Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene Part 8

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 p.r.o.ne 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 p.r.o.ne 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 p.r.o.ne 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, s.e.x, 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 s.e.x.

Friedrich found as his chief age result that children of the seventh or older cla.s.s 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 ill.u.s.trating piety and holiness. The author divided his characters into thirty-five cla.s.ses, ill.u.s.trating qualities, and found that national activity led, with piety a close second; that then came in order those ill.u.s.trating firmness of faith, bravery, modesty, and chast.i.ty; 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 roles in the choices of p.u.b.escent boys.

Girls at all school ages and increasingly up the grades prefer foreign ideals, to be the wife of a man of t.i.tle, 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 p.u.b.escent 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 s.e.x 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 s.e.x 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 s.e.x 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 s.e.x 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 p.u.b.erty and continue to increase later yet. By these choices both s.e.xes, 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 p.u.b.erty, 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 a.n.a.lyzed by psychology. Ribot and others trace its origin to provision which they think animals that h.o.a.rd 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 s.e.xes 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 cla.s.ses. 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 repet.i.tion 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 p.u.b.erty 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 s.e.x 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 att.i.tude toward punishment for weak time sense, tested by 2,536 children from six to sixteen,[20] showed also a marked p.u.b.escent 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 Wurzburg 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 p.r.o.ne 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] ill.u.s.trate 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-a.s.sertion, 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 a.s.sociation 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 sc.r.a.pes 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 s...o...b..a.l.l.s 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 bra.s.s 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 b.u.t.ted 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 p.u.b.escent 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 preempted 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 "b.u.t.ters," the unit being the ounce of daily allowance. These could be represented by tickets transferred, so that debts were paid with "b.u.t.ters" 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 b.u.mping often followed the decision of the boy folk-mote. Scales of prices for commodities in "b.u.t.ters" 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 inst.i.tutional activities, only about thirty per cent of all not having belonged to some such organization. Imitation plays a very important role, 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 inst.i.tution. The child reproduces sympathetically miniature copies of the life around him. On a farm, his play is raking, threshing, building barns, or on the seash.o.r.e 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, a.s.sociations a.s.sume 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 a.s.sociations 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 pa.s.sing 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 trans.m.u.ted, 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 inst.i.tutions 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 elite youth, exempt from the struggle to live and left to the freedom of their own inclinations, might serve as a biological and ethnic compa.s.s 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 reenforced by a.s.sociation 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses 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.

a.s.sociations for youth, devised or guided by adults. Here we enter a very different realm. Forbush[30] undertakes an a.n.a.lysis of many such clubs which he divides according to their purpose into nine chief cla.s.ses: physical training, handicraft, literary, social, civic and patriotic, science-study, hero-love, ethical, religious. These he cla.s.sifies 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 cla.s.s we may briefly characterize as follows:

(a) Typical of a large cla.s.s 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, sc.r.a.p-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 Aga.s.siz a.s.sociation, 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 a.s.sistance 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, pa.s.swords, 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 inst.i.tuted 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 bas.e.m.e.nt. 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 a.s.sociation, 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 fur padagogische 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 Att.i.tude 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: Cla.s.s Punishment. By Caroline Frear. Barnes's Studies in Education, vol. 1, pp. 332-337.]

[Footnote 20: Children's Att.i.tude 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 fur 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: uber Schulerfreundschaften in einer Volksschulkla.s.se, Die Kinderfehler. Funfter Jahrgang, Mai, 1900, pp. 150-163.]