THE JUNIOR AGE--NINE TO TWELVE
The years we are now to consider are among the most interesting in all
the period of development, and among the most exacting, as well, in the
problems they present. These problems are related, in the main, to the
"new invoice of energy" which has come into the life, the social
feelings, habit formation and hero worship, and knowledge and patience
are almost exhausted in their solution.
A general survey of the period reveals much that we are already familiar
with, together with certain new conditions. We find that some of the
winsomeness and much of the demonstrativeness and dependency of earlier
childhood are gone. The sense of approaching manhood or womanhood is
beginning to stir in the soul and, coincident with it, a growing
independence is manifest. While the child must still be under authority,
the wisest nurture will consult his feelings and wishes as far as
possible, for just beyond this period lies life's crisis, and every bond
of sympathy and confidence must unite the helper to the one to be helped
as the stormy passage is entered upon.
With all this growing independence, however, life is very far from
possessing the marks of maturity. It is careless and care free,
irresponsible in general, yet proud to carry definite responsibilities.
There is delight in anything which suggests pre-eminence over others,
such as badges, buttons and regalia of any kind, or public recognition
and reward. Frankness almost to the point of brutality is a frequent
trait, particularly of boys of this age, for they do not lend themselves
as easily as the girls to the polite usages and subterfuges of society.
This characteristic must have its counterbalance in genuineness and
freedom from any affectation, especially a pious one, on the part of
those dealing with the children, in order to win their love and respect.
A marked literalism is also apparent, and instead of the delicately
imaginative child of earlier years a matter of fact young person stands
out with a desire for exact statement and, if need be, under such oath
as, "Upon your word," or "Cross your heart and hope to die." There is a
strong sense of honor connected with such asseverations, and woe betide
the one who swears falsely or tinkers with the truth.
There are certain conspicuous characteristics which demand a more
detailed consideration, and the first to be noted is the energy.
ENERGY
The very sound of the word is indicative of the nervous force that
dominates the life during these years. It is well nigh impossible for
action to be noiseless or measured in this period, especially during the
latter part. The energy continues to be more vigorous in the physical
realm, and active sports of all kinds are attractive. One of the
greatest problems of nurture at this time, as has already been
suggested, centers around the wise use of this energy in the home, the
day school, the Sunday School and, most important of all, in the hours
unoccupied with definite tasks, for habits are forming through its
outgoing.
THE SOCIAL FEELINGS
Another striking characteristic of this period appears in the rapid
development of the social feelings. No longer is the child content with
one or two playmates, but he craves the companionship of several of the
same age and sex. This desire finds expression in the coterie of bosom
friends, the gang and the club so prevalent between the ages of ten and
fourteen. The bonfire with its circle of kindred spirits, the cave with
its password and dark plottings, the street corner and recruiting
whistle have almost irresistible fascination. What one boy does not
dare, the gang will attempt, and the composite conscience may fall far
below that of the individual. The sense of honor already mentioned is
very strong among the members, and in absolute loyalty to one another
they stand or fall.
These organizations exist among the girls as well as boys, but differ in
the purpose for which they are formed, the girls organizing more as
adults, while the boys' clubs are overwhelmingly to expend energy,
lawfully or otherwise.
The dangers and opportunities growing out of this strong tendency toward
segregation can not be overestimated. A walk along a city street in the
evening reveals the fact that the nurture of the sidewalk and the ice
cream parlor has largely supplanted the nurture of the home on the
social side. The table with the evening lamp--"the home's
lighthouse"--and the family circle complete about it, are an almost
unknown experience in the life of the average American child. In a
recent convention a speaker, who is in charge of a great penal
institution filled with human derelicts, said he believed it to be as
much a duty of the church to preserve at least one evening a week sacred
to the home, as to designate another for the prayer meeting or preaching
service.
The home ought to be the center of the child's social life. Why can not
the lights and music and companionship there be made as attractive as
the lights of the corner store, or billiard hall, or the sound of the
street piano, which pave the way to the saloon and the dance hall later?
That boys and girls will congregate during this period and the next is a
law unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. Nurture asks
whether the home does not furnish a better environment during this
energetic, habit forming and irresponsible period than the corner store
or the "gang?" It asks whether the society of those invited within its
doors for a good time, under the sympathetic and watchful eye of the
father and mother, is not apt to be more conducive to true character
building than the society of the chance acquaintance with no credentials
save his skill in story telling and initiation into fascinating
mysteries? It asks still further, in this age of hero worship, whether
the home should not erect the ideals of manhood and womanhood through
example, through books, through honored guests who have achieved true
distinction instead of delegating this privilege to the group around the
bonfire or the man who gathers the admiring circle to listen to the
salacious tale? The home which provides for this social craving within
its sheltering walls, blending the faces of father and mother with those
of companions in the most joyous of good times, and, after the evening
altar, when the lights are darkened, knows that each pillow is pressed
by its own pure face, that home is a bulwark of the nation and the ante
chamber to one of God's many mansions.
May God have pity on the thousands of children who live in houses, but
are homeless.
HERO WORSHIP
In this new interest in his fellows, all figures do not stand out in
equal proportion against the child's horizon. Some loom very high, and
in the inner chamber of the soul, incense is burning at their shrine.
Out of the earlier interest in people, and desire to imitate their
actions, there begins to emerge the great passion of hero worship with
all its power in shaping ideals and determining character. If it be
true, indeed, that life grows like what it gazes fixedly upon, then
nurture has here an important work.
The hero of any period must inevitably embody that which the life most
admires at the time, hence physical strength and skill, courage and
daring will be prominent factors in a boy's hero in this period. This
hero may be, perchance, the physical director of the Y.M.C.A., the
champion baseball or football player, an explorer or adventurer, a
desperado, or--happy case--a father who has not forgotten how to swim
and fish and hunt and play ball. A boy always longs to place his father
on the throne of his heart, if he is given a chance, but the fathers who
covet that place enough to pay the price for it are too few.
A hard working mechanic said to a friend, "I made up my mind I would
rather have a backache when my boys were little than a heartache later
on," and so no day's task was so heavy, up toil so exhausting that when
he came home at night his two boys could not claim him. The cramped
muscles would unlimber behind the bat, the tired limbs would forget
their weariness in the jaunt that had been planned with father, and
during the hours of freedom the three were chums in sports, in
interests, in confidence. They say there is no more beautiful sight in
that town today than two stalwart, manly fellows arm in arm with the
father, who counts it the joy and pride of his life to have mounted the
hero's throne in the hearts of his sons.
While boys always choose a man as their hero, girls may choose either
the masculine or feminine character. They are still near enough Nature's
heart to glory in wildness and abandon, and the subtle delicacy of true
womanhood has not the charm for them now it will have later. Yet it is
part of the priceless dower of motherhood to so share in the daughter's
life through sympathy and understanding that, to "be like mother" will
embody all the aspirations of a girlish heart.
"THE READING CRAZE"
The flame of hero worship is fed from two sources--the life of some one
near to the child and the passionate delight in reading which
characterizes the years from about ten to fifteen and is especially
marked from twelve to fourteen. The choice of books will naturally be
governed by the strongest interests. We are not surprised, therefore,
that every page must teem with life and chronicle some achievement,
preferably in the physical realm, for in the thought of the junior,
"Greater is he that taketh a city than he who ruleth his own spirit."
Toward the latter part of this period the sentimental novel, with all of
its froth and perverted ideals of life, appeals to the girl, and it is
an open question which is more pernicious, "Deadwood Dick and the
Indians" or "Love at Sight."
When it is remembered that during these years the desire for reading is
so great that it will be satisfied, surreptitiously if not openly, that
the heroes and heroines strengthen ideals of their own type in the soul
of the child, that these are the years in which taste is being formed,
not only in reading but in living, nurture again has a great task
outlined. "What is the best way to keep a boy from eating green apples?"
a prominent Sunday School worker often asks in a convention. The answer
never varies: "Give him ripe ones to eat." The child who has plenty of
well-selected, wholesome literature will have no appetite for the
baneful. Biography of the heroic type, exploration, adventure and
charming romances like the "Waverley Novels" will help to lay sane and
pure foundations of character. The missionary boards are now putting out
books as thrilling and stirring in their situations as any yellow-backed
novel. These the children devour and the spiritual heroism makes its
silent appeal along with the physical.
This delight in reading makes comparatively easy the formation of the
habit of daily Bible reading. If the life is more than meat, then the
time taken by the father or mother to select fascinating Bible
biographies and stories, and tactfully to supervise the reading, is at
least as wisely expended as that used in training a grape vine or sewing
a lace edge on a ruffle. Is it not strange that there is such distorted
perspective and false balance of values in regard to what is worth
while? The cares of this world crowd out so many supreme things. Many a
temptation in later life would have its antidote if the Holy Spirit
could bring the needed Scripture to mind, but because some one
substituted the lesser for the greater, solicitude for external
appearance instead of inner furnishing, the Word is not there to be
recalled.
HABIT FORMATION
The discussion of these marked characteristics of the life is given
added import when we realize that these years are in the height of the
habit forming period. All through Early Childhood and Childhood every
act has left its faint tracing upon the plastic cells of the brain, and
some of the markings are deep ere now. Just as water will follow its
channel rather than cut a new course, so activity will expend itself in
the well-traced pathways unless prevented from so doing, and the same
thought or stimulus will always tend to go out in the same action. No
thinking is necessary upon these habitual acts which constitute "nine
tenths of life"--they have become mechanical. Not only in the body does
life acquire fixed habits, but also in the soul, in thinking, feeling
and choosing.
The seriousness as well as the value of a habit lies in its tenacity. No
harder task ever confronts a life than to break up one habit and
substitute another after the brain cells grow hard. The process requires
not only that activity be directed away from the pathway that
irresistibly draws it, but at the same time a new groove be traced upon
the hard, unyielding cells. The task is difficult beyond expression.
This is why reformed men always have a hidden fear of lapsing into the
former life. It is the call of the old pathway, traced so deeply in the
brain.
A mature woman, brought up to the strictest Sabbath observance, came to
believe that "the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath,"
and therefore essayed to act on that day according to her reason and
judgment. The attempt was soon abandoned. "There is no pleasure in it,"
she said. "I am constantly fighting the old habits of my girlhood life,
and they will not cease their call to me." This is what the wise king
meant when he said, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when
he is old he will not depart from it." The whole tendency is to "ask for
the old paths," that there "may be rest to the soul." A part of the
miracle of conversion in later life appears in God's power to trace new
pathways when the brain is hardened, and to keep life in them, moment by
moment, against the tug of the old.
Three statements will crystallize the discussion. First: The years up
to twelve present two conditions for habit formation--plastic brain
cells and action easily secured--as no succeeding years present them.
Second: Habit formation, either right or wrong, is constantly going on,
for every action leaves its impress and makes repetition easier.
Third: Right habits may be formed as easily as wrong, if the task is
definitely undertaken.
Since the importance of these years is clearly evident, the method of
habit formation may be briefly stated. First, secure the desired action;
second, secure its successive repetition without a lapse, as far as
possible.
We have already learned that action is the natural result of an aroused
feeling; therefore, nurture will endeavor to make the act attractive and
appealing where it can be done, that the cordial co-operation of the
child may be had. Hero worship may aid here, the example in the home is
imperative and future considerations begin to carry weight.
Encouragement, recognition, new interest and new motives will all
contribute toward securing repetition, until unconsciously the action
carries its own constraint and outer influence is unnecessary.
THE "GOLDEN MEMORY PERIOD"
During the years from about nine to fifteen memory is in its most
glorious period for storing away. In early life a fact is retained
chiefly through its impress on the soft brain cells, for the power of
association is little developed. In later life a fact is retained almost
wholly through association with other facts, for the cells grow hard and
an imprint therefore is faint. In the "Golden Memory Period" the fact
has the double hold of impress and association, for the cells are still
plastic and associative powers are developed. The task and its haste are
evident, for this dual condition never recurs.
The brain will now receive everything, the abstract, that which is not
understood, the uninteresting, as well as that which is pleasing. This
is the drill period, when mechanical repetition will fix anything,
regardless of the child's desire to learn, and full comprehension is
unnecessary. It is also the period of verbal memory, and that which
ought to be memorized exactly should be given now.
RELIGIOUS LIFE
If nurture has cared for the spiritual life of the child, he will
probably desire during this period to publicly confess his love for
Jesus Christ. Even if he has not been so nurtured, every condition in
his life makes it easier now than it ever will be later to lead him to
acceptance of Christ. Though there comes a great spiritual awakening in
adolescence, there is at the same time more in the life to oppose the
decision for Christ than in childhood. The Christian life has not the
meaning for him that it will have later on, spiritual vision is not
broad nor deep, but if the child genuinely loves the Savior and wants to
use his energy for Him, he is laying at the Master's feet all he has
now to give, and if Christ accepts the gift, the church ought to accept
the giver. There is no greater crime against childhood than to bar the
doors to these babes in Christ, nor, assuredly, can any act bring keener
pain to the Passionate Lover of little children, who said, "Let them
come unto me, and forbid them not."
APPLICATION TO SUNDAY SCHOOL WORK
Perhaps a resume of the conditions which the Sunday School must meet in
this period will make the situation more definite.
The child is increasingly independent and outspoken, but easily won by
love and confidence. He responds to responsibility, craves recognition,
glories in show and regalia, wants to know the truth about things. He is
a hero worshipper, abounds with energy and considers it his inalienable
right to have fun with his chums. He devours books and magazines,
retains what he reads and memorizes as never before. He is forming
habits of life. He ought to be a sincere child Christian before he
leaves the Junior department.
Manifestly, in dealing with this period, the problem of nurture must
find a large part of its solution in the teacher himself. Three things
must be vitally true of the one holding this responsible office: first,
an abiding touch with God that shall mean Divine wisdom, moment by
moment, for the exegencies of Junior work far outnumber the tread mill
experiences; second, an understanding of and genuine sympathy with the
life of the children; third, a personality that shall meet the
conditions of hero worship. Some day the church will give to every boys'
class, in this and succeeding periods, a trained Christian man to be
hero first, and then teacher, for no boy aspires to be like a woman, no
matter how much he may love her. But, though a woman may not reach up to
a boy's ideals along physical lines, nor should she attempt it, there is
abundant opportunity through outings, tramps, picnics and genuine
interest in their sports to touch even that side of the life of both
boys and girls.
The social needs must be met through frequent class and department
gatherings, preferably in the homes, for the habit of reverence in God's
house will receive almost fatal counteraction in the average social
gathering of this age held in the church. Organizations like the
"Knights of King Arthur," for boys, and the "Sunshine Club," for girls,
are to be highly commended because of their social features, their
appeal to the love of uniform, password and secrets, to hero worship and
to activity through the ideals of life and service they make concrete
and alluring.
Discipline of these independent, outspoken boys and girls is easy if the
teacher will only lay hold of the heart instead of the coat collar, but,
alas, the latter method takes less time. The world holds nothing truer
and sweeter than the love of a child at this age, free as it is from all
affectation and policy, and it is there in every heart, awaiting the
touch of the teacher who can find the hidden spring. The contact on
Sunday is not sufficient, however, to reveal it. The child must know
through the letter, the call, the invitation to the teacher's home, the
loving sympathy in his life and interests that the teacher wants him,
not his Golden Text and offering, and in this knowledge the magic spring
is found.
Besides the social life, the teacher should feel a responsibility in
regard to what the children are reading. Papers like the Youth's
Companion circulated among the members, suggestions as to books in the
Sunday School or public library, books loaned to the children and
questions as to their reading may save many a soul from the slimy trail
of the serpent coiled in the dime novel.
A few suggestions may be added relative to the work in the School
itself.
PLACE
The Juniors should have a separate department and place, for their work
is distinct in character and methods from the Primary and Intermediate
departments. Maps and charts should be added to the equipment,
individual and personally owned Bibles, and where they can be had,
tables for each class.
ORGANIZATION
For two important reasons the department should be divided into classes
and the teaching done by the teachers, presupposing they have risen to
their privilege and are trained. First, the week-day shepherding becomes
an increasingly serious matter as the child is broadening in his
relationships, and no superintendent can give it alone. Second, the
recitation must give large opportunity for individual work on the part
of the pupil during the lesson, and this is impossible in a department
taught as a whole.
PROGRAM
The program should give prominence to supplemental work taught largely
through drills, including--during the Golden Memory Period--the Books of
the Bible, passages, chapters, facts concerning the Bible and training
in its use, geography of the Holy Land, the catechism where used and the
hymns of the church. Public recognition in badges, certificates and roll
of honor will aid in securing the desired work along this and other
lines.
Systematic and careful training in habits of Christian service ranks
with the lesson in importance. Responsibilities in various committees
through the week may be used to strengthen habits and utilize energy.
Missionary heroes should be made as familiar to the children as their
own personal friends, and there should be regular contributions to
definite objects, not abstractions like "Missions" or "Benevolences."
Music of a martial type is greatly enjoyed by the children, also that
suggesting action, but never the meditative, introspective sort. Great
care should be taken to guard the voices from overstrain in loud
singing, as irreparable damage may be done for all time to come.
THE LESSON
The Junior lesson should be prepared to meet the children's interest in
facts and love of a hero. They are not ready yet for truth in the
abstract--it must be seen in a person. Instead of the story, as in the
Primary class, there must be a mingling of vivid word pictures by the
teacher and question and answer. The children should not be told to
"study the lesson," for they do not know how, but rather have assigned
to them one definite thing to prepare for the recitation. Make use of
their love of reading in this connection. Use energy and hold attention
by means of pad and pencil, written answers in the books they are making
on the current lessons, map drawing, looking up references and a
stereoscope if possible. Time before the session and in the social
gatherings of the class can be most fascinatingly and profitably used in
making pulp and sand maps and models of Oriental objects.
Toward the latter part of this period, a questioning in regard to Divine
things may come, but a questioning unmixed with the doubt of later
years. "And when He was twelve years old, ... they found Him in the
temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and
asking them questions." With this desire to know reasons for belief
comes the teacher's golden opportunity for strengthening the foundations
of faith through history and the testimony of ancient monuments, where
it can be adduced, through experience and through God's Word itself.
May nurture be so true to God and the life that the child shall leave
his childhood and face the dawn of manhood as that One of old with the
eager heart and heavenly vision, "Wist ye not that I must be about my
Father's business?"