seven days of a week; often the home does not, and in this new social
interest there is a danger from evil associates. Better pastoral work
by the teacher, a closer co-operation with the home, and
substitutive--not prohibitive--measures avail much in meeting this
difficulty.
(3) _The enticement of bad literature._ This period and the next are
the time of greatest hunger for reading and there is a real danger
from the temptations of pernicious books. Satan has emissaries on the
school-grounds and in the candy store, and boys and girls are his
shining marks. The substitutive measures here again are the only wise
and effective ones.
#22. Results to be Expected in the Junior Age.#--The results of work
in this period ought to appear in an increase in Bible knowledge, the
strengthening of right habits and manly ideals of life, and back of
it all the warm love of boyhood and girlhood for the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Test Questions
1. How may spiritual ends best be gained?
2. How may the pupil's efforts in right doing be aroused?
3. What is needed in this period in addition to impressions?
4. What essentials of the Christian life may the pupils readily have
at this period?
5. What aspect of Christianity appeals most to pupils of this age?
6. What method of teaching should be substituted for story telling?
7. What three difficulties may be encountered in the Junior Age?
8. What results may be expected?
Lesson 7
The Intermediate Age--Twelve to Sixteen
#23. General Character of the Period of Adolescence.#--The
Intermediate age ushers in a time known as adolescence, including the
years approximately from twelve to twenty-four, during which life
passes from childhood to maturity. The period is marked by the
development of new physical powers, new emotions, new ideals and
conceptions of life, and a new spiritual consciousness. The change
from the old life to the new, from the narrow to the broad, from
interests selfish and small to interests as far-reaching as the world
and eternity, is often accompanied by more or less upheaval in the
soul and this period of re-adjustment may be a time of "storm and
stress."
Two facts out of the many suggest the critical nature of adolescence:
(1) During these years the pupil is most susceptible to the power of
influence. It does not touch his life simply as an impression, but as
an impelling, determining force inciting him to action.
(2) Life rarely changes in its tendencies and character after full
maturity has come. There is a physical reason for this in the
hardening of the brain which fixes the pathways of habit and renders
new lines of thought and action difficult. Therefore, in all
probability as life emerges from adolescence will it enter eternity.
#24. General Characteristics of the Intermediate Age.#--Many of the
characteristics of the Junior age are still evident, though modified
by fuller development. Physical energy has increased and the mind has
greater power, especially in its ability to reason. No disillusioning
has come to destroy the old hero-worship, but with even more intensity
each life clings to that one who embodies its aspirations. The hunger
for general reading reaches its climax in this period, to be succeeded
by specialized interest in lines determined by the taste of the
individual.
Lacking still the self-control of manhood, breaking from the old life
and dimly apprehending as yet the meaning of the new, under the
domination of impulse and influence as well as of dawning conviction,
the Intermediate age offers particularly trying problems with its
great opportunities.
#25. Special Characteristics of the Intermediate Age.#
(1) _The functioning of new physical powers._ This is one of the most
significant changes in the Intermediate period, because of its
physical effects and its reflex influence upon the mental and
emotional life. Severe temptations often have to be met, questioning
and unwise introspection, and the teacher ought to be a confidential
friend as well as instructor.
(2) _A condition of instability and easy excitation._ The nervous
system is abnormally sensitive and quickly disturbed. The mind is
keyed to vigorous, intense, and often unbalanced thought, but it is in
the feelings that the lack of poise is most manifest. Whether the
teacher can assign causes or not, he is conscious that the emotions
are a veritable tinder-box, easily kindled into a great fire by a very
little matter. Superlatives, slang, and the highest pitches of
enthusiasm are common experience, and because action and reaction are
equal and opposite, periods of depression corresponding to those of
exhilaration are almost inevitable.
(3) _A new personal consciousness._ There are several marked evidences
of its existence.
(a) Care for appearance. In the beginning of this period,
what others think is a matter of supreme indifference, but it
is not long before a desire to appear well manifests itself.
Solicitude as to one's personal looks is supplemented by
anxiety over the condition of the home, the standing of the
family, the social position and dress of the companions.
Naturally, judgment of others is based on outward appearance
rather than on real worth of character.
(b) Desire for appreciation. An intense longing is
experienced to have talents, accomplishments, wits,
efforts--everything which pertains to self valued at par or
above. For this cause there is frequent public parade of
wares, as in the case of the smart youth or the girl who
draws attention to herself by loud talking and laughter. The
same longing works self-consciousness, embarrassment, and
awkwardness in others who feel themselves deficient, neither
class as yet apprehending the truth that character, not
external show, wins the truest meed of praise from the world.
(c) A sense of approaching manhood and womanhood. This makes
the life sensitive beyond expression to reproof or criticism,
particularly in public. It also explains the restlessness and
desire to enter at once upon the life-work.
(4) _Increasing Social Appetite._ The boy who said in answer to a
remonstrance over his presence in the billiard hall and bowling alley,
"A fellow has got to have fun somewhere," voiced the sentiment of all
his confreres in the Intermediate period. The desire for good times is
paramount, and its right indisputable in the conception of the young
people. The delight in healthy outdoor sports continues with the
athletically inclined, and ought to be fostered as a safety valve for
surplus energy, a diverter of self-centered thought, and a tonic for
excitable nerves. In the latter part of this period, however, the love
of fun gives place to a love of functions, either the helpful sort of
social commingling or the danger-filled type, marked by late hours,
excitement, and overwrought imagination. This transition comes from a
growing mutual attraction between the sexes which has succeeded the
repulsion evident in the early part of the period.
(5) _The Development of the Altruistic Feelings._ Though these
feelings are not unknown to childhood, their vigorous development does
not begin until the Intermediate period. The pupil now experiences an
impulse from within to sacrifice for others and make his life a source
of blessing. The new sense of God and his claims intensifies and
vitalizes the desires. Unselfishness appears, interest in the welfare
of others as well as self, and willingness to do for them even at
personal cost. These are the feelings that make it possible to say
"Brother," and to love the neighbor as one's self. They can come only
as the meaning of life is better understood. They can remain only as
they are given constant expression in action.
(6) _A Spiritual Awakening._ Even though the pupil may be a genuine
Christian, there comes to him at this time a larger consciousness of
God and the soul's relation to him, and with it a call to full
surrender. Whereas the childhood relation to God was based on
feeling, there is now the element of will-power which must ratify by
deliberate choice that which love has prompted. If the pupil is not a
Christian, this awakening comes as God's call to accept Jesus Christ
as Saviour and crown him Lord of the life as well. If the call is not
heeded now, its tones grow less and less distinct, until, in the
strident cries of the world, they may be silenced forever.
Test Questions
1. What is meant by adolescence?
2. What is the general character of the period?
3. What two facts indicate the critical nature of this period?
4. What six special characteristics mark this period?
5. What two signs of personal consciousness?
6. What desire is paramount at this time?
7. What is meant by altruistic feelings? Describe their development.
8. What new element now enters in to affect the relation to God?
Lesson 8
The Intermediate Age (Concluded)
#26. Opportunities of the Intermediate Age.#--There is a significant
difference in the purpose of the opportunities presented during
childhood and during adolescence. If they were to be summed up in
key-words, that for childhood would be absorption; for adolescence,
adjustment.
The opportunities of childhood converge toward supplying the soul with
material needful for growth--influences, impressions, and a mass of
facts more or less unconnected in the beginning. But this is only the
first step in character building. These materials must be arranged,
facts must be related to one another, and the life must be related to
other lives in real interest, sympathy, and service. This process of
relating fact to fact, life to life, and each soul anew to God is the
paramount task of adolescence, even though absorption continues with
almost unabated strength.
Analyzing the opportunities which are presented to the Intermediate
teacher in this new adjustment of life, three stand out prominently:
(1) _The opportunity to foster high ideals._ Whether it be consciously
defined or not, every one has that toward which ambitions and effort
go forth, and this ideal determines what character shall be. No one
can give an ideal to another, as a book is handed over, for it is a
personal thing, to be fashioned by each soul for itself out of that
which it has absorbed through the years.
It is in the transition from childhood to maturity that every life
decides what (for it) seems most worth while, and to this ideal makes
surrender of thought, desire, and effort. Is not God's gracious
purpose evident, in that this is the time when life is most easily
influenced?
(2) _Opportunity to develop self-reliance._ A life cannot count for
God and for others unless it can make decisions and meet tests by
itself. The power to do this comes only through effort to do it.
During the Intermediate age, the young people may be more and more
thrown upon their own resources, permitted to decide matters for
themselves, learning wiser judgment through mistakes as well as
successes. One of the most serious errors on the part of the teacher
lies at this very point, dictating instead of suggesting, choosing for
the pupil instead of allowing him to choose, thinking for him instead
of stimulating every power of his soul to rise to a personal solution
of the problem in hand. If strength and independence of character do
not come in these years of adjustment, the probabilities are that life
will always be weak and vacillating.
(3) _The opportunity to strengthen the altruistic feeling or "love for
the other."_--In the broadening and deepening experience of
adolescence such conceptions as love, suffering, sacrifice, and
surrender reveal a new meaning and strange force of attraction. No
opportunity comparable to the one presented in this awakening ever
returns, as the soul, with life before it, stands at the divergence of
the paths, one leading toward God and service, the other away from him
into self, and deliberate, decisive choice to be made.
If through the influence of the Holy Spirit the pathway of service be
chosen, two laws of God tend to make it permanent; (a) The law of
growth and development. If the feelings have proper nourishment,
_i. e._, something to arouse them, and are given expression in action,
they will just as surely grow strong as a well-nourished, vigorous
body, and obviously, the stronger the feelings of loving interest, the
more assured is the life of service. (b) The law of habit. A feeling
will become habitual if continually indulged and expressed, and it is
during adolescence that habits are permanently fixed.
#27. Needs of the Intermediate Age.#--The needs of this period are of
two sorts--important and imperative. It is exceedingly important that
the pupil be treated with consideration, respect, and appreciation,
that he be given good literature, that he be guarded and guided in his
social life. It is imperative, however, that he be established in the
right relation to God and to his neighbor at this time of new
consciousness of these relationships. Four things will definitely
further this supreme end:
(1) _The teacher with the vision of what may be done._ If he is not
disobedient to the vision, it will lead him to close fellowship with
God and the pupil, for two things are evident,--he cannot lead the
pupil unless he is in sympathetic touch with him, nor can he lead him
to any higher place than he himself occupies. If he be in vital
relation with God and live with the pupil in his ambitions,
discouragements, successes, temptations, the most dynamic external
force that can operate in this period will be his to wield, namely, a
spiritual personal influence.
(2) _Definite decisions._ The danger-point in this crisis lies in
permitting these newly awakened feelings to be dissipated without
decision and action. If this occurs they weaken, the impulse to take
the right stand lessens, and irresolution finally becomes the tacit
choice of the self-seeking life.
(3) _Definite responsibilities._ A life of service is made up of
definite servings. The beauty and duty of loving sacrifice appeal to
the emotions, but a concrete thing to be done calls the will into
action. To every pupil should be given definite tasks both in the
class itself and in the church, in order to arouse effort and make the
thought of service habitual.
(4) _Definite objects of benevolence._ The teachers of the
Intermediate age can almost determine when the world shall be given to
Jesus Christ. At no time can a permanent interest in missionary
enterprises and philanthropies at home be so easily launched as now if
the subjects considered be concrete, enthusiastically presented on a
basis of facts, and followed by definite response in gift, prayer, or
service.
#28. Difficulties in the Intermediate Age.#
(1) Lack of mental balance and consequent instability of conduct.
(2) The fascination of the social world and the growing interest of
each sex in the other.
(3) The half-way position between childhood and maturity which retains
the immaturity of childhood, but feels the selfhood of the man.
(4) The attraction of the external rather than of intrinsic worth. In
this is the key to many of the problems. What appears to advantage
allures, even if it be not the best. This gives superficial standards
of measuring people and things and easily opens the way to harmful
influences at the critical time when ideals and life purposes are
forming. The teacher himself is the most important factor in the
solution of these problems, not by any attempt to force, but by a
patient, suggestive, and inspiring touch upon the pupil's life.
#29. Results to be Expected.#--The pupil ought to leave this period in
the right attitude toward God and toward his neighbor. To render this
attitude strong and unchangeable is the work of the next period.
Test Questions
1. What is a keyword for the opportunities of the Intermediate Age?
Explain its application.
2. Name three important opportunities of this age.
3. What serious error may the teacher commit in this period in
impairing the pupil's self-reliance?
4. Name four needs of the Intermediate age.
5. What is the danger-point in bringing a pupil to definite decisions?
6. What great responsibility as to benevolences rests upon the
teacher?
7. Name four difficulties of the Intermediate Age.
8. What results may be expected?
Lesson 9
The Senior Age--Sixteen to Maturity
#30. General Characteristics of the Senior Age.#--The Senior age
includes the two periods technically known as middle adolescence, from
about sixteen to eighteen, and later adolescence, from eighteen to
full maturity, about twenty-four. Of these, the earlier period is the
climax of the "tempest-tossed" years. The later period witnesses the
final adjustment of the pupil to life and its problems. These years
are marked by uncertainty because the pupil does not understand
himself, by emotional upheaval connected with the development of the
deeper feelings of the soul, and by a struggle between the old ideal
of selfishness and the new ideal of service.
#31. Special Characteristics of the Senior Age.#
(1) _Continued development of the higher feelings._ The power of the
soul to feel for others, appearing in the Intermediate age, has grown
stronger if properly nurtured. In addition there comes a new love for
the beauties of Nature and a reverence for her laws, a love of the
arts and the great causes that men espouse. There is the thrill of
awakening love between man and woman. Highest of all, the soul is now
able to give response to the right simply because it is the right.
Duty has real meaning and conviction becomes a motive power.
As the large vision of what life may be dawns upon the soul, unbounded
enthusiasm and courage possess it. There are no heights too dizzy to
be reached, no obstacles too difficult to overcome. But enthusiasm
often alternates with depression and self-distrust, leading to
indifference, apathy, or recklessness. This is the explanation of the
vacillating conduct almost universal during the early part of this
period.
A critical spirit toward others is common, as merciless scrutiny
reveals how far the majority come from the high standards of life so
newly appreciated. The frank openness of childhood has been succeeded
by a tendency to shut the deeper thoughts and feelings away from
others, and while there is an unspeakable longing to share problems
and perplexities, the veil is not easily drawn aside.
(2) _The rapid development of the reasoning power of the mind._ This
crowning expression of the intellectual power of the mind has not been
wanting before, but it comes to full flower in this period. In the
first delight of being able to see inner relationships, to argue, to
relate cause and effect, reason is given the place of honor and
everything must pass in review before it. This very often precipitates
a conflict between reason and faith through failure to see that a
thing is not necessarily opposed to reason even if it cannot be
understood by reason; and a period of doubt in religious matters may
ensue.
(3) _Maturing of the will power._ This makes possible self-control,
gives power to act independent of the impulse and influence which
always determines a child's actions, power to hold steadily to a
certain course even against strong opposition. This is the kingly
possession of the soul with which Almighty God has chosen to leave
freedom. But the soul tends to act as it has formed the habit of
acting through the years under the direction of others. In the light
of this fact, the importance of the earlier work of the teacher is
emphasized.
#32. Opportunities of the Senior Age.#--The opportunities discussed in
the Intermediate age still obtain in this period, but to them may be
added three peculiarly favorable at this time.
(1) _The opportunity to give help in choice of life vocation._ The
choice of that place where each shall invest his life is one of the
most serious and complex problems that the pupil has to meet. Loving
and sympathetic counsel often stimulates a young man or woman to
aspire in the choice instead of settling down into easy mediocrity.
The call of the ministry, the mission field, settlement work, every
vocation involving the setting aside of selfish ambitions, is most
loudly heard at this time, and often a word is sufficient to turn the
decision in that direction.
(2) _To strengthen foundations of faith._ The questioning of this
period makes it possible to ground belief in the verities of the
Christian religion. Faith need not be blind. God gives a reasonable
basis for all he asks us to accept. The careful study of facts which
are the starting-point of faith will help the doubting soul to trust
beyond the point of sight, and enable him to give a reason for the
hope that is in him.
(3) _To establish broad interests._ If the pupil is narrow and
circumscribed in his thought at this time, the fault lies in large
measure at the teacher's door, for every impulse is to stretch in
interest to the farthest limit in every direction. There will never
again be such an opportunity to establish the world-wide interests
begun in the Intermediate age, for life settles in a groove in
adulthood and new interests do not readily appeal.
#33. Needs of the Senior Age.#
(1) _The influence of lives that will bear the test._ In this
doubting, critical period of life, the daily life of others is the
unanswerable argument for or against the power of the gospel. If for
no other reason than to establish the faith of her young people, the
church ought to walk in white.
(2) _Sympathy and confidence toward the pupil._ Some one has said that
the word "hunger" will express the period of adolescence, and for
nothing is the pupil so hungry as to be understood, appreciated, and
trusted. The teacher is privileged to live into the life of the pupil
at every point, and be the sympathetic friend who shall help him to
work out his high calling in Christ Jesus.
#34. Difficulties of the Senior Age.#--The very things that constitute
the strength of this period present many of its difficulties. The
greater mental power coming with increased reason and will is apt to
give rise to self-sufficiency and the doubt already mentioned.
Opinions are readily and dogmatically launched, and to reverse them
wounds pride. Advice may be secretly welcomed and outwardly scorned.
This is the period when there is danger that wisdom may perish if the
youth meet an untimely end. But far more dangerous is the tendency
toward the sowing of wild oats which is so often evident. A certain
recklessness easily grows out of the disturbed emotional nature and
excesses lie not far beyond. For all of these difficulties, faith and
prayer, an attitude of helpfulness at every point, and the love that
never fails, afford the only solution.
#35. Results to be Expected.#--As the pupil emerges from the period of
development into maturity, he ought to be "strong in the grace that is
in Christ Jesus," with interest and love as broad as that of his
Master, and "thoroughly furnished unto every good work."
Test Questions
1. What are the general characteristics of the Senior Age? The years
included?
2. Name three special characteristics.
3. How would you explain vacillating conduct during the early part of
this period?
4. Name three opportunities of the Senior Age.
5. How may doubters be helped in this period?
6. What are two special needs of this period?
7. The chief difficulties?
8. What the results to be expected?
Lesson 10
Maturity.
The limited space of a single chapter permits only a suggestive
discussion of this important period, so often neglected in the study
of the pupil.
#36. General Survey.#--(1) _Keyword, "Service."_ As childhood's task
is absorption, and the task of youth adjustment, so the task of
maturity is service. That which has been taken in must be given out
again, enriched and enlarged by its stay in the soul. This is "the
last of life for which the first was made," and to fail here means to
miss the meaning of living.