ADOLESCENCE
Between the quiet unfolding of childhood and the full development of
maturity, there lies a period so fraught with danger and so filled with
opportunity, that it is rightly considered life's crisis. A mistake at
this point is more disastrous than at any other, while wisdom in dealing
with the soul never has such rich reward.
In a general way, this period, known as Adolescence, extends with boys
from about twelve to twenty-four, and with girls from about eleven to
twenty-one, or from the beginning of manhood and womanhood to full
maturing.
A study of the conditions that obtain during these years clearly reveals
the reason for their crucial character.
1. It is an awakening time of new possibilities, physical, mental, moral
and spiritual.
We are already familiar with the peril and opportunity that attend the
first stages of any development, because the future direction and
strength of the possibility are then so largely determined. When we
realize that the highest possibilities of the soul, as well as some of
the lowest, are now unfolding, the gravity of the period is apparent.
The changes that come with the soul's awakening are so great, that often
the youth becomes a stranger to those who know him best. Ideals,
ambitions, feelings, thoughts and power only dimly, if ever, recognized
in childhood take possession of the life. A new conception of God is
born and a larger sense of responsibility to Him, to the neighbor and to
the world. In these awakening possibilities are heard the siren voices
of passion, society, wealth and fame and the clear call of
self-sacrifice and duty, and the soul is bewildered, not knowing which
to heed. Surely nurture is needed, for the choices of Adolescence are in
all probability the choices of eternity.
2. These are the years of the greatest susceptibility to influence.
Everything that comes to the life now has an impelling force that it
did not have in childhood. Life is in a state of unstable equilibrium,
and a touch may move it. The influence of one book, of one friend, of
one hasty word of criticism or passing word of encouragement may
determine the future of a soul.
3. During this period habits become permanent.
The pathways traced through childhood and adolescence become settled,
the cells gradually lose power to change, and by the close of
Adolescence, character is practically determined, unless a Divine power
"makes all things new."
4. The influence of heredity is strongly felt during the early part of
Adolescence.
A child may be defrauded of his inheritance in stocks and bonds and
estates, but the bequest of tendencies to which his parents and
grandparents and the long line back have made him heir, can not be
diverted.
There is danger of over-emphasizing the doctrine of heredity and
lessening the sense of personal responsibility for conduct. There is
also danger of minimizing it, and consequently failing to give the help
that many a life needs in its effort to overcome an evil inheritance.
Heredity means simply a pull upon the life in a certain direction,
because of the way those before have lived. It is easier to climb
upward, if "the hands of twenty generations are reached down from the
heights to help, than as if they reached up from below to drag down."
But whatever the inherited tendencies, any life may have the "antithetic
heredity," which is a part of its glorious inheritance in Jesus Christ.
5. This period contains the largest number of first commitments for
crime.
Three coincident facts demand serious and careful consideration.
First. The greatest number of first commitments occur from twelve to
sixteen.
Second. The greatest spiritual awakenings occur between twelve and
sixteen.
Third. "Girls are most susceptible to influence for good or evil between
eleven to seventeen, with the climax about fourteen, and boys from
twelve to nineteen, with the climax about sixteen." Is not the work of
nurture plain?
6. During the early part of this period, by far the heaviest losses from
church and Sunday School occur.
"While thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone." Who was gone?
A soul in its crisis, making eternal choices, easily influenced by a
word, a look or a touch, in the grip of fierce temptations, but catching
sight of Divine possibilities, needing help as at no time before or
later, this is the soul that slipped away, in all probability, not to be
brought back. You who let it slip, "How will you go up to your Father
and the lad be not with you?"
In turning to a more detailed consideration of Adolescence, we find the
wealth of material so far exceeding the limitations of our space, that
the study must be selective, not analytic. Only those conditions in the
life, therefore, which seem most imperative in their demands upon
nurture will be chosen for discussion.
EARLY ADOLESCENCE
The first period of Adolescence covers about four years, approximately
from twelve to sixteen with boys and eleven to fifteen with girls, and
is perhaps the most trying of all to deal with.
The crisis in these years is a physical one, arising in connection with
the functioning of new physical powers. Coincident with this the
passions are born, bringing to many lives the severest of temptations.
If ever a close intimacy is needed between father and son and mother and
daughter, it is at this time of mystery and question, when the life does
not understand itself nor the meaning of what God now gives it. The
sacred confidence between parent and child is infinitely better than the
best intended book upon the subject, which arouses further curiosity and
kindles the imagination. When the home fails in nurture at this point,
the Sunday School teacher must earnestly consider what of responsibility
falls upon him.
The rapid physical growth of these years is often accompanied by
awkwardness, due to the fact that the muscles are developing faster
than the bones, making delicate adjustment impossible. There is painful
sensitiveness over this, especially with boys, as hands and feet must be
in the open, and they will easily construe any criticism or ridicule
into a desire to be rid of their presence.
" ... And what if their feet,
Sent out of houses, sent into the street,
Should step round the corner and pause at the door
Where other boys' feet have paused often before;
Should pass through the gateway of glittering light,
Where jokes that are merry and songs that are bright
Ring out a warm welcome with flattering voice,
And temptingly say, 'Here's a place for the boys!'
Ah, what if they should! What if your boy or mine
Should cross o'er the threshold which marks out the line
'Twixt virtue and vice, 'twixt pureness and sin,
And leave all his innocent boyhood within?
Ah, what if they should, because you and I,
While the days and the months and the years hurry by,
Are too busy with cares and with life's fleeting toys
To make round our hearthstone a place for the boys."
There is a sense of pressure and nervous excitement throughout the whole
life, for the "invoice of energy" is not exhausted. Athletics afford
physical relief, and slang, which is at its height from about thirteen
to fifteen, offers somewhat of an emotional safety-valve. Experiences
are never commonplace during this period, nor any individual ordinary.
The strongest superlatives and most extravagant metaphors will scarcely
do a situation adequate justice, but nurture can afford to be patient,
for "this, too, will pass," and of itself, as life grows calmer.
The feverish excitement is not at all to the distaste of the adolescent
but, on the contrary, he courts it. The "reading craze" is at its height
in this period, and books which give "thrills" are sought by both boys
and girls. There is increasing necessity of wise oversight in the choice
of reading when the mind is so inflammable and easily led, and the fact
that a book is on the shelf of the Sunday School library is unhappily
not always a guarantee against the need of further parental inspection.
The abounding energy of this period, when brought into conjunction with
the enlarged vision of life, often gives rise to a restlessness and
desire, to leave school and go to work. This is augmented by the new
money sense, which is strong about the age of fourteen, and leads to an
effort to secure money to save as well as to spend. This desire ought to
be met by a regular allowance or an opportunity for earning a stipulated
sum. Its neglect is often the explanation for the breaking open of
Sunday School banks or theft from household funds.
But even the satisfying of this desire will not allay restlessness, and
many a school-room seat becomes vacant in the early teens. If, instead
of the harsh measures so often used, the boy could know he had not only
the loving sympathy but also the pride of his parents in this harbinger
of approaching manhood; if, in place of force, he were given choice,
after all the considerations had been carefully weighed; if he could
feel the confidence of father and mother that he would do the manly
thing because he is almost a man, he would rarely fail to meet the
issue, for "at no time in life will a human being respond so heartily if
treated by older and wise people as if he were an equal." The result
will be not only renewed zest in the erstwhile hated task, but a new
bond between parents and son that will help to hold him true when
greater crises come.
The strong appeal that sympathy and consideration now make to the
adolescent is due to the new consciousness of self that has come to the
life. It has many manifestations. There is a welcome external one that
is evident in care for the personal appearance. The days of maternal
solicitude for linen and ears come to an end in this period, and it is
well, for the new standard of correctness is so high as to be
unattainable by any one save the individual himself.
A new sense of pride in one's family and position appears, and an
aristocracy based on the accidents of birth succeeds the democracy of
childhood. The girl who was sincerely thankful that she was not as
others and assumed Pharisaic superiority because she had been born a
Republican, an Allopath and, crown of all, a Baptist, lived in this
period some years ago.
This consciousness of self and of approaching manhood and womanhood
tends to make the life independent, and "any attempt to treat a child at
Adolescence as an inferior is instantly fatal to good discipline." In
this super-sensitive state, a public reproof, even in the home circle,
carries with it humiliation beyond expression, and inevitably arouses
resentment and not penitence. "At no time in life does a word of
encouragement mean so much, or criticism leave such an ineffaceable
scar." If those who touch a life through its unfolding only realized
that what they sow of gentleness and consideration or of harshness and
neglect when that life is defenceless and they are strong will be reaped
when they in turn are without recourse and the child has become a man,
would there not be more tenderness and love in some homes? "For with the
same measure that ye mete, withal, it shall be measured to you again."
Another condition of great import to nurture appears in the increasing
power of the social feelings over the life. Society begins to fascinate,
and the problem of a High School education is complicated with the
problem of secret societies and school dances. Friends are chosen not so
much for real worth as for clothes, position, attractive features or,
where there is no interchange of confidences between parents and
children, for sympathetic understanding. The longing for companionship
is God given and must be fostered, else the youth will enter maturity a
recluse and self-occupied, but nurture must carefully deal with it while
life is in a state of flux. The only course to be at all considered is a
substitutive, not prohibitory one, giving opportunity for social
intercourse under proper conditions.
The development of the affectional side of the life during this period
must be briefly noted.
Hero love and worship are more passionate than before. The object of
admiration is usually some one outside of the home, often a favorite
teacher who understands the heart of a boy and a girl. The patterning of
the life after its ideal is most seriously undertaken, even to imitation
of personal mannerisms. The privilege and responsibility of being the
lode star of an unresisting, unpoised life is tremendous, for this
influence overpowers all others at the time.
Strange manifestations of that which will later be love, holy and
beautiful, between man and woman characterize these years. At first
there is a mutual repulsion between the sexes. The boys are "so rough
and horrid," and as for the girls--the masculine sentiment concerning
them was voiced by one young cavalier in the words, "Oh, mush!" when his
Sunday School class was asked if they would like to invite their "lady
friends" to the coming class party.
But this stage does not continue, and soon nurture must deal with notes
written by foolish maidens and the first glamour of the great passion,
"sicklied o'er" with callowness and sentimentality. There is no more
perplexing problem in Adolescence than how to handle wisely this vernal
manifestation of love.
Blessed is the home where there are congenial and sympathetic brothers
and sisters, and wholesome and absorbing occupations. It is the vacuous,
roaming soul which is a prey to the multi-temptations of this period. If
the tastes and wishes of the young people can be satisfied in the home,
and a hearty and natural companionship of the sexes be welcomed in this
healthy environment, nurture will be bringing sanest measures to bear
upon the situation.
Against this complex background, the necessity of a personal
acquaintance with the Lord Jesus Christ stands out in startling relief.
Though God comes to a soul in a marked way during Adolescence, nurture
is taking a dangerous and often fatal risk in allowing life, as far as
human effort can go, to enter its crisis without Him. The spiritual
awakening of this period (to be considered in the succeeding chapter)
would seem to be God's call to larger service, rather than His first
summons to "Follow Me."
With the Master's authority to let the children come, and with every
condition in child life God prepared for their coming, there is no
tenable position but belief that our Father meant every life to enter
its period of "storm and stress," in step with Jesus Christ.
APPLICATION TO SUNDAY SCHOOL WORK
Sunday School work during Adolescence and maturity lays less emphasis
upon methods and equipment than in the earlier periods, and more
emphasis on the personal relation between teacher and pupil. For this
reason the preceding study, in so far as it interprets the lives of the
boys and girls, applies directly to Sunday School work, for a
sympathetic understanding is the key to the relationship. "There is no
greater blessing that can come to a boy (or girl) at this age when he
does not understand himself, than a good, strong teacher who
understands him, has faith in him, and will day by day lead him till he
can walk alone." Far more than a pedagogue, the adolescent needs a
friend in his Sunday School teacher, who shares his ambitions, knows his
temptations, sympathizes with his successes and failures and, through it
all, trusts him. This understanding and confidence, made long-suffering
and tender by the love that never fails, will be a binding cord that can
not be broken even by the most restless, wayward life.
Because of the close relationship to be sought between teacher and
pupil, other things being equal, it is wise for a class of boys to be
taught by a man, and girls by a woman. The counsel of one who has passed
through the same experiences and known the same temptations and
difficulties always comes with especial helpfulness. But the question of
sex is not as vital as that of sympathy, nor the manner of previous
experience as the manner of present love.
The new consciousness of distinction will make the class work difficult,
if there is any marked difference in the social standing of its
members. The leader must be won to the right attitude in private, the
appeal being based on personal feeling for the teacher and on the new
ideals of relationship to others, which are beginning to take form.
An organization of the class in this and succeeding periods is necessary
for the best work. It should place definite responsibilities upon each
member, either as officer or committee-man, for habits of Christian
service must be solicitously nurtured during these days.
Frequent social gatherings are very important. This is the age when the
young people begin to think that, "a Christian can not have any fun,"
and it rests with the church and Sunday School to prove to them the
contrary. The only convincing proof is in experiencing the fact itself
that the best times have a religious association, therefore a class
party should be as carefully and as prayerfully planned as a Sunday
School lesson.
As these years are included in the Golden Memory-period, supplemental
work of more advanced type should be continued. Note books are helpful
in amplifying and impressing the lesson, and brief essays upon pertinent
topics add interest.
The teaching itself must deal more and more with the relationships of
life. To the majority of young people, the Bible belongs to an uncertain
and remote past. The goal of work in these unsettled years is to help
them see how the Book solves all problems of present-day living, and how
Jesus Christ meets every personal need of the life.