CHAPTER IX. THE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT (Continued). Early Childhood-Adolescence. SUGGESTED READINGS. Adolescence, Early Stages: CHILDHOOD. Birney. Index. RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF YOUNG MEN. Y. M. C. A. THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES. See. pp. 25-35. p. 43. PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. Thorndike. pp. 147ff. *THE BOY PROBLEM. Forbush. pp. 20-46. p. 18. THE TEACHER, THE CHILD, AND THE BOOK. Schauffler. p. 176. THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. Warner. pp. 188-198. *PEDAGOGICAL BIBLE SCHOOL. Coe. pp. 163-164, 146-148, 184. III.-Third Period, Youth or Adolescence, 12 to 18; 12-16, Age of Moral Crisis; 16-19, Age of Romance and Ideality. This entire period of youth, from 12 to 18, is divided into Early Adolescence and Middle Adolescence; Later Adolescence is from 18 or 19 on to 21. 1. BODILY CHANGES. It is the Age of Awkwardness. The bones have grown more rapidly than the joints, so that the child is unable to balance himself properly and so is awkward. He has not gained his new adjustment in equilibrium. He is so awkward that he will stumble over a shadow on the floor, and if the shadow is not there, he will imagine it is there in order to stumble. Mrs. Birney remarks that: "A mother never speaks in her children's presence of the 'awkward age,' thereby increasing the painful self-consciousness of that period, nor does she draw attention to the fact that fourteen-year-old Johnnie has on the sixth new necktie in the course of two weeks. She calls him proudly 'my son' at this time of his life, and with sweet diplomacy appears already to lean upon him and to advise with him concerning small matters that afford the opportunity for confidential talks. She wonders if some of his twelve-year-old brother Paul's companions are all they should be; she thought she saw one of them covertly handing Paul a cigarette the other day; she hopes he will use his influence to convince him that it is not manly to smoke cigarettes or to use bad language; she is so glad she can depend on him to set Paul a good example, etc. She has her quiet chats with Paul, too. She never scolds him for his little assumptions of mannish airs, and does not say a great deal about the cigarette episode, but she sees that when there is an illustrated lecture in the school he attends, on the subject: 'Can a boy who has the cigarette habit become a successful competitor in athletic sports when he enters college?' Paul is invited to go. Nine chances out of ten Paul will respond to this appeal, when at his age he might not be influenced by the morality of the question." Bodily Changes Predominate. The mysterious change of Puberty has come. Manhood and Womanhood are developing. The body is growing with extreme rapidity, and the brain not so much. The brain changes are extremely dependent on the bodily alterations. By fifteen the brain stops increasing in size, the large arteries have added in diameter, the temperature is increased almost to a fever heat, the voice changes, the height of the body is increased. The child requires more sleep, and more rest, and more food, and generally he is getting less rest, and less sleep, and less food. The most careful and loving watch-care should now be given, and right instruction imparted as to the laws of purity, morality, and health. Without any doubt the position taken by the LADIES' HOME JOURNAL is correct regarding the necessity for full information on the part of parents and teachers. The only criticism has been that the JOURNAL did not dare to speak plainly enough to a mixed audience. This question, however, is to-day one of the most serious that is confronting our Nation. Those things that are of the utmost concern to life, and health, and happiness; those things that ought to be the purest and sweetest and the truest; that knowledge which in itself, rightly given, will do the utmost good and will never do harm, has been entirely omitted from the education of our public schools; has been entirely overlooked by parents and teachers, and has been left to the ignorant, wrongminded information derived from chums, because, as we shall show later on, this age of adolescence, when the bodily passions are at a fever heat, is the age of close, chummy friendship. The boys and girls confide only in their chums. Oh, if parents but knew the infinite harm that is done by ignorance, they would never hesitate on this matter! One of our leading Church papers had an editorial upon this important topic a short time ago. It said: "It is easier and more pleasant for us to close our eyes to the pressing need for teaching our children plainly the things that make for personal purity than to warn them against those things that would violate it. Not only is ignorance of vice no protection against it, but it is positively a menace to the purity of a child or a young adult. A committee of the diocese of Massachusetts presented a careful report on the subject to the recent convention of that diocese. "We call upon parents,' said the committee, 'to feel their sacred responsibility for judicious instruction of children as to sex and the relation of personal purity to health and happiness. Mothers especially should instruct their daughters, for young women are strangely ignorant in these matters. They should tell their daughters the fearful risk they undergo if they marry men who have led immoral lives. Parents should know the companions of their children, and especially the young men with whom their daughters are acquainted. A serious responsibility rests upon the Church. Clergymen should teach positively the glory of purity. They should insist upon a single standard for men and women and urge the reformation of the social code in this respect. The ambitious standards of social life and the increased cost of living are largely responsible for the postponement of marriages; and late marriages are in part answerable for immorality. The average age of the first marriage of men has within a century changed from twenty-two years to twentyseven years. Public sentiment should honor young people who are willing to endure comparative hardship and privation to establish a home." " Of course this topic should be handled with care, and unnecessary information should be withheld, but the amount that is needed at that time should be given to the fullest. Such a wise and cautious writer as the Rev. Henry Van Dyke has written these burning words: "I believe that children should be very simply instructed in regard to the meaning of the relation of sex. The precise age must depend upon the development and character of the child. In normal circumstances a boy should be instructed by his father, a girl by her mother. The instruction should be put on the plainest and most solid religious and moral ground. It should be given with earnestness and affection, and, having been given once, it should not be repeated, but left to do its work, enforced by example rather than by precept. "I do not believe in teaching the details of anatomy and physiology to children, or in giving them any information or advice, even with the highest moral purpose, which shall direct their attention constantly, or even frequently, to the relation of sex. Human nature being constituted as it is, such attention often produces the most disastrous effects in the way of morbid and abnormal development. "Much of the trouble in our modern civilized life comes from our false and unnatural way of living. Children get too ⚫ little fresh air, sunlight, cold water, and healthy exercise; and too much unwholesome food, both for the body and for the mind. We need a more sane and hygienic life, and, above all, we need to get back to the old-fashioned idea that purity of life is demanded by God, and is a duty that we owe to Him, as well as the crown of a noble manhood and womanhood. It is a great misfortune that we have drifted away from this, and that children are growing up without a knowledge of the truth that God will surely punish uncleanness." It is significant that the Rt. Rev. A. F. Winnington-Ingram, Bishop of London, has said (quoted from the LADIES' HOME JOURNAL of May, 1908): "I am now convinced that the uplifting of the morality of our people lies, above all and everything else, in educating the children rationally and morally. I believe that more evil has been done by the squeamishness of parents who are afraid to instruct their children in the vital facts of life, than by all the other agencies of vice put together. I am determined to overcome this obstacle to our national morality. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that the right way has been found at last. Thousands of men have asked me why they were not taught the danger of vice in their youth, and I have had no reply to make to them. I intend now, with God's help, to remove this reproach from our land." The JOURNAL goes on to add: "After the Bishop got home he grouped around him a company of the most distinguished men and women of England: the venerable Archbishop of York; the Bishops of Ripon, Southwark, Durham, and Hereford; the Dean of Canterbury; Canon Scott Holland of Saint Paul's Cathedral; the Honorable E. Lyttleton, headmaster of Eton, the great English school; such foremost Nonconformist clergymen of England as the Reverends Thomas Spurgeon, F. B. Meyer, John Clifford, R. J. Campbell; such laymen, famed for philanthropy and wealth, as George Cadbury, W. T. Stead, Grattan Guinness, and before these men of influence he laid his conviction that the root of the 'social evil' lay in this so-called 'parental modesty,' and that in the quickening of the parental conscience lay the remedy for the lifting up of England's moral tone, which has for so long been the despair of England's foremost men. The Bishop offered to place himself at the head of a great moral crusade, the like of which has never before been seen in England, and point out to every father and mother that the future moral welfare of the United Kingdom rested in doing away with the present false modesty, and in the frank and honest instruction of their children. "More than one hundred meetings in London alone have been arranged for, in addition to several hundreds of meetings in every town and village in the kingdom; pamphlets are being prepared and will be distributed by the million; the headmaster of every great college and school will take a personal part; a special periodical, called PREVENTION, will be issued and distributed to every parent in England. And at the head and in the midst of this wonderfully well-conceived and far-reaching movement |