years must be added to mark the point of recognized +success. Of 53 artists, 90 per cent showed talent before 20, the +average age being 17.2 years. Of 100 pioneers who made their mark in +the Far West, leaving home to seek fortunes near the frontier, the +greatest number departed before they were 18. Of 118 scientists, +Lancaster estimates that their life interest first began to glow on +the average a little before they were 19. In general, those whose +success is based on emotional traits antedate by some years those +whose renown is more purely in intellectual spheres, and taking all +together, the curves of the first class culminate between 18 and 20. + +While men devoted to physical science, and their biographers, give us +perhaps the least breezy accounts of this seething age, it may be, +because they mature late, nearly all show its ferments and its +circumnutations, as a few almost random illustrations clearly show: + + +Tycho Brahe, born in 1596 of illustrious Danish stock, was adopted by +an uncle, and entered the University of Copenhagen at thirteen, where +multiplication, division, philosophy, and metaphysics were taught. +When he was fourteen, an eclipse of the sun occurred, which aroused so +much interest that he decided to devote himself to the study of the +heavenly bodies. He was able to construct a series of interesting +instruments on a progressive scale of size, and finally to erect the +great Observatory of Uraniberg on the Island of Hven. Strange to say, +his scientific conclusions had for him profound astrological +significance. An important new star he declared was "at first like +Venus and Jupiter and its effects will therefore first be pleasant; +but as it then became like Mars, there will next come a period of +wars, seditions, captivity, and death of princes, and destruction of +cities, together with dryness and fiery meteors in the air, +pestilence, and venomous snakes. Lastly, the star became like Saturn, +and thus will finally come a time of want, death, imprisonment, and +all kinds of sad things!" He says that "a special use of astronomy is +that it enables us to draw conclusions from the movements in the +celestial regions as to human fate." He labored on his island twenty +years. He was always versifying, and inscribed a poem over the +entrance of his underground observatory expressing the astonishment of +Urania at finding in the interior of the earth a cavern devoted to the +study of the heavens. + +Galileo[17] was born in 1564 of a Florentine noble, who was poor. As a +youth he became an excellent lutist, then thought of devoting himself +to painting, but when he was seventeen studied medicine, and at the +University of Pisa fell in love with mathematics. + +Isaac Newton,[18] born in 1642, very frail and sickly, solitary, had a +very low piece in the class lists of his school; wrote poetry, and at +sixteen tried farming. In one of his university examinations in Euclid +be did so poorly as to incur special censure. His first incentive to +diligent study came from being severely kicked by a high class boy. He +then resolved to pass him in studies, and soon rose to the head of the +school. He made many ingenious toys and windmills; a carriage, the +wheels of which were driven by the hands of the occupants, and a clock +which moved by water; curtains, kites, lanterns, etc.; and before he +was fourteen fell in love with Miss Storey, several yeas older than +himself. He entered Trinity College at Cambridge at eighteen. + +William Herschel, born in 1738, at the outbreak of the Seven Years' +War, when he was eighteen, was a performer in the regimental band, and +after a battle passed a night in a ditch and escaped in disguise, to +England, where he eked out a precarious livelihood by teaching music. +He supported himself until middle age as an organist. In much of his +later work he was greatly aided by his sister Caroline. When be +discovered a sixth planet he became famous, and devoted himself +exclusively to astronomy, training his only son to follow in his +footsteps, and dying in 1822. + +Agassiz[19] at twelve had developed a mania for collecting. He +memorized Latin names, of which he accumulated "great volumes of +MSS.", and "modestly expressed the hope that in time he might be able +to give the name of every known animal." At fourteen he revolted at +mercantile life, for which he was designed, and issued a manifesto +planning to spend four years at a Cermem university, then in Paris, +when he could begin to write. Rooks were scarce, and a little later he +copied, with the aid of his brother, several large volumes, and had +fifty live birds in his room at one time. + +At twelve Huxley[20] became an omnivorous reader, and two or three +years later devoured Hamilton's Logic and became deeply interested in +metaphysics. At fourteen he saw and participated in his first +post-mortem examination, was left in a strange state of apathy by it, +and dates his life-long dyspepsia to this experience. His training was +irregular; he taught himself German with a book in one hand while he +made hay with the other; speculated about the basis of matter, soul, +and their relations, on radicalism and conservatism; and reproached +himself that he did not work and get on enough. At seventeen he +attempted a comprehensive classification of human knowledge, and +having finished his survey, resolved to master the topics one after +another, striking them out from his table with ink as soon us they +were done. "May the list soon get black, although at present I shall +hardly be able, I am afraid, to spot the paper." Beneath the top +skimmings of these years he afterward conceived seething depths +working beneath the froth, but could give hardly any account of it. He +undertook the practise of pharmacy, etc. + + +Women with literary gifts perhaps surpass men in their power to +reproduce and describe the great but so often evanescent ebullitions +of this age; perhaps because their later lives, on account of their +more generic nature, depart less from this totalizing period, or +because, although it is psychologically shorter than in men, the +necessities of earning a livelihood less frequently arrest its full +development, and again because they are more emotional, and feeling +constitutes the chief psychic ingredient of this stage of life, or +they dwell more on subjective states. + +Manon Philipon (Madame Roland) was born in 1754. Her father was an +engraver in comfortable circumstances. Her earliest enthusiasm was for +the Bible and Lives of the Saints, and she had almost a mania for +reading books of any kind. In the corner of her father's workshop she +would read Plutarch for hours, dream of the past glories of antiquity, +and exclaim, weeping, "Why was I not born a Greek?" She desired to +emulate the brave men of old. + + +Books and flowers aroused her to dreams of enthusiasm, romantic +sentiment, and lofty aspiration. Finding that the French society +afforded no opportunity for heroic living, in her visionary fervor she +fell back upon a life of religious mysticism, and Xavier, Loyola, St. +Elizabeth, and St. Theresa became her new idols. She longed to follow +even to the stake those devout men and women who had borne obloquy, +poverty, hunger, thirst, wretchedness, and the agony of a martyr's +death for the sake of Jesus. Her capacities for self-sacrifice became +perhaps her leading trait, always longing after a grand life like +George Eliot's Dorothea Brooke. She was allowed at the age of eleven +to enter a convent, where, shunning her companions, she courted +solitude apart, under the trees, reading and thinking. Artificial as +the atmosphere was here, it no doubt inspired her life with permanent +tenderness of feeling and loftiness of purpose, and gave a mystic +quality to her imagination. Later she experienced to the full +revulsion of thought and experience which comes when doubt reacts upon +youthful credulity. It was the age of the encyclopedia, and now she +came to doubt her creed and even God and the soul, but clung to the +Gospels as the best possible code of morals, and later realized that +while her intellect had wandered her heart had remained constant. At +seventeen she was, if not the moat beautiful, perhaps the noblest +woman in all France, and here the curtain moat drop upon her girlhood. +All her traits were, of course, set off by the great life she lived +and the yet greater death she died. + + +Gifted people seem to conserve their youth and to be all the more +children, and perhaps especially all the more intensely adolescents, +because of their gifts, and it is certainly one of the marks of genius +that the plasticity and spontaneity of adolescence persists into +maturity. Sometimes even its passions, reveries, and hoydenish freaks +continue. In her "Histoire de Ma Vie," it is plain that George Sand +inherited at this age an unusual dower of gifts. She composed many and +interminable stories, carried on day after day, so that her confidants +tried to tease her by asking if the prince had got out of the forest +yet, etc. She personated an echo and conversed with it. Her day-dreams +and plays were so intense that she often came back from the world of +imagination to reality with a shock. She spun a weird zoological +romance out of a rustic legend of _la grande bête_. + +When her aunt sent her to a convent, she passed a year of rebellion +and revolt, and was the leader of _les diables_, or those who refused +to be devout, and engaged in all wild pranks. At fifteen she became +profoundly interested in the lives of the saints, although ridiculing +miracles. She entered one evening the convent church for service, +without permission, which was an act of disobedience. The mystery and +holy charm of it penetrated her; she forgot everything outward and was +left alone, and some mysterious change stole over her. She "breathed +an atmosphere of ineffable sweetness" more with the mind than the +senses; had a sudden indescribable perturbation; her eyes swam; she +was enveloped in a white glimmer, and heard a voice murmur the words +written under a convent picture of St. Augustine, _Tolle, lege,_ and +turned around thinking Mother Alicia spoke, but she was alone. She +knew it was an hallucination, but saw that faith had laid hold of her, +as she wished, by the heart, and she sobbed and prayed to the unknown +God till a nun heard her groaning. At first her ardor impelled her not +only to brave the jeers of her madcap club of harum-scarums and +tomboys, but she planned to become a nun, until this feverish longing +for a recluse life passed, but left her changed.[21] + +When she passed from the simple and Catholic faith of her grisette +mother to the atmosphere of her cynical grandmother at Nohant, who was +a disciple of Voltaire, she found herself in great straits between the +profound sentiments inspired by the first communion and the concurrent +contempt for this faith, instilled by her grandmother for all those +mummeries through which, however, for conventional reasons she was +obliged to pass. Her heart was deeply stirred, and yet her head +holding all religion to be fiction or metaphor, it occurred to her to +invent a story which might be a religion or a religion which might be +a story into any degree of belief in which she could lapse at will. +The name and the form of her new deity was revealed to her in a dream. +He was Corambé, pure as Jesus, beautiful as Gabriel, as graceful as +the nymphs and Orpheus, less austere than the Christian God, and as +much woman as man, because she could best understand this sex from her +love for her mother. He appeared in many aspects of physical and moral +beauty; was eloquent, master of all arts, and above all of the magic +of musical improvisation; loved as a friend and sister, and at the +same time revered as a god; not awful and remote from impeccability, +but with the fault of excess of indulgence. She estimated that she +composed about a thousand sacred books or songs developing phases of +his mundane existence. In each of these he became incarnate man on +touching the earth, always in a new group of people who were good, yet +suffering martyrdoms from the wicked known only by the effects of +their malice. In this "gentle hallucination" she could lose herself in +the midst of friends, and turn to her hero deity for comfort. There +must be not only sacred books, but a temple and ritual, and in a +garden thicket, which no eye could penetrate, in a moss-carpeted +chamber she built an altar against a tree-trunk, ornamented with a +wreath hung over it. Instead of sacrificing, which seemed barbaric, +she proceeded to restore life and liberty to butterflies, lizards, +green frogs, and birds, which she put in a box, laid on the altar, and +"after having invoked the good genius of liberty and protection," +opened it. In these mimic rites and delicious reveries she found the +germs of a religion that fitted her heart. From the instant, however, +that a boy playmate discovered and entered this sanctuary, "Corambé +ceased to dwell in it. The dryads and the cherubim deserted it," and +it seemed unreal. The temple was destroyed with great care, and the +garlands and shells were buried under the tree.[22] + +Louisa Alcott's romantic period opened at fifteen, when she began to +write poetry, keep a heart journal, and wander by moonlight, and +wished to be the Bettine of Emerson, in whose library she foraged; +wrote him letters which were never sent; sat in a tall tree at +midnight; left wild flowers on the doorstep of her master; sang +Mignon's song under his window; and was refined by her choice of an +idol. Her diary was all about herself. + + +If she looked in the glass at her long hair and well-shaped head, she +tried to keep down her vanity; her quick tongue, moodiness, poverty, +impossible longings, made every day a battle until she hardly wished +to live, only something must be done, and waiting is so hard. She +imagined her mind a room in confusion which must be put in order; the +useless thought swept out; foolish fancies dusted away; newly +furnished with good resolutions. But she was not a good housekeeper; +cobwebs got in, and it was hard to rule. She was smitten with a mania +for the stage, and spent most of her leisure in writing and acting +plays of melodramatic style ad high-strung sentiment, improbable +incidents, with no touch of common life or sense of humor, full of +concealments and surprises, bright dialogues, and lofty sentiments. +She had much dramatic power and loved to transform herself into Hamlet +and declaim in mock heroic style. From sixteen to twenty-three was her +apprenticeship to life. She taught, wrote for the papers, did +housework for pay as a servant, and found sewing a pleasant resource +because it was tranquillizing, left her free, and set her thoughts +going. + +Mrs. Burnett,[23] like most women who record their childhood and +adolescent memories, is far more subjective and interesting than most +men. In early adolescence she was never alone when with flowers, but +loved to "speak to them, to bend down and say caressing things, to +stoop and kiss them, to praise them for their pretty ways of looking +up at her as into the eyes of a friend and beloved. There were certain +little blue violets which always seemed to lift their small faces +childishly, as if they were saying, 'Kiss me; don't go by like that.'" +She would sit on the porch, elbows on knees and chin on hands, staring +upward, sometimes lying on the grass. Heaven was so high and yet she +was a part of it and was something even among the stars. It was a +weird, updrawn, overwhelming feeling as she stared so fixedly and +intently that the earth seemed gone, left far behind. Every hour and +moment was a wonderful and beautiful thing. She felt on speaking terms +with the rabbits. Something was happening in the leaves which waved +and rustled as she passed. Just to walk, sit, lie around out of doors, +to loiter, gaze, watch with a heart fresh as a young dryad, following +birds, playing hide-and-seek with the brook-these were her halcyon +hours. + +With the instability of genius, Beth[24] did everything suddenly. When +twelve or thirteen, she had grown too big to be carried, pulled or +pushed; she suddenly stood still one day, when her mother, commanded +her to dress. She had been ruled before by physical force, but her +will and that of her mother were now in collision, and the latter +realised she could make her do nothing unless by persuasion or moral +influence. Being constantly reproved, scolded, and even beaten by her +mother, Beth one day impulsively jumped into the sea, and was rescued +with difficulty. She had spells of being miserable with no cause. She +was well and happy, but would burst into tears suddenly, which seemed +often to surprise her. Being very sensitive herself, she was morbidly +careful of the feelings of others and incessantly committed grave sins +of insincerity without compunction in her effort to spare them. To +those who confided in her abilities, praised her, and thought she +could do things, her nature expanded, but her mother checked her +mental growth over and over, instead of helping her by saying, "Don't +try, you can't do it," etc. + +Just before the dawn of adolescence she had passed through a long +period of abject superstition, largely through the influence of a +servant. All the old woman's signs were very dominant in her life. She +even invented methods of divination, as, "if the boards do not creak +when I walk across the room I shall get through my lessons without +trouble." She always preferred to see two rooks together to one and +became expert in the black arts. She used to hear strange noises at +night for a time, which seemed signs and portents of disaster at sea, +fell into the ways of her neighbors, and had more faith in +incantations than in doctors' doses. She not only heard voices and +very ingeniously described them, but claimed to know what was going to +happen and compared her forebodings with the maid. She "got religion" +very intensely under the influence of her aunt, grew thin, lost her +appetite and sleep, had heartache to think of her friends burning in +hell, and tried to save them. + +Beth never thought at all of her personal appearance until she +overheard a gentleman call her rather nice-looking, when her face +flushed and she had a new feeling of surprise and pleasure, and took +very clever ways of cross-examining her friends to find if she was +handsome. All of a sudden the care of her person became of great +importance, and every hint she had heard of was acted on. She aired +her bed, brushed her hair glossy, pinched her waist and feet, washed +in buttermilk, used a parasol, tortured her natural appetite in every +way, put on gloves to do dirty work, etc. + +The house always irked her. Once stealing out of the school by night, +she was free, stretched herself, drew a long breath, bounded and waved +her arms in an ecstasy of liberty, danced around the magnolia, buried +her face in the big flowers one after another and bathed it in the dew +of the petals, visited every forbidden place, was particularly +attracted to the water, enjoyed scratching and making her feet bleed +and eating a lot of green fruit. This liberty was most precious and +all through a hot summer she kept herself healthy by exercise in the +moonlight. This revived her appetite, and she ended these night +excursions by a forage in the kitchen. Beth had times when she +hungered for solitude and for nature. Sometimes she would shut herself +in her room, but more often would rove the fields and woods in +ecstasy. Coming home from school, where she had long been, she had to +greet the trees and fields almost before she did her parents. She had +a great habit of stealing out often by the most dangerous routes over +roofs, etc., at night in the moonlight, running and jumping, waving +her arms, throwing herself on the ground, rolling over, walling on +all-fours, turning somersaults, hugging trees, playing hide-and-seek +with the shadow fairy-folk, now playing and feeling fear and running +away. She invoked trees, stars, etc. + +Beth's first love affair was with a bright, fair-haired, fat-faced +boy, who sat near her pew Sundays. They looked at each other once +during service, and she felt a glad glow in her chest spread over her, +dwelt on his image, smiled, and even the next day felt a new desire to +please. She watched for him to pass from school. When he appeared, +"had a most delightful thrill shoot through her." The first impulse to +fly was conquered; she never thought a boy beautiful before. They +often met after dark, wrote; finally she grew tired of him because she +could not make him feel deeply, sent him off, called him an idiot, and +then soliloquized on the "most dreadful grief of her life." The latter +stages of their acquaintance she occasionally used to beat him, but +his attraction steadily waned. Once later, as she was suffering from a +dull, irresolute feeling due to want of a companion and an object, she +met a boy of seventeen, whose face, like her own, brightened as they +approached. It was the first appearance of nature's mandate to mate. +This friendly glance suffused her whole being with the "glory and +vision of love." Religion and young men were her need. They had stolen +interviews by night and many an innocent embrace and kiss, and almost +died once by being caught. They planned in detail what they would do +after they were married, but all was taken for granted without formal +vows. Only when criticized did they ever dream of caution and +concealment, and then they made elaborate parades of ignoring each +other in public and fired their imaginations with thoughts of +disguises, masks, etc. This passion was nipped in the bud by the boy's +removal from his school. + +In preparing for her first communion, an anonymous writer[25] became +sober and studious, proposing to model her life on that of each fresh +saint and to spend a week in retreat examining her conscience with +vengeance. She wanted to revive the custom of public confession and +wrote letters of penitence and submission, which she tore up later, +finding her mind not "all of a piece." She lay prostrate on her +prie-dieu weeping from ecstasy, lying on the rim of heaven held by +angels, wanting to die, now bathed in bliss or aching intolerably with +spiritual joy, but she was only twelve and her old nature often +reasserted itself. Religion at that time became an intense emotion +nourished on incense, music, tapers, and a feeling of being tangible. +It was rapturous and sensuous. While under its spell, she seemed to +float and touch the wings of angels. Here solemn Gregorian chants are +sung, so that when one comes back to earth there is a sense of hunger, +deception, and self-loathing. Now she came to understand how so many +sentimental and virtuous souls sought oblivion in the narcotic of +religious excitement. Here, at the age of twelve, youth began and +childhood ended with her book. + + +Pathetic is the account of Helen Keller's effort to understand the +meaning of the word "love" in its season.[26] + + +Is it the sweetness of flowers? she asked. No, said her teacher. Is it +the warm sun? Not exactly. It can not be touched, "'but you feel the +sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love, you would not +be happy or want to play.' The beautiful truth burst upon my mind. I +felt that there were invisible lines stretched between my spirit and +the spirit of others." This period seems to have came gradually and +naturally to this wonderful child, whose life has been perhaps the +purest ever lived and one of the sweetest. None has ever loved every +aspect of nature accessible to her more passionately, or felt more +keenly the charm of nature or of beautiful sentiments. The unhappy +Frost King episode has been almost the only cloud upon her life, which +unfortunately came at about the dawn of this period, that is perhaps +better marked by the great expansion of mind which she experienced at +the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, when she was thirteen. About this +time, too, her great ambition of going to college and enjoying all the +advantages that other girls did, which, considering her handicap, was +one of the greatest human resolutions, was strengthened and deepened. +The fresh, spontaneous, and exquisite reactions of this pellucid mind, +which felt that each individual could comprehend all the experiences +and emotions of the race and that chafed at every pedagogical and +technical obstacle between her soul and nature, and the great +monuments of literature, show that she has conserved to a remarkable +degree, which the world will wish may be permanent, the best impulses +of this golden age. + + +Marie Bashkirtseff,[27] who may be taken as one of the best types of +exaggerated adolescent confessionalists, was rich and of noble birth, +and began in 1873, at the age of twelve, to write a journal that +should be absolutely true and frank, with no pretense, affectation, or +concealment. The journal continues until her death, October, 1884, at +the age of twenty-three. It may be described as in some sense a +feminine counterpart of Rousseau's confessions, but is in some +respects a more precious psychological document than any other for the +elucidation of the adolescent ferment in an unusually vigorous and +gifted soul. Twice I have read it from cover to cover and with growing +interest. + + +At twelve she is passionately in love with a duke, whom she sometimes +saw pass, but who had no knowledge of her existence, and builds many +air castles about his throwing himself at her feet and of their life +together. She prays passionately to see him again, would dazzle him on +the stage, would lead a perfect life, develop her voice, and would be +an ideal wife. She agonizes before the glass on whether or not she is +pretty, and resolves to ask some young man, but prefers to think well +of herself even if it is an illusion; constantly modulates over into +passionate prayer to God to grant all her wishes; is oppressed with +despair; gay and melancholy by turn; believes in God because she +prayed Him for a set of croquet and to help her to learn English, both +of which He granted. At church some prayers and services seem directly +aimed at her; Paris now seems a frightful desert, and she has no +motive to avoid carelessness in her appearance. She has freaky and +very changeable ideas of arranging the things in her room. When she +hears of the duke's marriage she almost throws herself over a bridge, +prays God for pardon of her sins, and thinks all is ended; finds it +horrible to dissemble her feelings in public; goes through the torture +of altering her prayer about the duke. She is disgusted with common +people, harrowed by jealousy, envy, deceit and every hideous feeling, +yet feels herself frozen in the depth, and moving only on the surface. +When her voice improves she welcomes it with tears and feels an +all-powerful queen. The man she loves should never speak to another. +Her journal she resolves to make the most instructive book that ever +was or ever will be written. She esteems herself so great a treasure +that no one is worthy of her; pities those who think they can please +her; thinks herself a real divinity; prays to the moon to show her in +dreams her future husband, and quarrels with her photographs. + +In some moods she feels herself beautiful, knows she shall succeed, +everything smiles upon her and she is absolutely happy and yet in the +next paragraph the fever of life at high pressure palls upon her and +things seem asleep and unreal. Her attempts to express her feelings +drive her to desperation because words are inadequate. She loves to +weep, gives up to despair to think of death, and finds everything +transcendently exquisite. She comes to despise men and wonder whether +the good are always stupid and the intelligent always false and +saturated with baseness, but on the whole believes that some time or +other she is destined to meet one true good and great man. Now she is +inflated with pride of her ancestry, her gifts, and would subordinate +everybody and everything; she would never speak a commonplace word, +and then again feels that her life has been a failure and she is +destined to be always waiting. She falls on her knees sobbing, praying +to God with outstretched hands as if He were in her room; almost vows +to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem one-tenth of the way on foot; to +devote her money to good works; lacks the pleasures proper to her age; +wonders if she can ever love again. On throwing a bouquet from a +window into a crowd in the Corso a young man choked so beautifully a +workman who caught it that by that one act of strangling and snatching +the bouquet she fell in love. The young man calls and they see each +other often. Now she is clad from head to foot in an armor of cold +politeness, now vanity and now passion seem uppermost in their +meetings. She wonders if a certain amount of sin, like air, is +necessary to a man to sustain life. Finally they vow mutual love and +Pietro leaves, and she begins to fear that she has cherished illusions +or been insulted; is torments at things unsaid or of her spelling in +French. She coughs and for three days has a new idea that she is going +to die; prays and prostrates herself sixty times, one for each bead in +her rosary, touching the floor with her forehead every time; wonders +if God takes intentions into account; resolves to read the New +Testament, but can not find one and reads Dumas instead. In +novel-reading she imagines herself the heroine of every scene; sees +her lover and they plan their mode of life together and at last kiss +each other, but later she feels humiliated, chilled, doubts if it is +real love; studies the color of her lips to see if they have changed; +fears that she has compromised herself; has eye symptoms that make her +fear blindness. Once on reading the Testament she smiled and clasped +her hands, gazed upward, was no longer herself but in ecstasy; she +makes many programs for life; is haunted by the phrase "We live but +once"; wants to live a dozen lives in one, but feels that she does not +live one-fourth of a life; has several spells of solitary +illumination. At other times she wishes to be the center of a salon +and imagines herself to be so. She soars on poets' wings, but often +has hell in her heart; slowly love is vowed henceforth to be a word +without meaning to her. Although she suffers from _ennui_, she +realizes that women live only from sixteen to forty and cannot bear +the thought of losing a moment of her life; criticizes her mother; +scorns marriage and child-bearing, which any washerwoman can attain, +but pants for glory; now hates, now longs to see new faces; thinks of +disguising herself as a poor girl and going out to seek her fortunes; +thinks her mad vanity is her devil; that her ambitions are justified +by no results; hates moderation in anything, would have intense and +constant excitement or absolute repose; at fifteen abandons her idea +of the duke but wants an idol, and finally decides to live for fame; +studies her shoulders, hips, bust, to gauge her success in life; tries +target-shooting, hits every time and feels it to be fateful; at times +despises her mother because she is so easily influenced by her; meets +another man whose affection for her she thinks might be as reverent as +religion and who never profaned the purity of his life by a thought, +but finally drops him because the possible disappointment would be +unbearable; finds that the more unhappy any one is for love of us the +happier we are; wonders why she has weeping spells; wonders what love +that people talk so much about really is, and whether she is ever to +know. One night, at the age of seventeen, she has a fit of despair +which vents itself in moans until arising, she seizes the dining-room +clock, rushes out and throws it into the sea, when she becomes happy. +"Poor clock!" + +At another time she fears she has used the word love lightly and +resolves to no longer invoke God's help, yet in the next line prays +Him to let her die as everything is against her, her thoughts are +incoherent, she hates herself and everything is contemptible; but she +wishes to die peacefully while some one is singing a beautiful air of +Verdi. Again she thinks of shaving her head to save the trouble of +arranging her hair; is crazed to think that every moment brings her +nearer death; to waste a moment of life is infamous, yet she can trust +no one; all the freshness of life is gone; few things affect her now; +she wonders how in the past she could have acted so foolishly and +reasoned so wisely; is proud that no advice in the world could ever +keep her from doing anything she wished. She thinks the journal of her +former years exaggerated and resolves to be moderate; wants to make +others feel as she feels; finds that the only cure for disenchantment +with life is devotion to work; fears her face is wearing an anxious +look instead of the confident expression which was its chief charm. +"Impossible" is a hideous, maddening word; to think of dying like a +dog as most people do and leaving nothing behind is a granite wall +against which she every instant dashes her head. If she loved a man, +every expression of admiration for anything, or anybody else in her +presence would be a profanation. Now she thinks the man she loves must +never know what it is to be in want of money and must purchase +everything he wishes; must weep to see a woman want for anything, and +find the door of no palace or club barred to him. Art becomes a great +shining light in her life of few pleasures and many griefs, yet she +dares hope for nothing. + +At eighteen all her caprices are exhausted; she vows and prays in the +name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for her wishes. She would like +to be a millionaire, get back her voice, obtain the _prix de Rome_ +under the guise of a man and marry Napoleon IV. On winning a medal for +her pictures she does nothing but laugh, cry, and dream of greatness, +but the next day is scolded and grows discouraged. She has an immense +sense of growth and transformation, so that not a trace of her old +nature remains; feels that she has far too much of some things, and +far too little of others in her nature; sees defects in her mother's +character, whose pertinacity is like a disease; realizes that one of +her chief passions is to inspire rather than to feel love; that her +temper is profoundly affected by her dress; deplores that her family +expect her to achieve greatness rather than give her the stimulus of +expecting nothing; declares that she thanks a million thoughts for +every word that she writes; is disgusted with and sometimes absolutely +hates herself. At one time she coquets with Kant, and wonders if he is +right that all things exist only in the imagination; has a passion for +such "abracadabrante follies" that seem so learned and logical, but is +grieved to feel them to be false; longs to penetrate the intellectual +world, to see, learn, and know everything; admires Balzac because he +describes so frankly all that he has felt; loves Fleury, who has shown +her a wider horizon; still has spells of admiring her dazzling +complexion and deploring that she can not go out alone; feels that she +is losing her grip on art and also on God, who no longer hears her +prayers, and resolves to kill herself if she is not famous at thirty. + +At nineteen, and even before, she has spells of feeling inefficient +cries, calls on God, feels exhausted; is almost stunned when she hears +that the young French prince about whom she has spun romances was +killed by the Kaffirs; feels herself growing serious and sensible; +despises death; realizes that God is not what she thought, but is +perhaps Nature and Life or is perhaps Chance; she thinks out possible +pictures she might paint; develops a Platonic friendship for her +professor; might marry an old man with twenty-seven millions, but +spurns the thought; finds herself growing deaf gradually, and at +nineteen finds three grey hairs; has awful remorse for days, when she +cannot work and so loses herself in novels and cigarettes; makes many +good resolutions and then commits some folly as if in a dream; has +spells of reviewing the past. When the doctor finds a serious lung +trouble and commands iodine, cod-liver oil, hot milk, and flannel, she +at first scorns death and refuses all, and is delighted at the terror +of her friends, but gradually does all that is necessary; feels +herself too precocious and doomed; deplores especially that +consumption will cost her her good looks; has fits of intense anger +alternating with tears; concludes that death is annihilation; realizes +the horrible thought that she has a skeleton within her that some time +or other will come out; reads the New Testament again and returns to +belief in miracle, and prayer to Jesus and the Virgin; distributes one +thousand francs to the poor; records the dreamy delusions that flow +through her brain at night and the strange sensations by day. Her eye +symptoms cause her to fear blindness again; she grows superstitious, +believing in signs and fortune-tellers; is strongly impelled to +embrace and make up with her mother; at times defies God and death; +sees a Spanish bull-fight and gets from it a general impression of +human cowardice, but has a strange intoxication with blood and would +like to thrust a lance into the neck of every one she meets; coquets a +great deal with the thought of marriage; takes up her art and paints a +few very successful pictures; tries to grapple with the terrible +question, "What is my unbiased opinion concerning myself?" pants +chiefly for fame. When the other lung is found diseased the diary +becomes sometimes more serious, sometimes more fevered; she is almost +racked to find some end in life; shall she marry, or paint? and at +last finds much consolation in the visits of Bastien-Lepage, who comes +to see her often while he is dying of some gastric trouble. She keeps +up occasional and often daily entries in her journal until eleven days +before her death, occurring in October, 1884, at the age of +twenty-three, and precipitated by a cold incurred while making an +open-air sketch. + + +The confessional outpourings of Mary MacLane[28] constitute a unique +and valuable adolescent document, despite the fact that it seems +throughout affected and written for effect; however, it well +illustrates a real type, although perhaps hardly possible save in this +country, and was inspired very likely by the preceding. + + +She announces at the outset that she is odd, a genius, an extreme +egotist; has no conscience; despises her father, "Jim MacLane of +selfish memory"; loves scrubbing the floor because it gives her +strength and grace of body, although her daily life is an "empty +damned weariness." She is a female Napoleon passionately desiring +fame; is both a philosopher and a coward; her heart is wooden; +although but nineteen, she feels forty; desires happiness even more +than fame, for an hour of which she would give up at once fame, money, +power, virtue, honor, truth, and genius to the devil, whose coming she +awaits. She discusses her portrait, which constitutes the +frontispiece; is glad of her good strong body, and still awaits in a +wild, frenzied impatience the coming of the devil to take her +sacrifice, and to whom she would dedicate her life. She loves but one +in all the world, an older "anemone" lady, once her teacher. She ran +not distinguish between right and wrong; love is the only thing real +which will some day bring joy, but it is agony to wait. "Oh, dame! +damn! damn! damn! every living thing in the world!--the universe be +damned!" herself included. She is "marvelously deep," but thanks the +good devil who has made her without conscience and virtue so that she +may take her happiness when it comes. Her soul seeks but blindly, for +nothing answers. How her happiness will seethe, quiver, writhe, shine, +dance, rush, surge, rage, blare, and wreak with love and light when it +comes! + +The devil she thinks fascinating and strong, with a will of steel, +conventional clothes, whom she periodically falls in love with and +would marry, and would love to be tortured by him. She holds imaginary +conversations with him. If happiness does not come soon she will +commit suicide, and she finds rapture in the thought of death. In +Butte, Montana, where she lives, she wanders among the box rustlers, +the beer jerkers, biscuit shooters, and plunges out into the sand and +barrenness, but finds everything dumb. The six toothbrushes in the +bathroom make her wild and profane. She flirts with death at the top +of a dark, deep pit, and thinks out the stages of decomposition if she +yielded herself to Death, who would dearly love to have her. She +confesses herself a thief on several occasions, but comforts herself +because the stolen money was given to the poor. Sometimes her "very +good legs" carry her out into the country, where she has imaginary +love confabs with the devil, but the world is so empty, dreary, and +cold, and it is all so hard to bear when one is a woman and nineteen. +She has a litany from which she prays in recurrent phrases "Kind +devil, deliver me"--as, e.g., from musk, boys with curls, feminine +men, wobbly hips, red note-paper, codfish-balls, lisle-thread +stockings, the books of A.C. Gunter and Albert Ross, wax flowers, soft +old bachelors and widowers, nice young men, tin spoons, false teeth, +thin shoes, etc. She does not seem real to herself everything is a +blank. Though she doubts everything else, she will keep the one atom +of faith in love and the truth that is love and life in her heart. +When something shrieks within her, she feels that all her anguish is +for nothing and that she is a fool. She is exasperated that people +call her peculiar, but confesses that she loves admiration; she can +fascinate and charm company if she tries; imagines an admiration for +Messalina. She most desires to cultivate badness when there is lead in +the sky. "I would live about seven years of judicious badness, and +then death if you will." "I long to cultivate the of badness in me." +She describes the fascination of making and eating fudge; devotes a +chapter to describing how to eat an olive; discusses her figure. "In +the front of my shirt-waist there are nine cambric handkerchiefs +cunningly distributed." She discusses her foot, her beautiful hair, +her hips; describes each of the seventeen little engraved portraits of +Napoleon that she keeps, with each of which she falls in love; vows +she would give up even her marvelous genius far one dear, bright day +free from loneliness. When her skirts need sewing, she simply pins +them; this lasts longer, and had she mended them with needle and +thread she would have been sensible, which she hates. As she walks +over the sand one day she vows that she would like a man to come so be +that he was strong and a perfect villain and she would pray him to +lead her to what the world calls her ruin. Nothing is of consequence +to her except to be rid of unrest and pain. She would be positively +and not merely negatively wicked. To poison her soul would rouse her +mental power. "Oh, to know just once what it is to be loved!" "I know +that I am a genius more than any genius that has lived," yet she often +thinks herself a small vile creature for whom no one cares. The world +is ineffably dull, heaven has always fooled her, and she is starving +for love. + + +Ada Negri illustrates the other extreme of genuineness and is +desperately in earnest.[29] She began to teach school in a squalid, +dismal Italian village, and at eighteen to write the poetry that has +made her famous. She lived in a dim room back of a stable, up two +flights, where the windows were not glass but paper, and where she +seems to have been, like her mother, a mill head before she was a +teacher. She had never seen a theater, but had read of Duse with +enthusiasm; had never seen the sea, mountain, or even a hill, lake, or +large city, but she had read of them. After she began to write, +friends gave her two dream days in the city. Then she returned, put on +her wooden shoes, and began to teach her eighty children to spell. The +poetry she writes is from the heart of her own experience. + +She craved "the kiss of genius and of light;" but the awful figure of +misfortune with its dagger stood by her bed at night. She writes: + + "I have no name--my home a hovel damp; + I grew up from the mire; + Wretched and outcast folk my family, + And yet within me burns a flame of fire." + + +There is always a praying angel and an evil dwarf on either side. The +black abyss attracts her yet she is softened by a child's caress. She +laughs at the blackest calamities that threaten her, but weeps over +thin, wan children without bread. Her whole life goes into song. The +boy criminal on the street fascinates her and she would kiss him. She +writes of jealousy as a ghost of vengeance. If death comes, she fears +"that the haggard doctor will dissect my naked corpse," and pictures +herself dying on the operating-table like a stray dog and her +well-made body "disgraced by the lustful kiss of the too eager blade" +as, "with sinister smile untiring, they tear my bowels out and still +gloat over my sold corpse, go on to bare my bones, and veins at will, +wrench out my heart," probe vainly for the secrets of hunger and the +mystery of pain, until from her "dead breast gurgles a gasp of +malediction." Much of her verse is imprecation. "A crimson rain of +crying blood dripping from riddled chests" of those slain for liberty +falls, on her heart; the sultry factories where "monsters, of steel, +huge engines, snort all day," and where the pungent air poisons the +blood of the pale weaver girls; the fate of the mason who felt from a +high roof and struck the stone flagging, whose funeral she attends, +all inspire her to sing occasionally the songs of enfranchised labor. +Misery as a drear, toothless ghost visits her, as when gloomy pinions +had overspread her dying mother's bed, to wrench with sharp nails all +the hope from her breast with which she had defied it. A wretched old +man on the street inspires her to sing of what she imagines is his +happy though humble prime. There is the song of the pickaxe brandished +in revolution when mobs cry "Peace, labor bread," and in mines of +industry beneath the earth. She loves the "defeated" in whose house no +fire glows, who live in caves and dens, and writes of the mutilation +of a woman in the factory machinery. At eighteen years "a loom, two +handsome eyes that know no tears, a cotton dress, a love, belong to +me." She is inspired by a master of the forge beating a red-hot bar, +with his bare neck swelled. He is her demon, her God, and her pride in +him is ecstasy. She describes jealousy of two rival women, so intense +that they fight and bite, and the pure joy of a guileless, +intoxicating, life-begetting first kiss. She longs for infinite +stretches of hot, golden sand, over which she would gallop wildly on +her steed; anticipates an old age of cap and spectacles; revels in the +hurricane, and would rise in and fly and whirl with it adrift far out +in the immensity of space. She tells us, "Of genius and light I'm a +blithe, millionaire," and elsewhere she longs for the everlasting ice +of lofty mountains, the immortal silence of the Alps; sings of her +"sad twenty years," "how all, all goes when love is gone and spent." +She imagines herself springing into the water which closes over her, +while her naked soul, ghostly pale, whirls past through the lonely +dale. She imprecates the licentious world of crafty burghers, +coquettes, gamblers, well-fed millionaires, cursed geese and serpents +that make the cowardly vile world, and whom she would smite in the +face with her indignant verse. "Thou crawlest and I soar." She chants +the champions of the spade, hammer, pick, though they are ground and +bowed with toil, disfigured within, with furrowed brows. She pants for +war with outrage and with wrong; questions the abyss for its secret; +hears moans and flying shudders; and sees phantoms springing from +putrid tombs. The full moon is an old malicious spy, peeping +stealthily with evil eye. She is a bird caught in a cursed cage, and +prays some one to unlock the door and give her space and light, and +let her soar away in ecstasy and glory. Nothing less than infinite +space will satisfy her. Even the tempest, the demon, or a malevolent +spirit might bear her away on unbridled wings. In one poem she +apostrophizes Marie Bashkirtseff as warring with vast genius against +unknown powers, but who now is in her coffin among worms, her skull +grinning and showing its teeth. She would be possessed by her and +thrilled as by an electric current. A dwarf beggar wrings her heart +with pity, but she will not be overwhelmed. Though a daring peasant, +she will be free and sing out her pæan to the sun, though amid the +infernal glow of furnaces, forges, and the ringing noise of hammers +and wheels. + + +Literary men who record their experiences during this stage seem to +differ from women in several important respects. First, they write with +less abandon. I can recall no male MacLanes. A Bashkirtseff would be +less impossible, and a Negri with social reform in her heart is still +less so. But men are more prone to characterize their public +metamorphoses later in life, when they are a little paled, and perhaps +feel less need of confessionalism for that reason. It would, however, be +too hazardous to elaborate this distinction too far. Secondly and more +clearly, men tend to vent their ephebic calentures more in the field of +action. They would break the old moorings of home and strike out new +careers, or vent their souls in efforts and dreams of reconstructing the +political, industrial, or social world. Their impracticabilities are +more often in the field of practical life and remoter from their own +immediate surroundings. This is especially true in our practical +country, which so far lacks subjective characterizations of this age of +eminent literary merit, peculiarly intense as it is here. Thirdly, they +erupt in a greater variety of ways, and the many kinds of genius and +talent that now often take possession of their lives like fate are more +varied and individual. This affords many extreme contrasts, as, e.g., +between Trollope's pity for, and Goethe's apotheosis of his youth; +Mill's loss of feeling, and Jefferies's unanalytic, passionate outbursts +of sentiment; the esthetic ritualism of Symonds, and the progressive +religious emancipation of Fielding Hall; the moral and religious +supersensitiveness of Oliphant, who was a reincarnation of medieval +monkhood, and the riotous storminess of Müller and Ebers; the +abnormalities and precocity of De Quincey, and the steady, healthful +growth of Patterson; the simultaneity of a fleshly and spiritual love in +Keller and Goethe, and the duality of Pater, with his great and +tyrannical intensification of sensation for nature and the sequent +mysticity and symbolism. In some it is fulminating but episodic, in +others gradual and lifelong like the advent of eternal spring. Fourth, +in their subjective states women outgrow less in their consciousness, +and men depart farther from their youth, in more manifold ways. Lastly, +in its religious aspects, the male struggles more with dogma, and his +enfranchisement from it is more intellectually belabored. Yet, despite +all these differences, the analogies between the sexes are probably yet +more numerous, more all-pervasive. All these biographic facts reveal +nothing not found in _questionnaire_ returns from more ordinary youth, +so that for our purposes they are only the latter, writ large because +superior minds only utter what all more inwardly feel. The arrangement +by nationality which follows gives no yet adequate basis for inference +unless it be the above American peculiarity. + +In his autobiography from 1785-1803, De Quincey[30] remembered feeling +that life was finished and blighted for him at the age of six, up to +which time the influence of his sister three years older had brooded +over him. + + +His first remembrance, however, is of a dream of terrific grandeur +before he was two, which seemed to indicate that his dream tendencies +were constitutional and not due to morphine, but the chill was upon +the first glimpse that this was a world of evil. He had been brought +up in great seclusion from all knowledge of poverty and oppression in +a silent garden with three sisters, but the rumor that a female +servant had treated one of them rudely just before her death plunged +him into early pessimism. He felt that little Jane would come back +certainly in the spring with the roses, and he was glad that his utter +misery with the blank anarchy confusion which her death brought could +not be completely remembered. He stole into the chamber where her +corpse lay, and as he stood, a solemn wind, the saddest he ever heard, +that might have swept the fields of mortality for a thousand +centuries, blew, and that same hollow Memnonian wind he often had +heard since, and it brought back the open summer window and the +corpse. A vault above opened into the sky, and he slept and dreamed +there, standing by her, he knew not how long; a worm that could not +die was at his heart, for this was the holy love between children that +could not perish. The funeral was full of darkness and despair for +him, and after it he sought solitude, gazed into the heavens to see +his sister till he was tired, and realized that he was alone. Thus, +before the end of his sixth year, with a mind already adolescent, +although with a retarded body, the minor tone of life became dominant +and his awakening to it was hard. + +As a penniless schoolboy wandering the streets of London at night, he +was on familiar and friendly terms of innocent relationship with a +number of outcast women. In his misery they were to him simply sisters +in calamity, but he found in them humanity, disinterested generosity, +courage, and fidelity. One night, after he had walked the streets for +weeks with one of these friendless girls who had not completed her +sixteenth year, as they sat on the steps of a house, he grew very ill, +and had she not rushed to buy from her slender purse cordials and +tenderly ministered to and revived him, he would have died. Many years +later he used to wander past this house, and he recalled with real +tenderness this youthful friendship; he longed again to meet the +"noble-minded Ann ----" with whom he had so often conversed familiarly +"_more Socratico_," whose betrayer he had vainly sought to punish, and +yearned to hear from her in order to convey to her some authentic +message of gratitude, peace, and forgiveness. + +His much older brother came home in his thirty-ninth year to die. He +had been unmanageable in youth and his genius for mischief was an +inspiration, yet he was hostile to everything pusillanimous, haughty, +aspiring, ready to fasten a quarrel on his shadow for running before, +at first inclined to reduce his boy brother to a fag, but finally +before his death became a great influence in his life. Prominent were +the fights between De Quincey and another older brother on the one +hand, and the factory crowd of boys on the other, a fight incessantly +renewed at the close of factory hours, with victory now on one and now +on the other side; fought with stones and sticks, where thrice he was +taken prisoner, where once one of the factory women kissed him, to the +great delight of his heart. He finally invented a kingdom like Hartley +Coleridge, called Gom Broon. He thought first that it had no location, +but finally because his brother's imaginary realm was north and he +wanted wide water between them, his was in the far south. It was only +two hundred and seventy miles in circuit, and he was stunned to be +told by his brother one day that his own domain swept south for eighty +degrees, so that the distance he had relied on vanished. Here, +however, he continued to rule for well or ill, raising taxes, keeping +an imaginary standing army, fishing herring and selling the product of +his fishery for manure, and experiencing how "uneasy lies the head +that wears a crown." He worried over his obligations to Gom Broon, and +the shadow froze into reality, and although his brother's kingdom +Tigrosylvania was larger, his was distinguished for eminent men and a +history not to be ashamed of. A friend had read Lord Monboddo's view +that men had sprung from apes, and suggested that the inhabitants of +Gom Broon had tails, so that the brother told him that his subjects +had not emerged from apedom and he must invent arts to eliminate the +tails. They must be made to sit down for six hours a day as a +beginning. Abdicate he would not, though all his subjects had three +tails apiece. They had suffered together. Vain was his brother's +suggestion that they have a Roman toga to conceal their ignominious +appendages. He was greatly interested in two scrofulous idiots, who +finally died, and feared that his subjects were akin to them. + + +John Stuart Mill's Autobiography presents one of the most remarkable +modifications of the later phases of adolescent experience. No boy +ever had more diligent and earnest training than his father gave him +or responded better. He can not remember when be began to learn Greek, +but was told that it was at the age of three. The list of classical +authors alone that he read in the original, to say nothing of history, +political, scientific, logical, and other works before he was twelve, +is perhaps unprecedented in all history. He associated with his father +and all his many friends on their own level, but modestly ascribes +everything to his environment, insists that in natural gifts he is +other below than above par, and declares that everything he did could +be done by every boy of average capacity and healthy physical +constitution. His father made the Greek virtue of temperance or +moderation cardinal, and thought human life "a poor thing at best +after the freshness of youth and unsatisfied curiosity had gone by." +He scorned "the intense" and had only contempt for strong emotion. + + +In his teens Mill was an able debater and writer for the quarterlies, +and devoted to the propagation of the theories of Bentham, Ricardo, +and associationism. From the age of fifteen he had an object in life, +viz., to reform the world. This gave him happiness, deep, permanent, +and assured for the future, and the idea of struggling to promote +utilitarianism seemed an inspiring program for life. But in the autumn +of 1826, when he was twenty years of age, he felt into "a dull state +of nerves," where he could no longer enjoy and what had produced +pleasure seemed insipid; "the state, I should think, in which converts +to Methodism usually are when smitten by their first 'conviction of +sin.' In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question +directly to myself; 'Suppose that all your objects in life were +realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you +are looking forward to could be completely effected at this very +instant; would this be a great joy and happiness to you?' And an +irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, 'No.' At this my +heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was +constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the +continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how +could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have +nothing left to live for. At first I hoped that the cloud would pass +away of itself, but it did not. A night's sleep, the sovereign remedy +for the smaller vexations of life, had no effect on it. I awoke to a +renewed consciousness of the woful fact. I carried it with me into all +companies, into all occupations. Hardly anything had power to cause me +even a few minutes' oblivion of it. For some months the cloud seemed +to grow thicker and thicker. The lines in Coleridge's 'Dejection'--I +was not then acquainted with them--exactly described my case: + + +"'A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear, + A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief, + Which finds no natural outlet or relief + In word, or sigh, or tear.' + + +"In vain I sought relief from my favorite books, those memorials of +past nobleness and greatness from which I had always hitherto drawn +strength and animation. I read them now without feeling, or with the +accustomed feeling minus all its charm; and I became persuaded that my +love of mankind, and of excellence for its own sake, had worn itself +out. I sought no comfort by speaking to others of what I felt. If I +had loved any one sufficiently to make confiding my griefs a +necessity, I should not have been in the condition I was. I felt, too, +that mine was not an interesting or in anyway respectable distress. +There was nothing in it to attract sympathy. Advice, if I had known +where to seek it, would have been most precious. The words of Macbeth +to the physician often occurred to my thoughts. But there was no one +on whom I could build the faintest hope of such assistance. My father, +to whom it would have been natural to me to have recourse in any +practical difficulties, was the last person to whom, in such a case as +this, I looked for help. Everything convinced me that he had no +knowledge of any such mental state as I was suffering from, and that +even if he could be made to understand it, he was not the physician +who could heal it. My education, which was wholly his work, had been +conducted without any regard to the possibility of its ending in this +result, and I saw no use in giving him the pain of thinking that his +plans had failed, when the failure was probably irremediable, and, at +all event, beyond the power of his remedies. Of other friends, I had +at that time none to whom I had any hope of making my condition +intelligible. It was, however, abundantly intelligible to myself, and +the more I dwelt upon it the more hopeless it appeared." + +He now saw what had hitherto seemed incredible, that the habit of +analysis tends to wear away the feelings. He felt "stranded at the +commencement of my voyage, with a well-equipped ship and a rudder, but +no sail; without any real desire for the ends which I had been so +carefully fitted out to work for: no delight in virtue, or the general +good, but also just as little in anything else. The fountains of +vanity and ambition seemed to have dried up within me as completely as +those of benevolence." His vanity had been gratified at too early an +age, and, like all premature pleasures, they had caused indifference, +until he despaired of creating any fresh association of pleasure with +any objects of human dire. Meanwhile, dejected and melancholy as he +was through the winter, he went on mechanically with his tasks; +thought he found in Coleridge the first description of what he was +feeling; feared the idiosyncrasies of his education had made him a +being unique and apart. "I asked myself if I could or if I was bound +to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally +answered to myself that I did not think I could possibly bear it +beyond a year." But within about half that time, in reading a pathetic +page of how a mere boy felt that he could save his family and take the +place of all they had lost, a vivid conception of the scene came over +him and he was moved to tears. From that moment, his burden grew +lighter. He saw that his heart was not dead and that he still had some +stuff left of which character and happiness are made; and although +there were several later lapses, some of which lasted many months, he +was never again as miserable as he had been. + +These experience left him changed in two respects. He had a new theory +of life, having much in common with the anti-consciousness theory of +Carlyle. He still held happiness the end of life, but thought it must +be aimed at indirectly and taken incidentally. The other change was +that for the first time he gave its proper place to internal culture +of the individual, especially the training of the feelings which +became now cardinal. He relished and felt the power of poetry and art; +was profoundly moved by music; fell in love with Wordsworth and with +nature, and his later depressions were best relieved by the power of +rural beauty, which wrought its charm not because of itself but by the +states and feelings it aroused. His ode on the intimations of +immortality showed that he also had felt that the first freshness of +youthful joy was not lasting, and had sought and found compensation. +He had thus come to a very different standpoint from that of his +father, who had up to this time formed his mind and life, and +developed on this basis his unique individuality. + + +Jefferies, when eighteen, began his "Story of My Heart,"[31] which he +said was an absolutely true confession of the stages of emotion in a +soul from which all traces of tradition and learning were erased, and +which stood face to face with nature and the unknown. + + +His heart long seemed dusty and parched for want of feeling, and he +frequented a hill, where the pores of his soul opened to a new air. +"Lying down on the grass, I spoke in my soul to the earth, the sun, +the air and the distant sea.... I desired to have its strength, its +mystery and glory. I addressed the sun, desiring the sole equivalent +of his light and brilliance, his endurance, and unwearied race. I +turned to the blue heaven over, gazing into its depth, inhaling its +exquisite color and sweetness. The rich blue of the unobtainable +flower of the sky drew my soul toward it, and there it rested, for +pure color is the rest of the heart. By all these I prayed. I felt an +emotion of the soul beyond all definition; prayer is a puny thing to +it." He prayed by the thyme; by the earth; the flowers which he +touched; the dust which he let fall through his fingers; was filled +with "a rapture, an ecstasy, an inflatus. With this inflatus I +prayed.... I hid my face in the grass; I was wholly prostrated; I lost +myself in the wrestle.... I see now that what I labored for was soul +life, more soul learning." After gazing upward he would turn his face +into the grass, shutting out everything with hands each side, till he +felt down into the earth and was absorbed in it, whispering deep down +to its center. Every natural impression, trees, insects, air, clouds, +he used for prayer, "that my soul might be more than the cosmos of +life." His "Lyra" prayer was to live a more exalted and intense soul +life; enjoy more bodily pleasure and live long and find power to +execute his designs. He often tried, but failed for years to write at +least a meager account of these experiences. He felt himself immortal +just as he felt beauty. He was in eternity already; the supernatural +is only the natural misnamed. As he lay face down on the grass, +seizing it with both hands, he longed for death, to be burned on a +pyre of pine wood on a high hill, to have his ashes scattered wide and +broadcast, to be thrown into the space he longed for while living, but +he feared that such a luxury of resolution into the elements would be +too costly. Thus his naked mind, close against naked mother Nature, +wrested from her the conviction of soul, immortality, deity, under +conditions as primitive as those of the cave man, and his most +repeated prayer was "Give me the deepest soul life." + +In other moods he felt the world outré-human, and his mind could by no +twist be fitted to the cosmos. Ugly, designless creatures caused him +to cease to look for deity in nature, where all happens by chance. He +at length concluded there is something higher than soul and above +deity, and better than God, for which he searched and labored. He +found favorite thinking places, to which he made pilgrimages, where he +"felt out into the depths of the ether." His frame could not bear the +labor his heart demanded. Work of body was his meat and drink. "Never +have I had enough of it. I wearied long before I was satisfied, and +weariness did not bring a cessation of desire, the thirst was still +there. I rode; I used the ax; I split tree-trunks with wedges; my arms +tired, but my spirit remained fresh and chafed against the physical +weariness." Had he been indefinitely stronger, he would have longed +for more strength. He was often out of doors all day and often half +the night; wanted more sunshine; wished the day was sixty hours long; +took pleasure in braving the cold so that it should be not life's +destroyer but its renewer. Yet he abhorred asceticism. He wrestled +with the problem of the origin of his soul and destiny, but could find +no solution; revolted at the assertion that all is designed for the +best; "a man of intellect and humanity could cause everything to +happen in an infinitely superior manner." He discovered that no one +ever died of old age, but only of disease; that we do not even know +what old age would be like; found that his soul is infinite, but lies +in abeyance; that we are murdered by our ancestors and must roll back +the tide of death; that a hundredth part of man's labor would suffice +for his support; that idleness is no evil; that in the future +nine-tenths of the time will be leisure, and to that end he will work +with all his heart. "I was not more than eighteen when an inner and +esoteric meaning began to come to me from all the visible universe, +and indefinable aspirations filled me." + +Interesting as is this document, it is impossible to avoid the +suspicion that the seventeen years which intervened between the +beginning of these experiences and their final record, coupled with +the perhaps unconscious tendency toward literary effect, detract more +or less from their value as documents of adolescent nature. + + +Mr. H. Fielding Hall, author of "The Soul of a People," has since +written a book[32] in which, beginning with many definitions of +Christianity, weighing the opinion of those who think all our advance +is made because of, against those who think it in spite of +Christianity, he proceeds to give the story of a boy, probably +himself, who till twelve was almost entirely reared by women and with +children younger than himself. + + +He was sickly, and believed not in the Old but in the New Testament; +in the Sermon on the Mount, which he supposed all accepted and lived +by; that war and wealth were bad and learning apt to be a snare; that +the ideal life was that of a poor curate, working hard and unhappy. At +twelve, he went to a boarding-school, passed from a woman's world into +a man's, out of the New Testament into the Old, out of dreams into +reality. War was a glorious opportunity, and all followed the British +victories, which were announced publicly. Big boys were going to +Sandhurst or Woolwich; there were parties; and the school code never +turned the other cheek. Wars were God's storms, stirring stagnant +natures to new life; wealth was worshiped; certain lies were an honor; +knowledge was an extremely desirable thing--all this was at first new +and delightful, but extremely wicked. Sunday was the only other Old +Testament rule, but was then forgotten. Slowly a repugnance of +religion in all its forms arose. He felt his teachers hypocrites; he +raised no alarm, "for he was hardly conscious that his anchor had +dragged or that he had lost hold" of it forever. At eighteen, he read +Darwin and found that if he were right, Genesis was wrong; man had +risen, not fallen; if a part was wrong, the whole was. If God made the +world, the devil seemed to rule it; prayer can not influence him; the +seven days of creation were periods, Heaven knows how long. Why did +all profess and no one believe religion? Why is God so stern and yet +so partial, and how about the Trinity? Then explanations were given. +Heaven grew repulsive, as a place for the poor, the maimed, the +stupid, the childish, and those unfit for earth generally. + +Faiths came from the East. "The North has originated only Thor, Odin, +Balder, Valkyres." The gloom and cold drive man into himself; do not +open him. In the East one can live in quiet solitude, with no effort, +close to nature. The representatives of all faiths wear ostentatiously +their badges, pray in public, and no one sneers at all religions. +Oriental faiths have no organization; there is no head of Hinduism, +Buddhism, or hardly of Mohammedanism. There are no missions, but +religion grows rankly from a rich soil, so the boy wrote three +demands: a reasonable theory of the universe, a workable and working +code of conduct, and a promise of something desirable hereafter. So he +read books and tried to make a system. + +On a hill, in a thunder-storm in the East, he realized how Thor was +born. Man fears thunder; it seems the voice of a greater man. Deny +eyes, legs, and body of the Deity, and nothing is left. God as an +abstract spirit is unthinkable, but Buddhism offers us no God, only +law. Necessity, blind force, law, or a free personal will--that is the +alternative. Freedom limits omnipotence; the two can never mix. "The +German Emperor's God, clanking round the heavenly mansions wearing a +German _Pickelhaube_ and swearing German oaths," is not satisfactory. +Man's God is what he admires most in himself; he can be propitiated, +hence atonement; you can not break a law, but you can study it. +Inquiry, not submission, is the attitude. Perhaps both destiny and +freedom are true, but truth is for the sake of light. + +Thor had no moral code; the Greeks were unmoral. Jehovah at first +asked only fear, reverence, and worship. This gives no guide to life. +Most codes are directed against a foe and against pain. Truth, mercy, +courtesy--these were slowly added to reverence; then sanitary rules, +hence castes. Two codes, those of Christ and Buddha, tower above all +others. They are the same in praising not wealth, greatness, or power, +but purity, renunciation of the world, as if one fitted one's self for +one by being unfitted for the other world. + +Is heaven a bribe? Its ideals are those of children, of girl angels, +white wings, floating dresses, no sheep, but lambs. "Surely there is +nothing in all the world so babyish." One can hardly imagine a man +with a deep voice, with the storm of life beating his soul, amid those +baby faces. If happiness in any act or attitude is perfect, it will +last forever. Where is due the weariness or satiety? But if happiness +be perfect, this is impossible; so life would be monotony akin to +annihilation. But life is change, and change is misery. There is +effort here; but there will be none in the great peace that passes +understanding; no defeat, therefore no victory; no friends, because no +enemies; no joyous meetings, because no farewells. It is the shadows +and the dark mysteries that sound the depths of our hearts. No man +that ever lived, if told that he could be young again or go to any +heaven, would choose the latter. Men die for many things, but all fear +the beyond. Thus no religion gives us an intelligible First Cause, a +code or a heaven that we want. The most religious man is the peasant +listening to the angelus, putting out a little _ghi_ for his God; the +woman crying in the pagoda. Thus we can only turn to the hearts of men +for the truth of religion. + + +Biographies and autobiographies furnish many photographic glimpses of +the struggles and experiences of early adolescent years. + + +Anthony Trollope's autobiography[33] is pitiful. He was poor and +disliked by most of his masters and treated with ignominy by his +fellow pupils. He describes himself as always in disgrace. At fifteen +he walked three miles each way twice a day to and from school. As a +sizar he seemed a wretched farmer's boy, reeking from the dunghill, +sitting next the sons of big peers. All were against him, and he was +allowed to join no games, and learned, he tells us, absolutely nothing +but a little Greek and Latin. Once only, goaded to desperation, he +rallied and whipped a bully. The boy was never able to overcome the +isolation of his school position, and while he coveted popularity with +an eagerness which was almost mean, and longed exceedingly to excel in +cricket or with the racquet, was allowed to know nothing of them. He +remembers at nineteen never to have had a lesson in writing, +arithmetic, French, or German. He knew his masters by their ferules +and they him. He believes that he has "been flogged oftener than any +human being alive. It was just possible to obtain five scourgings in +one day at Winchester, and I have often boasted that I have obtained +them all." Prizes were distributed prodigally, but he never got one. +For twelve years of tuition, he says, "I do not remember that I ever +knew a lesson." + +At this age he describes himself as "an idle, desolate, hanger on ... +without an idea of a career or a profession or a trade," but he was +tolerably happy because be could fancy himself in love with pretty +girls and had been removed from the real misery of school, but had not +a single aspiration regarding his future. Three of his household were +dying of consumption, and his mother was day nurse, night nurse, and +divided her time between pill-boxes and the ink-bottle, for when she +was seventy-six she had written one hundred and forty volumes, the +first of which was not written till she was fifty. + +Gradually the boy became alive to the blighted ambition of his +father's life and the strain his mother was enduring, nursing the +dying household and writing novels to provide a decent roof for them +to die under. Anthony got a position at the post-office without an +examination. He knew no French nor science; was a bad speller and +worse writer and could not have sustained an examination on any +subject. Still be could not bear idleness, and was always going about +with some castle in the air finely built in his mind, carrying on for +weeks and years the same continuous story; binding himself down to +certain laws, proprieties, and unities; always his own hero, excluding +everything violently improbable. To this practise, which he calls +dangerous and which began six or seven years before he went to the +post-office, he ascribes his power to maintain an interest in a +fictitious story and to live in a entirely outside imaginative life. +During these seven years he acquired a character of irregularity and +grew reckless. + +Mark Pattison[34] shows us how his real life began in the middle +teens, when his energy was "directed to one end, to improve myself"; +"to form my own mind; to sound things thoroughly; to be free from the +bondage of unreason and the traditional prejudices which, when I first +began to think, constituted the whole of my mental fabric." He entered +upon life with a "hide-bound and contracted intellect," and depicts +"something of the steps by which I emerged from that frozen +condition." He believes that to "remember the dreams and confusions of +childhood and never to lose the recollection of the curiosity and +simplicity of that age, is one of the great gifts of the poetic +character," although this, he tells us, was extraordinarily true of +George Sand, but not of himself. From the age of twelve on, a +Fellowship at Oriel was the ideal of his life, and although he became +a commoner there at seventeen, his chief marvel is that he was so +immature and unimpressionable. + +William Hale White[35] learned little at school, save Latin and good +penmanship, but his very life was divided into halves--Sundays and +week days--and he reflects at some length upon the immense dangers of +the early teens; the physiological and yet subtler psychic penalties +of error; callousness to fine pleasures; hardening of the conscience; +and deplores the misery which a little instruction might have saved +him. At fourteen he underwent conversion, understood in his sect to be +a transforming miracle, releasing higher and imprisoning lower powers. +He compares it to the saving of a mind from vice by falling in love +with a woman who is adored, or the reclamation of a young woman from +idleness and vanity by motherhood. But as a boy he was convinced of +many things which were mere phrases, and attended prayer-meetings for +the clanship of being marked off from the world and of walking home +with certain girls. He learned to say in prayer that there was nothing +good in him, that he was rotten and filthy and his soul a mass of +putrefying sores; but no one took him at his word and expelled him +from society, but thought the better of him. Soon he began to study +theology, but found no help in suppressing tempestuous lust, in +understanding the Bible, or getting his doubts answered, and all the +lectures seemed irrelevant chattering. An infidel was a monster whom +he had rarely ever seen. At nineteen he began to preach, but his heart +was untouched till he read Wordsworth's lyrical ballads, and this +recreated a living God for him, melted his heart to tears, and made +him long for companionship; its effect was instantly seen in his +preaching, and soon made him slightly suspected as heretical.[36] + +John Addington Symonds, in his autobiography, describes his +"insect-like" devotion to creed in the green infancy of ritualism. In +his early teens at boarding-school he and his mates, with half +sincerity, followed a classmate to compline, donned surplices, tossed +censers, arranged altars in their studies, bought bits of painted +glass for their windows and illuminated crucifixes with gold dust and +vermilion. When he was confirmed, this was somewhat of an epoch. +Preparation was like a plowshare, although it turned up nothing +valuable, and stimulated esthetic and emotional ardor. In a dim way he +felt God near, but he did not learn to fling the arms of the soul in +faith around the cross of Christ. Later the revelation he found in +Plato removed him farther from boyhood. He fell in love with gray +Gothic churches, painted glass, organ lofts, etc. + +Walter Pater has described phases of ferment, perhaps largely his own, +in the character of Florian Deleal; his rapture of the red hawthorn +blossoms, "absolutely the reddest of all things"; his times of +"seemingly exclusive predominance of interest in beautiful physical +things, a kind of tyranny of the senses"; and his later absorbing +efforts to estimate the proportion of the sensuous and ideal, +assigning most importance to sensible vehicles and occasions; +associating all thoughts with touch and sight as a link between +himself and things, till he became more and more "unable to care for +or think of soul but as in an actual body"; comforted in the +contemplation of death by the thought of flesh turning to violets and +almost oppressed by the pressure of the sensible world, his longings +for beauty intensifying his fear of death. He loved to gaze on dead +faces in the Paris Morgue although the haunt of them made the sunshine +sickly for days, and his long fancy that they had not really gone nor +were quite motionless, but led a secret, half fugitive life, freer by +night, and perhaps dodging about in their old haunts with no great +good-will toward the living, made him by turns pity and hate the +ghosts who came back in the wind, beating at the doors. His religious +nature gradually yielded to a mystical belief in Bible personages in +some indefinite place as the reflexes and patterns of our nobler self, +whose companionship made the world more satisfying. There was "a +constant substitution of the typical for the actual," and angels might +be met anywhere. "A deep mysticity brooded over real things and +partings," marriages and many acts and accidents of life. "The very +colors of things became themselves weighty with meanings," or "full of +penitence and peace." "For a time he walked through the world in a +sustained, not unpleasurable awe generated by the habitual +recognition, beside every circumstance and event of life, of its +celestial correspondent." + +In D. C. Boulger's Life of General Charles Gordon[37] he records how, +like Nelson Clive, his hero was prone to boys' escapades and outbreaks +that often made him the terror of his superiors. He was no bookworm, +but famous as the possessor of high spirits, very often involved in +affairs that necessitated discipline, and seemed greatly out of +harmony with the popular idea of the ascetic of Mount Carmel. As a +schoolboy he made wonderful squirts "that would wet you through in a +minute." One Sunday twenty-seven panes of glass in a large storehouse +were broken with screws shot through them by his cross-bow "for +ventilation." Ringing bells and pushing young boys in, butting an +unpopular officer severely in the stomach with his head and taking the +punishment, hitting a bully with a clothes-brush and being put back +six months in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich; these are the +early outcrops of one side of his dual character. Although more +soldier than saint, he had a very cheery, genial side. He was always +ready to take even the severest punishment for all his scrapes due to +excessive high spirits. When one of his superiors declared that he +would never make an officer, he felt his honor touched, and his +vigorous and expressive reply was to tear the epaulets from his +shoulders and throw them at his superior's feet. He had already +developed some of the rather moody love of seclusion that was marked +later, but religion did not strike him deeply enough to bring him into +the church until he was twenty-one, when he took his first sacrament. +On one occasion he declined promotion within his reach because he +would have had to pass a friend to get it. He acted generally on his +impulses, which were perhaps better than his judgments, took great +pleasure in corresponding on religious topics with his elder sister, +and early formed the habit of excessive smoking which gravely affected +his health later. His was the rare combination of inner repose and +confidence, interrupted by spells of gaiety. + +Williamson, in his "Life of Holman Hunt,"[38] tells us that at +thirteen he was removed from school as inapt in study. He began to +spend his time in drawing in his copybooks. He was made clerk to an +auctioneer, who fortunately encouraged his passion, and at sixteen was +with a calico printer. Here he amused himself by drawing flies on the +window, which his employer tried to brush off. There was the greatest +home opposition to his studying art. After being rejected twice, he +was admitted at seventeen to the Academy school as a probationer, and +the next year, in 1845, as a student. Here he met Millais and Rossetti +and was able to relieve the strain on his mind, which the worry of his +father concerning his course caused him, and very soon his career +began. + +At thirteen Fitzjames Stephen[39] roused himself to thrash a big boy +who had long bullied him, and became a fighter. In his sixteenth year, +he grew nearly five inches, but was so shy and timid at Eton that he +says, "I was like a sensible grown-up woman among a crowd of rough +boys"; but in the reaction to the long abuse his mind was steeled +against oppression, tyranny, and every kind of unfairness. He read +Paine's "Age of Reason," and went "through the Bible as a man might go +through a wood, cutting down trees. The priests can stick them in +again, but they will not make them grow." + + +Dickens has given us some interesting adolescents. Miss Dingwall in +"Sketches by Boz," "very sentimental and romantic"; the tempery young +Nickleby, who, at nineteen, thrashed Squeers; Barnaby Rudge, idiotic +and very muscular; Joe Willet, persistently treated as a boy till he +ran away to join the army and married Dolly Varden, perhaps the most +exuberant, good-humored, and beautiful girl in all the Dickens +gallery; Martin Chuzzlewit, who also ran away, as did David +Copperfield, perhaps the most true to adolescence because largely +reminiscent of the author's own life; Steerforth, a stranger from +home, and his victim, Little Emily; and to some extent Sam Weller, +Dick Swiveller, the Marchioness, young Podsnap, the Artful Dodger, and +Charley Bates; while Oliver Twist, Little Nell, and Little Dorrit, Joe +and Turveydrop in Bleak House, and Paul Dombey, young as they were, +show the beginning of the pubescent change. Most of his characters, +however, are so overdrawn and caricatured as to be hardly true to +life.[40] + +In the "Romance of John Inglesant,"[41] by J. H. Shorthouse, we have +a remarkable picture of an unusually gifted youth, who played an +important rôle in the days of Cromwell and King Charles, and who was +long poised in soul between the Church of Rome and the English party. +He was very susceptible to the fascination of superstition, romance, +and day-dreaming, and at eleven absorbed his master's Rosicrucian +theories of spiritual existence where spirits held converse with each +other and with mankind. A mystic Platonism, which taught that Pindar's +story of the Argo was only a recipe for the philosopher's stone, +fascinated him at fourteen. The philosophy of obedience and of the +subjection of reason to authority was early taught him, and he sought +to live from within, hearing only the divine law, as the worshipers of +Cybele heard only the flutes. His twin brother Eustace was an active +worldling, and soon he followed him to court as page to the Queen, but +delighted more and more in wandering apart and building air castles. +For a time he was entirely swayed, and his life directed, by a Jesuit +Father, who taught him the crucifix and the rosary. At sixteen the +doctrine of divine illumination fascinated him. He struggled to find +the path of true devotion; abandoned himself to extremely ritualistic +forms of worship; dabbled a little in alchemy and astrology to help +develop the divine nature within him and to attain the beatific +vision. Soon he was introduced to the "Protestant nunnery," as it was +called, where the venerable Mr. Ferran, a friend of George Herbert's, +was greatly taken by Inglesant's accomplishments and grace of manner. +Various forms of extremely High Church yet Protestant worship were +celebrated here each day with great devotion, until he became +disgusted with Puritanism and craved to participate in the office of +mass. At this point, however, he met Mr. Hobbes, whose rude but +forcible condemnation of papacy restrained him from casting his lot +with it. At seventeen, he saw one night a real apparition of the just +executed Strafford. The last act of his youth, which we can note here, +was soon after he was twenty, when he fell in love with the charming +and saintly Mary Collet. The rough Puritan Thorne had made her +proposals at which she revolted, but she and Inglesant confessed love +to each other; she saw, however, that they had a way of life marked +out for themselves by an inner impulse and light. This calling they +must follow and abandon love, and now John plunged into the war on the +side of the King. + +W. J. Stillman[42] has written with unusual interest and candor the +story of his own early life. + + +As a boy he was frenzied at the first sight of the sea; caught the +whip and lashed the horses in an unconscious delirium, and always +remembered this as one of the most vivid experiences of his life. He +had a period of nature worship. His first trout was a delirium, and he +danced about wildly and furiously. He relates his very vivid +impressions of the religious orthodoxy in which he was reared, +especially revival sermons; his occasional falsehoods to escape severe +punishment; his baptism at ten or eleven in a river in midwinter; the +somberness of his intellectual life, which was long very apathetic; +his phenomenal stupidity for years; his sudden insurrections in which +he thrashed bullies at school; his fear that he should be sent home in +disgrace for bad scholarship; and how at last, after seven years of +dulness, at the age of fourteen, "the mental fog broke away suddenly, +and before the term ended I could construe the Latin in less time than +it took to recite it, and the demonstrations of Euclid were as plain +and clear as a fairy story. My memory came back so distinctly that I +could recite long poems after a single reading, and no member of the +class passed a more brilliant examination at the end of the term than +I; and, at the end of the second term, I could recite the whole of +Legendre's geometry, plane and spherical, from beginning to end +without a question, and the class examination was recorded as the most +remarkable which the academy had witnessed for many years. I have +never been able to conceive an explanation of this curious phenomenon, +which I record only as of possible interest to some one interested in +psychology." + +A. Bronson Alcott[43] was the son of a Connecticut farmer. He began a +diary at twelve; aspired vainly to enter Yale, and after much +restlessness at the age of nineteen left home with two trunks for +Virginia to peddle on foot, hoping to teach school. Here he had a +varying and often very hard experience for years. + +Hornes Bushnell's[44] parents represented the Episcopal and liberal +Congregational Church. His early life was spent on a farm and in +attending a country academy. He became profoundly interested in +religion in the early teens and developed extreme interest in nature. +At seventeen, while tending a carding machine, he wrote a paper on +Calvinism. At nineteen he united with the church, and entered Yale +when he was twenty-one, in 1823. Later he tried to teach school, but +left it, declaring he would rather lay stone wall; worked on a +journal, but withdrew, finding it a terrible life; studied law for a +year, became a tutor at Yale, experienced a reconversion and entered +the ministry. + + +A well-known American, who wishes his name withheld, writes me of his +youth as follows: + + +"First came the love of emotion and lurid romance reading. My mind was +full of adventure, dreams of underground passages, and imprisoned +beauties whom I rescued. I wrote a story in red ink, which I never +read, but a girl friend did, and called it magnificent. The girl +fever, too, made me idealize first one five years older than I, later +another three years older, and still later one of my own age. I would +have eaten dirt for each of them for a year or two; was extremely +gallant and the hero of many romances for two, but all the time so +bashful that I scarcely dared speak to one of them, and no schoolmate +ever suspected it all. Music also became a craze at fourteen. Before, +I had hated lessons, now I was thrilled and would be a musician, +despite my parents' protests. I practised the piano furiously; wrote +music and copied stacks of it; made a list of several hundred pieces +and tunes, including everything musical I knew; would imagine a +crowded hall, where I played and swayed with fine airs. The vast +assembly applauded and would not let me go, but all the time it was a +simple piece and I was a very ordinary player. At fifty years, this is +still a relic. I now in hours of fatigue pound the piano and dreamily +imagine dazed and enchanted audiences. Then came oratory, and I glowed +and thrilled in declaiming Webster's "Reply to Hayne," "Thanatopsis," +Byron's "Darkness," Patrick Henry, and best of all "The Maniac," which +I spouted in a fervid way wearing a flaming red necktie. I remember a +fervid scene with myself on a high solitary hill with a bald summit +two miles from home, where I once went because I had been blamed. I +tried to sum myself up, inventory my good and bad points. It was +Sunday, and I was keyed up to a frenzy of resolve, prayer, +idealization of life; all grew all in a jumble. My resolve to go to +college was clinched then and there, and that hill will always remain +my Pisgah and Moriah, Horeb and Sinai all in one. I paced back and +forth in the wind and shouted, 'I will make people know and revere me; +I will do something'; and called everything to witness my vow that I +never again would visit this spot till all was fulfilled." "Alas!" he +says, "I have never been there since. Once, to a summer party who +went, I made excuse for not keeping this rendezvous. It was too +sacramental. Certainly it was a very deep and never-to-be-forgotten +experience there all alone, when something of great moment to me +certainly took place in my soul." + +In the biography of Frederick Douglas[45] we are told that when he was +about thirteen he began to feel deeply the moral yoke of slavery and +to seek means of escaping it. He became interested in religion, was +converted, and dreamed of and prayed for liberty. With great ingenuity +he extracted knowledge of the alphabet and reading from white boys of +his acquaintance. At sixteen, under a brutal master he revolted and +was beaten until he was faint from loss of blood, and at seventeen he +fought and whipped the brutal overseer Covey, who would have invoked +the law, which made death the punishment for such an offense, but for +shame of having been worsted by a negro boy and from the reflection +that there was no profit from a dead slave. Only at twenty did he +escape into the new world of freedom. + +Jacob Riis[46] "fell head over heels in love with sweet Elizabeth" +when he was fifteen and she thirteen. His "courtship proceeded at a +tumultuous pace, which first made the town laugh, then put it out of +patience and made some staid matrons express the desire to box my ears +soundly." She played among the lumber where he worked, and he watched +her so intently that he scarred his shinbone with an adze he should +have been minding. He cut off his forefinger with an ax when she was +dancing on a beam near by, and once fell off a roof when craning his +neck to see her go round a corner. At another time he ordered her +father off the dance-floor, because he tried to take his daughter home +a few minutes before the appointed hour of midnight. Young as he was, +he was large and tried to run away to join the army, but finally went +to Copenhagen to serve his apprenticeship with a builder, and here had +an interview with Hans Christian Andersen. + +Ellery Sedgwick tells as that at thirteen the mind of Thomas Paine ran +on stories of the sea which his teacher had told him, and that he +attempted to enlist on the privateer _Terrible_. He was restless at +home for years, and shipped on a trading vessel at nineteen. + +Indeed, modern literature in our tongue abounds in this element, from +"Childe Harold" to the second and third long chapters in Mrs. Ward's +"David Grieve," ending with his engagement to Lucy Purcell; +Thackeray's Arthur Pendennis and his characteristic love of the far +older and scheming Fanny Fotheringay; David in James Lane Allen's +"Reign of Law," who read Darwin, was expelled from the Bible College +and the church, and finally was engaged to Gabriella; and scores more +might be enumerated. There is even Sonny,[47] who, rude as he was and +poorly as he did in all his studies, at the same age when he began to +keep company, "tallered" his hair, tied a bow of ribbon to the buggy +whip, and grew interested in manners, passing things, putting on his +coat and taking off his hat at table, began to study his menagerie of +pet snakes, toads, lizards, wrote John Burroughs, helped him and got +help in return, took to observing, and finally wrote a book about the +forest and its occupants, all of which is very _bien trouvé_ if not +historic truth. + + +Two singular reflections always rearise in reading Goethe's +autobiographical writings: first, that both the age and the place, +with its ceremonies, festivals, great pomp and stirring events in +close quarters in the little province where he lived, were especially +adapted to educate children and absorb them in externals; and, second, +that this wonderful boy had an extreme propensity for moralizing and +drawing lessons of practical service from all about him. This is no +less manifest in Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels, which +supplements the autobiography. Both together present a very unique +type of adolescence, the elaborate story of which defies epitome. From +the puppet craze well on into his precocious university life it was +his passion to explore the widest ranges of experience and then to +reflect, moralize, or poetize upon them. Perhaps no one ever studied +the nascent stages of his own life and elaborated their every incident +with such careful observation and analysis. His peculiar diathesis +enabled him to conserve their freshness on to full maturity, when he +gave them literary form. Most lack power to fully utilize their own +experience even for practical self-knowledge and guidance, but with +Goethe nothing was wasted from which self-culture could be extracted. + + +Goethe's first impression of female loveliness was of a girl named +Gretchen, who served wine one evening, and whose face and form +followed him for a long time. Their meetings always gave him a thrill +of pleasure, and though his love was like many first loves, very +spiritual and awakened by goodness and beauty, it gave a new +brightness to the whole world, and to be near her seemed to him an +indispensable condition of his being. Her _fiancé_ was generally with +her, and Goethe experienced a shock in finding that she had become a +milliner's assistant for although, like all natural boys of +aristocratic families, he loved common people, this interest was not +favored by his parents. The night following the coronation day several +were compelled to spend in chairs, and he and his Gretchen, with +others, slept, she with her head upon his shoulder, until all the +others had awakened in the morning. At last they parted at her door, +and for the first and last time they kissed but never met again, +although he often wept in thinking of her. He was terribly affronted +to fully realize that, although only two years older than himself, she +should have regarded him as a child. He tried to strip her of all +loving qualities and think her odious, but her image hovered over him. +The sanity of instinct innate in youth prompted him to lay aside as +childish the foolish habit of weeping and railing, and his +mortification that she regarded him somewhat as a nurse might, +gradually helped to work his cure. + +He was very fond of his own name, and, like young and uneducated +people, wrote or carved it anywhere; later placed near it that of a +new love, Annette, and afterward on finding the tree he shed tears, +melted toward her, and made an idyl. He was also seized with a passion +of teasing her and dominating over her devotedness with wanton and +tyrannical caprice, venting upon her the ill humor of his +disappointments, and grew absurdly jealous and lost her after she had +borne with him with incredible patience and after terrible scenes with +her by which he gained nothing. Frenzied by his loss, he began to +abuse his physical nature and was only saved from illness by the +healing power of his poetic talent; the "Lover's Caprice" was written +with the impetus of a boiling passion. In the midst of many serious +events, a reckless humor, which was due to the excess of life, +developed which made him feel himself superior to the moment, and even +to court danger. He played tricks, although rarely with premeditation. +Later he mused much upon the transient nature of love and the +mutability of character; the extent to which the senses could be +indulged within the bounds of morality; he sought to rid himself of +all that troubled him by writing song or epigram about it, which made +him seem frivolous and prompted one friend to seek to subdue him by +means of church forms, which he had severed on coming to Leipzig. By +degrees he felt an epoch approaching when all respect for authority +was to vanish, and he became suspicious and even despairing with +regard to the best individuals he had known before and grew chummy +with a young tutor whose jokes and fooleries were incessant. His +disposition fluctuated between gaiety and melancholy, and Rousseau +attracted him. Meanwhile his health declined until a long illness, +which began with a hemorrhage, caused him to oscillate for days +between life and death; and convalescence, generally so delightful, +was marred by a serious tumor. His father's disposition was stern, and +he could become passionate and bitter, and his mother's domesticity +made her turn to religion, so that on coming home he formed the +acquaintance of a religious circle. Again Goethe was told by a hostile +child that he was not the true son of his father. This inoculated him +with a disease that long lurked in his system and prompted various +indirect investigations to get at the truth, during which he compared +all distinguished guests with his own physiognomy to detect his own +likeness. + +Up to the Leipzig period he had great joy in wandering unknown, +unconscious of self; but he soon began to torment himself with an +almost hypertrophied fancy that he was attracting much attention, that +others' eyes were turned on his person to fix it in their memories, +that he was scanned and found fault with; and hence he developed a +love of the country, of the woods and solitary places, where he could +be hedged in and separated from all the world. Here he began to throw +off his former habit of looking at things from the art standpoint and +to take pleasure in natural objects for their own sake. His mother had +almost grownup to consciousness in her two oldest children, and his +first disappointment in love turned his thought all the more +affectionately toward her and his sister, a year younger. He was long +consumed with amazement over the newly awakening sense impulse that +took intellectual forms and the mental needs that clothed themselves +in sense images. He fell to building air castles of opposition lecture +courses and gave himself up to many dreams of ideal university +conditions. He first attended lectures diligently, but suffered much +harm from being too advanced; learned a great deal that he could not +regulate, and was thereby made uncomfortable; grew interested in the +fit of his clothes, of which hitherto he had been careless. He was in +despair at the uncertainty of his own taste and judgment, and almost +feared he must make a complete change of mind, renouncing what he had +hitherto learned, and so one day in great contempt for his past burned +up his poetry, sketches, etc. + +He had learned to value and love the Bible, and owed his moral culture +to it. Its events and symbols were deeply stamped upon him, so without +being a pietist he was greatly moved at the scoffing spirit toward it +which he met at the university. From youth he had stood on good terms +with God, and at times he had felt that he had some things to forgive +God for not having given better assistance to his infinite good-will. +Under all this influence he turned to cabalism and became interested +in crystals and the microcosm and macrocosm, and fell into the habit +of despair over what he had been and believed just before. He +conceived a kind of hermetical or neoplatonic godhead creating in more +and more eccentric circles, until the last, which rose in +contradiction, was Lucifer to whom creation was committed. He first of +all imagined in detail an angelic host, and finally a whole theology +was wrought out _in petto_. He used a gilt ornamented music-stand as a +kind of altar with fumigating pastils for incense, where each morning +God was approached by offerings until one day a conflagration put a +sudden end to these celebrations. + +Hans Anderson,[48] the son of a poor shoemaker, taught in a charity +school at the dawn of puberty; vividly animated Bible stories from +pictures painted on the wall; was dreamy and absent-minded; told +continued stories to his mates; at confirmation vowed he would be +famous and finally, at fourteen, left home for Copenhagen, where he +was violently stage-struck and worked his way from friendship with the +bill-poster to the stage as page, shepherd, etc.; called on a famous +dancer, who scorned him, and then, feeling that he had no one but God +to depend on, prayed earnestly and often. For nearly a year, until his +voice broke, he was a fine singer. He wet with his tears the eyes of a +portrait of a heartless man that he might feel for him. He played with +a puppet theater and took a childish delight in decking the characters +with gay remnants that he begged from shops; wrote several plays which +no one would accept; stole into an empty theater one New Year's day to +pray aloud on the middle of the stage; shouted with joy; hugged and +kissed a beech-tree till people thought him insane; abhorred the +thought of apprenticeship to Latin as he did to that of a trade, which +was a constant danger; and was one of the most dreamy and sentimental, +and by spells religious and prayerful, of youth. + +George Ebers[49] remembered as a boy of eleven the revolution of '48 +in Berlin, soon after which he was placed in Froebel's school at +Keilhau. This great teacher with his noble associates, Middendorf, +Barop, and Langekhal, lived with the boys; told the stirring stories +of their own lives as soldiers in the war of liberation; led their +pupils on long excursions in vacation, often lasting for months, and +gave much liberty to the boys, who were allowed to haze not only their +new mates, but new teachers. This transfer from the city to the +country roused a veritable passion in the boy, who remained here till +he was fifteen. Trees and cliffs were climbed, collections made, the +Saale by moonlight and the lofty Steiger at sunset were explored. +There were swimming and skating and games, and the maxim of the +school, "_Friede, Freude, Freiheit_,"[Peace, joy, freedom] was lived up +to. The boys hung on their teachers for stories. The teachers took +their boys into their confidence for all their own literary aims, +loves, and ideals. One had seen the corpse of Körner and another knew +Prohaska. "The Roman postulate that knowledge should be imparted to +boys according to a thoroughly tested method approved by the mature +human intellect and which seems most useful to it for later life" was +the old system of sacrificing the interests of the child for those of +the man. Here childhood was to live itself out completely and +naturally into an ever renewed paradise. The temperaments, +dispositions, and characters of each of the sixty boys were carefully +studied and recorded. Some of these are still little masterpieces of +psychological penetration, and this was made the basis of development. +The extreme Teutonism cultivated by wrestling, shooting, and fencing, +giving each a spot of land to sow, reap, and shovel, and all in an +atmosphere of adult life, made an environment that fitted the +transition period as well as any that the history of education +affords. Every tramp and battle were described in a book by each boy. +When at fifteen Ebers was transferred to the Kottbus Gymnasium, he +felt like a colt led from green pastures to the stable, and the period +of effervescence made him almost possessed by a demon, so many sorts +of follies did he commit. He wrote "a poem of the world," fell in love +with an actress older than himself, became known as foolhardy for his +wild escapades, and only slowly sobered down. + +In Gottfried Kelley's "Der grüne Heinrich,"[50] the author, whom R.M. +Meyer calls "the most eminent literary German of the nineteenth +century," reviews the memories of his early life. This autobiography +is a plain and very realistic story of a normal child, and not +adulterated with fiction like Goethe's or with psychoses like Rousseau +or Bashkirtseff. He seems a boy like all other boys, and his childhood +and youth were in no wise extraordinary. The first part of this work, +which describes his youth up to the age of eighteen, is the most +important, and everything is given with remarkable fidelity and +minuteness. It is a tale of little things. All the friendships and +loves and impulses are there, and he is fundamentally selfish and +utilitarian; God and nature were one, and only when his beloved Army +died did he wish to believe in immortality. He, too, as a child, found +two kinds of love in his heart--the idea and the sensual, very +independent--the one for a young and innocent girl and the other for a +superb young woman years older than he, pure, although the +personification of sense. He gives a rich harvest of minute and +sagacious observations about his strange simultaneous loves; the +peculiar tastes of food; his day-dream period; and his rather +prolonged habit of lying, the latter because he had no other vent for +invention. He describes with great regret his leaving school at so +early an age; his volcanic passion of anger; his self-distrust; his +periods of abandon; his passion to make a success of art though he did +not of life; his spells of self-despair and cynicism; his periods of +desolation in his single life; his habit of story-telling; his +wrestling with the problem of theology and God; the conflict between +his philosophy and his love of the girls, etc. + +From a private school in Leipzig, where he had shown all a boy's tact +in finding what his masters thought the value of each subject they +taught; where he had joined in the vandalism of using a battering-ram +to break a way to the hated science apparatus and to destroy it; +feeling that the classical writers were overpraised; and where at the +age of sixteen he had appeared several times in public as a reciter of +his own poems, Max Müller returned to Leipzig and entered upon the +freedom of university life there at the age of seventeen. For years +his chief enjoyment was music.[51] He played the piano well, heard +everything he could in concert or opera, was an oratorio tenor, and +grew more and more absorbed in music, so that he planned to devote +himself altogether to it and also to enter a musical school at Dessau, +but nothing came of it. At the university he saw little of society, +was once incarcerated for wearing a club ribbon, and confesses that +with his boon companions he was guilty of practises which would now +bring culprits into collision with authorities. He fought three duels, +participated in many pranks and freakish escapades, but nevertheless +attended fifty-three different courses of lectures in three years. +When Hegelism was the state philosophy, he tried hard to understand +it, but dismissed it with the sentiments expressed by a French officer +to his tailor, who refused to take the trousers he had ordered to be +made very tight because they did not fit so closely that he could not +get into them. Darwin attracted him, yet the wildness of his followers +repelled. He says, "I confess I felt quite bewildered for a time and +began to despair altogether of my reasoning powers." He wonders how +young minds in German universities survive the storms and fogs through +which they pass. With bated breath he heard his elders talk of +philosophy and tried to lay hold of a word here and there, but it all +floated before his mind like mist. Later he had an Hegelian period, +but found in Herbart a corrective, and at last decided upon Sanskrit +and other ancient languages, because he felt that he must know +something that no other knew, and also that the Germans had then heard +only the after-chime and not the real striking of the bells of Indian +philosophy. From twenty his struggles and his queries grew more +definite, and at last, at the age of twenty-two, he was fully launched +upon his career in Paris, and later went to Oxford. + +At thirteen Wagner[52] translated about half the "Odyssey" +voluntarily; at fourteen began the tragedy which was to combine the +grandeur of two of Shakespeare's dramas; at sixteen he tried "his +new-fledged musical wings by soaring at once to the highest peaks of +orchestral achievement without wasting any time on the humble +foot-hills." He sought to make a new departure, and, compared to the +grandeur of his own composition, "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony appeared +like a simple Pleyel Sonata." To facilitate the reading of his +astounding score, he wrote it in three kinds of ink--red for strings, +green for the wood-wind, and black for the brass instruments. He +writes that this overture was the climax of his absurdities, and +although the audience before which an accommodating orchestra played +it were disgusted and the musicians were convulsed with laughter, it +made a deep impression upon the author's mind. Even after +matriculating at the university he abandoned himself so long to the +dissipations common to student life before the reaction came that his +relatives feared that he was a good-for-nothing. + +In his "Hannele," Hauptmann, the dramatist, describes in a kind of +dream poem what he supposed to pass through the mind of a dying girl +of thirteen or fourteen, who does not wish to live and is so absorbed +by the "Brownies of her brain" that she hardly knows whether she is +alive on earth or dead in heaven, and who sees the Lord Jesus in the +form of the schoolmaster whom she adores. In her closing vision there +is a symbolic representation of her own resurrection. To the +passionate discussions in Germany, England, and France, as to whether +this character is true to adolescence, we can only answer with an +emphatic affirmative; that her heaven abounds in local color and in +fairy tale items, that it is very material, and that she is troubled +by fears of sin against the Holy Ghost, is answer enough in an +ill-used, starving child with a fevered brain, whose dead mother +taught her these things. + + +Saint-Pierre's "Paul and Virginia" is an attempt to describe budding +adolescence in a boy and girl born on a remote island and reared in a +state of natural simplicity The descriptions are sentimental after the +fashion of the age in France, and the pathos, which to us smacks of +affectation and artificiality, nevertheless has a vein of truth in it. +The story really begins when the two children were twelve; and the +description of the dawn of love and melancholy in Virginia's heart, +for some time concealed from Paul, of her disquiet and piety, of the +final frank avowal of eternal love by each, set of by the pathetic +separation, and of the undying love, and finally the tragic death and +burial of each--all this owes its charm, for its many generations of +readers, to its merits as an essentially true picture of the human +heart at this critical age. This work and Rousseau[53] have +contributed to give French literature its peculiar cast in its +description of this age. + + +"The first explosions of combustible constitution" in Rousseau's, +precocious nature were troublesome, and he felt premature sensations +of erotic voluptuousness, but without any sin. He longed "to fall at +the feet of an imperious mistress, obey her mandates or implore +pardon." He only wanted a lady, to become a knight errant. At ten he +was passionately devoted to a Mlle. Vulson, whom he publicly and +tyrannically claimed as his own and would allow no other to approach. +He had very different sensuous feelings toward Mlle. Goton, with whom +his relations were very passionate, though pure. Absolutely under the +power of both these mistresses, the effects they produced upon him +were in no wise related to each other. The former was a brother's +affection with the jealousy of a lover added, but the latter a +furious, tigerish, Turkish rage. When told of the former's marriage, +in his indignation and heroic fury he swore never more to see a +perfidious girl. A slightly neurotic vein of prolonged ephebeitis +pervades much of his life. + +Pierre Loti's "Story of a Child"[54] was written when the author was +forty-two, and contains hardly a fact, but it is one of the best of +inner autobiographies, and is nowhere richer than in the last +chapters, which bring the author down to the age of fourteen and a +half. He vividly describes the new joy at waking, which he began to +feel at twelve or thirteen; the clear vision into the bottomless pit +of death; the new, marvelous susceptibility to nature as comradeship +with boys of his own age was lacking; the sudden desires from pure +bravado and perversity to do something unseemly, e. g., making a fly +omelet and carrying it in a procession with song; the melting of +pewter plates and pouring them into water and salting a wild tract of +land with them; organizing a band of miners, whom he led as if with +keen scent to the right spot and rediscovered his nuggets, everything +being done mysteriously and as a tribal secret. Loti had a new feeling +for the haunting music of Chopin, which he had been taught to play but +had not been interested in; his mind was inflamed, by a home visit of +an elder brother, with the idea of going to the South Sea Islands, and +this became a long obsession which finally led him to enlist in the +navy, dropping, with a beating heart, the momentous letter into the +post-office after long misgivings and delays. He had a superficial and +a hidden self, the latter somewhat whimsical and perhaps ridiculous, +shared only with a few intimate friends for whom he would have let +himself be cut into bits. He believes his transition period lasted +longer than with the majority of men, and during it he was carried +from one extreme to another; had rather eccentric and absurd manners, +and touched moat of the perilous rocks on the voyage of life. He had +an early love for an older girl whose name he wrote in cipher on his +books, although he felt it a little artificial, but believed it might +have developed into a great and true hereditary friendship, continuing +that which their ancestors had felt for many generations. The birth of +love in his heart was in a dream after having read the forbidden poet, +Alfred de Musset. He was fourteen, and in his dream it was a soft, +odorous twilight. He walked amid flowers seeking a nameless some one +whom he ardently desired, and felt that something strange and +wonderful, intoxicating as it advanced, was going to happen. The +twilight grew deeper, and behind a rose-bush he saw a young girl with +a languorous and mysterious smile, although her forehead and eyes were +hidden. As it darkened rather suddenly, her eyes came out, and they +were very personal and seemed to belong to some one already much +beloved, who had been found with "transports of infinite joy and +tenderness." He woke with a start and sought to retain the phantom, +which faded. He could not conceive that was a mere illusion, and as he +realized that she had vanished he felt overwhelmed with hopelessness. +It was the first stirring "of true love with all its great melancholy +and deep mystery, with its overwhelming but sad enchantment--love +which like a perfume endows with a fragrance all it touches." + + +It is, I believe, high time that ephebic literature should be +recognized as a class by itself, and have a place of its own in the +history of letters and in criticism. Much of it should be individually +prescribed for the reading of the young, for whom it has a singular +zest and is a true stimulus and corrective. This stage of life now has +what might almost be called a school of its own. Here the young appeal +to and listen to each other as they do not to adults, and in a way the +latter have failed to appreciate. Again, no biography, and especially +no autobiography, should henceforth be complete if it does not +describe this period of transformation so all-determining for future +life to which it alone can often give the key. Rightly to draw the +lessons of this age not only saves us from waste ineffable of this +rich but crude area of experience, but makes maturity saner and more +complete. Lastly, many if not most young people should be encouraged +to enough of the confessional private journalism to teach them +self-knowledge, for the art of self-expression usually begins now if +ever, when it has a wealth of subjective material and needs forms of +expression peculiar to itself. + +For additional references on the subject of this chapter, see: + +Alcafarado, Marianna, Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun. Translated by +R. H., New York, 1887. Richardson, Abby Sage, Abelard and Héloise, and +Letters of Héloise, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston. Smith, Theodote +L., Types of Adolescent Affection. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1904, +vol. II, pp. 178-203. + + +[Footnote 1: Pedagogical Seminary, June 1901, vol. 8, pp. 163-205] + +[Footnote 2: Being a Boy.] + +[Footnote 3: Story of a Bad Boy.] + +[Footnote 4: A Boy's Town.] + +[Footnote 5: Court of Boyville.] + +[Footnote 6: The Spoilt Child, by Peary Chandmitter. Translated by G. +D. Oswell. Thacker, Spink and Co., Calcutta, 1893.] + +[Footnote 7: The Golden Age] + +[Footnote 8: Frau Spyri.] + +[Footnote 9: The One I Knew the Best of All.] + +[Footnote 10: The Study of the Boyhood of Great Men. Pedagogical +Seminary, October, 1894, vol. 3, pp. 134-156.] + +[Footnote 11: The Vanishing Character of Adolescent Experiences. +Northwestern Monthly, June, 1898, vol. 8, p. 644.] + +[Footnote 12: The Count of Boyville, by William Allen White. New York, +1899, p. 358.] + +[Footnote 13: The Study of Adolescence. Pedagogical Seminary, June, +1891, vol. 1, pp. 174-195.] + +[Footnote 14: Lancaster: The Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence. +Pedagogical Seminary, July, 1897, vol. 5, p. 106.] + +[Footnote 15: Standards of Efficiency in School and in Life. +Pedagogical Seminary, March, 1903, vol. 10, pp. 3-22.] + +[Footnote 16: See also Vittorio da Feltre and other Humanist +Educators, by W. H. Woodward. Cambridge University Press, 1897.] + +[Footnote 17: See The Private Life of Galileo; from his Correspondence +and that of his Eldest Daughter. Anon, Macmillan, London, 1870.] + +[Footnote 18: See Sir David Brewster's Life of Newton. Harper, New +York, 1874.] + +[Footnote 19: Louis Agassiz, His Life and Work, by C. F. Holder. G. P. +Putnam's Sons, New York, 1893.] + +[Footnote 20: Life and Letters of Thomas H. Huxley, by his son Leonard +Huxley. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1901.] + +[Footnote 21: See also Sully: A Girl's Religion. Longman's Magazine, +May, 1890, pp. 89-99.] + +[Footnote 22: Sheldon (Institutional Activities of American Children; +American Journal of Psychology, July, 1898, vol. 9, p. 434) describes +a faintly analogous case of a girl of eleven, who organised the +worship of Pallas Athena on two flat rocks, in a deep ravine by a +stream where a young sycamore grew from an old stump, as did Pallas +from the head of her father Zeus. There was a court consisting of +king, queen and subjects, and priests who officiated at sacrifices. +The king and queen wore goldenrod upon their heads and waded in +streams attended by their subjects; gathered flowers for Athena; +caught crayfish which were duly smashed upon her altar. "Sometimes +there was a special celebration, when, in addition to the slaughtered +crayfish and beautiful flower decorations, and pickles stolen from the +dinner-table, there would be an elaborate ceremony," which because of +its uncanny acts was intensely disliked by the people at hand.] + +[Footnote 23: The One I Know The Best of All. A Memory of the Mind of +a Child. By Frances Hodgson Burnett. Scribner's Sons, New York, 1893] + +[Footnote 24: The Beth Book, by Sarah Grand. D. Appleton and Co., New +York, 1897.] + +[Footnote 25: Autobiography of a Child. Hannah Lynch, W. Blackwood and +Sons, London, 1899, p. 255.] + +[Footnote 26: The Story of My Life. By Helen Keller. Doubleday, Page +and Co., New York, 1903, p. 39.] + +[Footnote 27: Journal of a Young Artist. Cassell and Co., New York, +1889, p. 434.] + +[Footnote 28: The Story of Mary MacLane. By herself. Herbert S. Stone +and Co., Chicago, 1902, p. 322.] + +[Footnote 29: Fate. Translated from the Italian by A.M. Von Blomberg. +Copeland and Day, Boston, 1898.] + +[Footnote 30: Confessions of an Opium Eater. Part I. Introductory +Narrative. (Cambridge Classics) 1896.] + +[Footnote 31: Longmans, Green and Co. London, 1891, 2nd ed.] + +[Footnote 32: The Hearts of Men. Macmillan, London, 1891, p. 324.] + +[Footnote 33: An Autobiography. Edited by H.M. Trollope. 2 vols. +London, 1883.] + +[Footnote 34: See his Memoirs. London, 1885.] + +[Footnote 35: See Autobiography of Mark Rutherford (pseudonym for W.H. +White), edited by Reuben Shapcott. 2 vols. London, 1881.] + +[Footnote 36: The rest of the two volumes is devoted to his further +life as a dissenting minister, who later became something of a +literary man; relating how he was slowly driven to leave his little +church, how he outgrew and broke with the girl to whom he was engaged, +whom he marvelously met and married when both were well on in years, +and how strangely he was influenced by the free-thinker Mardon and his +remarkable daughter. All in all it is a rare study of emancipation.] + +[Footnote 37: London, 1896, vol. 1.] + +[Footnote 38: Macmillan, 1902.] + +[Footnote 39: Life of Sir J.F. Stephen. By his brother, Leslie +Stephen, London, 1895.] + +[Footnote 40: See the very impressive account of Dicken's +characterization of childhood and youth, and of his great but hitherto +inadequately recognized interest and influence as an educator. Dickens +as an Educator. James L. Hughes. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1901, +p. 319.] + +[Footnote 41: John Inglesant: A Romance. 6th ed. Macmillan, 1886.] + +[Footnote 42: The Autobiography of a Journalist. 2 vols. Houghton, +Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1901.] + +[Footnote 43: A. Bronson Alcott, His Life and Philosophy. By F. B. +Sanborn and W. T. Harris. Roberts Bros., Boston, 1893.] + +[Footnote 44: Horace Bushnell, Preacher and Theologian. By Theodore F. +Munger. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1899.] + +[Footnote 45: By C.W. Chesnutt. (Beacon Biographies.) Small, Maynard +and Co., Boston, 1899.] + +[Footnote 46: The Making of an American. Macmillan, 1901.] + +[Footnote 47: Sonny. By Ruth McEnery Stuart. The Century Co., New +York, 1896.] + +[Footnote 48: The Story of My Life. Works, vol. 8 new edition. +Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1894.] + +[Footnote 49: The Story of My Life. Translated by M. J. Safford. D. +Appleton and Co., New York 1893.] + +[Footnote 50: Gesammelte Werke. Vierter Band. Wilhelm Hertz, Berlin, +1897.] + +[Footnote 51: My Autobiography, p. 106. Chas. Scribner's Sons, New +York, 1901.] + +[Footnote 52: Wagner and His Works. By Henry T. Finck. Chas. +Scribner's Sons, New York, 1893.] + +[Footnote 53: Les Confessions. Oeuvres Complètes, vols. 8 and 9. +Hachette et Cie., Paris, 1903.] + +[Footnote 54: Translated from the French by C.F. Smith. C.C. Birchard +and Co., Boston, 1901.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL IDEALS + + +Change from childish to adult friends--Influence of favorite +teachers--What children wish or plan to do or be--Property and the +money sense--Social judgments--The only child--First social +organizations--Student life--Associations for youth, controlled by +adults. + +In a few aspects we are already able to trace the normal psychic +outgrowing of the home of childhood as its interests irradiate into an +ever enlarging environment. Almost the only duty of small children is +habitual and prompt obedience. Our very presence enforces one general +law--that of keeping our good-will and avoiding our displeasure. They +respect all we smile at or even notice, and grow to it like the plant +toward the light. Their early lies are often saying what they think +will please. At bottom, the most restless child admires and loves +those who save him from too great fluctuations by coercion, provided +the means be rightly chosen and the ascendency extend over heart and +mind. But the time comes when parents are often shocked at the lack of +respect suddenly shown by the child. They have ceased to be the +highest ideals. The period of habituating morality and making it +habitual is ceasing; and the passion to realize freedom, to act on +personal experience, and to keep a private conscience is in order. To +act occasionally with independence from the highest possible ideal +motives develops the impulse and the joy of pure obligation, and thus +brings some new and original force into the world and makes habitual +guidance by the highest and best, or by inner as opposed to outer +constraint, the practical rule of life. To bring the richest streams +of thought to bear in interpreting the ethical instincts, so that the +youth shall cease to live in a moral interregnum, is the real goal of +self-knowledge. This is true education of the will and prepares the +way for love of overcoming obstacles of difficulty, perhaps even of +conflict. This impulse is often the secret of obstinacy.[1] And yet, +"at no time in life will a human being respond So heartily if treated +by older and wiser people as if he were an equal or even a superior. +The attempt to treat a child at adolescence as you would treat an +inferior is instantly fatal to good discipline."[2] Parents still +think of their offspring as mere children, and tighten the rein when +they should loosen it. Many young people feel that they have the best +of homes and yet that they will go crazy if they must remain in them. +If the training of earlier years has been good, guidance by command +may now safely give way to that by ideals, which are sure to be +heroic. The one unpardonable thing for the adolescent is dullness, +stupidity, lack of life, interest, and enthusiasm in school or +teachers, and, perhaps above all, too great stringency. Least of all, +at this stage, can the curriculum school be an ossuary. The child must +now be taken into the family councils and find the parents interested +in all that interests him. Where this is not done, we have the +conditions for the interesting cases of so many youth, who now begin +to suspect that father, mother, or both, are not their true parents. +Not only is there interest in rapidly widening associations with +coevals, but a new lust to push on and up to maturity. One marked +trait now is to seek friends and companions older than themselves, or +next to this, to seek those younger. This is marked contrast with +previous years, when they seek associates of their own age. Possibly +the merciless teasing instinct, which culminates at about the same +time, may have some influence, but certain it is that now interest is +transpolarized up and down the age scale. One reason is the new hunger +for information, not only concerning reproduction, but a vast variety +of other matters, so that there is often an attitude of silent begging +for knowledge. In answer to Lancaster's[3] questions on this subject, +some sought older associates because they could learn more from them, +found them better or more steadfast friends, craved sympathy and found +most of it from older and perhaps married people. Some were more +interested in their parents' conversation with other adults than with +themselves, and were particularly entertained by the chance of hearing +things they had no business to. There is often a feeling that adults +do not realize this new need of friendship with them and show want of +sympathy almost brutal. + + +Stableton,[4] who has made interesting notes on individual boys +entering the adolescent period, emphasizes the importance of sympathy, +appreciation, and respect in dealing with this age. They must now be +talked to as equals, and in this way their habits of industry and even +their dangerous love affairs run be controlled. He says, "There is no +more important question before the teaching fraternity today than how +to deal justly and successfully with boys at this time of life. This +is the age when they drop out of school" in far too large numbers, and +he thinks that the small percentage of male graduates from our high +schools is due to "the inability of the average grammar grade or +high-school teacher to deal rightly with boys in this critical period +of their school life." Most teachers "know all their bad points, but +fail to discover their good ones." The fine disciplinarian, the +mechanical movement of whose school is so admirable and who does not +realize the new need of liberty or how loose-jointed, mentally and +physically, all are at this age, should be supplanted by one who can +look into the heart and by a glance make the boy feel that he or she +is his friend. "The weakest work in our schools is the handling of +boys entering the adolescent period of life, and there is no greater +blessing that can come to a boy at this age, when be does not +understand himself, than a good strong teacher that understands him, +has faith in him, and will day by day lead him till he can walk +alone." + +Small[5] found the teacher a focus of imitation whence many +influences, both physical and mental, irradiated to the pupils. Every +accent, gesture, automatism, like and dislike is caught consciously +and unconsciously. Every intellectual interest in the teacher +permeates the class--liars, if trusted, became honest; those treated +as ladies and gentlemen act so; those told by favorite teachers of the +good things they are capable of feel a strong impulsion to do them; +some older children are almost transformed by being made companions to +teachers, by having their good traits recognized, and by frank +apologies by the teacher when in error. + +An interesting and unsuspected illustration of the growth of +independence with adolescence was found in 2,411 papers from the +second to eighth grades on the characteristics of the best teacher as +seen by children.[6] In the second and third grades, all, and in the +fourth, ninety-five per cent specified help in studies. This falls off +rapidly in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades to thirty-nine per +cent, while at the same time the quality of patience in the upper +grades rises from a mention by two to twenty-two per cent. + +Sanford Bell[7] collated the answers of 543 males and 488 females as +to who of all their past teachers did them most good, and wherein; +whom they loved and disliked most, and why. His most striking result +is presented in which shows that fourteen in girls and sixteen in boys +is the age in which most good was felt to have been done, and that +curves culminating at twelve for both sexes but not falling rapidly +until fifteen or sixteen represent the period when the strongest and +most indelible dislikes were felt. What seems to be most appreciated +in teachers is the giving of purpose, arousing of ideals, kindling of +ambition to be something or do something and so giving an object in +life, encouragement to overcome circumstances, and, in general, +inspiring self-confidence and giving direction. Next came personal +sympathy and interest, kindness, confidence, a little praise, being +understood; and next, special help in lessons, or timely and kindly +advice, while stability and poise of character, purity, the absence of +hypocrisy, independence, personal beauty, athleticism and vigor are +prominent. It is singular that those of each sex have been most helped +by their own sex and that this prominence is far greatest in men. +Four-fifths of the men and nearly one-half of the women, however, got +most help from men. Male teachers, especially near adolescence, seem +most helpful for both sexes. + +The qualities that inspire most dislike are malevolence, sarcasm, +unjust punishment, suspicion, severity, sternness, absence of laughing +and smiling, indifference, threats and broken vows, excessive scolding +and "roasting," and fondness for inflicting blows. The teacher who +does not smile is far more liable to excite animosity. Most boys +dislike men most, and girls' dislikes are about divided. The stories +of school cruelties and indignities are painful. Often inveterate +grudges are established by little causes, and it is singular how +permanent and indelible strong dislike, are for the majority of +children. In many cases, aversions engendered before ten have lasted +with little diminution till maturity, and there is a sad record of +children who have lost a term, a year, or dropped school altogether +because of ill treatment or partiality. + +Nearly two thousand children were asked what they would do in a +specific case of conflict between teacher and parents. It was found +that, while for young children parental authority was preferred, a +marked decline began about eleven and was most rapid after fourteen in +girls and fifteen in boys, and that there was a nearly corresponding +increase in the number of pubescents who preferred the teacher's +authority. The reasons for their choice were also analyzed, and it was +found that whereas for the young, unconditioned authority was +generally satisfactory, with pubesecents, abstract authority came into +marked predominance, "until when the children have reached the age of +sixteen almost seventy-five per cent of their reasons belong to this +class, and the children show themselves able to extend the idea of +authority without violence to their sense of justice." + + +On a basis of 1,400 papers answering the question whom, of anyone ever +heard or read of, they would like to resemble, Barnes[8] found that +girls' ideals were far more often found in the immediate circle of +their acquaintance than boys, and that those within that circle were +more often in their own family, but that the tendency to go outside +their personal knowledge and choose historical and public characters +was greatly augmented at puberty, when also the heroes of philanthropy +showed marked gain in prominence. Boys rarely chose women as their +ideals; but in America, half the girls at eight and two-thirds at +eighteen chose male characters. The range of important women ideals +among the girls was surprisingly small. Barnes fears that if from the +choice of relative as ideals, the expansion to remote or world heroes +is too fast, it may "lead to disintegration of character and reckless +living." "If, on the other hand, it is expanded too slowly we shall +have that arrested development which makes good ground in which to +grow stupidity, brutality, and drunkenness--the first fruits of a +sluggish and self-contained mind." "No one can consider the regularity +with which local ideals die out and are replaced by world ideals +without feeling that he is in the presence of law-abiding forces," and +this emphasizes the fact that the teacher or parent does not work in a +world governed by caprice. + +The compositions written by thousands of children in New York on what +they wanted to do when they were grown up were collated by Dr. +Thurber.[9] The replies were serious, and showed that poor children +looked forward willingly to severe labor and the increased earnestness +of adolescent years, and the better answers to the question _why_ were +noteworthy. All anticipated giving up the elastic joyousness of +childhood and felt the need of patience. Up to ten, there was an +increase in the number of those who had two or more desires. This +number declined rapidly at eleven, rose as rapidly at twelve, and +slowly fell later. Preferences for a teacher's life exceeded in girls +up to nine, fell rapidly at eleven, increased slightly the next year, +and declined thereafter. The ideal of becoming a dressmaker and +milliner increased till ten, fell at eleven, rose rapidly to a maximum +at thirteen, when it eclipsed teaching, and then fell permanently +again. The professions of clerk and stenographer showed a marked rise +from eleven and a half. The number of boys who chose the father's +occupation attained its maximum at nine and its minimum at twelve, +with a slight rise to fourteen, when the survey ended. The ideal of +tradesman culminated at eight, with a second rise at thirteen. The +reason "to earn money" reached its high maximum of fifty per cent at +twelve, and fell very rapidly. The reason "because I like it" +culminated at ten and fell steadily thereafter. The motive that +influenced the choice of a profession and which was altruistic toward +parents or for their benefit culminated at twelve and a half, and then +declined. The desire for character increased somewhat throughout, but +rapidly after twelve, and the impulse to do good to the world, which +had risen slowly from nine, mounted sharply after thirteen. Thus, "at +eleven all the ideas and tendencies are increasing toward a maximum. +At twelve we find the altruistic desires for the welfare of parents, +the reason 'to earn money'; at thirteen the desire on the part of the +girls to be dressmakers, also to be clerks and stenographers. At +fourteen culminates the desire for a business career in bank or office +among the boys, the consciousness of life's uncertainties which +appeared first at twelve, the desire for character, and the hope of +doing the world good." + +"What would you like to be in an imaginary new city?" was a question +answered by 1,234 written papers.[10] One hundred and fourteen +different occupations were given; that of teacher led with the girls +at every age except thirteen and fourteen, when dressmaker and +milliner took precedence. The motive of making money led among the +boys at every age except fourteen and sixteen, when occupations chosen +because they were liked led. The greatest number of those who chose +the parent's occupation was found at thirteen, but from that age it +steadily declined and independent choice came into prominence. The +maximum of girls who chose parental vocations was at fourteen. Motives +of philanthropy reached nearly their highest point in girls and boys +at thirteen. + +Jegi[11] obtained letters addressed to real or imaginary friends from +3,000 German children in Milwaukee, asking what they desired to do +when they grew up, and why, and tabulated returns from 200 boys and +200 girls for each age from eight to fourteen inclusive. He also found +a steadily decreasing influence of relatives to thirteen; in early +adolescence, the personal motive of choosing an occupation because it +was liked increased, while from twelve in boys and thirteen in girls +the consideration of finding easy vocations grew rapidly strong. + +L. W. Cline[12] studied by the census method returns from 2,594 +children, who were asked what they wished to be and do. He found that +in naming both ideals and occupations girls were more conservative +than boys, but more likely to give a reason for their choice. In this +respect country children resembled boys more than city children. +Country boys were prone to inattention, were more independent and able +to care for themselves, suggesting that the home life of the country +child is more effective in shaping ideals and character than that of +the city child. Industrial occupations are preferred by the younger +children, the professional and technical pursuits increasing with age. +Judgments of rights and justice with the young are more prone to issue +from emotional rather than from intellectual processes. Country +children seem more altruistic than those in the city, and while girls +are more sympathetic than boys, they are also more easily prejudiced. +Many of these returns bear unmistakable marks that in some homes and +schools moralization has been excessive and has produced a sentimental +type of morality and often a feverish desire to express ethical views +instead of trusting to suggestion. Children are very prone to have one +code of ideals for themselves and another for others. Boys, too, are +more original than girls, and country children more than city +children. + +Friedrich[13] asked German school children what person they chose as +their pattern. The result showed differences of age, sex, and creed. +First of all came characters in history, which seemed to show that +this study for children of the sixth and seventh grades was +essentially ethical or a training of mood and disposition +(_Gesinnungsunterricht_), and this writer suggests reform in this +respect. He seems to think that the chief purpose of history for this +age should be ethical. Next came the influence of the Bible, although +it was plain that this was rather in spite of the catechism and the +method of memoriter work. Here, too, the immediate environment at this +age furnished few ideals (four and one-fifth per cent), for children +seem to have keener eyes for the faults than for the virtues of those +near them. Religion, therefore, should chiefly be directed to the +emotions and not to the understanding. This census also suggested more +care that the reading of children should contain good examples in +their environment, and also that the matter of instruction should be +more fully adapted to the conditions of sex. + +Friedrich found as his chief age result that children of the seventh +or older class in the German schools laid distinctly greater stress +upon characters distinguished by bravery and courage than did the +children of the sixth grade, while the latter more frequently selected +characters illustrating piety and holiness. The author divided his +characters into thirty-five classes, illustrating qualities, and found +that national activity led, with piety a close second; that then came +in order those illustrating firmness of faith, bravery, modesty, and +chastity; then pity and sympathy, industry, goodness, patience, etc. + +Taylor, Young, Hamilton, Chambers, and others, have also collected +interesting data on what children and young people hope to be, do, +whom they would like to be, or resemble, etc. Only a few at +adolescence feel themselves so good or happy that they are content to +be themselves. Most show more or less discontent at their lot. From +six to eleven or twelve, the number who find their ideals among their +acquaintances falls off rapidly, and historical characters rise to a +maximum at or before the earliest teens. From eleven or twelve on into +the middle teens contemporary ideals increase steadily. London +children are more backward in this expansion of ideals than Americans, +while girls choose more acquaintance ideals at all ages than do boys. +The expansion, these authors also trace largely to the study of +history. The George Washington ideal, which leads all the rest by far +and is greatly overworked, in contrast with the many heroes of equal +rank found in England, pales soon, as imperfections are seen and those +now making history loom up. This is the normal age to free from +bondage to the immediate present, and this freedom is one measure of +education. Bible heroes are chosen as ideals by only a very small +percentage, mostly girls, far more characters being from fiction and +mythology; where Jesus is chosen, His human is preferred to His divine +side. Again, it would seem that teachers would be ideals, especially +as many girls intend to teach, but they are generally unpopular as +choices. In an ideal system they would be the first step in expansion +from home ideals. Military heroes and inventors play leading rôles in +the choices of pubescent boys. + +Girls at all school ages and increasingly up the grades prefer foreign +ideals, to be the wife of a man of title, as aristocracies offer +special opportunities for woman to shine, and life near the source of +fashion is very attractive, at least up to sixteen. The saddest fact +in these studies is that nearly half our American pubescent girls, or +nearly three times as many as in England, choose male ideals, or would +be men. Girls, too, have from six to fifteen times as many ideals as +boys. In this significant fact we realize how modern woman has cut +loose from all old moorings and is drifting with no destination and no +anchor aboard. While her sex has multiplied in all lower and high +school grades, its ideals are still too masculine. Text-books teach +little about women. When a woman's Bible, history, course of study, +etc., is proposed, her sex fears it may reduce her to the old +servitude. While boys rarely, and then only when very young, choose +female ideals, girls' preference for the life of the other sex +sometimes reaches sixty and seventy per cent. The divorce between the +life preferred and that demanded by the interests of the race is often +absolute. Saddest and most unnatural of all is the fact that this +state of things increases most rapidly during just those years when +ideals of womanhood should be developed and become most dominant, till +it seems as if the female character was threatened with +disintegration. While statistics are not yet sufficient to be reliable +on the subject, there is some indication that woman later slowly +reverts toward ideals not only from her own sex but also from the +circle of her own acquaintances. + +The reasons for the choice of ideals are various and not yet well +determined. Civic virtues certainly rise; material and utilitarian +considerations do not seem to much, if at all, at adolescence, and in +some data decline. Position, fame, honor, and general greatness +increase rapidly, but moral qualities rise highest and also fastest +just before and near puberty and continue to increase later yet. By +these choices both sexes, but girls far most, show increasing +admiration of ethical and social qualities. Artistic and intellectual +traits also rise quite steadily from ten or eleven onward, but with no +such rapidity, and reach no such height as military ability and +achievement for boys. Striking in these studies is the rapid increase, +especially from eight to fourteen, of the sense of historic time for +historic persons. These long since dead are no longer spoken of as now +living. Most of these choices are direct expressions of real +differences of taste and character. + +_Property,_ Kline and France[14] have defined as "anything that the +individual may acquire which sustains and prolongs life, favors +survival, and gives an advantage over opposing forces." Many animals +and even insects store up food both for themselves and for their +young. Very early in life children evince signs of ownership. +Letourneau[15] says that the notion of private property, which seems +to us so natural, dawned late and slowly, and that common ownership +was the rule among primitive people. Value is sometimes measured by +use and sometimes by the work required to produce it. Before puberty, +there is great eagerness to possess things that are of immediate +service; but after its dawn, the desire of possession takes another +form, and money for its own sake, which is at first rather an +abstraction, comes to be respected or regarded as an object of extreme +desire, because it is seen to be the embodiment of all values. + +The money sense, as it is now often called, is very complex and has +not yet been satisfactorily analyzed by psychology. Ribot and others +trace its origin to provision which they think animals that hoard food +feel. Monroe[16] has tabulated returns from 977 boys and 1,090 girls +from six to sixteen in answer to the question as to what they would do +with a small monthly allowance. The following table shows the marked +increase at the dawn of adolescence of the number who would save it: + + +Age. Boys. Girls. | Age. Boys. Girls. + 7....43 per cent 36 per cent | 12....82 per cent 64 per cent + 8....45 " 34 " | 13....88 " 78 " + 9....48 " 35 " | 14....85 " 80 " +10....58 " 50 " | 15....83 " 78 " +11....71 " 58 " | 16....85 " 82 " + + +This tendency to thrift is strongest in boys, and both sexes often +show the tendency to moralize, that is so strong in the early teens. +Much of our school work in arithmetic is dominated by the money sense; +and school savings-banks, at first for the poor, are now extending to +children of all classes. This sense tends to prevent pauperism, +prodigality, is an immense stimulus to the imagination and develops +purpose to pursue a distant object for a long time. To see all things +and values in terms of money has, of course, its pedagogic and ethical +limitations; but there is a stage when it is a great educational +advance, and it, too, is full of phylogenetic suggestions. + + +_Social judgement, cronies, solitude_--The two following observations +afford a glimpse of the development of moral judgments. From 1,000 +boys and 1,000 girls of each age from six to sixteen who answered the +question as to what should be done to a girl with a new box of paints +who beautified the parlor chairs with them with a wish to please her +mother, the following conclusion was drawn.[17] Most of the younger +children would whip the girl, but from fourteen on the number declines +very rapidly. Few of the young children suggest explaining why it was +wrong; while at twelve, 181, and at sixteen, 751 would explain. The +motive of the younger children in punishment is revenge; with the +older ones that of preventing a repetition of the act comes in; and +higher and later comes the purpose of reform. With age comes also a +marked distinction between the act and its motive and a sense of the +girl's ignorance. Only the older children would suggest extracting a +promise not to offend again. Thus with puberty comes a change of +view-point from judging actions by results to judging by motives, and +only the older ones see that wrong can be done if there are no bad +consequences. There is also with increased years a great development +of the quality of mercy. + + +One hundred children of each sex and age between six and sixteen asked +what they would do with a burglar, the question stating that the +penalty was five years in prison.[18] Of the younger children nearly +nine-tenths ignored the law and fixed upon some other penalty, but +from twelve years there is a steady advance in those who would inflict +the legal penalty, while at sixteen, seventy-four per cent would have +the criminal punished according to law. Thus "with the dawn of +adolescence at the age of twelve or shortly after comes the +recognition of a larger life, a life to be lived in common with +others, and with this recognition the desire to sustain the social +code made for the common welfare," and punishment is no longer +regarded as an individual and arbitrary matter. + +From another question answered by 1,914 children[19] it was found that +with the development of the psychic faculties in youth, there was an +increasing appreciation of punishment as preventive; an increasing +sense of the value of individuality and of the tendency to demand +protection of personal rights; a change from a sense of justice based +on feeling and on faith in authority to that based on reason and +understanding. Children's attitude toward punishment for weak time +sense, tested by 2,536 children from six to sixteen,[20] showed also a +marked pubescent increase in the sense of the need of the remedial +function of punishment as distinct from the view of it as vindictive, +or getting even, common in earlier years. There is also a marked +increase in discriminating the kinds and degrees of offenses; in +taking account of mitigating circumstances, the inconvenience caused +others, the involuntary nature of the offense and the purpose of the +culprit. All this continues to increase up to sixteen, where these +studies leave the child. + +An interesting effect of the social instinct appears in August +Mayer's[21] elaborate study made up on fourteen boys in the fifth and +sixth grade of a Würzburg school to determine whether they could work +better together or alone. The tests were in dictation, mental and +written arithmetic, memory, and Ebbinghaus's combination exercises and +all were given with every practicable precaution to make the other +conditions uniform. The conclusions demonstrate the advantages of +collective over individual instruction. Under the former condition, +emulation is stronger and work more rapid and better in quality. From +this it is inferred that pupils should not be grouped according to +ability, for the dull are most stimulated by the presence of the +bright, the bad by the good, etc. Thus work at home is prone to +deteriorate, and experimental pedagogy shows that the social impulse +is on the whole a stronger spur for boys of eleven or twelve than the +absence of distraction which solitude brings. + +From the answers of 1,068 boys and 1,268 girls from seven to sixteen +on the kind of chum they liked best,[22] it appears that with the +teens children are more anxious for chums that can keep secrets and +dress neatly, and there is an increased number who are liked for +qualities that supplement rather than duplicate those of the chooser. +"There is an apparent struggle between the real actual self and the +ideal self; a pretty strong desire to have a chum that embodies the +traits youth most desire but which they are conscious of lacking." The +strong like the weak; those full of fun the serious; the timid the +bold; the small the large, etc. Only children[23] illustrate differing +effects of isolation, while "mashes" and "crushes" and ultra-crony-ism +with "selfishness for two" show the results of abnormal restriction of +the irradiation of the social instinct which should now occur.[24] + +M. H. Small,[25] after pointing out that communal animals are more +intelligent than those with solitary habits, and that even to name all +the irradiations of the social instinct would be write a history of +the human race, studied nearly five hundred cases of eminent men who +developed proclivities to solitude. It is interesting to observe in +how many of these cases this was developed in adolescence when, with +the horror of mediocrity, comes introspection, apathy, irresolution, +and subjectivism. The grounds of repulsion from society at this age +may be disappointed hunger for praise, wounded vanity, the reaction +from over-assertion, or the nursing of some high ideals, as it is +slowly realized that in society the individual cannot be absolute. The +motives to self-isolation may be because youth feels its lack of +physical or moral force to compete with men, or they may be due to the +failure of others to concede to the exactions of inordinate egotism +and are directly proportional to the impulse to magnify self, or to +the remoteness of common social interests from immediate personal +desire or need, and inversely as the number and range of interests +seen to be common and the clearness with which social relations are +realized. While maturity of character needs some solitude, too much +dwarfs it, and more or less of the same paralysis of association +follows which is described in the nostalgia of arctic journeys, +deserts, being lost in the jungle, solitary confinement, and in the +interesting stories of feral men.[26] In some of these cases the mind +is saved from entire stultification by pets, imaginary companions, +tasks, etc. Normally "the tendency to solitude at adolescence +indicates not fulness but want"; and a judicious balance between rest +and work, pursuit of favorite lines, genuine sympathy, and wise +companionship will generally normalize the social relation. + + +_First forms of spontaneous social organizations.--_ Gulick has +studied the propensity of boys from thirteen on to consort in gangs, +do "dawsies" and stumps, get into scrapes together, and fight and +suffer for one another. The manners and customs of the gang are to +build shanties or "hunkies," hunt with sling shots, build fires before +huts in the woods, cook their squirrels and other game, play Indian, +build tree-platforms, where they smoke or troop about some leader, who +may have an old revolver. They find or excavate caves, or perhaps roof +them over; the barn is a blockhouse or a battleship. In the early +teens boys begin to use frozen snowballs or put pebbles in them, or +perhaps have stone-fights between gangs than which no contiguous +African tribes could be more hostile. They become toughs and tantalize +policemen and peddlers; "lick" every enemy or even stranger found +alone on their grounds; often smash windows; begin to use sticks and +brass knuckles in their fights; pelt each other with green apples; +carry shillalahs, or perhaps air-rifles. The more plucky arrange +fights beforehand; rifle unoccupied houses; set ambushes for gangs +with which they are at feud; perhaps have secrets and initiations +where new boys are triced up by the legs and butted against trees and +rocks. When painted for their Indian fights, they may grow so excited +as to perhaps rush into the water or into the school-room yelling; +mimic the violence of strikes; kindle dangerous bonfires; pelt +policemen, and shout vile nicknames. + +The spontaneous tendency to develop social and political organizations +among boys in pubescent years was well seen in a school near Baltimore +in the midst of an eight-hundred-acre farm richly diversified with +swamp and forest and abounding with birds, squirrels, rabbits, etc. +Soon after the opening of this school[27] the boys gathered nuts in +parties. When a tree was reached which others had shaken, an unwritten +law soon required those who wished to shake it further first to pile +up all nuts under the tree, while those who failed to do so were +universally regarded as dishonest and every boy's hand was against +them. To pile them involved much labor, so that the second party +usually sought fresh trees, and partial shaking practically gave +possession of all the fruits on a tree. They took birds' eggs freely, +and whenever a bird was found in building, or a squirrel's hole was +discovered, the finder tacked his name on the tree and thereby +confirmed his ownership, as he did if he placed a box in which a nest +was built. The ticket must not blow off, and the right at first lasted +only one season. In the rabbit-land every trap that was set preëmpted +ground for a fixed number of yards about it. Some grasping boys soon +made many traps and set them all over a valuable district, so that the +common land fell into a few hands. Traps were left out all winter and +simply set the next spring. All these rights finally came into the +ownership of two or three boys, who slowly acquired the right and +bequeathed their claims to others for a consideration, when they left +school. The monopolists often had a large surplus of rabbits which +they bartered for "butters," the unit being the ounce of daily +allowance. These could be represented by tickets transferred, so that +debts were paid with "butters" that had never been seen. An agrarian +party arose and demanded a redistribution of land from the +monopolists, as Sir Henry Maine shows often happened in the old +village community. Legislation and judicial procedure were developed +and quarrels settled by arbitration, ordeal, and wager, and punishment +by bumping often followed the decision of the boy folk-mote. Scales of +prices for commodities in "butters" or in pie-currency were evolved, +so that we here have an almost entirely spontaneous but amazingly +rapid recapitulation of the social development of the race by these +boys. + +From a study of 1,166 children's organizations described as a language +lesson in school composition, Mr. Sheldon[28] arrives at some +interesting results. American children tend strongly to institutional +activities, only about thirty per cent of all not having belonged to +some such organization. Imitation plays a very important rôle, and +girls take far more kindly than boys to societies organized by adults +for their benefit. They are also more governed by adult and altruistic +motives in forming their organizations, while boys are nearer to +primitive man. Before ten comes the period of free spontaneous +imitation of every form of adult institution. The child reproduces +sympathetically miniature copies of the life around him. On a farm, +his play is raking, threshing, building barns, or on the seashore he +makes ships and harbors. In general, he plays family, store, church, +and chooses officers simply because adults do. The feeling of caste, +almost absent in the young, culminates about ten and declines +thereafter. From ten to fourteen, however, associations assume a new +character; boys especially cease to imitate adult organizations and +tend to form social units characteristic of lower stages of human +evolution--pirates, robbers, soldiers, lodges, and other savage +reversionary combinations, where the strongest and boldest is the +leader. They build huts, wear feathers and tomahawks as badges, carry +knives and toy-pistols, make raids and sell the loot. Cowards alone, +together they fear nothing. Their imagination is perhaps inflamed by +flash literature and "penny-dreadfuls." Such associations often break +out in decadent country communities where, with fewer and feebler +offspring, lax notions of family discipline prevail and hoodlumism is +the direct result of the passing of the rod. These barbaric societies +have their place and give vigor; but if unreduced later, as in many +unsettled portions of this country, a semisavage state of society +results. At twelve the predatory function is normally subordinated, +and if it is not it becomes dangerous, because the members are no +longer satisfied with mere play, but are stronger and abler to do +harm, and the spice of danger and its fascination may issue in crime. +Athleticism is now the form into which these wilder instincts can be +best transmuted, and where they find harmless and even wholesome vent. +Another change early in adolescence is the increased number of social, +literary, and even philanthropic organizations and institutions for +mutual help--perhaps against vice, for having a good time, or for +holding picnics and parties. Altruism now begins to make itself felt +as a motive. + +_Student life and organizations._ Student life is perhaps the best of +all fields, unworked though it is, for studying the natural history of +adolescence. Its modern record is over eight hundred years old and it +is marked with the signatures of every age, yet has essential features +that do not vary. Cloister and garrison rules have never been enforced +even in the hospice, bursa, inn, "house," "hall," or dormitory, and +_in loco parentis_ [In place of a parent] practises are impossible, +especially with large numbers. The very word "school" means leisure, +and in a world of toil and moil suggests paradise. Some have urged +that _élite_ youth, exempt from the struggle to live and left to the +freedom of their own inclinations, might serve as a biological and +ethnic compass to point out the goal of human destiny. But the +spontaneous expressions of this best age and condition of life, with +no other occupation than their own development, have shown reversions +as often as progress. The rupture of home ties stimulates every wider +vicarious expression of the social instinct. Each taste and trait can +find congenial companionship in others and thus be stimulated to more +intensity and self-consciousness. Very much that has been hitherto +repressed in the adolescent soul is now reënforced by association and +may become excessive and even aggressive. While many of the +race-correlates of childhood are lost, those of this stage are more +accessible in savage and sub-savage life. Freedom is the native air +and vital breath of student life. The sense of personal liberty is +absolutely indispensable for moral maturity; and just as truth can not +be found without the possibility of error, so the _posse non peccare_ +[Ability not to sin] precedes the _non posse peccare_, [Inability to +sin] and professors must make abroad application of the rule _abusus +non tollit usum_ [Abuse does not do away with use]. The student must +have much freedom to be lazy, make his own minor morals, vent his +disrespect for what he can see no use in, be among strangers to act +himself out and form a personality of his own, be baptized with the +revolutionary and skeptical spirit, and go to extremes at the age when +excesses teach wisdom with amazing rapidity, if he is to become a true +knight of the spirit and his own master. Ziegler[29] frankly told +German students that about one-tenth of them would be morally lost in +this process, but insisted that on the whole more good was done than +by restraint; for, he said, "youth is now in the stage of Schiller's +bell when it was molten metal." + +Of all safeguards I believe a rightly cultivated sense of honor is the +most effective at this age. Sadly as the written code of student honor +in all lands needs revision, and partial, freaky, and utterly +perverted, tainted and cowardly as it often is, it really means what +Kant expressed in the sublime precept, "Thou canst because thou +oughtest." Fichte said that _Faulheit, Feigheit_, and _Falschheit_ +[Laziness, cowardice, falsehood] were the three dishonorable things +for students. If they would study the history and enter into the +spirit of their own fraternities, they would often have keener and +broader ideas of honor to which they are happily so sensitive. If +professors made it always a point of honor to confess and never to +conceal the limitation of their knowledge, would scorn all pretense of +it, place credit for originality frankly where it belongs, teach no +creeds they do not profoundly believe, or topics in which they are not +interested, and withhold nothing from those who want the truth, they +could from this vantage with more effect bring students to feel that +the laziness that, while outwardly conforming, does no real inner +work; that getting a diploma, as a professor lately said, an average +student could do, on one hour's study a day; living beyond one's +means, and thus imposing a hardship on parents greater than the talent +of the son justifies; accepting stipends not needed, especially to the +deprivation of those more needy; using dishonest ways of securing rank +in studies or positions on teams, or social standing, are, one and +all, not only ungentlemanly but cowardly and mean, and the axe would +be laid at the root of the tree. Honor should impel students to go +nowhere where they conceal their college, their fraternity, or even +their name; to keep themselves immaculate from all contact with that +class of women which, Ziegler states, brought twenty-five per cent of +the students of the University of Berlin in a single year to +physicians; to remember that other's sisters are as cherished as their +own; to avoid those sins against confiding innocence which cry for +vengeance, as did Valentine against Faust, and which strengthen the +hate of social classes and make mothers and sisters seem tedious +because low ideas of womanhood have been implanted, and which give a +taste for mucky authors that reek with suggestiveness; and to avoid +the waste of nerve substance and nerve weakness in ways which Ibsen +and Tolstoi have described. These things are the darkest blot on the +honor of youth. + +_Associations for youth, devised or guided by adults._ Here we enter a +very different realm. Forbush[30] undertakes an analysis of many such +clubs which he divides according to their purpose into nine chief +classes: physical training, handicraft, literary, social, civic and +patriotic, science-study, hero-love, ethical, religious. These he +classifies as to age of the boys, his purview generally ending at +seventeen; discusses and tabulates the most favorable number, the +instincts chiefly utilized, the kinds of education gained in each and +its percentage of interest, and the qualities developed. He commends +Riis's mode of pulling the safety-valve of a rather dangerous boy-gang +by becoming an adult honorary member, and interpreting the impulsions +of this age in the direction of adventure instead of in that of +mischief. He reminds us that nearly one-third of the inhabitants of +America are adolescents, that 3,000,000 are boys between twelve and +sixteen, "that the do-called heathen people are, whatever their age, +all in the adolescent stage of life." + +A few American societies of this class we may briefly characterize as +follows: + + +(a) Typical of a large class of local juvenile clubs is the "Captains +of Ten," originally for boys of from eight to fourteen, and with a +later graduate squad of those over fifteen. The "Ten" are the fingers; +and whittling, scrap-book making, mat-weaving, etc., are taught. The +motto is, "The hand of the diligent shall bear rule"; its watchword is +"Loyalty"; and the prime objects are "to promote a spirit of loyalty +to Christ among the boys of the club," and to learn about and work for +Christ's kingdom. The members wear a silver badge; have an annual +photograph; elect their leaders; vote their money to missions (on +which topic they hold meetings); act Bible stories in costume; hear +stories and see scientific experiments; enact a Chinese school; write +articles for the children's department of religious journals; develop +comradeship, and "have a good time." + +(b) The Agassiz Association, founded in 1875 "to encourage personal +work in natural science," now numbers some 25,000 members, with +chapters distributed all over the country, and was said by the late +Professor Hyatt to include "the largest number of persons ever bound +together for the purpose of mutual help in the study of nature." It +furnishes practical courses of study in the sciences; has local +chapters in thousands of towns and cities in this and other countries; +publishes a monthly organ, The Swiss Cross, to facilitate +correspondence and exchange of specimens; has a small endowment, a +badge, is incorporated, and is animated by a spirit akin to that of +University Extension; and, although not exclusively for young people, +is chiefly sustained by them. + +(c) The Catholic Total Abstinence Union is a strong, well-organized, +and widely extended society, mostly composed of young men. The pledge +required of all members explains its object: "I promise with the +Divine assistance and in honor of the Sacred Thirst and the Agony of +our Saviour, to abstain from all intoxicating drinks and to prevent as +much as possible by advice and example the sin of intemperance in +others and to discountenance the drinking customs of society." A +general convention of the Union has been held annually since 1877. + +(d) The Princely Knights of Character Castle is an organization +founded in 1895 for boys from twelve to eighteen to "inculcate, +disseminate, and practise the principles of heroism--endurance--love, +purity, and patriotism." The central incorporated castle grants +charters to local castles, directs the ritual and secret work. Its +officers are supreme prince, patriarch, scribes, treasurer, director, +with captain of the guard, watchman, porter, keeper of the dungeon, +musician, herald, and favorite son. The degrees of the secret work are +shepherd lad, captive, viceroy, brother, son, prince, knight, and +royal knight. There are jewels, regalia, paraphernalia, and +initiations. The pledge for the first degree is, "I hereby promise and +pledge that I will abstain from the use of intoxicating liquor in any +form as a beverage; that I will not use profane or improper language; +that I will discourage the use of tobacco in any form; that I will +strive to live pure in body and mind; that I will obey all rules and +regulations of the order and not reveal any of the secrets in any +way." There are benefits, reliefs, passwords, a list of offenses and +penalties. + +(e) Some 35,000 Bands of Mercy are now organized under the direction +of the American Humane Education Society. The object of the +organization is to cultivate kindness to animals and sympathy with the +poor and oppressed. The prevention of cruelty in driving, cattle +transportation, humane methods of killing, care for the sick and +abandoned or overworked animals, are the themes of most of its +voluminous literature. It has badges, hymnbooks, cards, and +certificates of membership, and a motto, "Kindness, Justice, and Mercy +to All." Its pledge is, "I will try to be kind to all harmless living +creatures, and try to protect them from cruel usage," and is intended +to include human as well as dumb creatures. The founder and secretary, +with great and commendable energy, has instituted prize contests for +speaking on humane subjects in schools, and has printed and circulated +prize stories; since the incorporation of the society in 1868, he has +been indefatigable in collecting funds, speaking before schools and +colleges, and prints fifty to sixty thousand copies of the monthly +organ. In addition to its mission of sentiment, and to make it more +effective, this organization clearly needs to make more provision for +the intellectual element by well-selected or constructed courses, or +at least references on the life, history, habits, and instincts of +animals, and it also needs more recognition that modern charity is a +science as well as a virtue. + +(f) The Coming Men of America, although organized only in 1894, now +claims to be the greatest chartered secret society for boys and young +men in the country. It began two years earlier in a lodge started by a +nineteen-year-old boy in Chicago in imitation of such ideas of Masons, +Odd-Fellows, etc., as its founder could get from his older brother, +and its meetings were first held in a basement. On this basis older +heads aided in its development, so that it is a good example of the +boy-imitative helped out by parents. The organization is now +represented in every State and Territory, and boys travel on its +badge. There is an official organ, The Star, a badge, sign, and a +secret sign language called "bestography." Its secret ritual work is +highly praised. Its membership is limited to white boys under +twenty-one. + +(g) The first Harry Wadsworth Club was established in 1871 as a +result of E.E. Hale's Ten Times One, published the year before. Its +motto is, "Look up, and not down; look forward, and not back; look +out, and not in; lend a hand," or "Faith, Hope, and Charity." Its +organ is the Ten Times One Record; its badge is a silver Maltese +cross. Each club may organize as it will, and choose its own name, +provided it accepts the above motto. Its watchword is, "In His Name." +It distributes charities, conducts a Noonday Rest, outings in the +country, and devotes itself to doing good.[31] + + + +[Footnote 1: Tarde: L'Opposition Universelle. Alcan, Paris, 1897, p. +461.] + +[Footnote 2: The Adolescent at Home and in School. By E. G. Lancaster. +Proceedings of the National Educational Association, 1899, p. 1039.] + +[Footnote 3: The Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence. Pedagogical +Seminary, July, 1897, vol. 5, p. 87.] + +[Footnote 4: Study of Boys Entering the Adolescent Period of Life. +North Western Monthly, November, 1897, vol. 8, pp. 248-250, and a +series thereafter.] + +[Footnote 5: The Suggestibility of Children. Pedagogical Seminary, +December, 1896, vol. 4, p. 211] + +[Footnote 6: Characteristics of the Best Teacher as Recognized by +Children. By H.E. Kratz. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1896, vol. 3, pp. +413-418. See also The High School Teacher from the Pupil's Point of +View, by W.F. Book. Pedagogical Seminary, September, 1905, vol. 12, +pp. 239-288.] + +[Footnote 7: A Study of the Teacher's Influence. Pedagogical Seminary, +December, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 492-525.] + +[Footnote 8: Children's Ideals. Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1900, +vol. 7, pp. 3-12] + +[Footnote 9: Transactions of the Illinois Society for Child Study, +vol. 2, No. 2, 1896, pp. 41-46.] + +[Footnote 10: Children's Ambitions. By H.M. Willard. Barnes's Studies +in Education, vol. 2, pp. 243-258. (Privately printed by Earl Barnes, +4401 Sansom Street, Philadelphia.)] + +[Footnote 11: Transactions of the Illinois Society for Child Study, +October, 1898, vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 131-144.] + +[Footnote 12: A Study in Juvenile Ethics. Pedagogical Seminary, June, +1903, vol. 10, pp. 239-266] + +[Footnote 13: Die Ideale der Kinder. Zeitschrift für pädagogische +Psychologie, Pathologie und Hygiene, Jahrgang 3, Heft 1, pp. 38-64.] + +[Footnote 14: The Psychology of Ownership, Pedagogical Seminary, +December, 1899, vol. 6, pp. 421-470.] + +[Footnote 15: Property: Its Origin and Development. Chas. Scribner's +Sons, 1892.] + +[Footnote 16: Money-Sense of Children. Will S. Monroe. Pedagogical +Seminary, March, 1899, vol. 6, pp. 152-156] + +[Footnote 17: A Study of Children's Rights, as Seen by Themselves. By +M.E. Schallenberger. Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1894, vol. 3, pp. +87-96.] + +[Footnote 18: Children's Attitude toward Law. By E. M Darrah. Barnes's +Studies in Education, vol. 1, pp. 213-216. (Stanford University, +1897.) G. E. Stechert and Co., New York.] + +[Footnote 19: Class Punishment. By Caroline Frear. Barnes's Studies in +Education, vol. 1, pp. 332-337.] + +[Footnote 20: Children's Attitude toward Punishment for Weak Time +Sense. By D.S. Snedden. Barnes's Studies in Education, vol. 1, pp. +344-351] + +[Footnote 21: Ueber Einzel- und Gesamtleistung des Schulkindes. Archiv +für die gesamte Psychologie, 1 Band, 2 and 3 Heft, 1903, pp. 276-416] + +[Footnote 22: Development of the Social Consciousness of Children. By +Will S. Monroe. North-Western Monthly, September, 1898, vol. 9, pp. +31-36.] + +[Footnote 23: Bohannon: The Only Child in a Family. Pedagogical +Seminary, April, 1898, vol. 5, pp. 475-496.] + +[Footnote 24: J. Delitsch: Über Schülerfreundschaften in einer +Volksschulklasse, Die Kinderfehler. Fünfter Jahrgang, Mai, 1900, pp. +150-163.] + +[Footnote 25: On Some Psychical Relations of Society and Solitude. +Pedagogical Seminary, April 1900, vol. 7, pp. 13-69] + +[Footnote 26: A. Rauber: Homo Sapiens Ferus. J. Brehse, Leipzig, +1888. See also my Social Aspects of Education; Pedagogical Seminary, +March, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 81-91. Also Kropotkin: Mutual Aid a Factor of +Evolution. W. Heinemann, London, 1902.] + +[Footnote 27: Rudimentary Society among Boys, by John H. Johnson, +McDonogh, Md. McDonogh School, 1983, reprinted from Johns Hopkins +University Studies Series 2 (Historical and Political Studies, vol. 2, +No. 11).] + +[Footnote 28: The Institutional Activities of American Children. +American Journal of Psychology, July, 1898, vol. 9, pp. 425-448.] + +[Footnote 29: Der deutsche Student am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts. 6th +Ed. Göschen, Leipzig, 1896.] + +[Footnote 30: The Social Pedagogy of Boyhood. Pedagogical Seminary, +October, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 307-346. See also his The Boy Problem, with +an introduction by G. Stanley Hall, The Pilgrim Press, Boston, 1901, +p. 194. Also Winifred Buck (Boys' Self-governing Clubs, Macmillan, New +York, 1903), who thinks ten million dollars could be used in training +club advisers who should have the use of schools and grounds after +hours and evenings, conduct excursions, organize games, etc., but +avoid all direct teaching and book work generally. This writer thinks +such an institution would soon result in a marked increase of public +morality and an augmented demand for technical instruction, and that +for the advisers themselves the work would be the best training for +high positions in politics and reform. Clubs of boys from eight to +sixteen or eighteen must not admit age disparities of more than two +years.] + +[Footnote 31: See Young People's Societies, by L.W. Bacon. D. Appleton +and Co., New York, 1900, p. 265. Also, F.G. Cressey: The Church and +Young Men. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York, 1903, p. 233.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION AND SCHOOL WORK + + +The general change and plasticity at puberty--English teaching--Causes +of its failure: (1) too much time to other languages, (2) +subordination of literary content to form, (3) too early stress on eye +and hand instead of ear and mouth, (4) excessive use of concrete +words--Children's interest in words--Their favorites--Slang--Story +telling--Age of reading crazes--What to read--The historic +sense--Growth of memory span. + +Just as about the only duty of young children is implicit obedience, +so the chief mental training from about eight to twelve is arbitrary +memorization, drill, habituation, with only limited appeal to the +understanding. After the critical transition age of six or seven, when +the brain has achieved its adult size and weight, and teething has +reduced the chewing surface to its least extent, begins a unique stage +of life marked by reduced growth and increased activity and power to +resist both disease and fatigue, which suggests what was, in some just +post-simian age of our race, its period of maturity. Here belong +discipline in writing, reading, spelling, verbal memory, manual +training, practise of instrumental technic, proper names, drawing, +drill in arithmetic, foreign languages by oral methods, the correct +pronunciation of which is far harder if acquired later, etc. The hand +is never so near the brain. Most of the content of the mind has +entered it through the senses, and the eye-and ear-gates should be +open at their widest. Authority should now take precedence of reason. +Children comprehend much and very rapidly if we can only refrain from +explaining, but this slows down intuition, tends to make casuists and +prigs and to enfeeble the ultimate vigor of reason. It is the age of +little method and much matter. The good teacher is now a _pedotrieb_, +or boy-driver. Boys of this age at now not very affectionate. They +take pleasure in obliging and imitating those they like and perhaps in +disobliging those they dislike. They have much selfishness and little +sentiment. As this period draws to a close and the teens begin, the +average normal child will not be bookish but should read and write +well, know a few dozen well-chosen books, play several dozen games, be +well started in one or more ancient and modern languages--if these +must be studied at all, should know something of several industries +and how to make many things he is interested in, belong to a few teams +and societies, know much about nature in his environment, be able to +sing and draw, should have memorized much more than he now does, and +be acquainted, at least in story form, with the outlines of many of +the best works in literature and the epochs and persons in history.[1] +Morally he should have been through many if not most forms of what +parents and teachers commonly call "badness," and Professor Yoder even +calls "meanness". He should have fought, whipped and been whipped, +used language offensive to the prude and to the prim precisian, been +in some scrapes, had something to do with bad, if more with good, +associates, and been exposed to and already recovering from as many +forms of ethical mumps and measles as, by having in mild form now he +can be rendered immune to later when they become far more dangerous, +because his moral and religious as well as his rational nature is +normally rudimentary. He is not depraved, but only in a savage or +half-animal stage, although to a large-brained, large-hearted and +truly parental soul that does not call what causes it inconvenience by +opprobrious names, an altogether lovable and even fascinating stage. +The more we know of boyhood the more narrow and often selfish do adult +ideals of it appear. Something is amiss with the lad of ten who is +very good, studious, industrious, thoughtful, altruistic, quiet, +polite, respectful, obedient, gentlemanly, orderly, always in good +toilet, docile to reason, who turns away from stories that reek with +gore, prefers adult companionship to that of his mates, refuses all +low associates, speaks standard English, or is as pious and deeply in +love with religious services as the typical maiden teacher or the _à +la mode_ parent wishes. Such a boy is either under-vitalized and +anemic and precocious by nature, a repressed, overtrained, +conventionalized manikin, a hypocrite, as some can become under +pressure thus early in life, or else a genius of some kind with a +little of all these. + +But with the teens all this begins to be changed and many of these +precepts must be gradually reversed. There is an outburst of growth +that needs a large part of the total kinetic energy of the body. There +is a new interest in adults, a passion to be treated like one's +elders, to make plans for the future, a new sensitiveness to adult +praise or blame. The large muscles have their innings and there is a +new clumsiness of body and mind. The blood-vessels expand and blushing +is increased, new sensations and feelings arise, the imagination +blossoms, love of nature is born, music is felt in a new, more inward +way, fatigue comes easier and sooner; and if heredity and environment +enable the individual to cross this bridge successfully there is +sometimes almost a break of continuity, and a new being emerges. The +drill methods of the preceding period must be slowly relaxed and new +appeals made to freedom and interest. We can no longer coerce a break, +but must lead and inspire if we would avoid arrest. Individuality must +have a longer tether. Never is the power to appreciate so far ahead of +the power to express, and never does understanding so outstrip ability +to explain. Overaccuracy is atrophy. Both mental and moral acquisition +sink at once too deep to be reproduced by examination without injury +both to intellect and will. There is nothing in the environment to +which the adolescent nature does not keenly respond. With pedagogic +tact we can teach about everything we know that is really worth +knowing; but if we amplify and morselize instead of giving great +wholes, if we let the hammer that strikes the bell rest too long +against it and deaden the sound, and if we wait before each methodic +step till the pupil has reproduced all the last, we starve and retard +the soul, which is now all insight and receptivity. Plasticity is at +its maximum, utterance at its minimum. The inward traffic obstructs +the outer currents. Boys especially are often dumb-bound, +monophrastic, inarticulate, and semi-aphasic save in their own +vigorous and inelegant way. Nature prompts to a modest reticence for +which the deflowerers of all ephebic naiveté should have some respect. +Deep interests arise which are almost as sacred as is the hour of +visitation of the Holy Ghost to the religious teacher. The mind at +times grows in leaps and bounds in a way that seems to defy the great +enemy, fatigue; and yet when the teacher grows a little tiresome the +pupil is tired in a moment. Thus we have the converse danger of +forcing knowledge upon unwilling and unripe minds that have no love +for it, which is in many ways psychologically akin to a nameless crime +that in some parts of the country meets summary vengeance. + +(_A_) The heart of education as well as its phyletic root is the +vernacular literature and language. These are the chief instruments of +the social as well as of the ethnic and patriotic instinct. The prime +place of the former we saw in the last chapter, and we now pass to the +latter, the uniqueness of which should first be considered. + + +The Century, the largest complete dictionary of English, claims to +have 250,000 words, as against 55,000 in the old Webster's Unabridged. +Worcester's Unabridged of 1860 has 105,000; Murray's, now in L, it is +said, will contain 240,000 principal and 140,000 compound words, or +380,000 words in all. The dictionary of the French Academy has 33,000; +that of the Royal Spanish Academy, 50,000; the Dutch dictionary of Van +Dale, 86,000; the Italian and Portuguese, each about 50,000 literary, +or 150,000 encyclopedic words. Of course, words can really be counted +hardly more than ideas or impressions, and compounds, dialects, +obsolete terms, localisms, and especially technical terms, swell the +number indefinitely. A competent philologist[2] says, if given large +liberty, he "will undertake to supply 1,000,000 English words for +1,000,000 American dollars." Chamberlain[3] estimates that our +language contains more than two score as many words as all those left +us from the Latin. Many savage languages contain only a very few +thousand, and some but a few hundred, words. Our tongue is essentially +Saxon in its vocabulary and its spirit and, from the time when it was +despised and vulgar, has followed an expansion policy, swallowing with +little modification terms not only from classical antiquity, but from +all modern languages--Indian, African, Chinese, Mongolian--according +to its needs, its adopted children far outnumbering those of its own +blood. It absorbs at its will the slang of the street gamin, the cant +of thieves and beggars; is actually creative in the baby talk of +mothers and nurses; drops, forgets, and actually invents new words +with no pedigree like those of Lear, Carrol, and many others.[4] + +In this vast field the mind of the child early begins to take flight. +Here his soul finds its native breath and vital air. He may live as a +peasant, using, as Max Müller says many do, but a few hundred words +during his lifetime; or he may need 8,000, like Milton, 15,000, like +Shakespeare, 20,000 or 30,000, like Huxley, who commanded both +literary and technical terms; while in understanding, which far +outstrips, use, a philologist may master perhaps 100,000 or 200,000 +words. The content of a tongue may contain only folk-lore and terms +for immediate practical life, or this content may be indefinitely +elaborated in a rich literature and science. The former is generally +well on in its development before speech itself becomes an abject of +study. Greek literature was fully grown when the Sophists, and finally +Aristotle, developed the rudiments of grammar, the parts of speech +being at first closely related with his ten metaphysical categories. +Our modern tongue had the fortune, unknown to those of antiquity, when +it was crude and despised, to be patronized and regulated by Latin +grammarians, and has had a long experience, both for good and evil, +with their conserving and uniformitizing instincts. It has, too, a +long history of resistance to this control. Once spelling was a matter +of fashion or even individual taste; and as the constraint grew, two +pedagogues in the thirteenth century fought a duel for the right +spelling of the word, and that maintained by the survivor prevailed. +Phonic and economic influences are now again making some headway +against orthographic orthodoxy here; so with definitions. In the days +of Johnson's dictionary, individuality still had wide range in +determining meanings. In pronunciation, too: we may now pronounce the +word _tomato_ in six ways, all sanctioned by dictionaries. Of our +tongue in particular it is true, as Tylor says in general, condensing +a longer passage, "take language all in all, it is the product of a +rough-and-ready ingenuity and of the great rule of thumb. It is an old +barbaric engine, which in its highest development is altered, patched, +and tinkered into capability. It is originally and naturally a product +of low culture, developed by ages of conscious and unconscious +improvement to answer more or less perfectly the requirements of +modern civilization." + + +It is plain, therefore, that no grammar, and least of all that derived +from the prim, meager Latin contingent of it, is adequate to legislate +for the free spirit of our magnificent tongue. Again, if this is ever +done and English ever has a grammar that is to it what Latin grammar +is to that language, it will only be when the psychology of speech +represented, e.g., in Wundt's Psychologie der Sprache,[5] which is now +compiling and organizing the best elements from all grammars, is +complete. The reason why English speakers find such difficulty in +learning other languages is because ours has so far outgrown them by +throwing off not only inflections but many old rules of syntax, that +we have had to go backward to an earlier and more obsolescent stage of +human development. In 1414, at the Council of Constance, when Emperor +Sigismund was rebuked for a wrong gender, he replied, "I am King of +the Romans and above grammar." Thomas Jefferson later wrote, "Where +strictures of grammar does not weaken expression it should be attended +to; but where by a small grammatical negligence the energy of an idea +is condensed or a word stands for a sentence, I hold grammatical rigor +in contempt." Browning, Whitman, and Kipling deliberately violate +grammar and secure thereby unique effects neither asking nor needing +excuse. + +By general consent both high school and college youth in this country +are in an advanced stage of degeneration in the command of this the +world's greatest organ of the intellect; and that, despite the fact +that the study of English often continues from primary into college +grades, that no topic counts for more, and that marked deficiency here +often debars from all other courses. Every careful study of the +subject for nearly twenty years shows deterioration, and Professor +Shurman, of Nebraska, thinks it now worse than at any time for forty +years. We are in the case of many Christians described by Dante, who +strove by prayers to get nearer to God when in fact with every +petition they were departing farther from him. Such a comprehensive +fact must have many causes. + +I. One of these is the excessive time given to other languages just at +the psychological period of greatest linguistic plasticity and +capacity for growth. School invention and tradition is so inveterate +that it is hard for us to understand that there is little educational +value--and perhaps it is deëducational--to learn to tell the time of +day or name a spade in several different tongues or to learn to say +the Lord's Prayer in many different languages, any one of which the +Lord only can understand. The polyglot people that one meets on great +international highways of travel are linguists only in the sense that +the moke on the variety stage who plays a dozen instruments equally +badly is a musician. It is a psychological impossibility to pass +through the apprenticeship stage of learning foreign languages at the +age when the vernacular is setting without crippling it. The extremes +are the youth in ancient Greece studying his own language only and the +modern high school boy and girl dabbling in three or perhaps four +languages. Latin, which in the eight years preceding 1898 increased +one hundred and seventy-four per cent. in American high schools, while +the proportion entering college in the country and even in +Massachusetts steadily declined, is the chief offender. In the day of +its pedagogical glory Latin was the universal tongue of the learned. +Sturm's idea was to train boys so that if suddenly transported to +ancient Rome or Greece they would be at home there. Language, it was +said, was the chief instrument of culture; Latin, the chief language +and therefore a better drill in the vernacular than the vernacular +itself. Its rules were wholesome swathing bands for the modern +languages when in their infancy. Boys must speak only Latin on the +playground. They thought, felt, and developed an intellectual life in +and with that tongue.[6] But how changed all this is now. Statistical +studies show that five hours a week for a year gives command of but a +few hundred words, that two years does not double this number, and +that command of the language and its resources in the original is +almost never attained, but that it is abandoned not only by the +increasing percentage that do not go to college but also by the +increasing percentage who drop it forever at the college door. Its +enormous numerical increase due to high school requirements, the +increasing percentage of girl pupils more ready to follow the +teacher's advice, in connection with the deteriorating quality of the +girls--inevitable with their increasing numbers, the sense that Latin +means entering upon a higher education, the special reverence for it +by Catholic children, the overcrowded market for Latin teachers whom a +recent writer says can be procured by the score at less rates than in +almost any other subject, the modern methods of teaching it which work +well with less knowledge of it by the teacher than in the case of +other school topics, have been attended perhaps inevitably by steady +pedagogic decline despite the vaunted new methods; until now the baby +Latin in the average high school class is a kind of sanctified relic, +a ghost of a ghost, suggesting Swift's Struldbrugs, doomed to physical +immortality but shriveling and with increasing horror of all things +new. In 1892 the German emperor declared it a shame for a boy to excel +in Latin composition, and in the high schools of Sweden and Norway it +has been practically abandoned. In the present stage of its +educational decadence the power of the dead hand is strongly +illustrated by the new installation of the old Roman pronunciation +with which our tongue has only remote analogies, which makes havoc +with proper names which is unknown and unrecognized in the schools of +the European continent, and which makes a pedantic affectation out of +more vocalism. I do not know nor care whether the old Romans +pronounced thus or not, but if historic fidelity in this sense has +pedagogic justification, why still teach a text like the _Viri Romae_, +which is not a classic but a modern pedagogue's composition? + + +I believe profoundly in the Latin both as a university specialty and +for all students who even approach mastery, but for the vast numbers +who stop in the early stages of proficiency it is disastrous to the +vernacular. Compare the evils of translation English, which not even +the most competent and laborious teaching can wholly prevent and which +careless mechanical instruction directly fosters, with the vigorous +fresh productions of a boy or girl writing or speaking of something of +vital present interest. The psychology of translation shows that it +gives the novice a consciousness of etymologies which rather impedes +than helps the free movement of the mind. Jowett said in substance +that it is almost impossible to render either of the great dead +languages into English without compromise, and this tends to injure +the idiomatic mastery of one's own tongue, which can be got only by +much hard experience in uttering our own thoughts before trying to +shape the dead thoughts of others into our language. We confound the +little knowledge of word-histories which Latin gives with the far +higher and subtler sentence-sense which makes the soul of one language +so different from that of another, and training in which ought not to +end until one has become more or less of a stylist and knows how to +hew out modes of expressing his own individuality in great language. +There is a sense in which Macaulay was not an Englishman at all, but a +Ciceronian Latinist who foisted an alien style upon our tongue; and +even Addison is a foreigner compared to the virile Kipling. The nature +and needs of the adolescent mind demand bread and meat, while Latin +rudiments are husks. In his autobiography, Booker Washington says that +for ten years after their emancipation, the two chief ambitions of the +young negro of the South were to hold office and to study Latin, and +he adds that the chief endeavor of his life has been against these +tendencies. For the American boy and girl, high school too often means +Latin. This gives at first a pleasing sense of exaltation to a higher +stage of life, but after from one to three years the great majority +who enter the high school drop out limp and discouraged for many +reasons, largely, however, because they are not fed. Defective +nutrition of the mind also causes a restlessness, which enhances all +the influences which make boys and girls leave school. + + +II. The second cause of this degeneration is the subordination of +literature and content to language study. Grammar arises in the old +age of language. As once applied to our relatively grammarless tongue +it always was more or less of a school-made artifact and an alien +yoke, and has become increasingly so as English has grown great and +free. Its ghost, in the many textbooks devoted to it, lacks just the +quality of logic which made and besouled it. Philology, too, with all +its magnificence, is not a product of the nascent stages of speech. In +the college, which is its stronghold, it has so inspired professors of +English that their ideal is to be critical rather than creative till +they prefer the minute reading of a few masterpieces to a wide general +knowledge, and a typical university announces that "in every case the +examiners will treat mere knowledge of books as less important than +the ability to write good English" that will parse and that is +spelled, punctuated, capitalized, and paragraphed aright. Good +professors of English literature are hard to find, and upon them +philologists, who are plentiful, look with a certain condescension. +Many academic chairs of English are filled by men whose acquaintance +of our literature is very narrow, who wish to be linguistic and not +literary, and this is true even in ancient tongues. + + +At a brilliant examination, a candidate for the doctor's degree who +had answered many questions concerning the forms of Lucretius, when +asked whether he was a dramatist, historian, poet, or philosopher, did +not know, and his professor deemed the question improper. I visited +the eleventh recitation in Othello in a high school class of nineteen +pupils, not one of whom knew how the story ended, so intent had they +been kept on its verbiage. Hence, too, has come the twelve feet of +text-books on English on my shelves with many standard works, edited +for schools, with more notes than text. Fashion that works from above +down the grades and college entrance requirements are in large measure +responsible for this, perhaps now the worst case of the prostitution +of content to form. + +Long exposure to this method of linguistic manicuring tends to make +students who try to write ultra-fastidiously, seeking an over-refined +elaboration of petty trifles, as if the less the content the greater +the triumph of form alone could be. These petty but pretty nothings +are like German confectionery, that appeals to the eye but has little +for taste and is worse than nothing for the digestion. It is like +straining work on an empty stomach. For youth this embroidery of +details is the precocious senescence that Nordau has so copiously +illustrated as literary decadence. Language is vastly larger than all +its content, and the way to teach it is to focus the mind upon story, +history, oratory, drama, Bible, for their esthetic, mental, and above +all, moral content, as shown in the last chapter. The more unconscious +processes that reflect imitatively the linguistic environment and that +strike out intuitively oral and written vents for interests so intense +that they must be told and shared, are what teach us how to command +the resources of our mother tongue. These prescriptions and +corrections and consciousness of the manifold ways of error are never +so peculiarly liable to hinder rather than to help as in early +adolescence, when the soul has a new content and a new sense for it, +and so abhors and is so incapable of precision and propriety of +diction. To hold up the flights of exuberant youth by forever being on +the hunt for errors is, to borrow the language of the gridiron, low +tackle, and I would rather be convicted of many errors by such methods +than use them. Of course this has its place, but it must always be +subordinated to a larger view, as in one of the newly discovered +_logia_ ascribed to Jesus, who, when he found a man gathering sticks +on Sunday, said to him, "If you understand what you are doing, it is +well, but if not, thou shalt be damned." The great teacher who, when +asked how he obtained such rare results in expression, answered, "By +carefully neglecting it and seeking utter absorption in +subject-matter," was also a good practical psychologist. This is the +inveterate tendency that in other ages has made pedagogic scribes, +Talmudists, epigoni, and sophists, who have magnified the letter and +lost the spirit. But there are yet other seats of difficulty. + + +III. It is hard and, in the history of the race, a late change, to +receive language through the eye which reads instead of through the +ear which hears. Not only is perception measurably quite distinctly +slower, but book language is related to oral speech somewhat as an +herbarium is to a garden, or a museum of stuffed specimens to a +menagerie. The invention of letters is a novelty in the history of the +race that spoke for countless ages before it wrote. The winged word of +mouth is saturated with color, perhaps hot with feeling, musical with +inflection, is the utterance of a living present personality, the +consummation of man's gregarious instincts. The book is dead and more +or less impersonal, best apprehended in solitude, its matter more +intellectualized; it deals in remoter second-hand knowledge so that +Plato reproached Aristotle as being a reader, one remove from the +first spontaneous source of original impressions and ideas, and the +doughty medieval knights scorned reading as a mere clerk's trick, not +wishing to muddle their wits with other people's ideas when their own +were good enough for them. But although some of the great men in +history could not read, and though some of the illiterate were often +morally and intellectually above some of the literate, the argument +here is that the printed page must not be too suddenly or too early +thrust between the child and life. The plea is for moral and objective +work, more stories, narratives, and even vivid readings, as is now +done statedly in more than a dozen of the public libraries of the +country, not so often by teachers as by librarians, all to the end +that the ear, the chief receptacle of language, be maintained in its +dominance, that the fine sense of sound, rhythm, cadence, +pronunciation, and speech-music generally be not atrophied, that the +eye which normally ranges freely from far to near be not injured by +the confined treadmill and zigzag of the printed page. + +Closely connected with this, and perhaps psychologically worse, is the +substitution of the pen and the scribbling fingers for the mouth and +tongue. Speech is directly to and from the soul. Writing, the +deliberation of which fits age better than youth, slows down its +impetuosity many fold, and is in every way farther removed from vocal +utterance than is the eye from the ear. Never have there been so many +pounds of paper, so many pencils, and such excessive scribbling as in +the calamopapyrus [Pen-paper] pedagogy of to-day and in this country. +Not only has the daily theme spread as infection, but the daily lesson +is now extracted through the point of a pencil instead of from the +mouth. The tongue rests and the curve of writer's cramp takes a sharp +turn upward, as if we were making scribes, reporters, and +proof-readers. In some schools, teachers seem to be conducting +correspondence classes with their own pupils. It all makes excellent +busy work, keeps the pupils quiet and orderly, and allows the school +output to be quantified, and some of it gives time for more care in +the choice of words. But is it a gain to substitute a letter for a +visit, to try to give written precedence over spoken forms? Here again +we violate the great law that the child repeats the history of the +race, and that, from the larger historic standpoint, writing as a mode +of utterance is only the latest fashion. + + +Of course the pupils must write, and write well, just as they must +read, and read much; but that English suffers from insisting upon this +double long circuit too early and cultivates it to excess, devitalizes +school language and makes it a little unreal, like other affectations +of adult ways, so that on escaping from its thraldom the child and +youth slump back to the language of the street as never before. This +is a false application of the principle of learning to do by doing. +The young do not learn to write by writing, but by reading and +hearing. To become a good writer one must read, feel, think, +experience, until he has something to say that others want to hear. +The golden age of French literature, as Gaston Deschamps and +Brunetière have lately told us, was that of the salon, when +conversation dominated letters, set fashions, and made the charm of +French style. Its lowest ebb was when bookishness led and people began +to talk as they wrote. + + +IV. The fourth cause of degeneration of school English is the growing +preponderance of concrete words for designating things of sense and +physical acts, over the higher element of language that names and +deals with concepts, ideas, and non-material things. The object-lesson +came in as a reaction against the danger of merely verbal and +definition knowledge and word memory. Now it has gone so far that not +only things but even languages, vernacular and foreign, are taught by +appeals to the eye. More lately, elementary science has introduced +another area of pictures and things while industrial education has +still further greatly enlarged the material sensori-motor element of +training. Geography is taught with artifacts, globes, maps, sand +boxes, drawing. Miss Margaret Smith[7] counted two hundred and eighty +objects that must be distributed and gathered for forty pupils in a +single art lesson. Instruction, moreover, is more and more busied upon +parts and details rather than wholes, upon analysis rather than +synthesis. Thus in modern pedagogy there is an increased tyranny of +things, a growing neglect or exclusion of all that is unseen. + +The first result of this is that the modern school child is more and +more mentally helpless without objects of sense. Conversation is +increasingly concrete, if not of material things and persons present +in time and even place. Instead of dealing with thoughts and ideas, +speech and writing is close to sense and the words used are names for +images and acts. But there is another higher part of language that is +not so abjectly tied down to perception, but that lives, moves, and +has its being in the field of concepts rather than percepts, which, to +use Earle's distinction, is symbolic and not presentative, that +describes thinking that is not mere contiguity in space or sequence in +time but that is best in the far higher and more mental associations +of likeness, that is more remote from activity, that, to use logical +terminology, is connotative and not merely denotative, that has +extension as well as intension, that requires abstraction and +generalization. Without this latter element higher mental development +is lacking because this means more than word-painting the material +world. + +Our school youth today suffer from just this defect. If their psychic +operations can be called thought it is of that elementary and half +animal kind that consists imagery. Their talk with each other is of +things of present and immediate interest. They lack even the elements +of imagination, which makes new combinations and is creative, because +they are dominated by mental pictures of the sensory. Large views that +take them afield away from the persons and things and acts they know +do not appeal to them. Attempts to think rigorously are too hard. The +teacher feels that all the content of mind must come in through the +senses, and that if these are well fed, inferences and generalizations +will come of themselves later. Many pupils have never in their lives +talked five minutes before others on any subject whatever that can +properly be called intellectual. It irks them to occupy themselves +with purely mental processes, so enslaved are they by what is near and +personal, and thus they are impoverished in the best elements of +language. It is as if what are sometimes called the associative +fibers, both ends of which are in the brain, were dwarfed in +comparison with the afferent and efferent fibers that mediate sense +and motion. + +That the soul of language as an instrument of thought consists in this +non-presentative element, so often lacking, is conclusively shown in +the facts of speech diseases. In the slowly progressive aphasias, of +late so carefully studied, the words first lost are those of things +and acts most familiar to the patient, while the words that persist +longest in the wreckage of the speech-centers are generally words that +do not designate the things of sense. A tailor loses the power to name +his chalk, measure, shears, although he can long talk fluently of what +little be may chance to know of God, beauty, truth, virtue, happiness, +prosperity, etc. The farmer is unable to name the cattle in his yard +or his own occupations, although he can reason as well as ever about +politics; can not discuss coin or bills, but can talk of financial +policies and securities, or about health and wealth generally. The +reason obvious. It is because concrete thinking has two forms, the +word and the image, and the latter so tends to take the place of the +former that it can be lost to both sense and articulation without +great impairment, whereas conceptual thinking lacks imagery and +depends upon words alone, and hence these must persist because they +have no alternate form which vicariates for them. + +In its lower stages, speech is necessarily closely bound up with the +concrete world; but its real glory appears in its later stages and its +higher forms, because there the soul takes flight in the intellectual +world, learns to live amidst its more spiritual realities, to put +names to thoughts, which is far higher than to put names to things. It +is in this world that the best things in the best books live; and the +modern school-bred distaste for them, the low-ranged mental action +that hovers near the coastline of matter and can not launch out with +zest into the open sea of thoughts, holding communion with the great +dead of the past or the great living of the distant present, seems +almost like a slow progressive abandonment of the high attribute of +speech and the lapse toward infantile or animal picture-thinking. If +the school is slowly becoming speechless in this sense, if it is +lapsing in all departments toward busy work and losing silence, +repose, the power of logical thought, and even that of meditation, +which is the muse of originality, this is perhaps the gravest of all +these types of decay. If the child has no resources in solitude, can +not think without the visual provocation, is losing subjective life, +enthusiasm for public, social, ethical questions, is crippled for +intellectual pursuits, cares only in a languid way for literary prose +and poetry, responds only to sensuous stimuli and events at short +range, and is indifferent to all wide relations and moral +responsibility, cares only for commercial self-interest, the tactics +of field sport, laboratory occupations and things which call be +illustrated from a pedagogic museum, then the school is dwarfing, in +dawning maturity, the higher powers that belong to this stage of +development and is responsible for mental arrest. + +In this deplorable condition, if we turn to the child study of speech +for help, we find that, although it has been chiefly occupied with +infant vocabularies, there are already a very few and confessedly +crude and feeble beginnings, but even these shed more light on the +lost pathway than all other sources combined. The child once set in +their midst again corrects the wise men. We will first briefly +recapitulate these and then state and apply their lessons. + + +Miss Williams[8] found that out of 253 young ladies only 133 did not +have favorite sounds, _[long "a"]_ and _a_ leading among the vowels, +and _l_, _r_ and _m_ among the constants. Eighty-five had favorite +words often lugged in, 329 being good. Two hundred and twenty-one, as +children, had favorite proper names in geography, and also for boys, +but especially for girls. The order of a few of the latter is as +follows: Helen, 36; Bessie, 25; Violet and Lilly, 20; Elsie and +Beatrice, 18; Dorothy and Alice, 17; Ethel, 15; Myrtle, 14; Mabel, +Marguerite, Pearl, and Rose, 13; May, 12; Margaret, Daisy, and Grace, +11; Ruth and Florence, 9; Gladys, 8; Maud, Nellie, and Gertrude, 7; +Blanche and Mary, 6; Eveline and Pansy, 5; Belle, Beulah, Constance, +Eleanor, Elizabeth, Eve, Laura, Lulu, Pauline, Virginia, and Vivian, 4 +each, etc. + +Of ten words found interesting to adolescents, murmur was the +favorite, most enjoying its sound. Lullaby, supreme, +annannamannannaharoumlemay, immemorial, lillibulero, burbled, and +incarnadine were liked by most, while zigzag and shigsback were not +liked. This writer says that adolescence is marked by some increased +love of words for motor activity and in interest in words as things in +themselves, but shows a still greater rise of interest in new words +and pronunciations; "above all, there is a tremendous rise in interest +in words as instruments of thought." The flood of new experiences, +feelings, and views finds the old vocabulary inadequate, hence "the +dumb, bound feeling of which most adolescents at one time or another +complain and also I suspect from this study in the case of girls, we +have an explanation of the rise of interest in slang." "The second +idea suggested by our study is the tremendous importance of hearing in +the affective side of language." + +Conradi[9] found that of 273 returns concerning children's pleasure in +knowing or using new words, ninety-two per cent were affirmative, +eight per cent negative, and fifty per cent gave words especially +"liked." Some were partial to big words, some for those with z in +them. Some found most pleasure in saying them to themselves and some +in using them with others. In all there were nearly three hundred such +words, very few of which were artificial. As to words pretty or queer +in form or sound, his list was nearly as large, but the greater part +of the words were different. Sixty per cent of all had had periods of +spontaneously trying to select their vocabulary by making lists, +studying the dictionary, etc. The age of those who did so would seem +to average not far from early puberty, but the data are too meager for +conclusion. A few started to go through the dictionary, some wished to +astonish their companions or used large new words to themselves or +their dolls. Seventy percent had had a passion for affecting foreign +words when English would do as well. Conradi says "the age varies from +twelve to eighteen, most being fourteen to sixteen." Some indulge this +tendency in letters, and would like to do so in conversation, but fear +ridicule. Fifty-six per cent reported cases of superfine elegance or +affected primness or precision in the use of words. Some had spells of +effort in this direction, some belabor compositions to get a style +that suits them, some memorise fine passages to this end, or modulate +their voices to aid them, affect elegance with a chosen mate by +agreement soliloquize before a glass with poses. According to his +curve this tendency culminates at fourteen. + +Adjectivism, adverbism, and nounism, or marked disposition to multiply +one or more of the above classes of words, and in the above order, +also occur near the early teens. Adjectives are often used as +adverbial prefixes to other adjectives, and here favorite words are +marked. Nearly half of Conradi's reports show it, but the list of +words so used is small. + +[Illustration: Graph showing Slang, Reading Craze, and Precision by +Age.] + +Miss Williams presents on interesting curve of slang confessed as +being both attractive and used by 226 out of 251. From this it appears +that early adolescence is the curve of greatest pleasure in its use, +fourteen being the culminating year. There is very little until +eleven, when the curve for girls rises very rapidly, to fall nearly us +rapidly from fifteen to seventeen. Ninety-three out of 104 who used it +did so despite criticism. + +Conradi, who collected and prints a long list of current slang words +and phrases, found that of 295 young boys and girls not one failed to +confess their use, and eighty-five per cent of all gave the age at +which they thought it most common. On this basis he constructs the +above curve, comparing with this the curve of a craze for reading and +for precision in speech. + +The reasons given are, in order of frequency, that slang was more +emphatic, more exact, more concise, convenient, sounded pretty, +relieved formality, was natural, manly, appropriate, etc. Only a very +few thought it was vulgar, limited the vocabulary, led to or was a +substitute for swearing, destroyed exactness, etc. This writer +attempts a provisional classification of slang expressions under the +suggestive heads of rebukes to pride, boasting and loquacity, +hypocrisy, quaint and emphatic negatives, exaggerations, exclamations, +mild oaths, attending to one's own business and not meddling or +interfering, names for money, absurdity, neurotic effects of surprise +or shock, honesty and lying, getting confused, fine appearance and +dress, words for intoxication which Partridge has collected,[10]for +anger collated by Chamberlain,[11] crudeness or innocent naïveté, love +and sentimentality, etc. Slang is also rich in describing conflicts of +all kinds, praising courage, censuring inquisitiveness, and as a +school of moral discipline, but he finds, however, a very large number +unclassified; and while he maintains throughout a distinction between +that used by boys and by girls, sex differences are not very marked. +The great majority of terms are mentioned but once, and a few under +nearly all of the above heads have great numerical precedence. A +somewhat striking fact is the manifold variations of a pet typical +form. Twenty-three shock expletives, e.g., are, "Wouldn't that ---- +you?" the blank being filled by jar, choke, cook, rattle, scorch, get, +start, etc., or instead of _you_ adjectives are devised. Feeling is so +intense and massive, and psychic processes are so rapid, forcible, and +undeveloped that the pithiness of some of those expressions makes them +brilliant and creative works of genius, and after securing an +apprenticeship are sure of adoption. Their very lawlessness helps to +keep speech from rigidity and desiccation, and they hit off nearly +every essential phrase of adolescent life and experience. + +Conventional modes of speech do not satisfy the adolescent, so that he +is often either reticent or slangy. Walt Whitman[12] says that slang +is "an attempt of common humanity to escape from bald literalism and +to express itself illimitably, which in the highest walks produces +poets and poems"; and again, "Daring as it is to say so, in the growth +of language it is certain that the retrospect of slang from the start +would be the recalling from their nebulous condition of all that is +poetical in the stores of human utterance." Lowell[13] says, "There is +death in the dictionary, and where language is too strictly limited by +convention, the ground for expression to grow in is limited also, and +we get a potted literature, Chinese dwarfs instead of healthy trees." +Lounsbury asserts that "slang is an effort on the part of the users of +language to say something more vividly, strongly, concisely than the +language existing permits it to be said. It is the source from which +the decaying energies of speech are constantly refreshed." Conradi +adds in substance that weak or vicious slang is too feeble to survive, +and what is vital enough to live fills a need. The final authority is +the people, and it is better to teach youth to discriminate between +good and bad slang rather than to forbid it entirely. Emerson calls it +language in the making, its crude, vital, material. It is often an +effective school of moral description, a palliative for profanity, and +expresses the natural craving for superlatives. Faults are hit off and +condemned with the curtness sententiousness of proverbs devised by +youth to sanctify itself and correct its own faults. The pedagogue +objects that it violates good form and established usage, but why +should the habits of hundreds of years ago control when they can not +satisfy the needs of youth, which requires a _lingua franca_ of its +own, often called "slanguage"? Most high school and college youth of +both sexes have two distinct styles, that of the classroom which is as +unnatural as the etiquette of a royal drawing-room reception or a +formal call, and the other, that of their own breezy, free, natural +life. Often these two have no relation to or effect upon each other, +and often the latter is at times put by with good resolves to speak as +purely and therefore as self-consciously as they knew, with petty +fines for every slang expression. But very few, and these generally +husky boys, boldly try to assert their own rude but vigorous +vernacular in the field of school requirements. + + +These simple studies in this vast field demonstrate little or nothing, +but they suggest very much. Slang commonly expresses a moral judgment +and falls into ethical categories. It usually concerns ideas, +sentiment, and will, has a psychic content, and is never, like the +language of the school, a mere picture of objects of sense or a +description of acts. To restate it in correct English would be a +course in ethics, courtesy, taste, logical predication and opposition, +honesty, self-possession, modesty, and just the ideal and +non-presentative mental content that youth most needs, and which the +sensuous presentation methods of teaching have neglected. Those who +see in speech nothing but form condemn it because it is vulgar. Youth +has been left to meet these high needs alone, and the prevalence of +these crude forms is an indictment of the delinquency of pedagogues in +not teaching their pupils to develop and use their intellect properly. +Their pith and meatiness are a standing illustration of the need of +condensation for intellectual objects that later growth analyzes. +These expressions also illustrate the law that the higher and larger +the spiritual content, the grosser must be the illustration in which +it is first couched. Further studies now in progress will, I believe, +make this still clearer. + +Again, we see in the above, outcrops of the strong pubescent instinct +to enlarge the vocabulary in two ways. One is to affect foreign +equivalents. This at first suggests an appetency for another language +like the dog-Latin gibberish of children. It is one of the motives +that prompts many to study Latin or French, but it has little depth, +for it turns out, on closer study, to be only the affectation of +superiority and the love of mystifying others. The other is a very +different impulse to widen the vernacular. To pause to learn several +foreign equivalents of things of sense may be anti-educational if it +limits the expansion of thought in our own tongue. The two are, in +fact, often inversely related to each other. In giving a foreign +synonym when the mind seeks a new native word, the pedagogue does not +deal fairly. In this irradiation into the mother tongue, sometimes +experience with the sentiment or feeling, act, fact, or object +precedes, and then a name for it is demanded, or conversely the sound, +size, oddness or jingle of the word is first attractive and the +meaning comes later. The latter needs the recognition and utilization +which the former already has. Lists of favorite words should be +wrought out for spelling and writing and their meanings illustrated, +for these have often the charm of novelty as on the frontier of +knowledge and enlarge the mental horizon like new discoveries. We must +not starve this voracious new appetite "for words as instruments of +thought." + +Interest in story-telling rises till twelve or thirteen, and +thereafter falls off perhaps rather suddenly, partly because youth is +now more interested in receiving than in giving. As in the drawing +curve we saw a characteristic age when the child loses pleasure in +creating as its power of appreciating pictures rapidly arises, so now, +as the reading curve rises, auditory receptivity makes way for the +visual method shown in the rise of the reading curve with augmented +zest for book-method of acquisition. Darkness or twilight enhances the +story interest in children, for it eliminates the distraction of sense +and encourages the imagination to unfold its pinions, but the youthful +fancy is less bat-like and can take its boldest flights in broad +daylight. A camp-fire, or an open hearth with tales of animals, +ghosts, heroism, and adventure can teach virtue, and vocabulary, +style, and substance in their native unity. + +The pubescent reading passion is partly the cause and partly an effect +of the new zest in and docility to the adult world and also of the +fact that the receptive are now and here so immeasurably in advance of +the creative powers. Now the individual transcends his own experience +and learns to profit by that of others. There is now evolved a +penumbral region in the soul more or less beyond the reach of all +school methods, a world of glimpses and hints, and the work here is +that of the prospector and not of the careful miner. It is the age of +skipping and sampling, of pressing the keys lightly. What is acquired +is not examinable but only suggestive. Perhaps nothing read now fails +to leave its mark. It can not be orally reproduced at call, but on +emergency it is at hand for use. As Augustine said of God, so the +child might say of most of his mental content in these psychic areas, +"If you ask me, I do not know; but if you do not ask me, I know very +well"--a case analogous to the typical girl who exclaimed to her +teacher, "I can do and understand this perfectly if you only won't +explain it." That is why examinations in English, if not impossible, +as Goldwin Smith and Oxford hold, are very liable to be harmful, and +recitations and critical notes an impertinence, and always in danger +of causing arrest of this exquisite romantic function in which +literature comes in the closest relation to life, keeping the heart +warm, reënforcing all its good motives, preforming choices, and +universalizing its sympathies. + + +R. W. Bullock[14] classified and tabulated 2,000 returns from +school-children from the third to the twelfth grade, both inclusive, +concerning their reading. From this it appeared that the average boy +of the third grade "read 4.9 books in six months; that the average +falls to 3.6 in the fourth and fifth grades and rises to a maximum of +6.5 at the seventh grade, then drops quite regularly to 3 in the +twelfth grade at the end of the high school course." The independent +tabulation of returns from other cities showed little variation. +"Grade for grade, the girls read more than the boys, and as a rule +they reach their maximum a year sooner, and from a general maximum of +5.9 books there is a drop to 3.3 at the end of the course." The age of +reading may be postponed or accelerated perhaps nearly a year by the +absence or presence of library facilities. Tabulating the short +stories read per week, it was found that these averaged 2.1 in the +third grade, rose to 7.7 per week in the seventh grade, and in the +twelfth had fallen to 2.3, showing the same general tendency. + +The percentage tables for boys' preference for eight classes of +stories are here only suggestive. "War stories seem popular with third +grade boys, and that liking seems well marked through the sixth, +seventh, and eighth grades. Stories of adventure are popular all +through the heroic period, reaching their maximum in the eighth and +ninth grades. The liking for biography and travel or exploration grows +gradually to a climax in the ninth grade, and remains well up through +the course. The tender sentiment has little charm for the average +grade boy, and only in the high school course does he acknowledge any +considerable use of love stories. In the sixth grade he is fond of +detective stories, but they lose their charm for him as he grows +older." For girls, "stories of adventure are popular in the sixth +grade, and stories of travel are always enjoyed. The girl likes +biography, but in the high school, true to her sex, she prefers +stories of great women rather than great men, but because she can not +get them reads those of men. Pity it is that the biographies of so few +of the world's many great women are written. The taste for love +stories increases steadily to the end of the high school course. +Beyond that we have no record." Thus "the maximum amount of reading is +done in every instance between the sixth and eighth grades, the +average being in the seventh grade at an average age of fourteen and +one-tenth years." Seventy-five per cent of all discuss their reading +with some one, and the writer urges that "when ninety-five per cent of +the boys prefer adventure or seventy-five per cent of the girls prefer +love stories, that is what they are going to read," and the duty of +the teacher or librarian is to see that they have both in the highest, +purest form. + +Henderson[15] found that of 2,989 children from nine to fifteen, least +books were read at the age of nine and most at the age of fifteen, and +that there was "a gradual rise in amount throughout, the only break +being in the case of girls at the age of fourteen and the boys at the +age of twelve." For fiction the high-water mark was reached for both +sexes at eleven, and the subsequent fall is far less rapid for girls +than for boys. "At the age of thirteen the record for travel and +adventure stands highest in the case of the boys, phenomenally so. +There is a gradual rise in history with age, and a corresponding +decline in fiction." + +Kirkpatrick[16] classified returns from 5,000 children from the fourth +to the ninth grade in answer to questions that concerned their +reading. He found a sudden increase in the sixth grade, when children +are about twelve, when there is often a veritable, reading craze. +Dolls are abandoned and "plays, games, and companionship of others are +less attractive, and the reading hunger in many children becomes +insatiable and is often quite indiscriminate." It seems to "most +frequently begin at about twelve years of age and continue at least +three or four years," after which increased home duties, social +responsibilities, and school requirements reduce it and make it more +discriminating in quality. "The fact that boys read about twice, as +much history and travel as girls and only about two-thirds as much +poetry and stories shows beyond question that the emotional and +intellectual wants of boys and girls are essentially different before +sexual maturity." + +Miss Vostrovsky[17] found that among 1,269 children there was a great +increase of taste for reading as shown by the number of books taken +from the library, which began with a sharp rise at eleven and +increased steadily to nineteen, when her survey ended; that boys read +most till seventeen, and then girls took the precedence. The taste for +juvenile stories was declining and that for fiction and general +literature was rapidly increased. At about the sixteenth year a change +took place in both sexes, "showing then the beginning of a greater +interest in works of a more general character." Girls read more +fiction than boys at every age, but the interest in it begins to be +very decided at adolescence. With girls it appears to come a little +earlier and with greater suddenness, while the juvenile story +maintains a strong hold upon boys even after the fifteenth year. The +curve of decline in juvenile stories is much more pronounced in both +sexes than the rise of fiction. Through the teens there is a great +increase in the definiteness of answers to the questions why books +were chosen. Instead of being read because they were "good" or "nice," +they were read because recommended, and later because of some special +interest. Girls relied on recommendations more than boys. The latter +were more guided by reason the former by sentiment. Nearly three times +as many boys in the early teens chose books because they were exciting +or venturesome. Even the stories which girls called exciting were tame +compared with those chosen by boys. Girls chose books more than four +times as often because of children in them, and more often because +they ware funny. Boys care very little for style, but must have +incidents and heroes. The author says "the special interest that girls +have in fiction begins about the age of adolescence. After the +sixteenth year the extreme delight in stories fades," or school +demands become more imperative and uniform. Girls prefer domestic +stories and those with characters like themselves and scenes like +those with which they are familiar. "No boy confesses to a purely +girl's story, while girls frankly do to an interesting story about +boys. Women writers seem to appeal more to girls, men writers to boys. +Hence, the authors named by each sex are almost entirely different. In +fiction more standard works, were drawn by boys than by girls." "When +left to develop according to chance, the tendency is often toward a +selection of books which unfit one for every-day living, either by +presenting, on the one hand, too many scenes of delicious excitement +or, on the other, by narrowing the vision to the wider possibilities +of life." + +Out of 523 full answers, Lancaster found that 453 "had what might be +called a craze for reading at some time in the adolescent period," and +thinks parents little realize the intensity of the desire to read or +how this nascent period is the golden age to cultivate taste and +inoculate against reading what is bad. The curve rises rapidly from +eleven to fourteen, culminates at fifteen, after which it falls +rapidly. Some become omnivorous readers of everything in their way; +others are profoundly, and perhaps for life, impressed with some +single book; others have now crazes for history, now for novels, now +for dramas or for poetry; some devour encyclopedias; some imagine +themselves destined to be great novelists and compose long romances; +some can give the dates with accuracy of the different periods of the +development of their tastes from the fairy tales of early childhood to +the travels and adventures of boyhood and then to romance, poetry, +history, etc; and some give the order of their development of taste +for the great poets. + +The careful statistics of Dr. Reyer show that the greatest greed of +reading is from the age of fifteen to twenty-two, and is on the +average greatest of all at twenty. He finds that ten per cent of the +young people of this age do forty per cent of all the reading. Before +twenty the curve ascends very rapidly, to fall afterward yet more +rapidly as the need of bread-winning becomes imperative. After +thirty-five the great public reads but little. Every youth should have +his or her own library, which, however small, should be select. To +seal some knowledge of their content with the delightful sense of +ownership helps to preserve the apparatus of culture, keeps green +early memories, or makes one of the best tangible mementoes of +parental care and love. For the young especially, the only ark of +safety in the dark and rapidly rising flood of printer's ink is to +turn resolutely away from the ideal of quantity to that of quality. +While literature rescues youth from individual limitations and enables +it to act and think more as spectators of all time, and sharers of all +existence, the passion for reading may be excessive, and books which +from the silent alcoves of our nearly 5,500 American libraries rule +the world more now than ever before, may cause the young to neglect +the oracles within, weaken them by too wide reading, make conversation +bookish, and overwhelm spontaneity and originality with a +superfetation of alien ideas. + + +The reading passion may rage with great intensity when the soul takes +its first long flight in the world of books, and ninety per cent of +all Conradi's cases showed it. Of these, thirty-two per cent read to +have the feelings stirred and the desire of knowledge was a far less +frequent motive. Some read to pass idle time, others to appear learned +or to acquire a style or a vocabulary. Romance led. Some specialized, +and with some the appetite was omnivorous. Some preferred books about +or addressed to children, some fairy tales, and some sought only those +for adults. The night is often invaded and some become "perfectly +wild" over exciting adventures or the dangers and hardships of true +lovers, laughing and crying as the story turns from grave to gay, and +a few read several books a week. Some were forbidden and read by +stealth alone, or with books hidden in their desks or under school +books. Some few live thus for years in an atmosphere highly charged +with romance, and burn out their fires wickedly early with a sudden +and extreme expansiveness that makes life about them uninteresting and +unreal, and that reacts to commonplace later. Conradi prints some two +or three hundred favorite books and authors of early and of later +adolescence. The natural reading of early youth is not classic nor +blighted by compulsion or uniformity for all. This age seeks to +express originality and personality in individual choices and tastes. + +Suggestive and briefly descriptive lists of best books and authors by +authorities in different fields on which some time is spent in making +selection, talks about books, pooling knowledge of them, with no +course of reading even advised and much less prescribed, is the best +guidance for developing the habit of rapid cursory reading. Others +before professor De Long, of Colorado, have held that the power of +reading a page in moment, as a mathematician sums up a column of +figures and as the artist Doré was able to read a book by turning the +leaves, can be attained by training and practise. School pressure +should not suppress this instinct of omnivorous reading, which at this +age sometimes prompts the resolve to read encyclopedias, and even +libraries, or to sample everything to be found in books at home. Along +with, but never suppressing, it there should be some stated reading, +but this should lay down only kinds of reading like the four +emphasized in the last chapter or offer a goodly number of large +alternative groups of books and authors, like the five of the Leland +Stanford University, and permit wide liberty of choice to both teacher +and pupil. Few triumphs of the uniformitarians, who sacrifice +individual needs to mechanical convenience in dealing with youth in +masses, have been so sad as marking off and standardizing a definite +quantum of requirements here. Instead of irrigating a wide field, the +well-springs of literary interest are forced to cut a deep canyon and +leave wide desert plains of ignorance on either side. Besides +imitation, which reads what others do, is the desire to read something +no one else does, and this is a palladium of individuality. Bad as is +the principle, the selections are worse, including the saccharinity +ineffable of Tennyson's Princess (a strange expression of the +progressive feminization of the high school and yet satirizing the +scholastic aspiration of girls) which the virile boy abhors, books +about books which are two removes from life, and ponderous Latinity +authors which for the Saxon boy suggest David fighting in Saul's +armor, and which warp and pervert the nascent sentence-sense on a +foreign model. Worst of all, the prime moral purpose of youthful +reading is ignored in choices based on form and style; and a growing +profusion of notes that distract from content to language, the study +of which belongs in the college if not in the university, develops the +tendencies of criticism before the higher powers of sympathetic +appreciation have done their work.[18] + +(B) Other new mental powers and aptitudes are as yet too little +studied. Very slight are the observations so far made, of children's +historic, which is so clearly akin to literary, interest and capacity. +With regard to this and several other subjects in the curriculum we +are in the state of Watts when he gazed at the tea-kettle and began to +dream of the steam-engine; we are just recognizing a new power and +method destined to reconstruct and increase the efficiency of +education, but only after a long and toilsome period of limited +successes. + + +Mrs. Barnes[19], told a story without date, place, name, or moral and +compared the questions which 1,250 children would like to have +answered about it. She found that the interest of girls in persons, or +the number who asked the question "who," culminated at twelve, when it +coincided with that of boys, but that the latter continued to rise to +fifteen. The interest to know "place where" events occurred culminated +at eleven with girls, and at fifteen, and at a far higher point, with +boys. The questions "how" and "why," calling for the method and +reason, both culminated at twelve for girls and fifteen for boys, but +were more infrequent and showed less age differences than the +preceding question. Interest in the results of the action was most +pronounced of all, culminating at twelve in girls and fifteen in boys. +Details and time excited far less interest, the former jointly +culminating for both sexes at eleven. Interest in the truth of the +narrative was extremely slight, although it became manifest at +fifteen, and was growing at sixteen. The number of inferences drawn +steadily increased with age, although the increase was very slight +after thirteen. Both legitimate and critical inferences increased +after eleven, while imaginative inferences at that age had nearly +reached their maximum. Interest in names was very strong throughout, +as in primitive people. Boys were more curious concerning "who," +"where," and "how"; girls as to "why." In general, the historic +curiosity of boys was greater than that of girls, and culminated +later. The inferences drawn from an imagined finding of a log-house, +boat, and arrows on a lonely island indicate that the power of +inference, both legitimate and imaginative, develops strongly at +twelve and thirteen, after which doubt and the critical faculties are +apparent; which coincides with Mr. M.A. Tucker's conclusion, that +doubt develops at thirteen and that personal inference diminishes +about that age. + +The children were given two accounts of the fall of Fort Sumter, one +in the terms of a school history and the other a despatch of equal +length from Major Anderson, and asked which was best, should be kept, +and why. Choice of the narrative steadily declined after eleven and +that of the despatch increased, the former reaching its lowest, the +latter its highest, point at fifteen, indicating a preference for the +first-hand record. The number of those whose choice was affected by +style showed no great change, from twelve to fifteen, but rose very +rapidly for the nest two years. Those who chose the despatch because +it was true, signed, etc., increased rapidly in girls and boys +throughout the teens, and the preference for the telegram as a more +direct source increased very rapidly from thirteen to seventeen. + +Other studies of this kind led Mrs. Barnes to conclude that children +remembered items by groups; that whole groups were often omitted; that +those containing most action were best remembered; that what is +remembered is remembered with great accuracy; that generalities are +often made more specific; that the number of details a child carries +away from a connected narrative is not much above fifty, so that their +numbers should be limited; and from it all was inferred the necessity +of accuracy, of massing details about central characters or incidents, +letting action dominate, omitting all that is aside from the main line +of the story, of bringing out cause and effect and dramatizing where +possible. + +Miss Patterson[20] collated the answers of 2,237 children to the +question "What does 1895 mean?" The blanks "Don't know" decreased very +rapidly from six to eight, and thereafter maintained a slight but +constant percentage. Those who expanded the phase a little without +intelligence were most numerous from eight to ten, while the +proportion who gave a correct explanation rose quite steadily for both +sexes and culminated at fourteen for girls and fifteen for boys. The +latter only indicates the pupils of real historic knowledge. The +writer concludes that "the sense of historical time is altogether +lacking with children of seven, and may be described as slight up to +the age of twelve." History, it is thought, should be introduced early +with no difference between boys and girls, but "up to the age of +twelve or thirteen it should be presented in a series of striking +biographies and events, appearing if possible in contemporary ballads +and chronicles, and illustrated by maps, chronological charts, and as +richly as possible by pictures of contemporary objects, buildings, and +people." At the age of fourteen or fifteen, another sort of work +should appear. Original sources should still be used, but they should +illustrate not "the picture of human society moving before us in a +long panorama, but should give us the opportunity to study the +organization, thought, feeling, of a time as seen in its concrete +embodiments, its documents, monuments, men, and books." The statesmen, +thinkers, poets, should now exceed explorers and fighters; reflection +and interpretation, discrimination of the true from the false, +comparison, etc., are now first in order; while later yet, perhaps in +college, should come severer methods and special monographic study. + + +Studies of mentality, so well advanced for infants and so well begun +for lower grades, are still very meager for adolescent stages so far +as they bear on growth in the power to deal with arithmetic, drawing +and pictures, puzzles, superstitions, collections, attention, reason, +etc. Enough has been done to show that with authority to collect data +on plans and by methods that can now be operated and with aid which +should now be appropriated by school boards and teachers' +associations, incalculable pedagogic economy could be secured and the +scientific and professional character of teaching every topic in upper +grammar and high school and even in the early college grades be +greatly enhanced. To enter upon this laborious task in every branch of +study is perhaps our chief present need and duty to our youth in +school, although individual studies like that of Binet[21] belong +elsewhere. + +(C) The studies of memory up the grades show characteristic adolescent +changes, and some of these results are directly usable in school. + + +Bolton[22] tested the power of 1,500 children to remember and write +dictated digits, and found, of course, increasing accuracy with the +older pupils. He also found that the memory span increased with age +rather than with the growth of intelligence as determined by grade. +The pupils depended largely upon visualisation, and this and +concentrated attention suggested that growth of memory did not +necessarily accompany intellectual advancement. Girls generally +surpassed boys, and as with clicks too rapid to be counted, it was +found that when the pupils reached the limits of their span, the +number of digits was overestimated. The power of concentrated and +prolonged attention was tested. The probability of error for the +larger number of digits, 7 and 8, decreased in a marked way with the +development of pubescence, at least up to fourteen years, with the +suggestion of a slight rise again at fifteen. + +In comprehensive tests of the ability of Chicago children to remember +figures seen, heard, or repeated by them, it was found that, from +seven to nine, auditory were slightly better remembered than visual +impressions. From that age the latter steadily increased over the +former. After thirteen, auditory memory increased but little, and was +already about ten per cent behind visual, which continued to increase +at least till seventeen. Audiovisual memory was better than either +alone, and the span of even this was improved when articulatory memory +was added. When the tests were made upon pupils of the same age in +different grades it was found in Chicago that memory power, whether +tested by sight, hearing, or articulation, was best in those pupils +whose school standing was highest, and least where standing was +lowest. + +When a series of digits was immediately repeated orally and a record +made, it was found[23] that while from the age of eight to twelve the +memory span increased only eight points, from fourteen to eighteen it +increased thirteen points. The number of correct reproductions of +numbers of seven places increased during the teens, although this +class of children remain about one digit behind normal children of +corresponding age. In general, though not without exceptions, it was +found that intelligence grew with memory span, although the former is +far more inferior to that of the normal child than the latter, and +also that weakness of this kind of memory is not an especially +prominent factor of weak-mindedness. + +Shaw[24] tested memory in 700 school children by dividing a story of +324 words into 152 phrases, having it read and immediately reproduced +by them, and selecting alternate grades from the third grammar to the +end of the high school, with a few college students. The maximum power +of this kind of memory was attained by boys in the high school period. +Girls remembered forty-three per cent in the seventh grade, and in the +high school forty-seven per cent. The increase by two-year periods was +most rapid between the third and fifth grades. Four terms were +remembered on the average by at least ninety per cent of the pupils, +41 by fifty per cent, and 130 by ten per cent. The story written out +in the terms remembered by each percentage from ten to ninety affords +a most interesting picture of the growth of memory, and even its +errors of omission, insertion, substitution and displacement. "The +growth of memory is more rapid in the case of girls than boys, and the +figures suggest a coincidence with the general law, that the rapid +development incident to puberty occurs earlier in girls than in boys." + +In a careful study of children's memory, Kemsies[25] concludes that +the quality of memory improves with age more rapidly than the +quantity. + +W.G. Monroe tested 275 boys and 293 girls, well distributed, from +seven to seventeen years of age, and found a marked rise for both +visual and auditory memory at fifteen for both sexes. For both sexes, +also, auditory memory was best at sixteen and visual at fifteen. + +When accuracy in remembering the length of tone was used as a test, it +was found there was loss from six to seven and gain from seven to +eight for both sexes. From eight to nine girls lost rapidly for one +and gained rapidly for the following year, while boys were nearly +stationary till ten, after which both sexes gained to their maximum at +fourteen years of age and declined for the two subsequent years, both +gaining power from sixteen to seventeen, but neither attaining the +accuracy they had at fourteen.[26] + +[Illustration: Girls and Boys at Memory Reproductions compared.] + +Netschajeff[27] subjected 637 school children, well distributed +between the ages of nine and eighteen, to the following tests. Twelve +very distinct objects were shown them, each for two seconds, which +must them be immediately written down. Twelve very distinct noises +were made out of sight; numbers of two figures each were read; +three-syllable words, which were names of familiar objects, objects +that suggested noises, words designating touch, temperature, and +muscle sensations, words describing states of feeling, and names of +abstract ideas also were given them. The above eight series of twelve +each were all reproduced in writing, and showed that each kind of +memory here tested increased with age, with some slight tendency to +decline at or just before puberty, then to rise and to slightly +decline after the sixteenth or seventeenth year. Memory for objects +showed the greatest amount of increase during the year studied, and +works for feeling next, although at all ages the latter was +considerably below the former. Boys showed stronger memory for real +impressions, and girls excelled for numbers and words. The difference +of these two kinds of memory was less with girls than with boys. The +greatest difference between the sexes lay between eleven and fourteen +years. This seems, at eighteen or nineteen, to be slightly increased. +"This is especially great at the age of puberty." Children from nine +to eleven have but slight power of reproducing emotions, but this +increases in the next few years very rapidly, as does that of the +abstract words. Girls from nine to eleven deal better with words than +with objects; boys slightly excel with objects. Illusions in +reproducing words which mistake sense, sound, and rhythm, which is not +infrequent with younger children, decline with age especially at +puberty. Up to this period girls are most subject to these illusions, +and afterward boys. The preceding tables, in which the ordinates +represent the number of correct reproductions and the abscissas the +age, are interesting. + +Lobsien made tests similar to those of Netschajeff,[28] with +modifications for greater accuracy, upon 238 boys and 224 girls from +nine to fourteen and a half years of age. The preceding tables show +the development of the various kinds of memory for boys and girls: + + +BOYS. + +Age. Objects Noises Number Visual Acoustic Touch Feeling Sounds + Concepts Concepts Concepts Concepts + +13-14-1/2 92.56 71.89 80.67 73.00 74.78 75.33 75.44 40.56 +12-13 76.45 57.38 72.33 69.67 64.89 73.67 58.67 37.87 +11-12 89.78 57.19 70.22 59.67 63.00 73.33 55.33 19.99 +10-11 87.12 55.33 49.33 55.11 48.44 57.11 38.33 12.44 +9-10 64.00 53.33 49.09 46.58 43.78 43.67 27.22 7.22 + +Normal 82.2 59.02 64.8 60.6 59.4 64.2 31.2 24.0 +value. + +GIRLS. + +13-14-1/2 99.56 82.67 87.22 96.67 71.44 82.00 70.22 41.33 +12-13 92.89 75.56 74.89 77.22 63.11 74.67 67.33 34.89 +11-12 94.00 56.00 73.56 72.78 72.11 70.89 73.33 28.22 +10-11 75.78 46.22 62.44 56.22 54.78 58.78 43.22 10.44 +9-10 89.33 46.22 50.44 54.22 38.22 51.11 32.89 6.89 + +Normal 91.4 62.2 71.8 71.0 60.2 67.2 59.4 23.8 +value. + + +The table for boys shows in the fourteenth year a marked increase of +memory for objects, noises, and feelings, especially as compared with +the marked relative decline the preceding year, when there was a +decided increase in visual concepts and senseless sounds. The twelfth +year shows the greatest increase in number memory, acoustic +impressions, touch, and feeling. The tenth and eleventh years show +marked increase of memory for objects and their names. Thus the +increase in the strength of memory is by no means the same year by +year, but progress focuses on some forms and others are neglected. +Hence each type of memory shows an almost regular increase and +decrease in relative strength. + +The table for girls shown marked increase of all memory forms about +the twelfth year. This relative increase is exceeded only in the +fourteenth year for visual concepts. The thirteenth year shows the +greatest increase for sounds and a remarkable regression for objects +in passing from the lowest to the next grade above. + +In the accuracy of reproducing the order of impressions, girls much +exceeded boys at all ages. For seen object, their accuracy was twice +that of boys, the boys excelling in order only in number. In general, +ability to reproduce a series of impressions increases and decreases +with the power to reproduce in any order, but by no means in direct +proportion to it. The effect of the last member in a series by a +purely mechanical reproduction is best in boys. The range and energy +of reproduction is far higher than ordered sequence. In general girls +slightly exceed boys in recalling numbers, touch concepts, and sounds, +and largely exceed in recalling feeling concepts, real things and +visual concept. + +Colegrove[29] tabulated returns from the early memories of 1,658 +correspondents with 6,069 memories, from which he reached the +conclusions, represented in the following curves, for the earliest +three memories of white males and females. + +In the cuts on the following page, the heavy line represents the first +memory, the broken the second, and the dotted the third. Age at the +time of reporting is represented in distance to the right, and the age +of the person at the time of the occurrence remembered is represented +by the distance upward. "There is a rise in all the curves at +adolescence. This shows that, from the age of twelve to fifteen, boys +do not recall so early memories as they do both before and after this +period." This Colegrove ascribes to the fact that the present seems so +large and rich. At any rate, "the earliest memories of boys at the age +of fourteen average almost four years." His curves for girls show that +the age of all the first three memories which they are able to recall +is higher at fourteen than at any period before or after; that at +seven and eight the average age of the first things recalled is nearly +a year earlier than it is at fourteen. This means that at puberty +there is a marked and characteristic obliteration of infantile +memories which lapse to oblivion with augmented absorption in the +present. + +[Illustration: Untitled Graph.] + +It was found that males have the greatest number of memories for +protracted or repeated occurrences, for people, and clothing, +topographical and logical matters; that females have better memories +for novel occurrences or single impressions. Already at ten and eleven +motor memories begin to decrease for females and increase for males. +At fourteen and fifteen, motor memories nearly culminate for males, +but still further decline for females. The former show a marked +decrease in memory for relatives and playmates and an increase for +other persons. Sickness and accidents to self are remembered less by +males and better by females, as are memories of fears. At eighteen and +nineteen there is a marked and continued increase in the visual +memories of each sex and the auditory memory of females. Memory for +the activity of others increases for both, but far more strongly for +males. Colegrove concludes from his data that "the period of +adolescence is one of great psychical awaking. A wide range of +memories is found at this time. From the fourteenth year with girls +and the fifteenth with boys the auditory memories are strongly +developed. At the dawn of adolescence the motor memory of voice nearly +culminates, and they have fewer memories of sickness and accidents to +self. During this time the memory of other persons and the activity of +others is emphasized in case of both boys and girls. In general, at +this period the special sensory memories are numerous, and it is the +golden age for motor memories. Now, too, the memories of high ideals, +self-sacrifice, and self-forgetfulness are cherished. Wider interests +than self and immediate friends become the objects of reflection and +recollection." + +After twenty there is marked change in the memory content. The male +acquires more and the female less visual and auditory memories. The +memories of the female are more logical, and topographical features +increase. Memories of sickness and accidents to self decrease with the +males and increase with the females, while in the case of both there +is relative decline in the memories of sickness and accident to +others. From all this it would appear that different memories +culminate at different periods, and bear immediate relation to the +whole mental life of the period. While perhaps some of the finer +analyses of Colegrove may invite further confirmation, his main +results given above are not only suggestive, but rendered very +plausible by his evidence. + +Statistics based upon replies to the question as to whether pleasant +or unpleasant experiences were best remembered, show that the former +increase at eleven, rise rapidly at fourteen, and culminate at +eighteen for males, and that the curve of painful memories follows the +same course, although for both there is a drop at fifteen. For +females, the pleasant memories increase rapidly from eleven to +thirteen, decline a little at fourteen, rise again at sixteen, and +culminate at seventeen, and the painful memories follow nearly the +same course, only with a slight drop at fifteen. Thus, up to +twenty-two for males, there is a marked preponderance of pleasant over +painful memories, although the two rise and fall together. After +thirty, unpleasant memories are but little recalled. For the Indians +and negroes in this census, unpleasant memories play a far more and +often preponderating rôle suggesting persecution and sad experiences. +Different elements of the total content of memory come to prominence +at different ages. He also found that the best remembered years of +life are sixteen to seventeen for males and fifteen for females, and +that in general the adolescent period has more to do than any other in +forming and furnishing the memory plexus, while the seventh and eighth +year are most poorly remembered. + +It is also known that many false memories insert themselves into the +texture of remembered experiences. One dreams a friend is dead and +thinks she is till she is met one day in the street; or dreams of a +fire and inquires about it in the morning; dreams of a present and +searches the house for it next day; delays breakfast for a friend, who +arrived the night before in a dream, to come down to breakfast; a +child hunts for a bushel of pennies dreamed of, etc. These phantoms +falsify our memory most often, according to Dr. Colegrove, between +sixteen and nineteen. + +Mnemonic devices prompt children to change rings to keep appointments, +tie knots in the handkerchief, put shoes on the dressing-table, hide +garments, associate faces with hoods, names with acts, things, or +qualities they suggest; visualize, connect figures, letters with +colors, etc. From a scrutiny of the original material, which I was +kindly allowed to make, this appears to rise rapidly at puberty. + + +[Footnote 1: See my Ideal School as Based on Child Study. Proceedings +of the National Educational Association, 1901, pp. 470-490.] + +[Footnote 2: Charles P.G. Scott: The Number of Words in the English +and Other Languages. Princeton University Bulletin, May, 1902, vol. +13, pp. 106-111.] + +[Footnote 3: The Teaching of English. Pedagogical Seminary, June, +1902, vol. 9, pp. 161-168.] + +[Footnote 4: See my Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self. American +Journal of Psychology, April, 1898, vol. 9, pp. 351-395.] + +[Footnote 5: Sprachgeschichte und Sprachpsychologie, mit Rucksicht auf +B. Delbrück's "Grundfragen der Sprachforschung." Leipzig, W. +Engelmann, 1901] + +[Footnote 6: Latin in the High School. By Edward Conradi. Pedagogical +Seminary, March, 1905, vol. 12, pp. 1-26.] + +[Footnote 7: The Psychological and Pedagogical Aspect of Language. +Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1903, vol. 10, pp. 438-458.] + +[Footnote 8: Children's Interest in Words. Pedagogical Seminary, +September, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 274-295.] + +[Footnote 9: Children's Interests in Words, Slang, Stories, etc. +Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1903, vol. 10, pp. 359-404.] + +[Footnote 10: American Journal of Psychology, April, 1900, vol. 11, p. +345 _et seq._] + +[Footnote 11: American Journal of Psychology, January, 1895, vol. 6, +pp. 585-592. See also vol. 10, p. 517 _et seq._] + +[Footnote 12: North American Review, November, 1885, vol. 141, pp. +431-435.] + +[Footnote 13: Introduction to the Biglow Papers, series ii.] + +[Footnote 14: Some Observations on Children's Reading. Proceedings of +the National Educational Association, 1897, pp. 1015-102l.] + +[Footnote 15: Report on Child Reading. New York Report of State +Superintendent, 1897, vol. 2, p. 979.] + +[Footnote 16: Children's reading. North-Western Monthly, December, +1898, vol. 9, pp. 188-191, and January, 1899, vol. 9, pp. 229-233.] + +[Footnote 17: A study of Children's Reading Tastes. Pedagogical +Seminary, December, 1899, vol. 6, pp. 523-535.] + +[Footnote 18: Perhaps the best and most notable school reader is Das +Deutsche Lesebuch, begun nearly fifty years ago by Hopf and Paulsiek, +and lately supplemented by a corps of writers headed by Döbeln, all in +ten volumes of over 3,500 pages and containing nearly six times as +much matter as the largest American series. Many men for years went +over the history of German literature, from the Eddas and +Nibelungenlied down, including a few living writers, carefully +selecting saga, legends, _Märchen_, fables, proverbs, hymns, a few +prayers, Bible tales, conundrums, jests, and humorous tales, with many +digests, epitomes and condensation of great standards, quotations, +epic, lyric, dramatic poetry, adventure, exploration, biography, with +sketches of the life of each writer quoted, with a large final volume +on the history of German literature. All this, it is explained, is +"_stataric_" or required to be read between _Octava_[A] and +_Obersecunda_. It is no aimless anthology or chrestomathy like +Chambers's Encyclopedia, but it is perhaps the best product of +prolonged concerted study to select from a vast field the best to feed +each nascent stage of later childhood and early youth, and to secure +the maximum of pleasure and profit. The ethical end is dominant +throughout this pedagogic canon.] + +[Footnote A: The Prussian gymnasium, whose course is classical and +fits for the University, has nine classes in three divisions of three +classes each. The lower classes are Octava, Septa, Sexta, Quinta, and +Quarta; the middle classes, Untertertia, Obertertia, and Untersecunda; +the higher classes, Obersecunda, Unterprima, and Oberprima. Pupils +must be at least nine years of age and have done three years +preparatory work before entrance.] + +[Footnote 19: The Historic Sense among Children. In her Studies in +Historical Method. D. C. Heath and Co., Boston, 1896, p. 57.] + +[Footnote 20: Special Study on Children's Sense of Historical Time. +Mrs. Barnes's Studies in Historical Method, D.C. Heath and Co., +Boston, 1896, p. 94.] + +[Footnote 21: L'Etude expérimentale de l'intelligence. Schleicher +Frères, Paris, 1903.] + +[Footnote 22: The Growth of Memory in School Children. American +Journal of Psychology, April, 1892, vol. 9, pp. 362-380.] + +[Footnote 23: Contribution to the Psychology and Pedagogy of +Feeble-minded Children. By G.E. Johnson. Pedagogical Seminary, +October, 1895, vol. 3, p. 270.] + +[Footnote 24: A Test of Memory in School Children. Pedagogical +Seminary, October, 1898, vol. 4, pp. 61-78.] + +[Footnote 25: Zeitschrift für pädagogische Psychologie, Pathologie und +Hygiene. February, 1900. Jahrgang II, Heft 1, pp. 21-30.] + +[Footnote 26: See Scripture: Scientific Child Study. Transactions of +the Illinois Society for Child Study, May, 1895, vol. 1, No. 2, pp. +32-37.] + +[Footnote 27: Experimentelle Untersuchungen über die +Gedächtnissentwickelung bei Schulkindern. Zeits. f. Psychologie, u. +Physiologie der Sinnes-organe, November, 1900. Bd. 24. Heft 5, pp. +321-351.] + +[Footnote 28: See Note 4, p. 270.] + +[Footnote 29: Memory: An Inductive Study. By F.W. Colegrove. Henry +Holt and Co., New York, 1900, p. 229. See also Individual Memories. +American Journal of Psychology, January, 1899, vol. 10, pp 228-255.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS + + +Equal opportunities of higher education now open--Brings new dangers to +women--Ineradicable sex differences begin at puberty, when the sexes +should and do diverge--Different interests--Sex tension--Girls more +mature than boys at the same age--Radical psychic and physiological +differences between the sexes--The bachelor women--Needed +reconstruction--Food--Sleep--Regimen--Manners--Religion--Regularity--The +topics for a girls' curriculum--The eternal womanly. + +The long battle of woman and her friends for equal educational and +other opportunities is essentially won all along the line. Her +academic achievements have forced conservative minds to admit that her +intellect is not inferior to that of man. The old cloistral seclusion +and exclusion is forever gone and new ideals are arising. It has been +a noble movement and is a necessary first stage of woman's +emancipation. The caricatured maidens "as beautiful as an angel but as +silly as a goose" who come from the kitchen to the husband's study to +ask how much is two times two, and are told it is four for a man and +three for a woman, and go back with a happy "Thank you, my dear"; +those who love to be called baby, and appeal to instincts half +parental in their lovers and husbands; those who find all the sphere +they desire in a doll's house, like Nora's, and are content to be +men's pets; whose ideal is the clinging vine, and who take no interest +in the field where their husbands struggle, will perhaps soon survive +only as a diminishing remainder. Marriages do still occur where +woman's ignorance and helplessness seem to be the chief charm to men, +and may be happy, but such cases are no farther from the present ideal +and tendency on the one hand than on the other are those which consist +in intellectual partnerships, in which there is no segregation of +interests but which are devoted throughout to joint work or enjoyment. + +A typical contemporary writer[1] thinks the question whether a girl +shall receive a college education is very like the same question for +boys. Even if the four K's, _Kirche, Kinder, Kuchen,_ and _Kleider_ +(which may be translated by the four C's, _Church, Children, Cooking,_ +and _Clothes_), are her vocation, college may help her. The best +training for a young woman is not the old college course that has +proven unfit for young men. Most college men look forward to a +professional training as few women do. The latter have often greater +sympathy, readiness of memory, patience with technic, skill in +literature and language, but lack originality, are not attracted by +unsolved problems, are less motor-minded; but their training is just +as serious and important as that of men. The best results are where +the sexes are brought closer together, because their separation +generally emphasizes for girls the technical training for the +profession of womanhood. With girls, literature and language take +precedence over science; expression stands higher than action; the +scholarship may be superior, but is not effective; the educated woman +"is likely to master technic rather than art; method, rather than +substance. She may know a good deal, but she can do nothing." In most +separate colleges for women, old traditions are more prevalent than in +colleges for men. In the annex system, she does not get the best of +the institution. By the coeducation method, "young men are more +earnest, better in manners and morals, and in all ways more civilized +than under monastic conditions. The women do more work in a more +natural way, with better perspective and with saner incentives than +when isolated from the influence of the society of men. There is less +silliness and folly where a man is not a novelty. In coeducational +institutions of high standards, frivolous conduct or scandals of any +form are rarely known. The responsibility for decorum is thrown from +the school to the woman, and the woman rises to the responsibility." +The character of college work has not been lowered but raised by +coeducation, despite the fact that most of the new, small, weak +colleges are coeducational. Social strain, Jordan thinks, is easily +regulated, and the dormitory system is on the whole best, because the +college atmosphere is highly prized. The reasons for the present +reaction against coeducation are ascribed partly to the dislike of the +idle boy to have girls excel him and see his failures, or because +rowdyish tendencies are checked by the presence of women. Some think +that girls do not help athletics; that men count for most because they +are more apt to be heard from later; but the most serious new argument +is the fear that woman's standards and amateurishness will take the +place of specialization. Women take up higher education because they +like it; men because their careers depend upon it. Hence their studies +are more objective and face the world as it is. In college the women +do as well as men, but not in the university. The half-educated woman +as a social factor has produced many soft lecture courses and cheap +books. This is an argument for the higher education of the sex. +Finally, Jordan insists that coeducation leads to marriage, and he +believes that its best basis is common interest and intellectual +friendship. + +From the available data it seems, however, that the more scholastic +the education of women, the fewer children and the harder, more +dangerous, and more dreaded is parturition, and the less the ability +to nurse children. Not intelligence, but education by present man-made +ways, is inversely as fecundity. The sooner and the more clearly this +is recognized as a universal rule, not, of course, without many +notable and much vaunted exceptions, the better for our civilization. +For one, I plead with no whit less earnestness and conviction than any +of the feminists, and indeed with more fervor because on nearly all +their grounds and also on others, for the higher education of women, +and would welcome them to every opportunity available to men if they +can not do better; but I would open to their election another +education, which every competent judge would pronounce more favorable +to motherhood, under the influence of female principals who do not +publicly say that it is "not desirable" that women students should +study motherhood, because they do not know whether they will marry; +who encourage them to elect "no special subjects because they are +women," and who think infant psychology "foolish." + +Various interesting experiments in coeducation are now being made in +England.[2] Some are whole-hearted and encourage the girls to do +almost everything that the boys do in both study and play. There are +girl prefects; cricket teams are formed sometimes of both sexes, but +often the sexes matched against each other; one play-yard, a dual +staff of teachers, and friendships between the boys and girls are not +tabooed, etc. In other schools the sexes meet perhaps in recitation +only, have separate rooms for study, entrances, play-grounds, and +their relations are otherwise restricted. The opinion of English +writers generally favors coeducation up to about the beginning of the +teens, and from there on views are more divided. It is admitted that, +if there is a very great preponderance of either sex over the other, +the latter is likely to lose its characteristic qualities, and +something of this occurs where the average age of one sex is +distinctly greater than that of the other. On the other hand, several +urge that, where age and numbers are equal, each sex is more inclined +to develop the best qualities peculiar to itself in the presence of +the other. + +Some girls are no doubt far fitter for boys' studies and men's careers +than others. Coeducation, too, generally means far more assimilation +of girls' to boys' ways and work than conversely. Many people believe +that girls either gain or are more affected by coeducation, especially +in the upper grades, than boys. It is interesting, however, to observe +the differences that still persist. Certain games, like football and +boxing, girls can not play; they do not fight; they are not flogged or +caned as English boys are when their bad marks foot up beyond a +certain aggregate; girls are more prone to cliques; their punishments +must be in appeals to school sentiment, to which they are exceedingly +sensitive; it is hard for them to bear defeat in games with the same +dignity and unruffled temper as boys; it is harder for them to accept +the school standards of honor that condemn the tell-tale as a sneak, +although they soon learn this. They may be a little in danger of being +roughened by boyish ways and especially by the crude and unique +language, almost a dialect in itself, prevalent among schoolboys. +Girls are far more prone to overdo; boys are persistingly lazy and +idle. Girls are content to sit and have the subject-matter pumped into +them by recitations, etc., and to merely accept, while boys are more +inspired by being told to do things and make tests and experiments. In +this, girls are often quite at sea. One writer speaks of a certain +feminine obliquity, but hastens to say that girls in these schools +soon accept its code of honor. It is urged, too, that singing classes +the voices of each sex are better in quality for the presence of the +other. In many topics of all kinds boys and girls are interested in +different aspects of the same theme, and therefore the work is +broadened. In manual training, girls excel in all artistic work; boys, +in carpentry. Girls can be made not only less noxiously sentimental +and impulsive, but their conduct tends to become more thoughtful; they +can be made to feel responsibility for bestowing their praise aright +and thus influencing the tone of the school. Calamitous as it world be +for the education of boys beyond a certain age to be entrusted +entirely or chiefly to women, it would be less so for that of girls to +be given entirely to men. Perhaps the great women teachers, whose life +and work have made them a power with girls comparable to that of +Arnold and Thring with boys, are dying out. Very likely economic +motives are too dominant for this problem to be settled on its merits +only. Finally, several writers mention the increased healthfulness of +moral tone. The vices that infest boys' schools, which Arnold thought +a quantity constantly changing with every class, are diminished. +Healthful thoughts of sex, less subterranean and base imaginings on +the one hand, and less gushy sentimentality on the other, are favored. +For either sex to be a copy of the other is to be weakened, and each +comes normally to respect more and to prefer its own sex. + +Not to pursue this subject further here, it is probable that many of +the causes for the facts set forth are very different and some of them +almost diametrically opposite in the two sexes. Hard as it is _per +se_, it is after all a comparatively easy matter to educate boys. They +are less peculiarly responsive in mental tone to the physical and +psychic environment, tend more strongly and early to special +interests, and react more vigorously against the obnoxious elements of +their surroundings. This is truest of the higher education, and more +so in proportion as the tendencies of the age are toward special and +vocational training. Woman, as we saw, in every fiber of her soul and +body is a more generic creature than man, nearer to the race, and +demands more and more with advancing age an education that is +essentially liberal and humanistic. This is progressively hard when +the sexes differentiate in the higher grades. Moreover, nature decrees +that with advancing civilization the sexes shall not approximate, but +differentiate, and we shall probably be obliged to carry sex +distinctions, at least of method, into many if not most of the topics +of the higher education. Now that woman has by general consent +attained the right to the best that man has, she must seek a training +that fits her own nature as well or better. So long as she strives to +be manlike she will be inferior and a pinchbeck imitation, but she +must develop a new sphere that shall be like the rich field of the +cloth of gold for the best instincts of her nature. + +Divergence is most marked and sudden in the pubescent period--in the +early teens. At this age, by almost world-wide consent, boys and girls +separate for a time, and lead their lives during this most critical +period more or less apart, at least for a few years, until the ferment +of mind and body which results in maturity of functions then born and +culminating in nubility, has done its work. The family and the home +abundantly recognize this tendency. At twelve or fourteen, brothers +and sisters develop a life more independent of each other than before. +Their home occupations differ as do their plays, games, tastes. +History, anthropology, and sociology, a well as home life, abundantly +illustrate this. This is normal and biological. What our schools and +other institutions should do, is not to obliterate these differences +but to make boys more manly and girls more womanly. We should respect +the law of sexual differences, and not forget that motherhood is a +very different thing from fatherhood. Neither sex should copy nor set +patterns to the other, but all parts should be played harmoniously and +clearly in the great sex symphony. + +I have here less to say against coeducation in college, still less in +university grades after the maturity which comes at eighteen or twenty +has been achieved; but it is high time to ask ourselves whether the +theory and practise of identical coeducation, especially in the high +school, which has lately been carried to a greater extreme in this +country than the rest of the world recognizes, has not brought certain +grave dangers, and whether it does not interfere with the natural +differentiations seen everywhere else. I recognize, of course, the +great argument of economy. Indeed, we should save money and effort +could we unite churches of not too diverse creeds. We could thus give +better preaching, music, improve the edifice, etc. I am by no means +ready to advocate the radical abolition of coeducation, but we can +already sum up in a rough, brief way our account of profit and loss +with it. On the one hand, no doubt each sex develops some of its own +best qualities best in the presence of the other, but the question +still remains, how much, when, and in what way, identical coeducation +secures this end? + +As has been said, girls and boys are often interested in different +aspects of the same topic, and this may have a tendency to broaden the +view-point of both and bring it into sympathy with that of the other, +but the question still remains whether one be not too much attracted +to the sphere of the other, especially girls to that of boys. No doubt +some girls become a little less gushy, their conduct more thoughtful, +and their sense of responsibility greater; for one of woman's great +functions, which is that of bestowing praise aright, is increased. +There is also much evidence that certain boys' vices are mitigated; +they are made more urbane and their thoughts of sex made more +healthful. In some respects boys are stimulated to good scholarship by +girls, who in many schools and topics excel them. We should ask, +however, What is nature's way at this stage of life? Whether boys, in +order to be well virified later, ought not to be so boisterous and +even rough as to be at times unfit companions for girls; or whether, +on the other hand, girls to be best matured ought not to have their +sentimental periods of instability, especially when we venture to +raise the question, whether for a girl in the early teens, when her +health for her whole life depends upon normalizing the lunar month, +there is not something unhygienic, unnatural, not to say a little +monstrous, in school associations with boys when she must suppress and +conceal her feelings and instinctive promptings at those times which +suggest withdrawing, to let nature do its beautiful work of +inflorescence. It is a sacred time of reverent exemption from the hard +struggle of existence in the world and from mental effort in the +school. Medical specialists, many of the best of whom now insist that +through this period she should be, as it were, "turned out to grass," +or should lie fallow, so far as intellectual efforts go, one-fourth +the time, no doubt often go too far, but their unanimous voice should +not entirely be disregarded. + +It is not this, however, that I have chiefly in mind here, but the +effects of too familiar relations and, especially, of the identical +work, treatment, and environment of the modern school. + +We have now at least eight good and independent statistical studies +which show that the ideals of boys from ten years on are almost always +those of their own sex, while girls' ideals are increasingly of the +opposite sex, or those of men. That the ideals of pubescent girls are +not found in the great and noble women of the world or in their +literature, but more and more in men, suggests a divorce between the +ideals adopted and the line of life best suited to the interests of +the race. We are not furnished in our public schools with adequate +womanly ideals in history or literature. The new love of freedom which +women have lately felt inclines girls to abandon the home for the +office. "It surely can hardly be called an ideal education for women +that permits eighteen out of one hundred college girls to state boldly +that they would rather be men than women." More than one-half of the +schoolgirls in these censuses choose male ideals, as if those of +femininity are disintegrating. A recent writer,[3] in view of this +fact, states that "unless there is a change of trend, we shall soon +have a female sex without a female character." In the progressive +numerical feminization of our schools most teachers, perhaps naturally +and necessarily, have more or less masculine ideals, and this does not +encourage the development of those that constitute the glory of +womanhood. "At every age from eight to sixteen, girls named from three +to twenty more ideals than boys." "These facts indicate a condition of +diffused interests and lack of clear-cut purposes and a need of +integration." + +When we turn to boys the case is different. In most public high +schools girls preponderate, especially in the upper classes, and in +many of them the boys that remain are practically in a girls' school, +sometimes taught chiefly, if not solely, by women teachers at an age +when strong men should be in control more than at any other period of +life. Boys need a different discipline and moral regimen and +atmosphere. They also need a different method of work. Girls excel +them in learning and memorization, accepting studies upon suggestion +or authority, but are often quite at sea when set to make tests and +experiments that give individuality and a chance for self-expression, +which is one of the best things in boyhood. Girls preponderate in our +overgrown high school Latin and algebra, because custom and tradition +and, perhaps, advice incline them to it. They preponderate in English +and history classes more often, let us hope, from inner inclination. +The boy sooner grows restless in a curriculum where form takes +precedence over content. He revolts at much method with meager matter. +He craves utility, and when all these instincts are denied, without +knowing what is the matter, he drops out of school, when with robust +tone and with a truly boy life, such as prevails at Harrow, Eton, and +Rugby, he would have fought it through and have done well. This +feminization of the school spirit, discipline, and personnel is bad +for boys. Of course, on the whole, perhaps, they are made more +gentlemanly, more at ease, their manners improved, and all this to a +woman teacher seems excellent, but something is the matter with the +boy in early teens who can be truly called "a perfect gentleman." That +should come later, when the brute and animal element have had +opportunity to work themselves off in a healthful normal way. They +still have football to themselves, and are the majority perhaps in +chemistry, and sometimes in physics, but there is danger of a settled +eviration. The segregation, which even some of our schools are now +attempting, is always in some degree necessary for full and complete +development. Just as the boys' language is apt to creep into that of +the girl, so girls' interests, ways, standards and tastes, which are +crude at this age, sometimes attract boys out of their orbit. While +some differences are emphasized by contact, others are compromised. +Boys tend to grow content with mechanical, memorized work and, +excelling on the lines of girls' qualities, fail to develop those of +their own. There is a little charm and bloom rubbed off the ideal of +girlhood by close contact, and boyhood seems less ideal to girls at +close range. In place of the mystic attraction of the other sex that +has inspired so much that is best in the world, familiar comradeship +brings a little disenchantment. The impulse to be at one's best in the +presence of the other sex prows lax and sex tension remits, and each +comes to feel itself seen through, so that there is less motive to +indulge in the ideal conduct which such motives inspire, because the +call for it is incessant. This disillusioning weakens the motivation +to marriage sometimes on both sides, when girls grow careless in their +dress and too negligent in their manners, one of the best schools of +woman's morals; and when boys lose all restraints which the presence +of girls usually enforces, there is a subtle deterioration. Thus, I +believe, although of course it is impossible to prove, that this is +one of the factors of a decreasing percentage of marriage among +educated young men and women. + +At eighteen or twenty the girl normally reaches a stage of first +maturity when her ideas of life are amazingly keen and true; when, if +her body is developed, she can endure a great deal; when she is +nearest, perhaps, the ideal of feminine beauty and perfection. Of this +we saw illustrations in Chapter VIII. In our environment, however, +there is a little danger that this age once well past there will +slowly arise a slight sense of aimlessness or lassitude, unrest, +uneasiness, as if one were almost unconsciously feeling along the wall +for a door to which the key was not at hand. Thus some lose their +bloom and, yielding to the great danger of young womanhood, slowly +lapse to a anxious state of expectancy, or desire something not within +their reach, and so the diathesis of restlessness slowly supervenes. +The best thing about college life for girls is, perhaps, that it +postpones this incipient disappointment; but it is a little pathetic +to me to read, as I have lately done, the class letters of hundreds of +girl graduates, out of college one, two, or three years, turning a +little to art, music, travel, teaching, charity work, one after the +other, or trying to find something to which they can devote +themselves, some cause, movement, occupation, where their capacity for +altruism and self-sacrifice can find a field. The tension is almost +imperceptible, perhaps quite unconscious. It is everywhere overborne +by a keen interest in life, by a desire to know the world at first +hand, while susceptibilities are at their height. The apple of +intelligence has been plucked at perhaps a little too great cost of +health. The purely mental has not been quite sufficiently kept back. +The girl wishes to know a good deal more of the world and perfect her +own personality, and would not marry, although every cell of her body +and every unconscious impulse points to just that end. Soon, it may be +in five or ten years or more, the complexion of ill health is in these +notes, or else life has been adjusted to independence and +self-support. Many of these bachelor women are magnificent in mind and +body, but they lack wifehood and yet more--motherhood. + +In fine, we should use these facts as a stimulus to ask more +searchingly the question whether the present system of higher +education for both sexes is not lacking in some very essential +elements, and if so what these are. Indeed, considering the facts that +in our social system man makes the advances and that woman is by +nature more prone than man to domesticity and parenthood, it is not +impossible that men's colleges do more to unfit for these than do +those for women. One cause may be moral. Ethics used to be taught as a +practical power for life and reënforced by religious motives. Now it +is theoretical and speculative and too often led captive by +metaphysical and epistemological speculations. Sometimes girls work or +worry more over studies and ideals than is good for their +constitution, and boys grow idle and indifferent, and this +proverbially tends to bad habits. Perhaps fitting for college has been +too hard at the critical age of about eighteen, and requirements of +honest, persevering work during college years too little enforced, or +grown irksome by physiological reaction of lassitude from the strain +of fitting and entering. Again, girls mature earlier than boys; and +the latter who have been educated with them tend to certain elements +of maturity and completeness too early in life, and their growth +period is shortened or its momentum lessened by an atmosphere of +femininity. Something is clearly wrong, and more so here than we have +at present any reason to think is the case among the academic male or +female youth of other lands. To see and admit that there is an evil +very real, deep, exceedingly difficult and complex in its causes, but +grave and demanding a careful reconsideration of current educational +ideas and practises, is the first step; and this every thoughtful and +well-informed mind, I believe, must now take. + +It is utterly impossible without injury to hold girls to the same +standards of conduct, regularity, severe moral accountability, and +strenuous mental work that boys need. The privileges and immunities of +her sex are inveterate, and with these the American girl in the middle +teens fairly tingles with a new-born consciousness. Already she +occasionally asserts herself in the public high school against a male +teacher or principal who seeks to enforce discipline by methods boys +respect, in a way that suggests that the time is at hand when +popularity with her sex will be as necessary in a successful teacher +as it is in the pulpit. In these interesting oases where girl +sentiment has made itself felt in school it has generally carried +parents, committeemen, the press, and public sentiment before it, and +has already made a precious little list of martyrs whom, were I an +educational pope, I would promptly canonize. The progressive +feminization of secondary education works its subtle demoralization on +the male teachers who remain. Public sentiment would sustain them in +many parental exactions with boys which it disallows in mixed classes. +It is hard, too, for male principals of schools with only female +teachers not to suffer some deterioration in the moral tone of their +virility and to lose in the power to cope successfully with men. Not +only is this often confessed and deplored, but the incessant +compromises the best male teachers of mixed classes must make with +their pedagogic convictions in both teaching and discipline make the +profession less attractive to manly men of large caliber and of sound +fiber. Again, the recent rapid increase of girls, the percentage of +which to population in high schools has in many communities doubled in +but little more than a decade, almost necessarily involves a decline +in the average quality of girls, perhaps as much greater for them as +compared with boys as their increase has been greater. When but few +were found in these institutions they were usually picked girls with +superior tastes and ability, but now the average girl of the rank and +file is, despite advanced standard, of admission, of an order natively +lower. From this deterioration both boys and teachers suffer, even +though the greatest good for the greatest number may be enhanced. Once +more, it is generally admitted that girls in good boarding-schools, +where evenings, food, and regimen are controlled, are in better health +than day pupils with social, church, and domestic duties and perhaps +worries to which boys are less subject. This is the nascent stage of +periodicity to the slow normalization of which, during these few +critical years, everything that interferes should yield. Some kind of +tacit recognition of this is indispensable, but in mixed classes every +form of such concession is baffling and demoralizing to boys. + +The women who really achieve the higher culture should make it their +"cause" or "mission" to work out the new humanistic or liberal +education which the old college claimed to stand for and which now +needs radical reconstruction to meet the demands of modern life. In +science they should aim to restore the humanistic elements of its +history, biography, its popular features at their best, and its +applications in all the more non-technical fields, as described in +Chapter XII, and feel responsibility not to let the moral, religious, +and poetic aspects of nature be lost in utilities. Woman should be +true to her generic nature and take her stand against all premature +specialization, and when the _Zeitgeist_ [Spirit of the Times] insists +on specialized training for occupative pursuits without waiting for +broad foundations to be laid, she should resist all these influences +that make for psychological precocity. _Das Ewig-Weibliche_ [The +eternal womanly] is no iridescent fiction but a very definable +reality, and means perennial youth. It means that woman at her best +never outgrows adolescence as man does, but lingers in, magnifies and +glorifies this culminating stage of life with its all-sided interests, +its convertibility of emotions, its enthusiasm, and zest for all that +is good, beautiful, true, and heroic. This constitutes her freshness +and charm, even in age, and makes her by nature more humanistic than +man, more sympathetic and appreciative. It is not chiefly the 70,000 +superfluous Massachusetts women of the last census, but +representatives of every class and age in the 4,000 women's clubs of +this country that now find some leisure for general culture in all +fields, and in which most of them no doubt surpass their husbands. +Those who still say that men do not like women to be their mental +superiors and that no man was ever won by the attraction of intellect, +on the one hand, and those who urge that women really want husbands to +be their intellectual superiors, both misapprehend. The male in all +the orders of life is the agent of variation and tends by nature to +expertness and specialisation, without which his individuality is +incomplete. In his chosen line he would lead and be authoritative, and +he rarely seeks partnership in it in marriage. This is no subjection, +but woman instinctively respects and even reveres, and perhaps +educated woman coming to demand, it in the man of her whole-hearted +choice. This granted, man was never more plastic to woman's great work +of creating in him all the wide range of secondary sex qualities which +constitute his essential manhood. In all this, the pedagogic fathers +we teach in the history of education are most of them about as +luminous and obsolete as is patristics for the religious teacher, or +as methods of other countries are coming to be in solving our own +peculiar pedagogic problems. The relation of the academically trained +sexes is faintly typified by that of the ideal college to the ideal +university, professional or technical school. This is the harmony of +counterparts and constitutes the best basis of psychic amphimixis. For +the reinstallation of the humanistic college, the time has come when +cultivated woman ought to come forward and render vital aid. If she +does so and helps to evolve a high school and an A.B. course that is +truly liberal, it will not only fit her nature and needs far better +than anything now existing, but young men at the humanistic stage of +their own education will seek to profit by it, and she will thus repay +her debt to man in the past by aiding him to de-universitize the +college and to rescue secondary education from its gravest dangers. + +But even should all this be done, coeducation would by means be thus +justified. If adolescent boys normally pass through a generalized or +even feminized stage of psychic development in which they are +peculiarly plastic to the guidance of older women who have such rare +insight into their nature, such infinite sympathy and patience with +all the symptoms of their storm and stress metamorphosis, when they +seek everything by turns and nothing long, and if young men will +forever afterward understand woman's nature better for living out more +fully this stage of their lives and will fail to do so if it is +abridged or dwarfed, it by no means follows that intimate daily and +class-room association with girls of their own age is necessary or +best. The danger of this is that the boy's instinct to assert his own +manhood will thus be made premature and excessive, that he will react +against general culture, in the capacity for which girls, who are +older than boys at the same age, naturally excel them. Companionship +and comparisons incline him to take premature refuge in some one +talent that emphasizes his psycho-sexual difference too soon. Again, +he is farther from nubile maturity than the girl classmate of his own +age, and coeducation and marriage between them are prone to violate +the important physiological law of disparity that requires the husband +to be some years the wife's senior, both in their own interests, as +maturity begins to decline to age, and in those of their offspring. +Thus the young man with his years of restraint and probation ahead, +and his inflammable desires, is best removed from the half-conscious +cerebrations about wedlock, inevitably more insistent with constant +girl companionship. If he resists this during all the years of his +apprenticeship, he grows more immune and inhibitive of it when its +proper hour arrives, and perhaps becomes in soul a bachelor before his +time. In this side of his nature he is forever incommensurate with and +unintelligible to woman, be she even teacher, sister, or mother. +Better some risk of gross thoughts and even acts, to which phylogeny +and recapitulation so strongly incline him, than this subtle +eviration. But if the boy is unduly repelled from the sphere of girls' +interests, the girl is in some danger of being unduly drawn to his, +and, as we saw above, of forgetting some of the ideals of her own sex. +Riper in mind and body than her male classmate, and often excelling +him in the capacity of acquisition, nearer the age of her full +maturity than he to his, he seems a little too crude and callow to +fulfil the ideals of manhood normal to her age which point to older +and riper men. In all that makes sexual attraction best, a classmate +of her own age is too undeveloped, and so she often suffers mute +disenchantment, and even if engagement be dreamed of, it would be, on +her part, with unconscious reservations if not with some conscious +renunciation of ideals. Thus the boy is correct in feeling himself +understood and seen through by his girl classmates to a degree that is +sometimes quite distasteful to him, while the girl finds herself +misunderstood by and disappointed in men. Boys arrive at the +humanistic stage of culture later than girls and pass it sooner; and +to find them already there and with their greater aptitude excelling +him, is not an inviting situation, and so he is tempted to abridge or +cut it out and to hasten on and be mature and professional before his +time, for thus he gravitates toward his normal relation to her sex of +expert mastership on some bread- or fame-winning line. Of course, +these influences are not patent, demonstrable by experiment, or +measurable by statistics; but I have come to believe that, like many +other facts and laws, they have a reality and a dominance that is +all-pervasive and inescapable, and that they will ultimately prevail +over economic motives and traditions. + +To be a true woman means to be yet more mother than wife. The madonna +conception expresses man's highest comprehension of woman's real +nature. Sexual relations are brief, but love and care of offspring are +long. The elimination of maternity is one of the great calamities, if +not diseases, of our age. Marholm[4] points out at length how art +again to-day gives woman a waspish waist with no abdomen, as if to +carefully score away every trace of her mission; usually with no child +in her arms or even in sight; a mere figurine, calculated perhaps to +entice, but not to bear; incidentally degrading the artist who depicts +her to a fashion-plate painter, perhaps with suggestions of the arts +of toilet, cosmetics, and coquetry, as if to promote decadent reaction +to decadent stimuli. As in the Munchausen tale, the wolf slowly ate +the running nag from behind until he found himself in the harness, so +in the disoriented woman the mistress, virtuous and otherwise, is +slowly supplanting the mother. Please she must, even though she can +not admire, and can so easily despise men who can not lead her, +although she become thereby lax and vapid. + +The more exhausted men become, whether by overwork, unnatural city +life, alcohol, recrudescent polygamic inclinations, exclusive devotion +to greed and pelf; whether they become weak, stooping, blear-eyed, +bald-headed, bow-legged, thin-shanked, or gross, coarse, barbaric, and +bestial, the more they lose the power to lead woman or to arouse her +nature, which is essentially passive. Thus her perversions are his +fault. Man, before he lost the soil and piety, was not only her +protector and provider, but her priest. He not only supported and +defended, but inspired the souls of women, so admirably calculated to +receive and elaborate suggestions, but not to originate them. In their +inmost souls even young girls often experience disenchantment, find +men little and no heroes, and so cease to revere and begin to think +stupidly of them as they think coarsely of her. Sometimes the girlish +conceptions of men are too romantic and exalted; often the intimacy of +school and college wear off a charm, while man must not forget that +to-day he too often fails to realize the just and legitimate +expectations and ideals of women. If women confide themselves, body +and soul, less to him than he desires, it is not she, but he, who is +often chiefly to blame. Indeed, in some psychic respects, it seems as +if in human society the processes of subordinating the male to the +female, carried so far in some of the animal species, had already +begun. If he is not worshiped as formerly, it is because he is less +worshipful or more effeminate, less vigorous and less able to excite +and retain the great love of true, not to say great, women. Where +marriage and maternity are of less supreme interest to an increasing +number of women, there are various results, the chief of which are as +follows: + +1. Women grow dollish; sink more or less consciously to man's level; +gratify his desires and even his selfish caprices, but exact in return +luxury and display, growing vain as he grows sordid; thus, while +submitting, conquering, and tyrannizing over him, content with present +worldly pleasure, unmindful of the past, the future, or the above. +This may react to intersexual antagonism until man comes to hate woman +as a witch, or, as in the days of celibacy, consider sex a wile of the +devil. Along these lines even the stage is beginning to represent the +tragedies of life. + +2. The disappointed woman in whom something is dying comes to assert +her own ego and more or less consciously to make it an end, aiming to +possess and realize herself fully rather than to transmit. Despairing +of herself as a woman, she asserts her lower rights in the place of +her one great right to be loved. The desire for love may be transmuted +into the desire for knowledge, or outward achievement become a +substitute for inner content. Failing to respect herself as a +productive organism, she gives vent to personal solutions; seeks +independence; comes to know very plainly what she wants; perhaps +becomes intellectually emancipated, and substitutes science for +religion, or the doctor for the priest, with the all-sided +impressionability characteristic of her sex which, when cultivated, is +so like an awakened child. She perhaps even affects mannish ways, +unconsciously copying from those not most manly, or comes to feel that +she has been robbed of something; competes with men, but sometimes +where they are most sordid, brutish, and strongest; always expecting, +but never finding, she turns successively to art, science, literature, +and reforms; craves especially work that she can not do; and seeks +stimuli for feelings which have never found their legitimate +expression. + +3. Another type, truer to woman's nature, subordinates self; goes +beyond personal happiness; adopts the motto of self-immolation; enters +a life of service, denial, and perhaps mortification, like the +Countess Schimmelmann; and perhaps becomes a devotee, a saint, and, if +need be, a martyr, but all with modesty, humility, and with a +shrinking from publicity. + +In our civilization, I believe that bright girls of good environment +of eighteen or nineteen, or even seventeen, have already reached the +above-mentioned peculiar stage of first maturity, when they see the +world at first hand, when the senses are at their very best, their +susceptibilities and their insights the keenest, tension at its +highest, plasticity and all-sided interests most developed, and their +whole psychic soil richest and rankest and sprouting everywhere with +the tender shoots of everything both good and bad. Some such--Stella +Klive, Mary MacLane, Hilma Strandberg, Marie Bashkirtseff--have +been veritable epics upon woman's nature; have revealed the +characterlessness normal to the prenubile period in which everything +is kept tentative and plastic, and where life seems to have least +unity, aim, or purpose. By and by perhaps they will see in all their +scrappy past, if not order and coherence, a justification, and then +alone will they realize that life is governed by motives deeper than +those which are conscious or even personal. This is the age when, if +ever, no girl should be compelled. It is the experiences of this age, +never entirely obliterated in women, that enable them to take +adolescent boys seriously, as men can rarely do, in whom these +experiences are more limited in range though no less intense. It is +this stage in woman which is most unintelligible to man and even +unrealized to herself. It is the echoes from it that make vast numbers +of mothers pursue the various branches of culture, often half +secretly, to maintain their position with their college sons and +daughters, with their husbands, or with society. + +But in a very few years, I believe even in the early twenties with +American girls, along with rapidly in creasing development of capacity +there is also observable the beginnings of loss and deterioration. +Unless marriage comes there is lassitude, subtle symptoms of +invalidism, the germs of a rather aimless dissatisfaction with life, a +little less interest, curiosity, and courage, certain forms of +self-pampering, the resolution to be happy, though at too great cost; +and thus the clear air of morning begins to haze over and +unconsciously she begins to grope. By thirty, she is perhaps goaded +into more or less sourness; has developed more petty self-indulgences; +has come to feel a right to happiness almost as passionately as the +men of the French Revolution and as the women in their late movement +for enfranchisement felt for liberty. Very likely she has turned to +other women and entered into innocent Platonic pairing-off relations +with some one. There is a little more affectation, playing a rôle, and +interest in dress and appearance is either less or more specialized +and definite. Perhaps she has already begun to be a seeker who will +perhaps find, lose, and seek again. Her temper is modified; there is a +slight stagnation of soul; a craving for work or travel; a love of +children with flitting thoughts of adopting one, or else aversion to +them; an analysis of psychic processes until they are weakened and +insight becomes too clear; sense of responsibility without an object; +a slight general _malaise_ and a sense that society is a false +"margarine" affair; revolt against those that insist that in her child +the real value of a woman is revealed. There are alternations between +excessive self-respect which demands something almost like adoration +of the other sex and self-distrust, with, it may be, many dreameries +about forbidden subjects and about the relations of the sexes +generally. + +A new danger, the greatest in the history of her sex, now impends, +viz., arrest, complacency, and a sense of finality in the most +perilous first stage of higher education for girls, when, after all, +little has actually yet been won save only the right and opportunity +to begin reconstructions, so that now, for the first time in history, +methods and matter could be radically transformed to fit the nature +and needs of girls. Now most female faculties, trustees, and students +are content to ape the newest departures in some one or more male +institutions as far as their means or obvious limitations make +possible with a servility which is often abject and with rarely ever a +thought of any adjustment, save the most superficial, to sex. It is +the easiest, and therefore the most common, view typically expressed +by the female head of a very successful institution,[5] who was "early +convinced in my teaching experience that the methods for mental +development for boys and girls applied equally without regard to sex, +and I have carried the same thought when I began to develop the +physical, and filled my gymnasium with the ordinary appliances used in +men's gymnasia." There is no sex in mind or in science, it is said, +but it might as well be urged that there is no age, and hence that all +methods adapted to teaching at different stages of development may be +ignored. That woman can do many things as well as man does not prove +that she ought to do the same things, or that man-made ways are the +best for her. Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer[6] was right in saying that +woman's education has all the perplexities of that of man, and many +more, still more difficult and intricate, of its own. + +Hence, we must conclude that, while women's colleges have to a great +extent solved the problem of special technical training, they have +done as yet very little to solve the larger one of the proper +education of woman. To assume that the latter question is settled, as +is so often done, is disastrous. I have forced myself to go through +many elaborate reports of meetings where female education was +discussed by those supposed to be competent; but as a rule, not +without rare, striking exceptions, these proceedings are smitten with +the same sterile and complacent artificiality that was so long the +curse of woman's life. I deem it almost reprehensible that, save a few +general statistics, the women's colleges have not only made no study +themselves of the larger problems that impend, but have often +maintained a repellent attitude toward others who wished to do so. No +one that I know of connected with any of these institutions, where the +richest material is going to waste, is making any serious and +competent research on lines calculated to bring out the +psycho-physiological differences between the sexes and those in +authority are either conservative by constitution or else intimidated +because public opinion is still liable to panics if discussion here +becomes scientific and fundamental, and so tend to keep prudery and +the old habit of ignoring everything that pertains to sex in +countenance. + +Again, while I sympathize profoundly with the claim of woman for every +opportunity which she can fill, and yield to none in appreciation of +her ability, I insist that the cardinal defect in the woman's college +is that it is based upon the assumption, implied and often expressed, +if not almost universally acknowledged, that girls should primarily be +trained to independence and self-support, and that matrimony and +motherhood, if it come, will take care of itself, or, as some even +urge, is thus best provided for. If these colleges are, as the above +statistics indicate, chiefly devoted to the training of those who do +not marry, or if they are to educate for celibacy, this is right. +These institutions may perhaps come to be training stations of a +new-old type, the agamic or even agenic woman, be she nut, maid--old +or young--nun, school-teacher, or bachelor woman. I recognize the very +great debt the world owes to members of this very diverse class in the +past. Some of them have illustrated the very highest ideals of +self-sacrifice, service, and devotion in giving to mankind what was +meant for husband and children. Some of them belong to the class of +superfluous women, and others illustrate the noblest type of altruism +and have impoverished the heredity of the world to its loss, as did +the monks, who Leslie Stephens thinks contributed to bring about the +Dark Ages, because they were the best and most highly selected men of +their age and, by withdrawing from the function of heredity and +leaving no posterity, caused Europe to degenerate. Modern ideas and +training are now doing this, whether for racial weal or woe, can not +yet be determined, for many whom nature designed for model mothers. + +The bachelor woman is an interesting illustration of Spencer's law of +the inverse relation of individuation and genesis. The completely +developed individual is always a terminal representative in her line +of descent. She has taken up and utilized in her own life all that was +meant for her descendants, and has so overdrawn her account with +heredity that, like every perfectly and completely developed +individual, she is also completely sterile. This is the very +apotheosis of selfishness from the standpoint of every biological +ethics. While the complete man can do and sometimes does this, woman +has a far greater and very peculiar power of overdrawing her reserves. +First she loses mammary functions, so that should she undertake +maternity its functions are incompletely performed because she can not +nurse, and this implies defective motherhood and leaves love of the +child itself defective and maimed, for the mother who has never nursed +can not love or be loved aright by her child. It crops out again in +the abnormal or especially incomplete development of her offspring, in +the critical years of adolescence, although they may have been +healthful before, and a less degree of it perhaps is seen in the +diminishing families of cultivated mothers in the one-child system. +These women are the intellectual equals and often the superiors of the +men they meet; they are very attractive as companions, like Miss Mehr, +the university student, in Hauptmann's "Lonely Lives," who alienated +the young husband from his noble wife; they enjoy all the keen +pleasures of intellectual activity; their very look, step, and bearing +is free; their mentality makes them good fellows and companionable in +all the broad intellectual spheres; to converse with them is as +charming and attractive for the best men as was Socrates's discourse +with the accomplished hetaerae; they are at home with the racquet and +on the golf links; they are splendid friends; their minds, in all +their widening areas of contact, are as attractive as their bodies; +and the world owes much and is likely to owe far more to high Platonic +friendships of this kind. These women are often in every way +magnificent, only they are not mothers, and sometimes have very little +wifehood in them, and to attempt to marry them to develop these +functions is one of the unique and too frequent tragedies of modern +life and literature. Some, though by no means all, of them are +functionally castrated; some actively deplore the necessity of +child-bearing, and perhaps are parturition phobiacs, and abhor the +limitations of married life; they are incensed whenever attention is +called to the functions peculiar to their sex, and the careful +consideration of problems of the monthly rest are thought "not fit for +cultivated women." + +The slow evolution of this type is probably inevitable as civilization +advances, and their training is a noble function. Already it has +produced minds of the greatest acumen who have made very valuable +contributions to science, and far more is to be expected of them in +the future. Indeed, it may be their noble function to lead their sex +out into the higher, larger life, and the deeper sense of its true +position and function, for which I plead. Hitherto woman has not been +able to solve her own problems. While she has been more religious than +man, there have been few great women preachers; while she has excelled +in teaching young children, there have been few Pestalozzis, or even +Froebels; while her invalidism is a complex problem, she has turned to +man in her diseases. This is due to the very intuitiveness and naïveté +of her nature. But now that her world is so rapidly widening, she is +in danger of losing her cue. She must be studied objectively and +laboriously as we study children, and partly by men, because their sex +must of necessity always remain objective and incommensurate with +regard to woman, and therefore more or less theoretical. Again, in +these days of intense new interest in feelings, emotions, and +sentiments, when many a psychologist now envies and, like +Schleiermacher, devoutly wishes he could become a woman, he can never +really understand _das Ewig-Weibliche_, [The eternal womanly] one of +the two supreme oracles of guidance in life, because he is a man; and +here the cultivated woman must explore the nature of her sex as man +can not, and become its mouthpiece. In many of the new fields opening +in biology since Darwin, in embryology, botany, the study of children, +animals, savages (witness Miss Fletcher), sociological investigation, +to say nothing of all the vast body of work that requires painstaking +detail, perseverance, and conscience, woman has superior ability, or +her very sex gives her peculiar advantages where she is to lead and +achieve great things in enlarging the kingdom of man. Perhaps, too, +the present training of women may in the end develop those who shall +one day attain a true self-knowledge and lead n the next step of +devising a scheme that shall fit woman's nature and needs. + +For the slow evolution of such a scheme, we must first of all +distinctly and ostensively invert the present maxim, and educate +primarily and chiefly for motherhood, assuming that, if that does not +come, single life can best take care of itself, because it is less +intricate and lower and its needs far more easily met. While girls may +be trained with boys, coeducation should cease at the dawn of +adolescence, at least for a season. Great daily intimacy between the +sexes in high school, if not in college, tends to rub of the bloom and +delicacy which can develop in each, and girls suffer in this respect, +let us repeat, far more than boys. The familiar comradeship that +ignores sex should be left to the agenic class. To the care of their +institutions, we leave with pious and reverent hands the ideals +inspired by characters like Hypatia, Madame de Staël, the Misses Cobb, +Martineau, Fuller, Bronté, by George Eliot, George Sand, and Mrs. +Browning; and while accepting and profiting by what they have done, +and acknowledging every claim for their abilities and achievements, +prospective mothers must not be allowed to forget a still larger class +of ideal women, both in history and literature, from the Holy Mother +to Beatrice Clotilda de Vaux, and all those who have inspired men to +great deeds, and the choice and far richer anthology of noble mothers. + +We must premise, too, that she must not be petted or pampered with +regimen or diet unsuited to her needs; left to find out as best she +can, from surreptitious or worthy sources, what she most of all needs +to know; must recognize that our present civilization is hard on woman +and that she is not yet adjusted to her social environment; that as +she was of old accused of having given man the apple of knowledge of +good and evil, so he now is liable to a perhaps no less serious +indictment of having given her the apple of intellectualism and +encouraged her to assume his standards at the expense of health. We +must recognize that riches are probably harder on her, on the whole, +than poverty, and that poor parents should not labor too hard to +exempt her from its wholesome discipline. The expectancy of change so +stamped upon her sex by heredity as she advances into maturity must +not be perverted into uneasiness or her soul sown with the tares of +ambition or fired by intersexual competition and driven on, to quote +Dr. R.T. Edes, "by a tireless sort of energy which is a compound of +conscience, ambition, and desire to please, plus a peculiar female +obstinacy." If she is bright, she must not be overworked in the school +factory, studying in a way which parodies Hood's "Song of the Shirt"; +and if dull or feeble, she should not be worried by preceptresses like +a eminent lady principal,[7] who thought girls' weakness is usually +imaginary or laziness, and that doctors are to blame for suggesting +illness and for intimating that men will have to choose between a +healthy animal and an educated invalid for a wife. + +Without specifying here details or curricula, the ideals that should +be striven toward in the intermediate and collegiate education of +adolescent girls with the proper presupposition of motherhood, and +which are already just as practicable as Abbotsholme[8] or _L'Ecole +des Roches_,[9] may be rudely indicated somewhat as follows. + +First, the ideal institution for the training of girls from twelve or +thirteen on into the twenties, when the period most favorable to +motherhood begins, should be in the country in the midst of hills, the +climbing of which is the best stimulus for heart and lungs, and tends +to mental elevation and breadth of view. There should be water for +boating, bathing, and skating, aquaria and aquatic life; gardens both +for kitchen vegetables and horticulture; forests for their seclusion +and religious awe; good roads, walks, and paths that tempt to walking +and wheeling: playgrounds and space for golf and tennis, with large +covered but unheated space favorable for recreations in weather really +too bad for out-of-door life and for those indisposed; and plenty of +nooks that permit each to be alone with nature, for this develops +inwardness, poise, and character, yet not too great remoteness from +the city for a wise utilization of its advantages at intervals. All +that can be called environment is even more important for girls than +boys, significant as it is for the latter. + +The first aim, which should dominate every item, pedagogic method and +matter, should be health--a momentous word that looms up beside +holiness, to which it is etymologically akin. The new hygiene of the +last few years should be supreme and make these academic areas soared +to the cult of the goddess Hygeia. Only those who realize what +advances have been made in health culture and know something of its +vast new literature can realize all that this means. The health of +woman is, as we have seen, if possible even more important for the +welfare of the race than that of man; and the influence of her body +upon her mind is, in a sense, greater, so that its needs should be +supreme and primary. Foods should favor the completest digestion, so +that metabolism be on the highest plane. The dietary should be +abundant, plain, and varied, and cooked with all the refinements +possible in the modern cooking-school, which should be one of its +departments, with limited use of rich foods or desserts and +stimulating drinks, but with wholesome proximity to dairy and farm. +Nutrition is the first law of health and happiness, the prime +condition and creator of euphoria; and the appetite should be, as it +always is if unperverted, like a kind of somatic conscience +steadfastly pointing toward the true pole of needs. + +Sleep should be regular, with a fixed retiring hour and curfew, on +plain beds in rooms of scrupulous neatness reserved chiefly for it +with every precaution for quiet, and, if possible, with windows more +or less open the year round, and, like other rooms, never overheated. +Bathing in moderation, and especially dress and toilet should be +almost raised to fine arts and objects of constant suggestion. Each +student should have three rooms, for bath, sleep, and study, +respectively, and be responsible for their care, with every +encouragement for expressing individual tastes; but will, an +all-dominant idea of simplicity, convenience, refinement, and +elegance, without luxury. Girls need to go away from home a good part +of every year to escape the indiscretion and often the coddling of +parents and to learn self-reliance; and a family dormitory system, +with but few, twelve to twenty, in each building, to escape nervous +wear and distraction, to secure intimacy and acquaintance with one or +more matrons or teachers and to ensure the most pedagogic dietetics, +is suggested. + +Exercise comes after regimen, of which it is a special reform. Swedish +gymnastics should be abandoned or reduced to a minimum of best points, +because it is too severe and, in forbidding music, lays too little +stress upon the rhythm element. Out-of-door walks and games should +have precedence over all else. The principle sometimes advocated, that +methods of physical training should apply to both boys and girls +without regard to sex, and with all the ordinary appliances found in +the men's gymnasia introduced, should be reversed and every possible +adjustment made to sex. Free plays and games should always have +precedence over indoor or uniform _commando_ exercises. Boating and +basket-ball should be allowed, but with the competition element +sedulously reduced, and with dancing of many kinds and forms the most +prominent of indoor exercises. The dance cadences the soul; the +stately minuet gives poise; the figure dances train the mind; and +pantomime and dramatic features should be introduced and even +specialties, if there are strong individual predispositions. The +history of the dance, which has often been a mode of worship, a school +of morals, and which is the root of the best that is in the drama, the +best of all exercises and that could be again the heart of our whole +educational system, should be exploited, and the dancing school and +class rescued from its present degradation. No girl is educated who +can not dance, although she need not know the ballroom in its modern +form.[10] + +Manners, a word too often relegated to the past as savoring of the +primness of the ancient dame school or female seminary, are really +minor or sometimes major morals. They can express everything in the +whole range of the impulsive or emotional life. Now that we understand +the primacy of movement over feeling, we can appreciate what a school +of bearing and repose in daily converse with others means. I would +revive some of the ancient casuistry of details, but less the rules of +the drawing-room, call and party, although these should not be +neglected, than the deeper expressions of true ladyhood seen in an +exquisite, tender and unselfish regard for the feelings of others. +Women's ideal of compelling every one whom they meet to like them is a +noble one, and the control of every automatism is not only a part of +good breeding, but nervous health. + +Regularity should be another all-pervading norm. In the main, even +though he may have "played his sex symphony too harshly," E.H. Clark +was right. Periodicity, perhaps the deepest law of the cosmos, +celebrates its highest triumphs in woman's life. For years everything +must give way to its thorough and settled establishment. In the +monthly Sabbaths of rest, the ideal school should revert to the +meaning of the word leisure. The paradise of stated rest should be +revisited, idleness be actively cultivated; reverie, in which the +soul, which needs these seasons of withdrawal for its own development, +expatiates over the whole life of the race, should be provided for and +encouraged in every legitimate way, for, in rest, the whole momentum +of heredity is felt in ways most favorable to full and complete +development. Then woman should realize that _to be_ is greater than +_to do_; should step reverently aside from her daily routine and let +Lord Nature work. In this time of sensitiveness and perturbation, when +anemia and chlorosis are so peculiarly immanent to her sex, remission +of toil should not only be permitted, but required; and yet the +greatest individual liberty should be allowed to adjust itself to the +vast diversities of individual constitutional needs. (See Chapter VII +on this point.) The cottage home, which should take the place of the +dormitory, should always have special interest and attractions for +these seasons. + +There should always be some personal instruction at these seasons +during earlier adolescent years. I have glanced over nearly a score of +books and pamphlets that are especially written for girls; while all +are well meant and far better than the ordinary modes by which girls +acquire knowledge of their own nature if left to themselves, they are, +like books for boys, far too prolix, and most are too scientific and +plain and direct. Moreover, no two girls need just the same +instruction, and to leave it to reading is too indirect and causes the +mind to dwell on it for too long periods. Best of all is individual +instruction at the time, concise, practical, and never, especially in +the early years, without a certain mystic and religious tone which +should pervade all and make everything sacred. This should not be +given by male physicians--and indeed most female doctors would make it +too professional, and the maiden teacher must forever lack reverence +for it--but it should come from one whose soul and body are full of +wifehood and motherhood and who is old enough to know and is not +without the necessary technical knowledge. + +Another principle should be to broaden by retarding; to keep the +purely mental back and by every method to bring the intuitions to the +front; appeals to tact and taste should be incessant; a purely +intellectual man is no doubt biologically a deformity, but a purely +intellectual woman is far more so. Bookishness is probably a bad sign +in a girl; it suggests artificiality, pedantry, the lugging of dead +knowledge. Mere learning is not the ideal, and prodigies of +scholarship are always morbid. The rule should be to keep nothing that +is not to become practical; to open no brain tracts which are not to +be highways for the daily traffic of thought and conduct; not to +overburden the soul with the impedimenta of libraries and records of +what is afar off in time or zest, and always to follow truly the +guidance of normal and spontaneous interests wisely interpreted. + +Religion will always bold as prominent a place in woman's life as +politics does in man's, and adolescence is still more its seedtime +with girls than with boys. Its roots are the sentiment of awe and +reverence, and it is the great agent in the world for transforming +life from its earlier selfish to its only really mature form of +altruism. The tales of the heroes of virtue, duty, devotion, and +self-sacrifice from the Old Testament come naturally first; then +perhaps the prophets paraphrased as in the pedagogic triumph of Kent +and Saunders's little series; and when adolescence is at its height +then the chief stress of religious instruction should be laid upon +Jesus's life and work. He should be taught first humanly, and only +later when the limitations of manhood seem exhausted should His Deity +be adduced as welcome surplusage. The supernatural is a reflex of the +heart; each sustains and neither can exist without the other. If the +transcendent and supernal had no objective existence, we should have +to invent and teach it or dwarf the life of feeling and sentiment. +Whatever else religion is, therefore, it is the supremest poetry of +the soul, reflecting like nothing else all that is deepest, most +generic and racial in it. Theology should be reduced to a minimum, but +nothing denied where wanted. Paul and his works and ways should be for +the most part deferred until after eighteen. The juvenile well as the +cyclone revivalist should be very carefully excluded; and yet in every +springtime, when nature is recreated, service and teaching should +gently encourage the revival and even the regeneration of all the +religious instincts. The mission recruiter should be allowed to do his +work outside these halls, and everything in the way of infection and +all that brings religion into conflict with good taste and good sense +should be excluded, while esthetics should supplement, reënforce, and +go hand in hand with piety. Religion is in its infancy; and woman, who +has sustained it in the past, must be the chief agent in its further +and higher development. Orthodoxies and all narrowness should forever +give place to cordial hospitality toward every serious view, which +should be met by the method of greater sympathy rather than by that of +criticism. + +Nature in her many phases should, of course, make up a large part of +the entire curriculum, but here again the methods of the sexes should +differ somewhat after puberty. The poetic and mythic factors and some +glimpses of the history of science should be given more prominence; +the field naturalist rather than the laboratory man of technic should +be the ideal especially at first; nature should be taught as God's +first revelation, as an Old Testament related to the Bible as a +primordial dispensation to a later and clearer and more special one. +Reverence and love should be the motive powers, and no aspect should +be studied without beginning and culminating in interests akin to +devotion. Mathematics should be taught only in its rudiments, and +those with special talents or tastes for it should go to agamic +schools. Chemistry, too, although not excluded, should have a +subordinate place. The average girl has little love of sozzling and +mussing with the elements, and cooking involves problems in organic +chemistry too complex to be understood very profoundly, but the +rudiments of household chemistry should be taught. Physics, too, +should be kept to elementary stages. Meteorology should have a larger, +and geology and astronomy increasingly larger places, and are +especially valuable because, and largely in proportion as, they are +taught out of doors, but the general principles and the untechnical +and practical aspects should be kept in the foreground. With botany +more serious work should be done. Plant-lore and the poetic aspect, as +in astronomy, should have attention throughout, while Latin +nomenclature and microscopic technic should come late if at all, and +vulgar names should have precedence over Latin terminology. Flowers, +gardening, and excursions should never be wanting. Economic and even +medical aspects should appear, and prominent and early should come the +whole matter of self cross-fertilization and that by insects. The +moral value of this subject will never be fully understood till we +have what might almost be called a woman's botany, constructed on +lines different from any of the text-books I have glanced at. Here +much knowledge interesting in itself can be early taught, which will +spring up into a world of serviceable insights as adolescence develops +and the great law of sex unfolds. + +Zoology should always be taught with plenty of pets, menagerie +resources, and with aquaria, aviaries, apiaries, formicaries, etc., as +adjuncts. It should start in the environment like everything else. +Bird and animal lore, books, and pictures should abound in the early +stages, and the very prolific chapter of instincts should have ample +illustration, while the morphological nomenclature and details of +structure should be less essential. Woman has domesticated nearly all +the animals, and is so superior to man in insight into their modes of +life and psychoses that many of them are almost exemplifications of +moral qualities to her even more than to man. The peacock is an +embodied expression of pride; the pig, of filth; the fox, of cunning; +the serpent, of subtle danger; the eagle, of sublimity; the goose, of +stupidity; and so on through all the range of human qualities, as we +have seen. At bottom, however, the study of animal life is coming to +be more and more a problem of heredity, and its problems should have +dominant position and to them the other matter should grade up. + +This shades over into and prepares for the study of the primitive man +and child so closely related to each other. The myth, custom, belief, +domestic practises of savages, vegetative and animal traits in infancy +and childhood, the development of which is a priceless boon for the +higher education of women, open of themselves a great field of human +interest where she needs to know the great results, the striking +details, the salient illustrations, the basal principles rather than +to be entangled in the details of anthropometry, craniometry, +philology, etc. + +All this lays the basis for a larger study of modern man--history, +with the biographical element very prominent throughout, with plenty +of stories of heroes of virtue, acts of valor, tales of saintly lives +and the personal element more prominent, and specialization in the +study of dynasties, wars, authorities, and controversies relegated to +a very subordinate place. Sociology, undeveloped, rudimentary, and in +some places suspected as it is, should have in the curriculum of her +higher education a place above political economy. The stories of the +great reforms, and accounts of the constitution of society, of the +home, church, state, and school, and philanthropies and ideals, should +to the fore. + +Art in all its forms should be opened at least in a propædeutic way +and individual tastes amply and judiciously fed, but there should be +no special training in music without some taste and gift, and the aim +should be to develop critical and discriminative appreciation and the +good taste that sees the vast superiority of all that is good and +classic over what is cheap and fustian. + +In literature, myth, poetry, and drama should perhaps lead, and the +knowledge of the great authors in the vernacular be fostered. Greek, +Hebrew, and perhaps Latin languages should be entirely excluded, not +but that they are of great value and have their place, but because a +smattering knowledge is bought at too high a price of ignorance of +more valuable things. German, French, and Italian should be allowed +and provided for by native teachers and by conversational methods if +desired, and in their proper season. + +In the studies of the soul of man, generally called the philosophic +branches, metaphysics and epistemology should have the smallest, and +logic the next least place. Psychology should be taught on the genetic +basis of animals and children, and one of its tap-roots should be +developed from the love of infancy and youth, than which nothing in +all the world is more worthy. If a woman Descartes ever arises, she +will put life before theory, and her watchword will be not _cogito, +ergo sum_, [I think, therefore I am] but _sum, ergo cogito_ [I am, +therefore I think]. The psychology of sentiments and feelings and +intuitions will take precedence of that of pure intellect; ethics will +be taught on the basis of the whole series of practical duties and +problems, and the theories of the ultimate nature of right or the +constitution of conscience will have small place. + +Domesticity will be taught by example in some ideal home building by a +kind of laboratory method. A nursery with all carefully selected +appliances and adjuncts, a dining-room, a kitchen, bedroom, closets, +cellars, outhouses, building, its material, the grounds, lawn, +shrubbery, hothouse, library, and all the other adjuncts of the hearth +will be both exemplified and taught. A general course in pedagogy, +especially its history and ideals, another in child study, and finally +a course in maternity the last year taught broadly, and not without +practical details of nursing, should be comprehensive and culminating. +In its largest sense maternity might be the heart of all the higher +training of young women. + +Applied knowledge will thus be brought to a focus in a department of +teaching as one of the specialties of motherhood and not as a vocation +apart. The training should aim to develop power of maternity in soul +as well as in body, so that home influence may extend on and up +through the plastic years of pubescence, and future generations shall +not rebel against these influences until they have wrought their +perfect work. + +The methods throughout should be objective, with copious illustrations +by way of object-lessons, apparatus, charts, pictures, diagrams, and +lectures, far less book work and recitation, only a limited amount of +room study, the function of examination reduced to a minimum, and +everything as suggestive and germinal as possible. Hints that are not +followed up; information not elaborated into a thin pedagogic sillabub +or froth; seed that is sown on the waters with no thought of reaping; +faith in a God who does not pay at the end of each week, month, or +year, but who always pays abundantly some time; training which does +not develop hypertrophied memory-pouches that carry, or creative +powers that discover and produce--these are lines on which such an +institution should develop. Specialization has its place, but it +always hurts a woman's soul more than a man's, should always come +later, and if there is special capacity it should be trained +elsewhere. Unconscious education is a power of which we have yet to +learn the full ranges. + +In most groups in this series of ideal departments there should be at +least one healthful, wise, large-souled, honorable, married and +attractive man, and, if possible, several of them. His very presence +in an institution for young women gives poise, polarizes the soul, and +gives wholesome but long-circuited tension at root no doubt sexual, +but all unconsciously so. This mentor should not be more father than +brother, though he should combine the best of each, but should add +another element. He need not be a doctor, a clergyman, or even a great +scholar, but should be accessible for confidential conferences even +though intimate. He should know the soul of the adolescent girl and +how to prescribe; he should be wise and fruitful in advice, but +especially should be to all a source of contagion and inspiration for +poise and courage even though religious or medical problems be +involved. But even if he lack all these latter qualities, though be so +poised that impulsive girls can turn their hearts inside out in his +presence and perhaps even weep on his shoulder, the presence of such a +being, though a complete realization of this ideal could be only +remotely approximated, would be the center of an atmosphere most +wholesomely tonic. + +In these all too meager outlines I have sketched a humanistic and +liberal education and have refrained from all details and special +curriculization. Many of the above features I believe would be as +helpful for boys as for girls, but woman has here an opportunity to +resume her exalted and supreme position, to be the first in this +higher field, to lead man and pay her debt to his educational +institutions, by resuming her crown. The ideal institutions, however, +for the two will always be radically and probably always increasingly +divergent. + +As a psychologist, penetrated with the growing sense of the +predominance of the heart over the mere intellect, I believe myself +not alone in desiring to make a tender declaration of being more and +more passionately in love with woman as I conceive she came from the +hand of God. I keenly envy my Catholic friends their Maryolatry. Who +ever asked if the Holy Mother, whom the wise men adored, knew the +astronomy of the Chaldees or had studied Egyptian or Babylonian, or +even whether she knew how to read or write her own tongue, and who has +ever thought of caring? We can not conceive that she bemoaned any +limitations of her sex, but she has been an object of adoration all +these centuries because she glorified womanhood by being more generic, +nearer the race, and richer in love, pity, unselfish devotion and +intuition than man. The glorified madonna ideal shows us how much more +whole and holy it is to be a woman than to be artist, orator, +professor, or expert, and suggests to our own sex that to be a man is +larger than to be gentleman, philosopher, general, president, or +millionaire. + +But with all this love and hunger in my heart, I can not help sharing +in the growing fear that modern woman, at least in more ways and +places than one, is in danger of declining from her orbit; that she is +coming to lack just confidence and pride in her sex as such, and is +just now in danger of lapsing to mannish ways, methods, and ideals, +until her original divinity may become obscured. But, if our worship +at her shrine is with a love and adoration a little qualified and +unsteady, we have a fixed and abiding faith without which we should +have no resource against pessimism for the future of our race, that +she will ere long evolve a sphere of life and even education which +fits her needs as well as, if not better than those of man fit his. + +Meanwhile, if the eternally womanly seems somewhat less divine, we can +turn with unabated faith to the eternally childish, the best of which +in each are so closely related. The oracles of infancy and childhood +will never fail. Distracted as we are in the maze of new sciences, +skills, ideals, knowledges that we can not fully coördinate by our +logic or curriculize by our pedagogy; confused between the claims of +old and new methods; needing desperately, for survival as a nation and +a race, some clue to thrid the mazes of the manifold modern cultures, +we have now at least one source to which we can turn--we have found +the only magnet in all the universe that points steadfastly to the +undiscovered pole of human destiny. We know what can and will +ultimately coördinate in the generic, which is larger than the logical +order, all that is worth knowing, teaching, or doing by the best +methods, that will save us from misfits and the waste ineffable of +premature and belated knowledge, and that is in the interests and line +of normal development in the child in our midst that must henceforth +ever lead us which epitomizes in its development all the stages, human +and prehuman; that is the proper object of all that strange new love +of everything that is naive, spontaneous, and unsophisticated in human +nature. The heart and soul of growing childhood is the criterion by +which we judge the larger heart and soul of mature womanhood; and +these are ultimately the only guide into the heart of the new +education which is to be, when the school becomes what Melanchthon +said it must be--a true workshop of the Holy Ghost--and what the new +psychology, when it rises to the heights of prophecy, foresees as the +true paradise of restored intuitive human nature. + + +[Footnote 1: David Starr Jordan: The Higher Education of Women. +Popular Science Monthly, December, 1902, vol. 62, pp. 97-107. See also +my article on this subject in Munsey's Magazine, February, 1906, and +President Jordan's reply in the March number, 1906.] + +[Footnote 2: Coeducation. A series of essays by various authors, +edited by Alice Woods, with an introduction by M.E. Sadler. Longmans, +Green and Co., London 1903, p. 148 _et seq_.] + +[Footnote 3: The Evolution of Ideals. W.G. Chambers, Pedagogical +Seminary, March, 1903, vol. 10, pp. 101-143. Also, B.E. Warner: The +Young Woman in Modern Life. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1903, p. 218.] + +[Footnote 4: The Psychology of Woman. Translated by G.A. Etchison. +Richards, London, 1899.] + +[Footnote 5: Physical Development of Women and Children. By Miss M.E. +Allen. American Association for Physical Education., April, 1890.] + +[Footnote 6: A Review of the Higher Education of Women. Forum, +September, 1891, vol. 12, pp 25-40. See also G. von Bunge: Die +zunehmende Unfähigkeit der Frauen ihre Kinder zu stillen. München +Reinhardt, 1903, 3d ed. Also President Harper's Decennial Report, pp. +xciv-cxi.] + +[Footnote 7: Physical Hindrances to Teaching Girls, by Charlotte W. +Porter. Forum, September, 1891, vol. 12, pp. 41-49.] + +[Footnote 8: Abbotsholme, 1889-1899: or Ten Years' Work in an +Educational Laboratory, by Cecil Reddie, G. Allen London, 1900.] + +[Footnote 9: See L'Ecole des Roches, a school of the Twentieth +Century, by T.R. Croswell. Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1900, vol. +7, pp. 479-491.] + +[Footnote 10: See Chapter VI.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING + + +Dangers of muscular degeneration and overstimulus of brain--Difficulties +in teaching morals--Methods in Europe--Obedience to commands--Good +habits should be mechanized--Value of scolding--How to flog aright--Its +dangers--Moral precepts and proverbs--Habituation--Training will through +intellect--Examinations--Concentration--Originality--Froebel and the +naive--First ideas of God--Conscience--Importance of Old and New +Testaments--Sex dangers--Love and religion--Conversion. + +From its nature as well as from its central importance it might be +easily shown that the will is no less dependent on the culture it +receives than is the mind. It is fast becoming as absurd to suppose +that men can survive in the great practical strain to which American +life subjects all who would succeed, if the will is left to take its +doubtful chances of training and discipline, as to suppose that the +mind develops in neglect. Our changed conditions make this chance of +will-culture more doubtful than formerly. A generation or two ago[1] +most school-boys had either farm work, chores, errands, jobs +self-imposed, or required by less tender parents; they _made_ things, +either toys or tools, out of school. Most school-girls did house-work, +more or less of which is, like farm-work, perhaps the most varied and +most salutary as well as most venerable of all schools for the +youthful body and mind. They undertook extensive works of embroidery, +bed-quilting, knitting, sewing, mending, if not cleaning, and even +spinning and weaving their own or others' clothing, and cared for the +younger children. The wealthier devised or imposed tasks for +will-culture, as the German Kaiser has his children taught a trade as +part of their education. Ten days at the hoe-handle, axe, or +pitchfork, said an eminent educator lately in substance, with no new +impression from without, and one constant and only duty, is a +schooling in perseverance and sustained effort such as few boys now +get in any shape; while city instead of country life brings so many +new, heterogeneous and distracting impressions of motion rather than +rest, and so many privileges with so few corresponding duties, that +with artificial life and bad air the will is weakened, and eupeptic +minds and stomachs, on which its vigor so depends, are rare. Machines +supersede muscles, and perhaps our athleticism gives skill too great +preponderance over strength, or favors intense rather than constant, +long-sustained, unintermittent energy. Perhaps too many of our courses +of study are better fitted to turn out many-sided but superficial +paragraphists, than men who can lay deep plans, and subordinate many +complex means to one remote end. Meanwhile, if there is any one thing +of which our industries and practical arts are in more crying need +than another, it is the old-fashioned virtue of thoroughness, of a +kind and degree which does not address merely the eye, is not limited +by the letter of a contract, but which has some regard for its +products for their own sake, and some sense for the future. Whether in +science, philosophy, morals, or business, the fields for long-ranged +cumulative efforts are wider, more numerous, and far more needy than +in the days when it was the fashion for men contentedly to concentrate +themselves to one vocation, life-work, or mission, or when cathedrals +or other yet vaster public works were transmitted, unfinished but ever +advancing, from one generation of men to another. + +It is because the brain is developed, while the muscles are allowed to +grow flabby and atrophied, that the deplored chasm between knowing and +doing is so often fatal to the practical effectiveness of mental and +moral culture. The great increase of city and sedentary life has been +far too sudden for the human body--which was developed by hunting, +war, agriculture, and manifold industries now given over to steam and +machinery--to adapt itself healthfully or naturally to its new +environment. Let any of us take down an anatomical chart of the human +muscles, and reflect what movements we habitually make each day, and +realize how disproportionately our activities are distributed compared +with the size or importance of the muscles, and how greatly modern +specialization of work has deformed our bodies. The muscles that move +the scribbling pen are insignificant fraction of those in the whole +body, and those that wag the tongue and adjust the larynx are also +comparatively few and small. Their importance is, of course, not +underrated, but it is disastrous to concentrate education upon them +too exclusively or too early in life. The trouble is that few realize +what physical vigor is in man or woman, or how dangerously near +weakness often is to wickedness, how impossible healthful energy of +will is without strong muscles which are its organ, or how endurance +and self-control, no less than great achievement, depend on +muscle-habits. Both in Germany and Greece, a golden age of letters was +preceded, by about a generation, by a golden age of national gymnastic +enthusiasm which constitutes, especially in the former country, one of +the most unique and suggestive chapters in the history of pedagogy. +Symmetry and grace, hardihood and courage, the power to do everything +that the human body can do with and without all conceivable apparatus, +instruments, and even tools, are culture ideals that in Greece, Rome, +and Germany respectively have influenced, as they might again +influence, young men, as intellectual ideals never can do save in a +select few. We do not want "will-virtuosos," who perform feats hard to +learn, but then easy to do and good for show; nor spurtiness of any +sort which develops an erethic habit of work, temper, and circulation, +and is favored by some of our popular sports but too soon reacts into +fatigue. Even will-training does not reach its end till it leads the +young up to taking a intelligent, serious and life-long interest in +their own physical culture and development. This is higher than +interest in success in school or college sport; and, though naturally +later than these, is one of the earliest forms of will-culture in +which it is safe and wise to attempt to interest the young for its own +sake alone. In our exciting life and trying climate, in which the +experiment of civilization has never been tried before, these thoughts +are merely exercises. + +But this is, of course, preliminary. Great as is the need, the +practical difficulties in the way are very great. First, there are not +only no good text-books in ethics, but no good manual to guide +teachers. Some give so many virtues or good habits to be taught per +term, ignoring the unity of virtue as well as the order in which the +child's capacities for real virtue unfold. Advanced text-books discuss +the grounds of obligation, the nature of choice or freedom, or the +hedonistic calculus, as if pleasures and pains could be balanced as +measurable quantities, etc., so that philosophic morality is clearly +not for children or teachers. Secondly, evolution encourages too often +the doubt whether virtue can be taught, when it should have the +opposite effect. Perversity and viciousness of will are too often +treated as constitutional disease; and insubordination or obstinacy, +especially in school, are secretly admired as strength, instead of +being vigorously treated as crampy disorders of will, and the child is +coddled into flaccidity. Becomes the lowest develops first, there is +danger that it will interfere with the development of the higher, and +thus, if left to his own, the child may come to have no will. The +third and greatest difficulty is, that with the best effort to do so, +so few teachers can separate morality from religious creed. So vital +is the religions sentiment here that it is hard to divorce the end of +education from the end of life, proximate from ultimate grounds of +obligation, or finite from infinite duties. Those whose training has +been more religious than ethical can hardly teach morality _per se_ +satisfactorily to the _noli me tangere_ [Touch me not] spirit of +denominational freedom so wisely jealous of conflicting standards and +sanctions for the young. + +How then can we ever hope to secure proper training for the will? + +More than a generation ago Germany developed the following method: +Children of Lutheran, Catholic and Jewish parentage, which include +most German children, were allowed one afternoon a week for several +years, and two afternoons a week for a few months preceding +confirmation, to spend half of a school day with instructors of these +respective professions, who were nominated by the church, but examined +by the state as to their competence. These teachers are as +professional, therefore, as those in the regular class work. Each +religion is allowed to determine its own course of religious +instruction, subject only to the approval of the cultus minister or +the local authorities. In this way a rupture between the religious +sentiments and teaching of successive generations is avoided and it is +sought to bring religious training to bear upon morals. These classes +learn Scripture, hymns, church service,--the Catholics in Latin and +the Jewish in Hebrew,--the history of their church and people, and +sometimes a little systematic theology. In some of these schools, +there are prizes and diplomas, and the spirit of competition is +appealed to. A criticism sometimes made against them, especially +against the Lutheran religious pedagogy, is that it is too +intellectual. It is, of course, far more systematic and effective from +this point of view than the American Sunday School, so that whatever +may be said of its edifying effects, the German child knows these +topics far better than the American. This system, with modifications, +has been adopted in some places in France, England and in America, +more often in private than in public schools, however. + +The other system originated in France some years after the +Franco-Prussian War when the clerical influence in French education +gave way to the lay and secular spirit. In these classes, for which +also stated times are set apart and which are continued through all +the required grades under the name of moral and civic instruction, the +religious element is entirely absent, except that there are a few +hymns, Bible passages and stories which all agree upon as valuable. +Most of the course is made up of carefully selected maxims and +especially stories of virtue, records of heroic achievements in French +history and even in literature and the drama. Everything, however, has +a distinct moral lesson, although that lesson is not made offensively +prominent. We have here nearly a score of these textbooks, large and +small. It would seen as though the resources of the French records and +literature had been ransacked, and indeed many deeds of heroism are +culled from the daily press. The matter is often arranged under +headings such as cleanliness, acts of kindness, courage, truthfulness +versus lying, respect for age, good manners, etc. Each virtue is thus +taught in a way appropriate to each stage of childhood, and quite +often bands of mercy, rescue leagues and other societies are the +outgrowth of this instruction. It is, of course, exposed to much +criticism from the clergy on the cogent ground that morality needs the +support of religion, at the very least, in childhood. This system has +had much influence in England where several similar courses have been +evolved, and in this country we have at least one very praiseworthy +effort in this direction, addressed mainly, however, to older +children. + +Besides this, two ways suggest themselves. First, we may try to +assume, or tediously enucleate a consensus of religious truth as a +basis of will training, e.g., God and immortality, and, ignoring the +minority who doubt these, vote them into the public school. Pedagogy +need have nothing whatever to say respecting the absolute truth or +falsity of these ideas, but there is little doubt that they have an +influence on the will, at a certain stage of average development, +greater and more essential than any other; so great that even were +their vitality to decay like the faith in the Greek or German +mythology, we should still have to teach God and a future life as the +most imperative of all hypotheses in a field where, as in morals, +nothing is so practical as a good theory; and we should have to fall +to teaching the Bible as a moral classic, and cultivate a critical +sympathy for its view of life. But this way ignores revelation and +supernatural claims, while some have other objections to emancipating +or "rescuing" the Bible from theology just yet. Indeed, the problem +how to teach anything that the mind could not have found out for +itself, but that had to be revealed, has not been solved by modern +pedagogy, which, since Pestalozzi, has been more and more devoted to +natural and developing methods. The latter teaches that there must not +be too much seed sown, too much or too high precept, or too much +iteration, and that, in Jean Paul's phrase, the hammer must not rest +on bell, but only tap and rebound, to bring out a clear tone. Again, a +consensus of this content would either have to be carefully defined +and would be too generic and abstract for school uses, or else +differences of interpretation, which so pervade and are modified by +character, culture, temperament, and feeling, would make the consensus +itself nugatory. Religious training must be specific at first, and, +omitting qualifications, the more explicit the denominational faith +the earlier may religious motives affect the will. + +This is the way of our hopes, to the closer consideration of which we +intend to return in the future, though it must be expected that the +happiest consensus will be long quarantined from most schools. +Meanwhile a second way, however unpromising, is still open. Noble +types of character may rest on only the native instincts of the soul +or even on broadly interpreted utilitarian considerations. But if +morality without religion were only a bloodless corpse or a plank in a +shipwreck, there is now need enough for teachers to study its form, +drift, and uses by itself alone. This, at least, is our purpose in +considering the will, and this only. + +The will, purpose, and even mood of small children when alone, are +fickle, fluctuating, contradictory. Our very presence imposes one +general law on them, viz., that of keeping our good will and avoiding +our displeasure. As the plant grows towards the light, so they unfold +in the direction of our wishes, felt as by divination. They respect +all you smile at, even buffoonery; look up in their play to call your +notice, to study the lines of your sympathy, as if their chief +vocation was to learn your desires. Their early lies are often saying +what they think will please us, knowing no higher touchstones of +truth. If we are careful to be wisely and without excess happy and +affectionate when they are good, and saddened and slightly cooled in +manifestations of love if they do wrong, the power of association in +the normal, eupeptic child will early choose right as surely as +pleasure increases vitality. If our love is deep, obedience is an +instinct if not a religion. The child learns that while it can not +excite our fear, resentment or admiration, etc., it can act on our +love, and this should be the first sense of its own efficiency. Thus, +too, it first learns that the way of passion and impulse is not the +only rule of life, and that something is gained by resisting them. It +imitates our acts long before it can understand our words. As if it +felt its insignificance, and dreaded to be arrested in some lower +phase of its development, its instinct for obedience becomes almost a +passion. As the vine must twine or grovel, so the child comes +unconsciously to worship idols, and imitates bad patterns and examples +in the absence of worthy ones. He obeys as with a deep sense of being +our chattel, and, at bottom, admires those who coerce him, if the +means be wisely chosen. The authority must, of course, be ascendancy +over heart and mind. The more absolute such authority the more the +will is saved from caprice and feels the power of steadiness. Such +authority excites the unique, unfathomable sense of reverence, which +measures the capacity for will-culture, and is the strongest and +soundest of all moral motives. It is also the most comprehensive, for +it is first felt only towards persons, and personality is a bond, +enabling any number of complex elements to act or be treated as whole, +as everything does and is in the child's soul, instead of in isolation +and detail. In the feeling of respect culminating in worship almost +all educational motives are involved, but especially those which alone +can bring the will to maturity; and happy the child who is bound by +the mysterious and constraining sympathy of dependence, by which, if +unblighted by cynicism, a worthy mentor directs and lifts the will. +This unconscious reflection of our character and wishes is the diviner +side of childhood, by which it is quick and responsive to everything +in its moral environment. The child may not be able to tell whether +its teacher often smiles, dresses in this way or that, speaks loud or +low, has many rules or not, though every element of her personality +affects him profoundly. His acts of will have not been _choices_, but +a mass of psychic causes far greater than consciousness can estimate +have laid a basis of character, than which heredity alone is deeper, +before the child knows he has a will. These influences are not +transient but life-long, for if the conscious and intentional may +anywhere be said to be only a superficial wave over the depths of the +unconscious, it is in the sphere of will-culture. + +But command and obedience must also be specific to supplant nature. +Here begins the difficulty. A young child can know no general +commands. "Sit in your chair," means sit a moment, a sort of trick, +with no prohibition to stand the next instant. Any just-forbidden act +may be done in the next room. All is here and now, and patient +reiteration, till habit is formed, and no havoc-making rules which it +cannot understand or remember, is our cue. Obedience can, however, be +instinct even here, and is its chief virtue, and there is no more fear +of weakening the will by it than in the case of soldiers. As the child +grows older, however, and as the acts commanded are repugnant, or +unusual, there should be increasing care, lest authority be +compromised, sympathy ruptured, or lest mutual timidity and +indecision, if not mutual insincerity and dissimulation, as well as +parodied disobedience, etc., to test us, result. We should, of course, +watch for favorable moods, assume no unwonted or preternatural dignity +or owlish air of wisdom, and command in a low voice which does not too +rudely break in upon the child's train of impressions. The acts we +command or forbid should be very few at first, but inexorable. We +should be careful not to forbid where we cannot follow a untrusty +child, or what we can not prevent. Our own will should be a rock and +not a wave. Our requirements should be uniform, with no whim, mood, or +periodicity of any sort about them. If we alternate from caresses to +severity, are fields and capricious instead of commanding by a fixed +and settled plan, if we only now and then take the child in hand, so +he does not know precisely what to expect, we really require the child +to change its nature with every change in us, and well for the child +who can defy such a changeable authority, which not only unsettles but +breaks up character anew when it is just at the beginning of the +formative period. Neglect is better than this, and fear of +inconsistency of authority makes the best parents often jealous of +arbitrariness in teachers. Only thus can we develop general habits of +will and bring the child to know general maxims of conduct +inductively, and only thus by judicious boldness and hardihood in +command can we bring the child to feel the conscious strength that +comes only from doing unpleasant things. Even if instant obedience be +only external at first, it will work inward, for moods are controlled +by work, and it is only will which enlarges the bounds of personality. + +Yet we must not forget that even morality is relative, and is one +thing for adults and often quite another for children. The child knows +nothing of absolute truth, justice, or virtues. The various stimuli of +discipline are to enforce the higher though weaker insights which the +child has already unfolded, rather than to engraft entirely unintuited +good. The command must find some ally, feeble though it be, in the +child's own soul. We should strive to fill each moment with as little +sacrifice or subordination, as mere means or conditions to the future, +as possible, for fear of affectation and insincerity. But yet the +hardier and sounder the nature, the more we may address training to +barely nascent intuitions, with a less ingredient of immediate +satisfaction, and the deeper the higher element Of interest will be +grounded in the end. The child must find as he advances towards +maturity, that every new insight, or realization of his own reveals +the fact that you have been there before with commands, cultivating +sentiments and habits, and not that he was led to mistake your +convenience or hobby for duty, or failed to temper the will by +temporizing with it. The young are apt to be most sincere at an age +when they are also most mistaken, but if sincerity be kept at its +deepest and best, will be least harmful and easiest overcome. If +authority supplement rather than supersede good motives, the child +will so love authority as to overcome your reluctance to apply it +directly, and as a final result will choose the state and act you have +pre-formed in its slowly-widening margin of freedom, and will be all +the less liable to undue subservience to priest or boss, or fashion or +tradition later, as obedience gives place to normal, manly +independence. + +In these and many other ways everything in conduct should be +mechanized as early and completely as possible. The child's notion of +what is right is what is habitual, and the simple, to which all else +is reduced in thought, is identified with the familiar. It is this +primitive stratum of habits which principally determines our deepest +belief which all must have over and above knowledge--to which men +revert in mature years from youthful vagaries. If good acts are a diet +and not a medicine, are repeated over and over again, as every new +beat of the loom pounds in one new thread, and sense of justice and +right is wrought into the very nerve-cells and fibers; if this ground +texture of the soul, this "memory and habit-plexus," this sphere of +thoughts we oftenest think and acts we oftenest do, is early, rightly +and indiscerptibly wrought, not only does it become a web of destiny +for us, so all-determining is it, but we have something perdurable to +fall back on if moral shock or crisis or change or calamity shall have +rudely broken up the whole structure of later associations. Not only +the more we mechanize thus, the more force of soul is freed for higher +work, but we are insured against emergencies in which the choice and +deed is likely to follow the nearest motive, or that which acts +quickest, rather than to pause and be influenced by higher and perhaps +intrinsically stronger motives. Reflection always brings in a new set +of later-acquired motives and considerations, and if these are better +than habit-mechanism, then pause is good; if not, he who deliberates +is lost. Our purposive volitions are very few compared with the long +series of desires, acts and reactions, often contradictory, many of +which were never conscious, and many once willed but now lapsed to +reflexes, the traces of which crowding the unknown margins of the +soul, constitute the organ of the conscious will. + +It is only so far as this primitive will is wrong by nature or +training, that drastic reconstructions of any sort are needed. Only +those who mistake weakness for innocence, or simplicity for candor, or +forget that childish faults are no less serious because universal, +deny the, at least, occasional depravity of all children, or fail to +see that fear and pain are among the indispensables of education, +while a parent, teacher, or even a God, _all_ love, weakens and +relaxes the will. Children do not cry for the alphabet; the +multiplication table is more like medicine than confectionery, and it +is only affected thoroughness that omits all that is hard. "The fruits +of learning may be sweet, but its roots are always bitter," and it is +this alone that makes it possible to strengthen the will while +instructing the mind. The well-schooled will comes, like Herder, to +scorn the luxury of knowing without the labor of learning. We must +anticipate the future penalties of sloth as well as of badness. The +will especially is a trust we are to administer for the child, not as +he may now wish, but as he will wish when more mature. We must now +compel what he will later wish to compel himself to do. To find his +habits already formed to the same law that his mature will and the +world later enjoin, cements the strongest of all bonds between mentor +and child. Nothing, however, must be so individual as punishment. For +some, a threat at rare intervals is enough; while for others, however +ominous threats may be, they become at once "like scarecrows, on which +the foulest birds soonest learn to perch." To scold well and wisely is +an art by itself. For some children, pardon is the worst punishment; +for others, ignoring or neglect; for others, isolation from friends, +suspension from duties; for others, seclusion--which last, however, is +for certain ages beset with extreme danger--and for still others, +shame from being made conspicuous. Mr. Spencer's "natural penalties" +can be applied to but few kinds of wrong, and those not the worst. +Basedow tied boys who fell into temptation to a strong pillar to brace +them up; if stupid and careless, put on a fool's cap and bells; if +they were proud, they were suspended near the ceiling in a basket, as +Aristophanes represented Socrates. Two boys who quarreled, were made +to look into each other's eyes before the whole school till their +angry expressions gave way before the general sense of the ridiculous. +This is more ingenious than wise. The object of discipline is to avoid +punishment, but even flogging should never be forbidden. It maybe +reserved, like a sword in its scabbard, but should not get so rusted +in that it can not be drawn on occasion. The law might even limit the +size and length of the rod, and place of application, as in Germany, +but it should be of no less liberal dimensions here than there. +punishment should, of course, be minatory and reformatory, and not +vindictive, and we should not forget that certainty is more effective +than severity, nor that it is apt to make motives sensuous, and delay +the psychic restraint which should early preponderate over the +physical. But will-culture for boys is rarely as thorough as it should +be without more or less flogging. I would not, of course, urge the +extremes of the past. The Spartan beating as a gymnastic drill to +toughen, the severity which prevailed in Germany for a long time after +its Thirty Years' Wars,[2] the former fashion in many English schools +of walking up not infrequently to take a flogging as a plucky thing to +do, and with no notion of disgrace attaching to it, shows at least an +admirable strength of will. Severe constraint gives poise, inwardness, +self-control, inhibition, and not-willingness, if not willingness, +while the now too common habit of coquetting for the child's favor, +and tickling its ego with praises and prizes, and pedagogic +pettifogging for its good-will, and sentimental fear of a judicious +slap to rouse a spoiled child with no will to break, to make it keep +step with the rest in conduct, instead of delaying a whole school-room +to apply a subtle psychology of motives on it, is bad. This reminds +one of the Jain who sweeps the ground before him lest he unconsciously +tread on a worm. Possibly it may be well, as Schleiermacher suggests, +not to repress some one nascent bad act in some natures, but let it +and the punishment ensue for the sake of Dr. Spankster's tonic. Dermal +pain is not the worst thing in the world, and by a judicious knowledge +of how it feels at both ends of the rod, by flogging and being +flogged, far deeper pains may be forefended. Insulting defiance, +deliberative disobedience, ostentatious carelessness and bravado, are +diseases of the will, and, in very rare cases of Promethean obstinacy, +the severe process of breaking the will is needful, just as in surgery +it is occasionally needful to rebreak a limb wrongly set, or deformed, +to set it over better. It is a cruel process, but a crampy will in +childhood means moral traumatism of some sort in the adult. Few +parents have the nerve to do this, or the insight to see just when it +is needed. It is, as some one has said, like knocking a man down to +save him from stepping off a precipice. Even the worst punishments are +but very faint types of what nature has in store in later life for +some forms of perversity of will, and are better than sarcasm, +ridicule, or tasks, as penalties. The strength of obstinacy is +admirable, and every one ought to have his own will; but a false +direction, though almost always the result of faulty previous training +when the soul more fluid and mobile, is all the more fatal. While so +few intelligent parents are able to refrain from the self-indulgence +of too much rewarding or giving, even though it injures the child, it +is perhaps too much to expect the hardihood which can be justly cold +to the caresses of a child who seeks, by displaying all its stock of +goodness and arts of endearment, to buy back good-will after +punishment has been deserved. If we wait too long, and punish in cold +blood, a young child may hate us; while, if we punish on the instant, +and with passion, a little of which is always salutary, on the +principle, _ohne Affekt kein Effekt_, [Without passion, no effect] an +older child may fail of the natural reactions of conscience, which +should always be secured. The maxim, _summum jus summa injuria_, [The +rigor of the law may be the greatest wrong] we are often told, is +peculiarly true in school, and so it is; but to forego all punishment +is no less injustice to the average child, for it is to abandon one of +the most effective means of will-culture. We never punish but a part, +as it were, of the child's nature; he has lied, but is not therefore a +liar, and we deal only with the specific act, and must love all the +rest of him. + +And yet, after all, indiscriminate flogging is so bad, and the average +teacher is so inadequate to that hardest and most tactful of all his +varied duties, viz., selecting the right outcrop of the right fault of +the right child at the right time and place, mood, etc., for best +effect, that the bold statement of such principles as above is perhaps +not entirely without practical danger, especially in two cases which +Madame Necker and Sigismund have pointed out, and in several cases of +which the present writer has notes. First, an habitually good child +sometimes has a saturnalia of defiance and disobedience; a series of +insubordinate acts are suddenly committed which really mark the first +sudden epochful and belated birth of the instinct of independence and +self-regulation, on which his future manliness will depend. He is +quite irresponsible, the acts are never repeated, and very lenient +treatment causes him, after the conflict of tumultuous feelings has +expanded his soul, to react healthfully into habitual docility again, +if some small field for independent action be at once opened him. The +other case is that of _ennui_, of which children suffer such nameless +qualms. When I should open half a dozen books, start for a walk, and +then turn back, wander about in mind or body, seeking but not finding +content in anything, a child in my mood will wish for a toy, an +amusement, food, a rare indulgence, only to neglect or even reject it +petulantly when granted. These flitting "will-spectres" are physical, +are a mild form of the many fatal dangers of fatigue; and punishment +is the worst of treatment. Rest or diversion is the only cure, and the +teacher's mind must be fruitful of purposes to that end. Perhaps a +third case for palliative treatment is, those lies which attend the +first sense of badness. The desire to conceal it occasionally +accompanies the nascent effort to reform and make the lie true. These +cases are probably rare, while the temptation to lie is far greater +for one who does ill than for one who does well, for fear is the chief +motive, and a successful lie which concealed would weaken the desire +to cure a fault. + +We have thus far spoken of obedience, and come now to the later +necessity of self-guidance, which, if obedience has wrought its +perfect work, will be natural and inevitable. It is very hard to +combine reason and coercion, yet it is needful that children think +themselves free long before we cease to determine them. As we slowly +cease to prescribe and begin to inspire, a very few well-chosen +mottoes, proverbs, maxims, should be taught very simply, so that they +will sink deep. Education has been defined as working against the +chance influences of life, and it is certain that without some +precepts and rules the will will not exert itself. If reasons are +given, and energy is much absorbed in understanding, the child will +assent but will not do. If the mind is not strong, many wide ideas are +very dangerous. Strong wills are not fond of arguments, and if a young +person falls to talking or thinking beyond his experience, subjective +or objective, both conduct and thought are soon confused by chaotic +and incongruous opinions and beliefs; and false expectations, which +are the very seducers of the will, arise. There can be little +will-training by words, and the understanding can not realize the +ideals of the will. All great things are dangerous, as Plato said, and +the truth itself is not only false but actually immoral to unexpanded +minds. Will-culture is intensive, not extensive, and the writer knows +a case in which even a vacation ramble with a moralizing fabulist has +undermined the work of years. Our precepts must be made very familiar, +copiously illustrated, well wrought together by habit and attentive +thought, and above all clear cut, that the pain of violating them may +be sharp and poignant. Vague and too general precepts beyond the +horizon of the child's real experience do not haunt him if they are +outraged. Now the child must obey these, and will, if he has learned +to obey well the command of others. + +One of the best sureties that he will do so is muscle-culture, for if +the latter are weaker than the nerves and brain, the gap between +knowing and doing appears and the will stagnates. Gutsmuths, the +father of gymnastics in Germany before Jahn, used to warn men not to +fancy that the few tiny muscles that moved the pen or tongue had power +to elevate men. They might titillate the soul with words and ideas; +but rigorous, symmetrical muscle-culture alone, he and his Turner +societies believed, could regenerate the Fatherland, for it was one +thing to paint the conflict of life, and quite another to bear arms in +it. They said, "The weaker the body the more it commands; the stronger +it is the more it obeys." + +In this way we shall have a strong, well-knit soul-texture, made up of +volitions and ideas like warp and woof. Mind and will will be so +compactly organized that all their forces can be brought to a single +point. Each concept or purpose will call up those related to it, and +once strongly set toward its object, the soul will find itself borne +along by unexpected forces. This power of totalizing, rather than any +transcendent relation of elements, constitutes at least the practical +unity of the soul, and this unimpeded association of its elements is +true or inner freedom of will. Nothing is wanting or lost when the +powers of the soul are mobilized for a great task, and its substance +is impervious to passion. With this organization, men of really little +power accomplish wonders. Without it great minds are confused and +lost. They have only velleity or caprice. The will makes a series of +vigorous, perhaps almost convulsive, but short, inconsistent efforts. +As Jean Paul says, there is sulphur, charcoal, and saltpetre in the +soul, but powder is not made, for they never find each other. To +understand this will-plexus is preeminent among the new demands now +laid on educators. + +But, although this focalizing power of acting with the whole rather +than with a part of the soul, gives independence of many external, +conventional, proximate standards of conduct, deepening our interests +in life, and securing us against disappointment by defining our +expectations, while such a sound and simple will-philosophy is proof +against considerable shock and has firmness of texture enough to bear +much responsibility, there is, of course, something deeper, without +which all our good conduct is more or less hollow. This is that better +purity established by mothers in the plastic heart, before the +superfoetation of precept is possible, or even before the "soul takes +flight in language"; it is perhaps pre-natal or hereditary. Much every +way depends on how aboriginal our goodness is, whether the will acts +with effort, as we solve an intricate problem, in solitude, or as we +say the multiplication table, which only much distraction can confuse, +or as we repeat the alphabet, which the din of battle could not +hinder. Later and earlier training should harmonize with each other +and with nature. Thrice happy he who is so wisely trained that he +comes to believe he believes what his soul deeply does believe, to say +what he feels and feel what he really does feel, and chiefly whose +express volitions square with the profounder drift of his will as the +resultant of all he has desired or wished, expected, attended to, or +striven for. When such an one comes to his moral majority by standing +for the first time upon his own careful conviction, against the +popular cry, or against his own material interests or predaceous +passions, and feels the constraint and joy of pure obligation which +comes up from this deep source, a new, original force is brought into +the world of wills. Call it inspiration, or Kant's transcendental +impulse above and outside of experience, or Spencer's deep +reverberations from a vast and mysterious past of compacted ancestral +experiences, the most concentrated, distilled and instinctive of all +psychic products, and as old as Mr. Tyndall's "fiery cloud"--the name +or even source is little. We would call it the purest, freest, most +prevailing, because most inward, will or conscience. + +This free, habitual guidance by the highest and best, by conviction +with no sense of compulsion or obligation, impractical if not +dangerous ideal, for it can be actually realized only by the rarest +moral genius. For most of us, the best education is that which makes +us the best and most obedient servants. This is the way of peace and +the way of nature, for even if we seriously try to keep up a private +conscience at all, apart from feeling, faction, party or class spirit, +or even habit, which are our habitual guides, the difficulties are so +great that most hasten, more or less consciously and voluntarily, to +put themselves under authority again, serving only the smallest margin +of independence in material interests, choice of masters, etc, and +yielding to the pleasing and easy illusion that inflates the minimum +to seem the maximum of freedom, and uses the noblest ideal of history, +viz., that of pure autonomous oughtness, as a pedestal for idols of +selfishness, caprice and conceit. The trouble is in interpreting these +moral instincts, for even the authorities lack the requisite +self-knowledge in which all wisdom culminates. The moral interregnum +which the _Aufklärung_ [Enlightenment] has brought will not end till +these instincts are rightly interpreted by in intelligence. The +richest streams of thought must flow about them, the best methods must +peep and pry till their secrets are found and put into the +idea-pictures in which most men think. + +This brings us, finally, to the highest and also immediately practical +method of moral education, viz., training the will by and for +intellectual work. Youth and childhood must not be subordinated as +means to maturity. Learning is more useful than knowing. It is the way +and not the goal, the work and not the product, the acquiring and not +the acquisition, that educates will and character. To teach only +results, which are so simple, without methods by which they were +obtained, which are so complex and hard, to develop the sense of +possession without the strain of activity, to teach great matters too +easily or even as play, always to wind along the lines of least +resistance into the child's mind, is imply to add another and most +enervating luxury to child-life. Only the sense and power of effort, +which made Lessing prefer the search to the possession of truth, which +trains the will in the intellectual field, which is becoming more and +more the field of its activity, counts for character and makes +instruction really educating. This makes mental work a series of acts, +or living thoughts, and not merely words. Real education, that we can +really teach, and that which is really most examinable, is what we do, +while those who acquire without effort may be extremely instructed +without being truly educated. + +It is those who have been trained to put forth mental power that come +to the front later, while it is only those whose acquisitions are not +transpeciated into power who are in danger of early collapse. + +It is because of this imperfect appropriation through lack of +volitional reaction that mental training is so often dangerous, +especially in its higher grades. Especially wherever good precepts are +allowed to rest peacefully beside undiscarded bad habits, moral +weakness is directly cultivated. Volitional recollection, or forcing +the mind to reproduce a train of impressions, strengthens what we may +call the mental will; while if multifarious impressions which excite +at the time are left to take their chances, at best, fragmentary +reproduction, incipient amnesia, the prelude of mental decay, may be +soon detected. Few can endure the long working over of ideas, +especially if at all fundamental, which is needful to full maturity of +mind, without grave moral danger. New standpoints and ideas require +new combinations of the mental elements, with constant risk that +during the process, what was already secured will fall back into its +lower components. Even oar immigrants suffer morally from the change +of manners and customs and ideas, and yet education menus change; the +more training the more change, as a rule, and the more danger during +the critical transition period while we oscillate between control by +old habits, or association within the old circle of thought, and by +the new insights, as a medical student often suffers from trying to +bring the regulation of his physical functions under new and imperfect +hygienic insights. Thus most especially if old questions, concerning +which we have long since ceased to trust ourselves to give reasons, +need to be reopened, there is especial danger that the new equilibrium +about which the dynamic is to be re-resolved into static power will be +established, if at all, with loss instead of with gain. Indeed, it is +a question not of schools but of civilization, whether mental +training, from the three R's to science and philosophy, shall really +make men better, as the theory of popular education assumes, and +whether the genius and talent of the few who can receive and bear it +can be brought to the full maturity of a knowledge fully facultized--a +question paramount, even in a republic, to the general education of +the many. + +The illusion is that beginnings are hard. They are easy. Almost any +mind can advance a little way into almost any subject. The feeblest +youth can push on briskly in the beginning of a new subject, but he +forgets, and so does the examiner who marks him, that difficulties +increase not in arithmetical but in almost geometrical ratio as he +advances. The fact, too, that all topics are taught by all teachers +and that we have no specialized teaching in elementary branches, and +that examinations are placed in the most debilitating part of our +peculiarly debilitating spring, these help us to solve the problem +which China has solved so well, viz., how to instruct and not to +educate. A pass mark, say of fifty, should be given not for mastery of +the first half of the book, or for knowledge of half the matter in it, +but for that of three-fourths or more. Suppose one choose the easier +method of tattooing his mind by attaining the easy early stages of +proficiency in many subjects, as is possible and even encouraged in +too many of our school and college curricula, he weakens the +will-quality of his mind. Smattering is dissipation of energy. Only +great, concentrated and prolonged efforts in one direction really +train the mind, because only _they_ train the will beneath it. Many +little, heterogeneous efforts of different sorts leave the mind in a +muddle of heterogeneous impressions, and the will like a rubber band +is stretched to flaccidity around one after another bundle of objects +too large for it to clasp into unity. Here again, _in der Beschränkung +zeigt sich der Meister_ [The master shows himself in self-limitation]; +all-sidedness through one-sidedness; by stalking the horse or cow out +in the spring time, till he gnaws his small allotted circle of grass +to the ground, and not by roving and cropping at will, can he be +taught that the sweetest joint is nearest the root, are convenient +symbols of will-culture in the intellectual field. Even a long cram, +if only on one subject, which brings out the relations of the parts, +or a "one-study college," as is already devised in the West, or the +combination of several subjects even in primary school grades into a +"concentration series," as devised by Ziller and Rein, the university +purpose as defined by Ziller of so combining studies that each shall +stand in the course next to that with which it is inherently closest +connected by matter and method, or the requirements of one central and +two collateral branches for the doctorate examination--all these devices +no doubt tend to give a sense of efficiency, which is one of the +deepest and proudest joys of life, in the place of a sense of +possession so often attended by the exquisite misery of conscious +weakness. The unity of almost any even ideal purpose is better than +none, if it tend to check the superficial one of learning to repeat +again or of boxing the whole compass of sciences and liberal arts, as +so many of our high schools or colleges attempt. + +Finally, in the sphere of mental productivity and originality, a just +preponderance of the will-element makes men distrust new insights, +quick methods, and short cuts, and trust chiefly to the genius of +honest and sustained work, in power of which perhaps lies the greatest +intellectual difference between men. When ideas are ripe for +promulgation they have been condensed and concentrated, thought +traverses them quickly and easily--in a word, they have become +practical, and the will that waits over a new idea patiently and +silently, without anxiety, even though with a deepening sense of +responsibility, till all sides have been seen, all authorities +consulted, all its latent mental reserves heard from, is the man who +"talks with the rifle and not with the water-hose," or, in a rough +farmer's phrase, "boils his words till he can give his hearers sugar +and not sap." Several of the more important discoveries of the present +generation, which cost many weary months of toil, have been enumerated +in a score or two of lines, so that every experimenter could set up +his apparatus and get the results in a few minutes. Let us not forget +that, in most departments of mental work, the more we revise and +reconstruct our thought, the longer we inhibit its final expression, +while the oftener we return to it refreshed from other interests, the +clearer and more permeable for other minds it becomes, because the +more it tends to express itself in terms of willed action, which is +"the language of complete men." + +So closely bound together are moral and religious training that a +discussion of one without the other would be incomplete. In a word, +religion is the most generic kind of culture as opposed to all systems +or departments which are one sided. All education culminates in it +because it is chief among human interests, and because it gives inner +unity to the mind, heart, and will. How now should this common element +of union be taught? + +To be really effective and lasting, moral and religious training must +begin in the cradle. It was a profound remark of Froebel that _the +unconsciousness of a child is rest in God_. This need not be +understood in guy pantheistic sense. From this rest in God the +childish soul should not be abruptly or prematurely aroused. Even the +primeval stages of psychic growth are rarely so all-sided, so purely +unsolicited, spontaneous, and unprecocious, as not to be in a sense a +fall from Froebel's unconsciousness or rest in God. The sense of +touch, the mother of all the other senses, is the only one which the +child brings into the world already experienced; but by the pats, +caresses, hugs, etc., so instinctive with young mothers, varied +feelings and sentiments are communicated to the child long before it +recognizes its own body as distinct from things about it. The mother's +face and voice are the first conscious objects as the infant soul +unfolds, and she soon comes to stand in the very place of God to her +child. All the religion of which the child is capable during this by +no means brief stage of its development consists of those +sentiments--gratitude, trust, dependence, love, etc., now felt only +for her--which are later directed toward God. The less these are now +cultivated toward the mother, who is now their only fitting if not +their only possible object, the more feebly they will later be felt +toward God. This, too, adds greatly to the sacredness and the +responsibilities of motherhood. Froebel perhaps is right that thus +fundamental religious sentiments can be cultivated in the earliest +months of infancy. It is of course impossible not to seem, perhaps +even not to be, sentimental upon this theme, for the infant soul has +no other content than sentiments, and because upon these rests the +whole superstructure of religion in child or adult. The mother's +emotions, and physical and mental states, indeed, imparted and +reproduced in the infant so immediately, unconsciously, and through so +many avenues, that it is no wonder that these relations see mystic. +Whether the mother is habitually under the influence of calm and +tranquil emotions, or her temper is fluctuating or violent, or her +movements are habitually energetic or soft and caressing, or she be +regular or irregular in her ministrations to the infant in her arms, +all these characteristics and habits are registered in the primeval +language of touch upon the nervous system of the child. From this +point of view, poise and calmness, the absence of all intense annuli +and of sensations or transitions which are abrupt or sudden, and an +atmosphere of quieting influences, like everything which retards by +broadening, is in the general line of religious culture. The soul of +an infant is well compared to a seed planted in a garden. It is not +pressed or moved by the breezes which rustle the leaves overhead. The +sunlight does not fall upon it, and even dew and evening coolness +scarcely reach it; but yet there is not a breath of air or a ray of +sunshine, nor a drop of moisture to which it is responsive, and which +does not stir all its germinant forces. The child is a plant, must +live out of doors in proper season, and there must be no forcing. +Religion, then, at this important stage, at least, is naturalism pure +and simple, and religious training is the supreme art of standing out +of nature's way. So implicit is the unity of soul and body at this +formative age that care of the body is the most effective +ethico-religious culture. + +Next to be considered are the sentiments which unfold under the +influence of that fresh and naive curiosity which attends the first +impressions of natural objects from which both religion and science +spring as from one common root. The awe and sublimity of a +thunderstorm, the sights and sounds of a spring morning, objects which +lead the child's thoughts to what is remote in time and space, old +trees, ruins, the rocks, and, above all, the heavenly bodies--the +utilization of these lessons is the most important task of the +religious teacher during the _kindergarten_ stage of childhood. Still +more than the undevout astronomer, the undevout child under such +influences is abnormal. In these directions the mind of the child is +as open and plastic as that of the ancient prophet to the promptings +of the inspiring Spirit. The child can recognize no essential +difference between nature and the supernatural, and the products of +mythopoeic fancy which have been spun about natural objects, and which +have lain so long and so warm about the hearts of generations and +races of men, are now the best of all nutriments for the soul. To +teach scientific rudiments only about nature, on the shallow principle +that nothing should be taught which must be unlearned, or to encourage +the child to assume the critical attitude of mind, is dwarfing the +heart and prematurely forcing the head. It has been said that country +life is religion for children at this stage. However this may be, it +is clear that natural religion is rooted in such experiences, and +precedes revealed religion in the order of growth and education, +whatever its logical order in systems of thought may be. A little +later, habits of truthfulness[3] are best cultivated by the use of the +senses in exact observation. To see a simple phenomenon in nature and +report it fully and correctly is no easy matter, but the habit of +trying to do so teaches what truthfulness is and leaves the impress of +truth upon the whole life and character. I do not hesitate to say, +therefore, that elements of science should be taught to children for +the moral effects of its influences. At the same time all truth is not +sensuous, and this training alone at this age tends to make the mind +pragmatic, dry, and insensitive or unresponsive to that other kind of +truth the value of which is not measured by its certainty so much as +by its effect upon us. We must learn to interpret the heart and our +native instincts as truthfully as we do external nature, for our +happiness in life depends quite as largely upon bringing our beliefs +into harmony with the deeper feelings of our nature as it does upon +the ability to adapt ourselves to our physical environment. Thus not +only all religious beliefs and moral acts will strengthen if they +truly express the character instead of cultivating affectation and +insincerity in opinion, word, and deed, as with mistaken pedagogic +methods they may do. This latter can be avoided only by leaving all to +naturalism and spontaneity at first, and feeding the soul only +according to its appetites and stage of growth. No religious truth +must be taught as fundamental--especially as fundamental to +morality--which can be seriously doubted or even misunderstood. Yet it +must be expected that convictions will be transformed and worked over +and over again, and only late, if at all, will an equilibrium between +the heart and the truth it clings to as finally satisfying be +attained. Hence most positive religious instruction, or public piety, +if taught at all, should be taught briefly as most serious but too +high for the child yet, or as rewards to stimulate curiosity for them +later, but sacred things should not become too familiar or be +conventionalized before they can be felt or understood. + +The child's conception of God should not be personal or too familiar +_at first_, but He should appear distant and vague, inspiring awe and +reverence far more than love; in a word, as the God of nature rather +than as devoted to serviceable ministrations to the child's individual +wants. The latter should be taught to be a faithful servant rather +than a favorite of God. The inestimable pedagogic value of the +God-idea consists in that it widens the child's glimpse of the whole, +and gives the first presentment of the universality of laws, such as +are observed in its experiences and that of others, so that all things +seem comprehended under one stable system or government. The slow +realization that God's laws are not like those of parents and +teachers, evadible, suspensible, but changeless, and their penalties +sure as the laws of nature, is most important factor of moral +training. First the law, the schoolmaster, then the Gospel; first +nature, then grace, is the order of growth. + +The pains or pleasures which follow many acts are immediate, while the +results that follow others are so remote or so serious that the child +must utilize the experience of others. Artificial rewards and +punishments must be cunningly devised so as to simulate and typify as +closely as possible the real natural penalty, and they must be +administered uniformly and impartially like laws of nature. As +commands are just, and as they are gradually perceived to spring from +superior wisdom, respect arises, which Kant called the bottom motive +of duty, and defined as the immediate determination of the will by +law, thwarting self-love. Here the child reverences what is not +understood as authority, and to the childish "Why?" which always +implies imperfect respect for the authority, however displeasing its +behest, the teacher or parent should always reply, "You cannot +understand why yet," unless quite sure that a convincing and +controlling insight can be given, such as shall make all future +exercise of outward authority in this particular unnecessary. From +this standpoint the great importance of the character and native +dignity of the teacher is best seen. Daily contact with some teachers +is itself all-sided ethical education for the child without a spoken +precept. Here, too, the real advantage of male over female teachers, +especially for boys, is seen in their superior physical strength, +which often, if highly estimated, gives real dignity and commands real +respect, and especially in the unquestionably greater uniformity of +their moods and their discipline. + +During the first years of school life, a point of prime importance in +ethico-religious training is the education of conscience. This latter +is the most complex and perhaps the most educable of all our so-called +"faculties." A system of carefully arranged talks, with copious +illustrations from history and literature, about such topics as fair +play, slang, cronies, dress, teasing, getting mad, prompting in class, +white lies, affectation, cleanliness, order, honor, taste, +self-respect, treatment of animals, reading, vacation pursuits, etc., +can be brought quite within the range of boy-and-girl interests by a +sympathetic and tactful teacher, and be made immediately and obviously +practical. All this is nothing more or less than conscience-building. +The old superstition that children have innate faculties of such a +finished sort that they flash up and grasp the principle of things by +a rapid sort of first "intellection," an error that made all +departments of education so trivial, assumptive and dogmatic for +centuries before Comenius, Basedow and Pestalozzi, has been banished +everywhere save from moral and religious training, where it still +persists in full force. The senses develop first, and all the higher +intuitions called by the collective name of conscience gradually and +later in life. They first take the form of sentiments without much +insight, and are hence liable to be unconscious affectation, and are +caught insensibly from the environment with the aid of inherited +predisposition, and only made more definite by such talks as the +above. But parents are prone to forget that healthful and correct +sentiments concerning matters of conduct are, at first, very feeble, +and that the sense of obligation needs the long and careful +guardianship of external authority. Just as a young medical student +with a rudimentary notion of physiology and hygiene is sometimes +disposed to undertake a more or less complete reform of his diet, +regimen, etc., to make it "scientific" in a way that an older and a +more learned physician would shrink from, so the half-insights of boys +into matters of moral regimen are far too apt, in the American +temperament, to expend, in precocious emancipation and crude attempts +at practical realization, the force which is needed to bring their +insights to maturity. Authority should be relaxed gradually, +explicitly, and provisionally over one definite department of conduct +at a time. To distinguish right and wrong in their own nature is the +highest and most complex of intellectual processes. Most men and all +children are guided only by associations of greater or less subtlety. +Perhaps the whole round of human duties might be best taught by +gathering illustrations of selfishness and tracing it in its countless +disguises and ramifications through every stage of life. Selfishness +is opposed to a sense of the infinite and is inversely as real +religion, and the study of it is not, like systematic ethics, apt to +be confused and made unpractical by conflicting theories. + +The Bible, the great instrument in the education of conscience, is far +less juvenile than it is now the fashion to suppose. At the very +least, it expresses the result of the ripest human experience, the +noblest traditions of humanity. Old Testament history, even more than +most very ancient history, is distilled to an almost purely ethical +content. For centuries Scripture was withheld from the masses for the +same reason that Plato refused at first to put his thoughts into +writing, because it would be sure to be misunderstood by very many and +lead to that worst of errors and fanaticism caused by half-truths. +Children should not approach it too lightly. + +The Old Testament, perhaps before or more than the New, is the Bible +for childhood. A good, protracted course of the law pedagogically +prepares the way for the apprehension of the Gospel. Then the study of +the Old Testament should begin with selected tales, told, as in the +German schools, impressively, in the teacher's language, but +objectively, and without exegetical or hortatory comment. The appeal +is directly to the understanding only at first, but the moral lesson +is brought clearly and surely within the child's reach, but not +personally applied after the manner common with us. + +Probably the most important changes for the educator to study are +those which begin between the ages of twelve and sixteen and are +completed only some years later, when the young adolescent receives +from nature a new capital of energy and altruistic feeling. It is +physiological second birth, and success in life depends upon the care +and wisdom with which this new and final invoice of energy is +husbanded. These changes constitute a natural predisposition to a +change of heart, and may perhaps be called, in Kantian phrase, its +_schema_. Even from the psychophysic standpoint it is a correct +instinct which has slowly led churches to center so much of their +cultus upon regeneration. In this I, of course, only assert here the +neurophysical side, which is everywhere present, even if everywhere +subordinate to the spiritual side. As everywhere, so here, too, the +physical may be called in a sense regulative rather than constitutive. +It is therefore not surprising that statistics show that far more +conversions, proportionately, take place during the adolescent period, +which does not normally end before the age of twenty-four or five, +than during any other period of equal length. At this age most +churches confirm. + +Before this age the child lives in the present, is normally selfish, +deficient in sympathy, but frank and confidential, obedient to +authority, and without affectation save the supreme affectation of +childhood, viz., assuming the words, manners, habits, etc., of those +older than itself. But now stature suddenly increases, and the power +of physical and mental endurance and effort diminishes for a time; +larynx, nose, chin change, and normal and morbid ancestral traits and +features appear. Far greater and more protracted, though unseen, are +the changes which take place in the nervous system, both in the +development of the cortex and expansion of the convolutions and the +growth of association-fibers by which the elements shoot together and +relation of things are seen, which hitherto seemed independent, to +which it seems as if for a few years the energies of growth were +chiefly directed. Hence this period is so critical and changes in +character are so rapid. No matter how confidential the relations with +the parent may have been, an important domain of the soul now declares +its independence. Confidences are shared with those of equal age and +withheld from parents, especially by boys, to an extent probably +little suspected by most parents. Education must be addressed to +freedom, which recognizes only self-made law, and spontaneity of +opinion and conduct is manifested, often in extravagant and grotesque +forms. There is now a longing for that kind of close sympathy and +friendship which makes cronies and intimates; there is a craving for +strong emotions which gives pleasure in exaggerations; and there are +nameless longings for what is far, remote, strange, which emphasizes +the self-estrangement which Hegel so well describes, and which marks +the normal rise of the presentiment of something higher than self. +Instincts of rivalry and competition now grow strong in boys, and +girls grow more conscientious and inward, and begin to feel their +music, reading, religion, painting, etc., and to realize the bearing +of these upon their future adult life. There is often a strong +instinct of devotion and self-sacrifice toward some, perhaps almost +any, object, or in almost any cause which circumstances may present. +Moodiness and perhaps a love of solitude are developed. "Growing fits" +make hard and severe labor of body and mind impossible without +dwarfing or arresting the development, by robbing of its nutrition +some part of the organism--stomach, lungs, chest, heart, back, brain, +etc.--which is peculiarly liable to disease later. It is never so hard +to tell the truth plainly and objectively and without any subjective +twist. The life of the mere individual ceases and that of person, or +better, of the race, begins. It is a period of realization, and hence +often of introspection. In healthy natures it is the golden age of +life, in which enthusiasm, sympathy, generosity, and curiosity are at +their strongest and best, and when growth is so rapid that, e.g., each +college class is conscious of a vast interval of development which +separates it from the class below; but it is also a period subject to +Wertherian crises, such as Hume, Richter, J.S. Mill, and others passed +through, and all depends on the direction given to these new forces. + +The dangers of this period are great and manifest. The chief of these, +far greater even than the dangers of intemperance, is that the sexual +elements of soul and body will be developed prematurely and +disproportionately. Indeed, early maturity in this respect is itself +bad. If it occurs before other compensating and controlling powers are +unfolded, this element is hypertrophied and absorbs and dwarfs their +energy and it is then more likely to be uninstructed and to suck up +all that is vile in the environment. Far more than we realize, the +thoughts and feelings of youth center about this factor of his nature. +Quite apart, therefore, from its intrinsic value, education should +serve the purpose of preoccupation, and should divert attention from +an element of our nature the premature or excessive development of +which dwarfs every part of soul and body. Intellectual interests, +athleticism, social and esthetic tastes, should be cultivated. There +should be some change in external life. Previous routine and +drill-work must be broken through and new occupations resorted to, +that the mind may not be left idle while the hands are mechanically +employed. Attractive home-life, friendships well chosen and on a high +plane, and regular habits, should of course be cultivated. Now, too, +though the intellect is not frequently judged insane, so that +pubescent insanity is comparatively rare, the feelings, which are yet +more fundamental to mental sanity, are most often perverted, and lack +of emotional steadiness, violent and dangerous impulses, unreasonable +conduct, lack of enthusiasm and sympathy, are very commonly caused by +abnormalities here. Neurotic disturbances, such as hysteria, chorea, +and, in the opinion of some physicians, sick-headache and early +dementia are peculiarly liable to appear and become seated during this +period. In short, the previous selfhood is broken up like the +regulation copy handwriting of early school years, and a new +individual is in process of crystallization. All is solvent, plastic, +peculiarly susceptible to external influences. + +Between love and religion, God and nature have wrought a strong and +indissoluble bond. Flagellations, fasts, exposure, excessive penances +of many kinds, the Hindoo cultus of quietude, and mental absorption in +vacuity and even one pedagogic motive of a cultus of the spiritual and +supernatural, e. g. in the symposium of Plato, are all designed as +palliatives and alteratives of degraded love. Change of heart before +pubescent years, there are several scientific reasons for thinking +means precocity and forcing. The age signalized by the ancient Greeks +as that at which the study of what was comprehensively called music +should begin, the age at which Roman guardianship ended, as explained +by Sir Henry Maine, at which boys are confirmed in the modern Greek, +Catholic, Lutheran and Episcopal churches, and at which the child +Jesus entered the temple, is as early as any child ought consciously +to go about his heavenly Father's business. If children are instructed +in the language of these sentiments too early, the all-sided deepening +and broadening of soul and of conscience which should come with +adolescent years will be incomplete. Revival sermon which the writer +has heard preached to very young children are analogous to exhorting +them to imagine themselves married people and inculcating the duties +of that relation. It is because this precept is violated in the +intemperate haste for immediate results that we may so often hear +childish sentiments and puerile expressions so strangely mingled in +the religious experience of otherwise apparently mature adults, which +remind one of a male voice constantly modulating from manly tones into +boyish falsetto. Some one has said of very early risers that they were +apt to be conceited all the forenoon, and stupid and uninteresting all +the afternoon and evening. So, too, precocious infant Christians are +apt to be conceited and full of pious affectations all the forenoon of +life, and thereafter commonplace enough in their religious life. One +is reminded of Aristotle's theory of Catharsis, according to which the +soul was purged of strong or bad passions by listening to vivid +representations of them on the stage. So, by the forcing method we +deprecate, the soul is given just enough religious stimulus to act as +an inoculation against deeper and more serious interest later. At this +age the prescription of a series of strong feelings is very apt to +cause attention to concentrate on physical states in a way which may +culminate in the increased activity of the passional nature, or may +induce that sort of self-flirtation which is expressed in morbid love +of autobiographic confessional outpourings, or may issue in the +supreme selfishness of incipient and often unsuspected hysteria. Those +who are led to Christ normally by obeying conscience are not apt to +endanger the foundation of their moral character if they should later +chance to doubt the doctrine of verbal inspiration or some of the +miracles, or even get confused about the Trinity, because their +religious nature is not built on the sand. The art of leading young +men through college without ennobling or enlarging any of the +religious notions of childhood is anti-pedagogic and unworthy +philosophy, and is to leave men puerile in the highest department of +their nature. + +At the age we have indicated, when the young man instinctively takes +the control of himself into his own hands, previous ethico-religious +training should be brought to a focus and given a personal +application, which, to be most effective, should probably, in most +cases, be according to the creed of the parent. It is a serious and +solemn epoch, and ought to be fittingly signalised. Morality now needs +religion, which cannot have affected life much before. Now duties +should be recognised as divine commands, for the strongest motives, +natural and supernatural, are needed for the regulation of the new +impulses, passions, desires, half insights, ambitions, etc., which +come to the American temperament so suddenly before the methods of +self-regulation can become established and operative. Now a deep +personal sense of purity and impurity are first possible, and indeed +inevitable, and this natural moral tension is a great opportunity to +the religious teacher. A serious sense of God within, and of +responsibilities which transcend this life as they do the adolescent's +power of comprehension; a feeling for duties deepened by a realization +and experience of their conflict such as some have thought to be the +origin of religion itself in the soul--these, too, are elements of the +"theology of the heart" revealed at this age to every serious youth, +but to the judicious emphasis and utilization of which, the teacher +should lend his consummate skill. While special lines of interest +leading to a career must be now well grounded, there must also be a +culture of the ideal and an absorption in general views and remote and +universal ends. If all that is pure and disciplining in what is +transcendent, whether to the Christian believers, the poet or the +philosopher, had even been devised only for the better regulation of +human energies set free at this age, but not yet fully defined or +realized, they would still have a most potent justification on this +ground alone. At any rate, what is often wasted in excess here, if +husbanded, ripens into philosophy, the larger love to the world, the +true and the good, in a sense not unlike that in the symposium of +Plato. + +Finally, there is danger lest this change, as prescribed and +formulated by the church, be too sudden and violent, and the capital +of moral force which should last a lifetime be consumed in a brief, +convulsive effort, like the sudden running down of a watch if its +spring be broken. Piety is naturally the slowest because the most +comprehensive kind of growth. Quetelet says that the measure of the +state of civilization in a nation is the way in which it achieves its +revolutions. As it becomes truly civilized, revolutions cease to be +sudden and violent, and become gradually transitory and without abrupt +change. The same is true of that individual crisis which +psycho-physiology describes as adolescence, and of which theology +formulates a higher spiritual potency as conversion. The adolescent +period lasts ten years or more, during all of which development of +every sort is very rapid and constant, and it is, as already remarked, +intemperate haste for immediate results, of reaping without sowing, +which has made so many regard change of heart as an instantaneous +conquest rather than as a growth, and persistently to forget that +there is something of importance before and after it in healthful +religious experience. + + +[Footnote 1: See author's Boy Life, in Massachusetts Country Town +Forty Years Ago. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1906, vol. 13, pp. +192-207.] + +[Footnote 2: Those interested in school statistics may value the +record kept by a Swabian schoolmaster named Hauberle, extending over +fifty-one years and seven months' experience as a teacher, as follows: +911,527 blows with a cane; 124,010 with a rod; 20,939 with a ruler; +136,715 with the hand; 19,295 over the mouth; 7,905 boxes on the ear; +1,115,800 snaps on the head; 22,763 nota benes with Bible, catechism, +hymnbook and grammar; 777 times boys had to kneel on peas; 613 times +on triangular blocks of wand; 5,001 had to carry a timber mare; and, +7,701 hold the rod high; the last two being punishments of his own +invention. Of the blows with the cane 800,000 were for Latin vowels, +and 76,000 of those with the rod for Bible verses and hymns. He used a +scolding vocabulary of over 3,000 terms, of which one-third were of +his own invention.] + +[Footnote 3: For most recent and elaborate study of children's lies +see Zeitschrift für pädagogische Psychologie, Pathologie und Hygiene, +Juli, 1905. Jahrgang 7, Heft 3, pp. 177-205.] + + * * * * * + + + + +GLOSSARY + + +AGAMIC. Unmarried; unmarriageable, sometimes non-sexed. + +AGENIC. Lacking in reproductive power; sterile. + +AMPHIMIXIS. That form of reproduction which involves the +mingling of substance from two individuals so as to effect +a mixture of hereditary characteristics. It includes the +phenomena of conjugation and fertilization among both +unicellular and multicellular organisms. + +ANABOLISM. _See_ METABOLISM. + +ANAMNESIC. Pertaining to or aiding recollection. + +ANEMIC. Deficient in blood; bloodless. + +ANTHROPOMORPHISM. The attributing of human characteristics +to natural, supernatural, or divine beings. + +ANTHROPOMETRY. Science of measurement of the human body. + +ARTIFACT. Any artificial product. + +APHASIA. Impairment or lose of the ability to understand or +use speech. + +ASSOCIATIONISM. The psychological theory which regards the +laws of association as the fundamental laws of mental action +and development. + +ATAVISTIC. Pertaining to reversion through the influence of +heredity to remote ancestral characteristics. + +ATAXIC. Pertaining to inability to coördinate voluntary movements; +irregular. + +CALAMO-PAPYRUS. Reed papyrus or pen-paper. + +CATABOLISM. _See_ METABOLISM. + +CATHARSIS. Purgation or cleansing. Aristotle's esthetic theory +that little renders immune for much. + +CEREBRATION. Brain action, conscious or unconscious. + +CHOREA. St. Vitus's dance; a nervous disease marked by irregular +and involuntary movements of the limbs and face. + +CHRESTOMATHY. A collection of extracts and choice pieces. + +CHRISTENTHUM. The Christian belief; the spirit of Christianity. + +COMMANDO EXERCISES. Gymnastic exercises whose order is dependent +upon the spoken command of the director. + +CORTEX. The gray matter of the brain, mostly on its surface. + +CORTICAL. Pertaining to the cortex. + +CRANIOMETRY. The measurement of skulls. + +CRYPTOGAMOUS. Having an obscure mode of fertilization; or, +of plants that do not blossom. + +CULTUS. A system of religious belief and worship. + +DEUTSCHENTHUM. The spirit of the German people. + +DIATHESIS. A constitutional predisposition. + +EPHEBIC. Pertaining to the Greek system of instruction given +to young men to fit them for citizenship; adolescent. + +EPIGONI. Successors; followers who only follow. + +EPISTEMOLOGY. The theory of knowledge; that branch of logic +which undertakes to explain how knowledge is possible and +to define its limitations, meaning, and worth. + +EUPEPTIC. Having good digestion. + +EUPHORIA. The sense of well-being; of fullness of life. + +EVIRATION. Emasculation; loss of manly characteristics. + +FERAL. Wild by nature; untamed; undomesticated. + +FORMICARY. An artificial ants' nest. + +GEMÜTH. Disposition; the entire affective soul and its habitual +state. + +HEBETUDE. Dullness; stupidity. + +HEDONISTIC. Relating to hedonism, that form of Greek philosophy +which taught that pleasure is the chief end of +existence. + +HETAERA. A Greek courtesan. This class was often highly +trained in music and social art, and represented the highest +grade of culture among Greek women. + +HETEROGENY. (1) The spontaneous generation of animals and +vegetables, low in the scale of organization, from inorganic +elements. (2) That kind of generation in which the parent, +whether plant or animal, produces offspring differing in +structure or habit from itself, but in which after one or +more generations the original form reappears. + +HETERONOMOUS. Having a different name. + +HOROLOGY. The science of measuring time and of constructing +instruments for that purpose. + +HYGEIA. The Greek goddess of health; health. + +HYPERMETHODIC. Methodic to excess; overmethodic. + +HYPERTROPHY. Excessive growth. + +INDISCERPTIBLE. Incapable of being destroyed by separation of +parts. + +INHIBITION. Interference with the normal result of a nervous +excitement by an opposing force. + +IRRADIATION. The diffusion of nervous stimuli out of the path of +normal discharge which, as a result of the excitation of a +peripheral end organ may excite other central organs than +those directly connected with it. + +KINESOLOGICAL. Pertaining to the science of tests and +measurements of bodily strength. + +KINESOMETER. An instrument for measuring muscular strength. + +MEDULLATION. The investment of nerve fibers with a protective +covering or medullary sheath, consisting of white, fat-like +matter. + +MERISTIC. Pertaining to the levels or spinal and cerebral +segments of the body. + +METABOLISM. The act or process by which, on the one hand, dead +food is built up into living matter--anabolism, and by +which, on the other, the living matter is broken down into +simpler products within a cell or organism--catabolism. + +METAMORPHOSIS. Change of form or structure; transformation. + +METEMPSYCHOSIS. The doctrine of the transmigration of the +soul from one body to another. + +MONOPHRASTIC. Pertaining to or consisting of a single phrase. + +MONOTECHNIC. Pertaining to a single art or craft. + +MORPHOLOGY. The science of form and structure of plants and +animals without regard to function. + +MYOLOGY. The scientific knowledge of the muscular system. + +MYTHOPOEIC. Producing or having a tendency to produce myths. + +NOETIC. Of, pertaining to, or conceived by, mind. + +NUANCE. Slight shade; difference; distinction; degree. + +ORTHOGENIC. Pertaining to right beginning and development. + +ORTHOPEDIC. Relating to the art of curing deformities. + +OSSUARY. A depository of dry bones. + +PALEOPSYCHIC. Pertaining to the antiquity of the soul. + +PANTHEISTIC. Relating to that doctrine which holds that the +entire phenomenal universe, including man and nature, is +the ever-changing manifestation of God, who rises to +self-consciousness and personality only in man. + +PATRISTICS. That department of study occupied with the +doctrines and writings of the fathers of the Christian Church. + +PHOBIA. Excessive or morbid fear of anything. + +PHYLETICALLY. In accordance with the phylum or race; racially. + +PHYLETIC. Pertaining to a race or clan. + +PHYLOGENY. The history of the evolution of a species or group; +tribal history; ancestral development as opposed to ontogeny +or the development of the individual. + +PHYLUM. A term introduced by Haeckel to designate the great +branches of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Each phylum +may include several classes. + +PICKELHAUBE. The spiked helmet of the German army. + +PLANKTON. Sea animals and plants collectively; distinguished +from coast or bottom forms and floating in a great mass. + +POLYGAMIC (LOVE). Pertaining to the habit of having more than +one mate of the opposite sex. + +POLYPHRASTIC. Having many phrases; pertaining to rambling, +incoherent speech. + +POST-SIMIAN. Pertaining to an age later than that in which +simian or monkey-like forms prevailed. + +PRENUBILE. Pertaining to the age before sexual maturity or +marriageability is reached. + +PRIE DIEU. A praying desk. + +PROPEDEUTIC. Preliminary; introductory. + +PROPHYLACTIC. Any medicine or measure efficacious in preventing +disease. + +PSEUDOPHOBIAC. Pertaining to a morbid condition in which the +subject is continually in fear of having said something not +strictly true. + +PSYCHOGENESIS. The origin and development of soul. + +PSYCHONOMIC. Pertaining to the laws of mind. + +PSYCHOSIS. Mental constitution or condition; any change in +consciousness, especially if abnormal. + +PUBERTY. The age of sexual maturity. + +PUBESCENT. Relating to the dawning of puberty. + +PYGMOID. Of pygmy size and form. + +RABULIST. A chronic wrangler; one who argues about everything. + +SCHEMA. A synopsis; a summary. In the Kantian sense, a +general type. + +SCHEMATISM. An outline of any systematic arrangement; an +outline. + +SUPERFOETATION. A second conception some time after a prior +one, by which two foetuses of different age exist together +in the same female. Often used figuratively. + +TEMIBILITY. (From Italian _temibile_, to be feared.) The principle +of adjustment of penalty to crime in just that degree necessary +to prevent a repetition of the criminal act. + +TIC. A nervous affection of the muscles; a twitching. + +TRANSCENDENTAL. In the Kantian system having an _a priori_ +character, transcending experience, presupposed in and +necessary to experience. + +TRAUMATA. Wounds. + +TRAUMATISM. A wound; any morbid condition produced by +wounds or other external violence. + +VERBIGERATION. The continual utterance of certain words or +phrases at short intervals, without reference to their meaning, +as seen in insane _Gedankenflucht_ or rapid flight of +thought. + + + +INDEX + + * * * * * + +Abstract words, need of +Accessory and fundamental movement +Accuracy of memory + overdone +Activity of children, motor +Adolescence + biography and literature of + characterized +Agriculture +Alternations of physical and psychic states +Altruism of country children + of woman, cutlet for +Amphimixis, psychic, basis of +Anger +Anthropometry and ideal of gymnastics +Arboreal life and the hand +Art study +Arts and crafts movement +Associations devised or guided by adults +Astronomy +Athletic festivals in Greece +Athletics as a conversation topic + dangers and defects of + records in +Attention + fostered by _commando_ exercises + rhythm in + spontaneous +Authority and adolescence +Autobiographies of boyhood +Automatisms + motor, causes and kinds of + control and serialization of + danger of premature control of + desirable + +Bachelor women +Basal muscles, development of +Basal powers, development of +Bathing +Beauty, age of feminine +Belief, habit and muscle determining +Bible, the + influence of, in adolescence + methods of teaching + study of, for girls + study of, in German method of will training + study of, order in + study of, postponed + study of, preparation for +Biography and adolescence +Blood vessels, expansion at puberty +Blushing, characteristic of puberty +Body training, Greek +Botany +Boxing +Boys + age of little affection in + dangers of coeducation for + differences between, and girls + latitude in conduct and studies of, before puberty + puberty in, characteristics of +Brain action, unity in +Bullying +Bushido + +Cakewalk +Castration, functional in women +Catharsis, Aristotle's theory of +Character and muscles +Children + faults and crimes of + motor activity of + motor defects of + selfishness of +Chivalry, medieval +Chorea +Christianity, muscular +Chums and cronies +Church, feminity in the +City children vs. country children +Civilized men, savages physically superior to +Climbing + hill + muscles, age for exercise of +Coeducation, dangers in +College + coeducation in + English requirements of + woman's ideal school and +Combat, personal, as exercise +_Commando_ exercises + restricted for girls +Concentration +Concreteness in modern language study, criticized +Conduct + mechanized + of Italian schoolboys tabulated + weather and +Confessionalism + of young women + passional inducement to +Conflict, _see_ Combat +Control + nervous, through dancing + of anger + of brute instincts + of children's movements +Conversation, athletics in + degeneration in, causes of +Conversion +Coördination loosened at adolescence + inherited tendencies of muscular +Corporal punishment +Country children vs. city children +Crime, juvenile + causes of + education and + reading and +Cruelty, a juvenile fault +Culture heroes + +Dancing +Deadly sins, the seven, vs. modern juvenile faults +Debate and will-training +Doll curve +Domesticity +Dramatic instinct of puberty +Drawing, curve of stages of +Dueling + +Education + art in + crime and + industrial + intellectual + manual + moral and religious + of boys + of girls + physical +Effort, as a developing force +Emotions + dancing completest language of the + religion directed to +Endurance +Energy and laziness +English + language and literature, pedagogy of + pedagogic degeneration in, causes of + requirements of college + sense language, dangers of +_Ennui_ +Erect position and true life +Ethics, study of, criticized +Ethical judgments of children +Euphoria and exercise +Evolution, movement as a measure of +Exercise + health and + measurements and + music and + nascent periods and + rhythm and + +Farm work +Fatigue + at puberty + chores and + not a cause for punishment + play and + restlessness expressive of + result of labor with defective psychic impulsion + rhythm of activity and + will-culture and +Faults of children +Favorite sounds and words +Fecundity of college women +Femininity in the church + in the school and college +Feminists +Fighting +Flogging +Foreign languages, dangers of +France, religious training in +Friendships of adolescence +Fundamental and accessory +Future life, as a school teaching + +Games + groups + Panhellenic +Gangs, organized juvenile +Genius, early development of +Germany, will-training in +Girl graduates + aversion to marriage of + fecundity of + sterility of +Girls + and boys, differences between + coeducation for, dangers of + education of + education of, humanistic + education of, manners in + education of, more difficult than of boys + education of, nature in + education of, regularity in + education of, religion in + ideal school and curriculum for + overdrawing their energy +Grammar, place of +Greece, athletic festivals in +Greek body training +Group games +Growth + at puberty + gymnastics and its effect on + of muscle structure and function, measure of + periods + rhythmic +Gymnastics + effect on growth, its + ideal of, and anthropometry + ideals, its four unharmonized, and + military ideals and + nascent periods and + patriotism and + proportion and measurement for, criticized + Swedish + +Habits and muscle +Hand and arboreal life +Health, exercise and + of girls +Heredity, a factor in development +High School, the coeducation in + language study and +Hill-climbing +Historic interest, growth of +Home, restraint of, detrimental +Honor, among hoodlums + in sports +Hoodlums +Hysteria + +Imagination, at puberty + of children + play and +Individuality, growth of, at puberty +Industrial education +Industry and movement +Inhibition +Intellect, adolescence in +Intemperance + +Knightly ideas of youth +Knowing and doing + +Language, concreteness in, degeneration through + dangers of, through eye and hand + precision curve of + _vs_. literature +Latin, danger of +Laughter +Laziness and energy +Lies +Literary men, youth of + women, youth of +Literature and adolescence + language _vs_. + +Machinery and movement +Mammae, loss of function of +Manners + in girls' education +Manual training + defects and criticisms of + difficulties of +Marriage, dangers in delay of + influenced by coeducation + influenced by college training +Mastery in art-craft, equipment for +Maternity, dangers of deferred +Measurements and exercise +Memory, accuracy, age, and kinds of + sex curve of types of +Military drill + ideals and gymnastics +Mind and motility +Money sense +Monthly period and Sabbath +Motherhood, training for +Motor, activity, primitive + automatisms + defects of children + defects, general + economies + powers, general growth of + precocity + psychoses, muscles and + recaptulation + regularity +Movement and industry +Movements, passive + precocity of +Muscle tension and thought +Muscles, per cent by weight of body + character and + motor psychoses and + small, and thought + will and +Muscular Christianity +Music and exercise +Myths, study of + +Nascent periods and exercises +Nature in girls' education + +Obedience + +Panhellenic games +Passive movements +Patriotism and gymnastics +Peace, man's normal state +Periodicity in growth + in women +Philology, dangers of +Plasticity of growth at puberty +Play + course of study + imagination and + prehistoric activity and + problem + sex and + stages and ages of + work and +Plays and games, codification of +Precocity, motor + in the motor sphere +Predatory organizations +Primitive motor activity +Punishments + in school, causes of + +Reading age + crime and + curve +Reason, development of +Recapitulation and motor heredity +Records in athletics +Regularity in education of girls +Religious training, age for + for girls + in Europe + premature + two methods of +Retardation as a means of broadening +Revivalists +Rhythm, exercise and + in primitive activities + of work and rest + +Savages physically superior to civilized men +School, language study in + need of enthusiasm in + punishments in, causes of + reading in +Scientific men, youth of +Sedentary life +Selfishness of children +Sex, play and + sports and +Slang curve + value of +Sleep, in education of girls +Sloyd, origin, aims, criticism of +Social activities + organizations of youth +Solitude +Sounds, favorite, and words +Sports, values of different + codification of + sexual influence in + team work in +Spurtiness +Sterility of girl graduates +Story-telling, interest in +Struggle-for-lifeurs +Students' associations +Stuttering and stammering +Swedish gymnastics +Swimming + +Talent, early development of +Teachers, aversions to +Team spirit +Technical courses, need of +Telegraphic skill +Temibility +Theft, juvenile +Thought and muscle tension +Transitory nature of youthful experiences +Tree life and erect posture +Truancy +Truth-telling +Turner movement + +Unmarried women, dangers to + +Vagabondage +Vagrancy +Virility in the Church + +Weather and conduct +Will, muscles and + training +Womanly, the eternal +Women, bachelors + dangers to, in not marrying + education of, ideal + young, confessionalism of +Work at its best, play + play and + rest and, rhythm of +Wrestling + +Young Men's Christian Association + + + + * * * * * + +INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES. + + * * * * * + +AN IDEAL SCHOOL; OR, LOOKING FORWARD. + +By Preston W. Search, Honorary Fellow in Clark University. With an +Introduction by Pres. G. Stanley Hall. Vol. 52. 12mo. Cloth, $1.20 +net. + +"I am not concerned that the things presented in this little +constructive endeavor will not find bodily incorporation in schools; +for it is cross-fertilization and not grafting that has given us our +richest varieties of fruits and flowers. This work is an attempt at +spirit, not letter; at principle, not method."--_From the Author's +Preface_. + +"A book I wish I could have written myself; and I can think of no +single educational volume in the world-wide range of literature in +this field that I believe so well calculated to do so much good at the +present time, and which I could so heartily advise every teacher in +the land, of whatever grade, to read and ponder."--_Pres. G. Stanley +Hall, Clark University_. + +"It is to my mind the most stimulating book that has appeared for a +long time. The conception here set forth of the function of the school +is, I believe, the broadest and best that has been formulated. The +chapter on Illustrative Methods is worth more than all the books on +'Method' that I know of. The diagrams and tables are very convincing. +I am satisfied that the author has given us an epoch-making +book."--_Henry H. Goddard, Ph.D., State Normal School, West Chester, +Pa_. + +"I received a copy of 'An Ideal School,' and I am satisfied that I +made no mistake when I, with the other two members of the book +committee, recommended the book to the 310 teachers in our +county."--_J.G. Dundore, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania_. + +"Certainly one of the most notable books on education published in +many years"--_P.P. Claxton, Editor Atlantic Educational Journal_. + +"You have done the cause of real education an important service. This +book is, in my opinion, one of the most useful in the International +Education Series."--_Albert Leonard, Editor of the Journals of +Pedagogy_. + + * * * * * + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + + +DICKENS AS AN EDUCATOR. + +By JAMES I. HUGHES, Inspector of Schools, Toronto. Vol. 49. 12mo. +Cloth, $1.50. + +ADOPTED BY SEVERAL STATE TEACHERS' READING CIRCLES. + +All teachers have read Dickens's novels with pleasure. Probably few, +however have presumably thought definitely of him as a great +educational reformer. But Inspector Hughes demonstrates that such is +his just title. William T. Harris says of "Dickens as an Educator": +"This book is sufficient to establish the claim for Dickens as an +educational reformer. He has done more than any one else to secure for +the child considerate treatment of his tender age. Dickens stands +apart and alone as one of the most potent influences of social reform +in the nineteenth century, and therefore deserves to be read and +studied by all who have to do with schools, and by all parents +everywhere in our day and generation." Professor Hughes asserts that +"Dickens was the most profound exponent of the kindergarten and the +most comprehensive student of childhood that England has yet +produced." The book brings into connected form, under proper headings, +the educational principles of this most sympathetic friend of +children. + +"Mr. James L. Hughes has just published a book that will rank as one +of the finest appreciations of Dickens ever written."--_Colorado +School Journal._ + +"Mr. Hughes has brought together in an interesting and most effective +manner the chief teachings of Dickens on educational subjects. His +extracts make the reader feel again the reality of Dickens's +descriptions and the power of the appeal that he made for a saner, +kindlier, more inspiring pedagogy, and thus became, through his +immense vogue, one of the chief instrumentalities working for the new +education."--_Wisconsin Journal of Education._ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and +Hygiene, by G. Stanley Hall + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION *** + +This file should be named 8yuth10.txt or 8yuth10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8yuth11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8yuth10a.txt + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Shawn Wheeler and Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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