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 he 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.]
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