need for specialization in the practical pursuits of life, are often
inclined to look with disfavor upon the growing girl's or boy's
"dabbling" in a hundred different directions. Not content with
athletics and hunting, the boy will want to collect stamps or birds'
eggs, to make a motor-boat and learn telegraphy; to take photographs
and try his hand at the cornet; to experiment in chemistry and stuff
an owl. Not content with dancing, sewing and cooking, the girl will
want to master several poets and make attempts at painting; she will
want to become more proficient at the piano and do some singing; she
will want her share of photography and athletics, and would try her
hand at writing a novel. All these things seem so distracting to us
that we fear either that the young person will become a superficial
dabbler or will fail to settle down to something serious. But much
is to be said in favor of letting every girl and boy do as near to
everything he or she wants to do as possible. Expertness can come
later when a choice of a specialty has been made. Now is the time
for touching life at as many points as possible, for acquiring
breadth of outlook and range of sympathy and interest. Now
especially is the time for trying out the individual's capacities--
which may lie quite beyond the range of the conventional pursuits of
the family or the neighborhood. It is the time for self-discovery,
and to this end every bit of help that can come from the home and
from the church, from the school and from the community, from direct
experience and from literature, should be utilized.
The danger of early specialization is shown to us when we
contemplate men and women who have no interests beyond their rather
narrow routine occupations, who have no sympathies beyond their
rather narrow set of intimates, who have no appreciation of human
character and human service beyond the small circle into which they
settled in their teens, and from which they can by no possibility be
drawn. It is because the formation of new habits becomes
increasingly difficult after the sixteenth or seventeenth year that
narrow prejudices and biased opinions should be avoided by
participation in the broadest variety of activities and
associations. Before the conflicting moods and tendencies are
finally welded into a consistent whole the girl or boy should make a
part of his personality as many sources of enthusiasm, as many kinds
of interest, as many lines of sympathy as possible. In a few years
the character begins to "set," and the _size_ of the character
will be in large part determined by the number and variety of
emotional, intellectual, sensory, and muscular elements that have
been developed during this adolescent period.
One of the characteristics of this age is the tendency to hero
worship. It is so difficult to know in advance what types of heroes
our children are going to select that we are inclined to feel quite
helpless in the matter. But it is safe to say that earlier training
is sure to have its effects, although we cannot always measure the
effect. A boy in whom a keen sense of honor shows itself before
adolescence is not likely to adopt a hero in whom there is a
suspicion of anything sneaky. The new flood of emotions brings with
it a host of new aspirations and new ideals; and some of these are
likely enough to conflict with the older childish ideals. It is
therefore of the utmost importance that the reading--which is
perhaps the chief source of model heroes for most children--should
be of a wholesome kind. This does not mean that the stories must be
about paragons of virtue; the villains of fiction and history have
their value in teaching life and character, and we need not fear
that they will contaminate the minds of the young, for in most
children the instincts may be relied upon to reject the allurement
of the base character. But fiction that is false in its sentiment,
that does not present truthful pictures of life, is likely to give
perverted ideas of human relations and false standards of value.
City children who have access to the theatre often get their heroes
from the stage; and the same thing may be said about the drama as
about fiction. It is only the too highly colored and exaggerated
melodrama that is likely to be objectionable for the impressionable
youth. The moving-picture shows, which are coming to supply so many
of the children with their chief opportunity to learn life, have
been, on the whole, fairly wholesome; and the movement to secure
more adequate censorship of the films will probably leave these
sources of instruction perfectly safe, from a moral point of view,
so far as concerns the knowledge of life that the adolescent gets.
The only real danger from the "movies" and the theatres is likely to
be the cultivation of the habit of passive entertainment.
And this suggests another source of puzzles of adolescence. In the
alternating moods of excessive exertion and indolence there is the
possibility of girls and boys learning the value of alternation of
work and play and rest. But there is also the danger of acquiring
the habit of resting all the time, and leaving not only the work for
others, but also the activity of play. It is much better for
children to rest because they are tired than because they are lazy.
And, while it is true that the instincts are all for activity, it is
easy enough for the growing individual to acquire the habit of
passive absorption of whatever amusement is provided. It is better,
then, for the young people to get their entertainment out of
theatricals than out of the theatre, out of playing games than out
of watching games, out of having adventures in the woods and in the
water than out of reading about them. And, in every way, the most
reliable safety-valve of the period is constant activity, as this is
the best outlet for the many and conflicting emotions which are the
source of the chief difficulties. When Arthur shows signs of getting
restless it is a great comfort to be able to send him off on some
errand, or to give him a definite task to do. But it is also a great
service to the boy, for while he is at the work there is being used
up the nervous energy that would otherwise appear at the surface as
another "spell." And this principle is just as true for girls as it
is for boys. Only you cannot send the girl to a piece of work
requiring great bodily exertion--nor does she need this so much.
Work is not only a satisfactory safety-valve for the emotions in
general, but it is especially valuable as a means of diverting the
thoughts and feelings from the growing consciousness of sex.
One of the reasons why it now becomes more difficult for even
thoughtful and considerate parents to keep in close sympathy with
the boy or girl is this outburst of new and varied interests, which
clamor for movement and color and quick changes. The parent has in
the course of years settled down to a relatively small group of
activities and interests, most of which offer no appeal to the
growing individual. For instance, you would like to come close to
the thoughts and feelings of your growing son or daughter; you
suggest that you take a walk together. Now, it is very nice for a
middle-aged person to take a walk, alone or with a companion; but
the girl or boy sees no sense in taking a walk unless you wish to
get somewhere. The ordinary conversation and gossip that a girl is
likely to hear when you take her to visit a friend is apt to be very
stupid--to the girl. Even where the parents have watched the
expanding soul closely on the one hand, and have kept themselves in
touch with a variety of activities rich in human interests on the
other, they often find that the intimacy with their children is for
a time weakened, and fully restored only after the latter have
passed through these trying years.
What is likely to be the greatest source of grief on the part of the
parent is the apparent lapse of the growing boy or girl from
standards of honesty and truthfulness with which she has so
solicitously tried to imbue him or her. But this lapse during the
critical growing period is so widespread, so common among boys and
girls who afterward become fine men and women, that special students
of the problem have come to believe that semi-criminality is quite
normal, at least for boys, at this age. Now, while some children are
perhaps by nature incapable of attaining to a satisfactory moral
level, most children will, under suitable surroundings, grow away
from this state of lying and stealing; but under adverse conditions
these distressing features of their behavior may become habitual.
Suitable surroundings and treatment would here consist of the
presence of good models and high ideals, sympathetic help in
resisting temptation, and not in a harsh denunciation of each
unapproved act as evidence of turpitude and perversion. You need not
assume that there _is_ perversion until that is demonstrated
beyond any doubt. For, if the child is morally redeemable, he should
be treated like one who is weak and who needs help until the
difficulties are mastered; otherwise you are likely to encourage in
him the feeling that he is hopeless, and he will relax all effort
for his own self-mastery.
Along with the emotions related to romantic love there is a rapid
development of the religious side of the nature, of a consciousness
of the race as a whole, of a spirit of chivalry and disinterestedness--
all emotions that bear a tremendous motive power which needs to be
guided into suitable channels. Never before and never again has the
individual the endurance and the energy for such self-sacrifice, for
such devotion, for such exertion in behalf of the purest of ideals. At
the same time, the increased sensitiveness shrinks from every sneer
and every evidence of misunderstanding or unsympathetic reproof. It is
therefore unwise to tease the girl or boy about the "friend" of the
opposite sex; it is cruel to sneer at their ambitions, and it may be
positively demoralizing to ridicule their ideals.
A mother of unusual intelligence, who had devoted herself not only
to the routine work connected with her household and the care of her
children, but had made special efforts to keep informed on what was
going on in the world of thought and practical affairs, and who had
a busy life of varied activities, was walking along a city street
with her youngest son--just fifteen. The adolescent, who was rather
free in his comments on what went on around him, made this pretty
little speech to his mother:
"Mother, I think you have a very petty mind. Here you fuss around
trying to help out that poor V---- family by getting together
clothing for the children, and an odd job for the old man once in a
while. And you have been trying to raise a fund to complete the
education of the W---- boy, and all things of that kind. But all you
have done does not help to solve the problem of poverty."
The mother, who had indeed been carrying on these various good
works, alongside of many other activities, naturally resented the
criticism of her son. But what she minded most was the "inconsistency"
of the boy when, a few minutes later, they passed a street preacher
with a crowd about him. They could not hear what the man was saying,
but the wise young adolescent remarked, "I wish I had some money to
help that fellow with."
Now, thinks the mother, what do you know about this man's purposes;
what is he working for?
The boy did not know; but he wanted to do something "to help the
cause." What cause, he did not know--and did not care; for him it
was enough that here a man is devoting himself to a cause.
And this incident illustrates nearly everything that makes the
adolescent so puzzling and so exasperating to older people.
First of all, he had gotten hold of a large idea, which he could not
by any possibility understand in all its bearings; and on the basis
of this he criticises the charitable efforts of his mother and,
indeed, of her whole generation. Not only does he criticise the
prevailing, modes of philanthropic effort, but he condemns these
good people as having "petty" minds--because they do not all see
what he has seen, perhaps for as long as a day or two. His attitude
is not reasoned out, but arises from the deepest feelings of
sympathy for the great tragedy of poverty, which he takes in at one
sweep without patience for the details of individual poor people.
Then the preacher on the street corner, exposing himself to the
gibes and sneers of the unsympathetic crowd, appeals to him
instantly as a self-sacrificing champion of some "cause." It is his
religious feelings, his chivalric feelings, that are reached; he
would himself become a missionary, and the missionary is a hero that
appeals especially to the adolescent. There is no inconsistency
between his disapproval of specific acts of charity and his approval
of the preacher of an unknown cause. In both instances he gives
voice to his feelings for the larger, comprehensive ideals that are
just surging to the surface of his consciousness.
This is the period in which you will one day complain that the young
person is giving altogether too much time and thought to details of
dress and fashion, only to remonstrate a few days later about his
careless or even slovenly appearance. On the whole, however, the
interest in dress and appearance will grow, because as the
adolescent boy or girl becomes conscious of his own personality he
thinks more and more of the appearance of his person, and especially
of how it appears to others. There is even the danger that the boy
will become a fop or a dandy, and that the girl will take to
overdressing. Argument is of little avail in such cases. The
association with persons of good taste who will arouse the
admiration or affection of the growing child will do more than hours
of sermons. If the boy can realize that one may be a fine man
without wearing the latest style in collars, or if the girl finds a
thoroughly admirable and lovable woman who does not observe the
customs of fashion too much, neither ridicule nor protest will be
necessary.
In general, the adolescent will give us exercise in patience and in
imagination and in ingenuity. He will puzzle us and perplex us as
well as exasperate us. But if we cannot remember back to our own
golden age, we must try as best we can to believe that even this
will pass away.
XIV.
HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT
With special assistance from
BENJAMIN CHARLES GRUENBERG, Ph.D.
The frequent appearance of the "black sheep" in a flock of tolerably
white sheep, the frequent failure of the best efforts of parents and
teachers to make a fairly decent man out of a promising boy, have
led many to question whether, after all, the pains and effort are
worth while. We have come to question the wisdom of bothering about
"environment"; just as we sometimes question the existence of a
principle called "heredity." Every day some one asks the question,
"Do you believe in heredity?" And many times a day people discuss,
"Which is more important, heredity or environment?"
These are certainly _practical_ questions for parents, since
the answers we receive must influence our practice or conduct in
relation to the children. If we felt quite sure that heredity was
everything and environment nothing, we should reduce our school
appropriations and build larger jails and asylums, or we should
resign ourselves as best we could to letting "nature take her
course." On the other hand, if we felt sure that heredity was
nothing and environment everything, we should proceed at once to
double our school equipment, raise the teachers' salaries, convert
our penal institutions into reformatories and our armories into
recreation centres, and advance the age of compulsory education just
as far as we thought we could afford to.
Those who place the emphasis upon heredity, in the attempt to
discredit the value of thoughtful and painstaking control of the
environment of the developing child, usually remind us that a man
like Lincoln achieved power and distinction in spite of what we
would ordinarily consider serious obstacles to complete development,
whereas thousands of college graduates who have had all the
advantages that trained tutors and guarded surroundings can give
have developed into mediocre men and women--have even developed into
vicious and criminal men and women. They will remind us that from a
class of children that had the same teachers for many years has
emerged a group of very distinct men and women; they will remind us
that brothers and sisters with the identical "environment" turn out
to be so different.
On the other hand, those who see nothing in "heredity" will point to
the same Lincoln and ask confidently why his ancestors and his
descendants do not show the same degree of power and achievement.
They will point to the same family of brothers and sisters who had
the same "heredity" and ask why they all turned out so differently.
The black sheep proves just as much--and just as little--for one
side of the argument as it does for the other.
There are, it is true, many people who say that they "do not
believe" in either heredity or environment. Such people see the
difficulties of the disputants and reject both alternatives. They
prefer to say frankly that they do not understand the situation;
that life is too complex to be solved by puny human intellects. Or
they resort to some equally unintelligible explanation, such as
"Fate" or "Nature"--which is but another way of saying that we never
_can_ understand. On the other side stands the scientist who
refuses to shut his eyes to _any_ established facts, and
insists upon trying to understand as much as possible, though he may
never hope to understand all.
But no one is prepared to say authoritatively that either heredity
or environment is the exclusive or even the predominant factor in
determining the character of the individual. Indeed, the voice of
the scientist, which is the only authoritative voice we have in such
matters, is telling us very plainly that the whole question of
"heredity _or_ environment" is not a real question at all: we
are confronted in every child with a case of heredity _and_
environment, and the practical question is how to control the latter
so as to get the most from the former.
To begin, then, in a modest way to understand what is understandable,
in the faith that understanding will grow with thought and
observation, is the first duty of those who are not content to fold
their hands in resignation or despair. We know that we can control
wherever we have real knowledge. The cook knows that she cannot make
roast duck out of pork chops; but she knows also that she can make
palatable and digestible pork chops by proceeding in one way, and that
she can make tough and sickening pork chops out of the same materials
by changing her procedure. In the same way the scientific approach to
the problem of child training teaches us that, while we cannot make a
"swan out of a goose," we can make the gosling into a better goose or
a poorer goose by the treatment we apply to it.
A frequent source of doubt and misunderstanding is the universal
occurrence of such distinct types among brothers and sisters. The
query at once arises, "Have not these children the same heredity?"
Brothers and sisters have the same ancestors, but not the same
heredity. Recent biological discoveries teach us that the individual
develops from a bundle of units derived from the two parents, but the
units supplied by a parent never represent the totality of the
parents' composition, nor do all the units that are passed on come to
manifest themselves as parts of the character. The parent passes on
sample units from her or his own inheritance, so that no two
combinations are ever exactly alike. It is a commonplace observation
that Johnny may have his maternal grandmother's chin, his paternal
grandmother's eyes, his father's walk, his Uncle George's lips, his
Aunt Mary's sharp tongue, his grandfather's alertness, and his
mother's good judgment. Of course, he has _not_ his grandmother's eyes
or his uncle's lips: these relatives still retain their respective
facial organs, and his father still has his quick temper. What Johnny
has inherited is a something, perhaps in the nature of a ferment,
which _determines_ the color of his eyes, a certain something that
makes his lips develop into that particular shape, a certain something
that causes his brain to respond to annoyance in the same manner as
that of his Aunt Mary's. And the various ancestors and relatives have
received from their parents similar determining factors that have
manifested themselves in similar peculiarities. We do not inherit from
our relatives, or even from our parents: we are built up of the same
elements as those of which our relatives are built, but each one of us
has received his individual combination of factors. Hence, no two
brothers or sisters are exactly alike, although they have the same
parents and the same ancestors.
While it is universally recognized that no two individuals are
exactly alike, we are not at all clear in our minds as to whether
the important differences arise from differences in experience or
_nurture_, or from essential differences in _nature_. We
know that children of the same parents are essentially different
from birth, and that no matter how similar the treatment they
receive afterward they will always remain different, or even become
more different as they become older. It is becoming more clear every
day, as a result of scientific study, that every individual is
absolutely unique, excepting only "true" twins.
If we accept this individuality of the person as a fact, what, then,
is the importance of training or environment? Does not this
admission settle at once the contention of those who see no value at
all in a carefully-controlled environment? If this child is
_born_ without mathematical ability, what is the use of
drumming arithmetic into his head; or, if he is _born_ with
musical genius, why should we bother about teaching him music?--he
will "take" to it naturally.
The answer to these and similar questions is to be found in the
answer to another question, namely, "What is it precisely that the
child is born with?" Surely no child is ever born with the ability
to dance or sing or to do sums in algebra. When we say that a child
has musical genius we mean merely that as he develops we may notice
in him a certain capacity to acquire musical knowledge more readily
than most other children do, or a certain disposition to express
himself in melody, or a certain liking for music in some form, or a
certain readiness to acquire control of musical instruments. In
other words, the child is born with a capacity for acquiring certain
things, from the outside, that is, from the environment--he is born
with certain possibilities, which can become actualities only if the
suitable conditions are provided. In the same way one child is born
with a capacity for exceptional muscular development, and another
for exceptional self-mastery. But in every case practice makes
perfect, the muscles must be properly nourished and exercised, the
will must be trained--and that means suitable environment.
Now, while every individual is unique, not every child is a born
genius. The distinctiveness of each child lies in the fact that he
consists of a _combination_ of capacities and tendencies, each
of which varies in degree when compared with other individuals. For
example, Evelyn has about the same capacity for physical work as
Annie, but she stands lower than the latter in arithmetic and higher
in language work. John shows about the same physical power as Henry,
when measured by running and jumping and chinning; but John can hit
the ball with his bat more times out of a hundred than Henry can,
whereas Henry can hit the bull's-eye with his rifle more times out
of a hundred than John can. In a thousand details any two children
differ from each other, one excelling in nearly half of the points,
the other excelling perhaps in about as many, and the two standing
almost exactly alike in some matters.