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OG och riot F 5 ayti tty rer toebe rt atte bebe oe) hits ; ~ ; yt ote sees ST gh ; : . : Re isi te ape side epeiars ets ty seeetriieeegs afb beste - Es i iseate copra tits Bay } ; . + oe regs Be ee 253 lee ee aes i erate yas, ers Bescie pater ear ae 5 : er eeteier ty taea oe tere # aren atat yt st sabe ; : ; pennies i, * . sh +h ysredes "e abel , eat ae g58) 2838: riety ty TE acsisas ere f aig restated eotht te haste! +} Sharda tebe ee Se erst yao ahi tereue Sara separ hdl ‘ 64 Division |B ) 35 Section , M Gg A } BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EARLY ADOLESCENCE THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE By / E. LEIGH MUDGE totter p AGE ; hy 4 XS JAN 21 1929 - iy L + 4 iN iy Ui ate Inara EWS uIUAL OLN A Textbook in Teacher Training, conforming to the standard outlined and approved by the Inter- national Council of Religious Education THIRD YEAR SPECIALIZATION SERIES Printed for THE TEACHER TRAINING PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION by THE CAXTON PRESS NEW YORK Copyright, 1926, by E. LEIGH MUDGE All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE PETIA TERE UOLESCHMCE oo oc atte ate tn eae e see nie oi e%e 7 II. DEVELOPMENT TOWARD ADULTHOOD ..........., 19 Tee OE MDEAT SOF 8 YOUTH coy cha, aale esc icbiiacnce ces 35 LV oeUPRELING YAND EMOTION: oreo. uetsine tej cgels 48 VoUIBESROMANTIC PERIOD Hs oS Oey as 60 Vit DOCTAL MOS UREOPMENT.,. teidaicid 4's Wak « Sleleate eos ale 72 VII. THe PiAy LIFE oF LATER ADOLESCENCE........ 86 VIII. THE HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY 99 POP OUTHOANDELAFE | WORK 6.) 0000 0b eb ce cle Le cas 113 DER ELIGIOUS LUXNPERIENCE, . o.6 00:5 o!d 0 ol2sid sania hepa 130. SPECIALIZATION COURSES FOR TEACHERS OF INTERMEDIATES, SENIORS, AND YOUNG PEOPLE Conforming to the Standard Approved by the International Council of Religious Education Intermediate Department Specialization A Study of Early Adolescence (one unit). Intermediate Materials and Methods (one unit). Intermediate Department Administration (one unit). Senior Department Specialization A Study of Middle Adolescence (one unit). Senior Materials and Methods (one unit). Senior Department Administration (one unit). Young People’s Department Specialization A Study of Later Adolescence (one unit). Young People’s Materials and Methods (one unit). Young People’s Department Administration (one unit). Electives for Intermediate, Senior, and Young People’s Workers Materials and Methods of Worship for Intermediates. Materials and Methods of Worship for Seniors. Materials and Methods of Worship for Young People. Supervision in Adolescent Education. Agencies for the Religious Education of Adolescents. Materials and Methods of Vocational Guidance. CHAPTERS LATER ADOLESCENCE THE title of this book does not mean that it contains: a system of psychology to be accepted ready-made. Its purpose is, rather, to lead you who read it into the profitable study and observation of the young people with whom you are working. In so brief a text it is possible only to suggest problems in the psychology of youth that may be most profitably studied by adult leaders, and to show some practicable ways of studying them. The psychology of later adolescence, like the study of all developing life, is itself in the process of growth. We have been studying children for some years, and the wonderful unfolding of adolescent traits and pow- ers in the early teens has also engaged our attention. Perhaps it is natural that the study of later adolescence has been delayed, since many of the students of the leadership of youth are themselves but few years, if any, past this period. But workers with young men and women from the age of about eighteen through the earlier twenties must understand the natures of these young people, their likenesses and their differ- ences, their characteristic tendencies and their inter- ests, their possibilities and their limitations. Among the peculiar dangers to be avoided in the study of later adolescence is that of mistaking the traits of one most 7 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE familiar group for the traits of young people generally. Those who have been working with college students have this temptation. They are familiar with the life of the students in their classrooms, but these are a highly specialized and favored group. Their average intelligence is probably higher than that of the mass of young people, and their different social conditions have modified their habits and behavior. Perhaps the col- fege student is much like the average young person, but that is by no means a foregone conclusion. It is hoped that you will cooperate in the study of young people so as to work out this and other problems to your own satisfaction. It has been the author’s desire to secure from various groups data that may contribute to our understanding of the influence of social environ- ment upon developing youth. Adolescence, like ancient Gaul, is divided into three parts. Early adolescence is the period of strong but vague new impulses, bewilderingly mingled with the characteristics of childhood, and covers approximately the years from twelve to fourteen. Middle adolescence is the period of the development and organization of these impulses, with corresponding rapid variation from the childhood traits, extending from about fifteen to about seventeen. Later adolescence, from about eighteen to adult life, is the period of adjustment and harmonization of the adolescent impulses leading nat- urally to the relatively fixed disposition and character of the adult. These three periods have been called the ferment stage, the crisis stage, and the reconstruction stage.! Cutten, The Psychological Phenomena of Christianity, p. 275. 8 LATER ADOLESCENCE PERIODS OF ADOLESCENCE It should not be imagined that these periods are disparate units in a chain of age groups. They are, rather, the connected stages of a continuous growth process. The more we know about human nature, the more are we convinced that development is a continuous process. The child is, it is true, different from the youth, and the youth from the man, but these differ- ences have come about through infinitely minute gradations rather than by great leaps. Much has been made, for instance, of the difference between the reli- gion of the child and of the youth, and yet everything to be found in the moral and religious point of view of the youth had its beginnings and its incubation in childhood. There is no abrupt shift from one to the other. This does not mean, of course, that no time of life has any striking or distinctive characteristics. We are striving, rather, to emphasize the fact that what we always find, when we look carefully, is continuity in development rather than abrupt transition.? Although the shift from the characteristic attitudes of middle to those of later adolescence is gradual, any high-school or college teacher recognizes a real dis- tinction. Although they have much in common, the high-school boy and the college youth have character- istic differences, and the girl of sixteen recognizes a wide social and individual gap between the girl of twenty and herself. The distinction between middle and later adoles- cence is not an arbitrary one. The end of the former 2King, The High School Age, copyright, 1914, p. 67. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. 9 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE period marks the completion of the bony growth of the body. The stature of adult life is attained perhaps a year earlier by girls than by boys, for the average girl is somewhat ahead of the average boy of similar age throughout adolescence. Physiologically a girl is older than her twin brother because she matures faster. It is not an accident that the average wife is somewhat younger than her husband. Conditioning factors.—Cutten locates later ado- lescence at seventeen to twenty-one in females and eighteen to twenty-four in males. There is some war- rant for this distinction, but for convenience in classi- fication and with the above facts in mind, we may treat the period from eighteen to twenty-four as later adolescence. Not only is the bony structure of the body fully developed at about eighteen but the entire organism has reached a rather definite biological ma- turity. There is a possible connection between varia- tion in the age of maturity and climatic or racial vari- ation. In general, adolescence seems to appear earlier among peoples living in warm countries than among the inhabitants of colder regions. But if the organism is biologically mature at about the age of eighteen, why should we not term this point the beginning of adult life? It must be admitted that the location of the end of later adolescence has no such clear demarkation as its beginning. Youth gradually merges into adulthood. It may be also admitted that there is a sense in which the setting apart of this period is artificial. It is largely the result of social forces which have long been at work increasing the .* Cutten, The Psychological Phenomena of Christianity, p. 275. 10 LATER ADOLESCENCE span of years preparatory to the serious responsibil- ities of life. John Fiske, in his famous essay on “The Meaning of Infancy,’ shows that mankind has developed through the extension of the period of dependence. In some of the lower animals the parent gives abso- lutely no care to the offspring beyond the laying of eggs. In higher forms there is an increasing period of infancy. As the complexity of the organism in- creases there is a corresponding increase in the proc- esses of development necessary between birth and maturity. Finally in man there is a long period of de- pendence during which the possibilities of develop- ment are increasingly discovered. This process of lengthening the preparatory years of life has contin- ued through historic times. In early civilization boys and girls were introduced to the major responsibil- ities of life as soon as they passed the initiation stage of puberty. As society advanced the years of prep- aration were extended, until, with reference to cer- tain responsibilities, American girls have been con- sidered competently mature at the age of eighteen. Boys become “of age” at twenty-one, and now the same age marks the beginning of a girl’s participation in political affairs. But the social process of lengthening the years of preparatory youth goes on, largely an unconscious change. The advantages of more adequate education are discovered and the college or the technical school sets a new limit to the period of youth. In many cases the full training of a young person requires the first thirty years of life as preparation. This means the II PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE social extension of a period that might otherwise end much sooner. Hence it might be said of later adolescence that it represents a socially developed extension of the pre- adult age. It is clear that certain secondary traits of adolescence may be socially stimulated so that their relatively early appearance is forced or they may be discouraged and retarded. Thus courtship may be en- couraged too early, so that the vague feelings of sex attraction in early adolescence may be unwholesomely turned into the channels of the courtship expression, while, on the other hand, courtships may be socially disapproved until late in the period of later adoles- cence. Naturally, the development of the sex im-_ pulses will be considerably affected by such variations of social attitudes. But later adolescence is not merely an artificial period. Its demarkation from middle adolescence is clear, and it is a period which differs considerably, whatever the social environment, from adult life. It is maturity with a difference and with normal attitudes toward life and the world which set it apart from later life. With some justice it has been called the infancy of adult life. We cannot draw a hard-and-fast line between infancy and early childhood; neither should we be arbitrary in locating the end of the later youth period, but there are certain elements of difference be- tween the young man or woman of twenty and one a few years older. I hope that all who read this book will join in the effort to distinguish these traits of later adolescence. Later adolescence is the period in which the habits, 12 LATER ADOLESCENCE ideals, and tendencies which have been appearing through adolescence undergo a refining or developing process. It is not, like early adolescence, a period of newly discovered impulses. It is, rather, a period of fixation and harmonizing, organizing and stabilizing the character. Having a complete complement of instincts, the young man or woman develops and or- ganizes them in the direction of the relative fixity of adult life. Our experience with mental measurements seems to indicate that our fundamental intellectual powers are practically mature at the age of sixteen or eighteen.* It remains for later adolescence to lead the mind into those special activities in which it can best function. Through such a specialized narrowing of the field of thought the practical power of an intelli- gence already developed may be tremendously 1n- creased. For example, a boy of sixteen or eighteen probably has all the fundamental capacities applicable to the study of mathematics that he will ever have. But he is not a mathematician. Now he begins to specialize in mathematics. By this specialization he contracts his field of thought so as to apply all his powers of memory, imagination, and perception, with such powers for developing motor skills as he may have, to the mathematical field. These powers of thought and action are not separate parts of his mental life so much as distinct phases or attitudes of his mind. They have been growing throughout childhood and the earlier periods of adolescence. Now, at the thresh- old of later adolescence they are essentially mature. “Compare The Psychology of Middle Adolescence, Mary E. Moxcey, Chapter V. 13 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE The youth of eighteen who has not hitherto shown any mathematical ability will probably never be a mathe- matician. But if his elementary capacities are favor- able, he may concentrate his powers on mathematics and the result will be much the same as we observe when the accumulated mass of water in a stream is forced into the narrow tunnel that leads to a turbine. We have not created power but we have concentrated it and made it practically usable. The development of mental powers before later adolescence, the special- ization process above described, and the resultant men- tal efficiency of adult life are graphically illustrated by Figure 1. Later adolescence is a time for developing and har-— monizing all the elements in a life philosophy. Emo- tion is now more deeply affected by concepts and the processes of reason than ever before. This is the time for the adjustment of one’s political, social, eth- ical, zsthetic, and religious ideas. This adjustment often involves a considerable degree of inner stress and strain. Not all the painful readjustments take place before later adolescence. Particularly, if one has been brought up in an atmosphere of narrow and non- progressive thinking, there are likely to be painful readjustment problems as one comes into touch with new information and broader ideals of life. Happy the young man or woman who has learned to hold an opinion as a skilled workman holds a tool—firmly, that he may use it decisively and effectively, but not with such a desperate grip that he cannot let go in case another prove its superiority. Earlier periods.—To every period the preceding 14 uo I uo11d2ouaq saomod Joyow-A4O AQUI 2 e e WIT 3 one pales 1240] ie: QDUZIS]2jOpKe 19} n u011eEeziTel00d 210jaq jUaudo : PV 5 J2Aaq PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE periods are of great importance, for they determine very largely the foundation upon which its construc- tion must proceed. So a most important condition for successful work with young people is a knowledge of the environment of their earlier years. A good home training back in the years of early childhood, and even infancy, is of the highest importance to the young man or woman now approaching adult life. It is well for workers with young people to know that while there are great possibilities of development, most of the great issues of life are settled in childhood or in the powerful though bewildering currents of early and middle adolescence. Later adolescence has been compared to the development of a photographic nega- tive. It is a critical period. We do not know how our negative will turn out. We must handle it carefully. But the chief time of decision, of crisis, was when the exposure was made. We are dependent for many of the conditions of our work with young men and women upon others who, in earlier years, determined the sights and sounds and ideas and ideals to which they should be exposed. We often hear of young people going wrong, but in most cases these reached the actual forks of the road in the crisis years of middle adolescence or in the often unguarded years of early adolescence and childhood. Many who deal with de- linquent young people either ignore or are unaware of these facts. There is, however, an increasing move- ment for the prevention of crime through attention to childhood and the earlier periods of youth. As one member of the staff of a psychopathic clinic expresses it, it is better to deal with fireworks on the third of 16 LATER ADOLESCENCE July than on the fifth. F. Ernest Johnson has said, in an address on the moral hazards of child labor: Early exposure to an environment in which intel- lectual, moral, and cultural excellence are unknown and undesired, where shiftlessness and dishonest meth- ods of work prevail, where respect for personality is seldom found and rough treatment is a common prac- tice, and where uncleanness of thought and speech are continually in evidence—such an experience if it con- tinues long, is almost sure to exact a heavy toll of the young life thus imperiled. Later adolescence is not an absolute break from mid- dle adolescence. Many traits from even earlier periods still hold. As an example, there is much in common between the sense of honor of the college student or the young factory worker and that of early adoles- cence. The young collegian who will cheat if the professor is watching him like a detective, will be more apt to respect his honor when a professor appeals to it by leaving the room during an examination and the shop employee will likewise respond to the confidence of his foreman. In fact, the attitude of these young people is not unlike that of younger boys toward teachers, parents, and other authorities who must win their admiration in order to command their willing obedience. Problems 1. Make as complete a list as possible of the char- acteristics of (a) early adolescence; (b) middle adoles- cence; (c) adult life. 2. What are the reasons for dividing adolescence into three periods? 17 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE 3. What characteristics of your own life can you trace back to your childhood? 4. Make a survey of the educational equipment of the young people of your class. Find the average num- ber of years of school, counting from the first grade. Are there wide variations from this average? How should the facts discovered by this survey affect your teaching ? REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING The High School Age, King, Chapter V. The Psychological Phenomena of Christianity, Cutten, Chapter XIX. Life and Confessions of a Psychologist, Hall. Handbook for Workers with Young People, Thompson, Chapter II. The Individual in the Making, Kirkpatrick, Chap- ter IX. The Psychology of Early Adolescence, Mudge, Chapter I] The Psychology of Middle Adolescence, Moxcey, Chapters I and V. 18 CHAPTER II DEVELOPMENT TOWARD ADULTHOOD PuHySICAL DEVELOPMENT Earty adolescence is a period of rapid growth, and a slower development in height and weight continues until about the end of middle adolescence. But at the beginning of the later adolescent period bodily development is practically complete. Of course there are characteristic developments—accumulating flesh, changing facial contours, etc.—away into middle age, but the youth of eighteen or nineteen may be consid- ered an adult so far as general physiological develop- ment is concerned. Growth from now on is a process of discovering and utilizing the possibilities already implicit in the organism, and a sort of hardening or fixing process as the nervous system approaches the relative fixity and stability of adult life. Social factors——There are many elements of devel- opment, however, that depend upon training and the establishment of good habits. Social factors have especially affected the physical development of girls. The change from the constricted waists and voluminous skirts of the nineties to the relative freedom of the apparel of to-day is but one element in the changes which have affected the young women of our time. Carefully kept records of the physical measurements of entering freshmen have been kept by Oberlin Col- 19 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE lege since 1886. These records show that, although the average freshman girl is nine months younger than the average of twenty-five years ago she is 1.6 inches taller, 3.7 pounds heavier, has a lung capacity increased by 24.7 cubic inches and a chest expansion increased from 1.7 inches to 3.5 inches. Her strength, judged by various tests, is 25 per cent greater. In the earlier years she gained more than now from the regimen of physical education in Oberlin, because she had more elements of weakness to be corrected. Al- though there is still room for improvement it is clear that the young women of to-day, at least in one insti- tution, are in better physical condition than were those of a quarter-century ago. There are various conditions of the nervous system and the bodily organs closely related to nervous fune- tions which are correlated with the mental characteris- tics of the period. A youth of twenty may properly be considered a young man, but there is reason for emphasizing the “young.” He has not yet passed beyond the transitional age of adolescence. He is not so impulsive as in early and middle adolescence. His conduct is less erratic and more predictable. But he has not reached the relatively settled state of the adult. He still holds the enthusiasm of youth, often careless and free in its manifestations. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES It is difficult to generalize in describing young peo- ple, for all the elements that make for individual dif- * The Oberlin Alumni Magazine, October, 1924, p. 6ff. 20 DEVELOPMENT TOWARD ADULTHOOD ferences are in this period quite thoroughly developed. These differences depend very largely upon a variety of physical and psychological factors. The glands.—One of the very significant causes of variation is the variety of development in the glands of the body, especially the endocrene or ductless glands. These glands secrete certain elements essen- tial to health and development called hormones, and these are thrown directly into the blood. The fact that these hormones control the action of various vital organs is well established. Among the endocrene glands are the thyroid, thymus, parathyroid, and pineal glands, the pancreas, the pituitary body, and the gonads. Some of these are small and the functions of several of them have until recently been unknown, but appar- ently each is essential to healthy life and bodily func- tioning. Many of the differences, both physical and mental, between individual young people may be traced to differing glandular adjustments. Thus the midgets of the circus owe their unfortunately arrested devel- opment in great degree to abnormalities in the pituitary glands. The disease called goiter is due to thyroid derangement. Among the most remarkable glands in their very direct effects upon the body and the mind are the adre- nals. These glands, located close to the kidneys, throw into the blood a substance called adrenin or adrenalin. Such excitement as fear or anger stimulates the dis- charge of adrenin into the blood and excites the nerv- ous system. The heart muscles are quickly stimulated to greater activity and the muscular system is toned up. At the same time the activities of the alimentary 21 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE canal are slowed down and the organs of digestion and assimilation are practically thrown out of commission. During early adolescence it is probable that the de- velopment of these various glands may account for many of the shifting and unpredictable impulses of | our boys and girls. The sex glands, for example, do not reach their full development until some time after puberty. During middle adolescence the glands are becoming adjusted, and later adolescence sees a still further settling-down process as the whole bodily or- ganism approaches adult life. Instincts.—The complicated nature of an individual personality is still further seen in the wide variety and development of the instincts or native tendencies which have been somehow treasured up in the nervous system. There are “instinctive dispositions” which we inherit from a complicated and diversified ancestry, without which the human organism “would lie inert and motionless like a wonderful clockwork whose mainspring had been removed or a steam engine whose fires had been drawn.” Here is the background for an infinity of variation. Temperaments.—Upon a basis of physical varia- tion, glandular differences, a complex nervous mechan- ism and all sorts of physical factors and upon the wide variety of hereditary elements that make people differ one from another, are built those classified variations of personality which we call temperaments. We often speak rather colloquially of a jovial temperament or an excitable temperament, using the word interchange- ably with “disposition.” But students of human na- ture ever since ancient times have recognized certain 22 DEVELOPMENT TOWARD ADULTHOOD major differences between people. They rest upon a vast number of conditioning factors, the nature and balance of the nervous system, the relative activity of the glands, differences in the development of all the vital organs, and even upon the development of the general muscular system. These physical traits, in turn, are derived from a complex variety of hereditary factors, modified by early habits and training. Could we analyze fully all the physical and mental elements thus blended in personality, we could better under- stand why one of our students has the peculiar qual- ities of leadership, why one is self-assertive, why one girl is motherly and protective in her attitude toward children, while another has little apparent interest in her younger brothers and sisters, and so would be able to work with them much more sympathetically and intelligently. INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT During later adolescence there is relatively little change in the powers of sense perception or imagina- tion or memory, but there are very great developments in the power of thought. The processes of abstract reasoning are active. Now is the time for the study of pure science, philosophy, and logic. The intel- lectual powers, which have been developing all through childhood and adolescence, are now in full vigor. Emotions are more controlled and reason and will are increasingly dominant. With proper guidance there is rapid growth in intellectual powers. Many of the enduring works of the world’s literature have been written during this period. Many of the world’s great 23 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE leaders in the sciences of war and peace have assumed their leadership at this time of life. . The youth movement.—Because of the vigorous mental power of this period, its fresh moral insight, its tendency to enthusiastic idealism, youth should have a large part in the active determination of moral and social questions. Adult age is essentially conserv- ative. While there are progressive minds in middle or advanced life, our chief dependence for intellectual and moral progress is on our young people. Therefore it is well for us to encourage initiative in them and to give them increasing opportunity for self-expression and participation in the affairs of state and church and the other social groups of which they are a part. By those who believe in progress the recent develop- ments of what has been called the Youth Movement, the discussion by our young people of the fundamental problems of social, moral, and religious life, should be judged to be thoroughly normal and wholesome. Just now, when so many of our theories of social affairs have been found wanting, we may well encourage our young people to study the more effective application of Christian principles to the problems of the world. DOMINANT INTERESTS AND IMPULSES In order to secure a comparison of later adolescence with an earlier period the writer some years ago ques- tioned a small group of college students who would soon be high-school teachers, with regard to the changes in certain interests and impulses. Some time later a similar investigation was made regarding the experiences of nearly two hundred college students. 24 DEVELOPMENT TOWARD ADULTHOOD These students were probably all in the midst of the period now under discussion. They were asked to write on a series of interests and impulses, comparing them, so far as their memory would allow, with their corresponding interests and impulses at the age of fifteen. The results of this inquiry may indicate some characteristic developments during adolescence. Interests dominant at fifteen.—Judging from the memories of these college students, it appears that they at the age of fifteen were more interested in pets, in the making of collections, in adventure stories, puz- zles, and active games than they are at present. To be sure, there are considerable variations, a few being more interested in pets, for example, than they were at the age of fifteen. In general, however, there has been a distinct decrease in interest in pets, amounting in some cases to an actual antipathy. Some never have had this interest, and in a few cases there is an inter- est of practically the same intensity. : In the case of collections there is a wide shift of in- terest from the type of collections made at fifteen. In some cases the collecting interest remains quite vigor- ous, but there have been decided changes in the things collected. The boys and girls who at fifteen collect stamps, pictures, souvenirs, and other things of little monetary value, now collect books, music, curios, clip- pings, fancywork pieces, etc., according to their indi- vidual tastes.? Interests in which there is little change.—The in- terests of these young people in memorizing poems 2 The author’s study of girls’ collections was reported in the Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. XXV, No. 3, September, 1918, p. 319. 25 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE and in chums of the same sex does not seem to have very greatly changed. In the matter of chums, there are some very noticeable individual differences, but there seems to be a very general agreement that the friendships of middle adolescence were more apt to be short-lived than those of the later period. Interests greater in later adolescence. —There seems to be an increased interest in business matters in later adolescence over that of fifteen. Some deny that they had any interest in business or finance at fifteen, although two young men confess to a decided interest in boyish mercantile activities which seems to them greater than their present interest in business and finance. | Machinery seems to interest young women fully as much as young men, although some young men report > a great interest in mechanical apparatus at fifteen. One says he was “always working on some sort of ‘engine, ” and another says that he “always had the back yard full of various kinds of mechanical opera- tions, such as carpet weavers, incubators, steam en- gines, mills, etc.” Love stories are of greater interest in later adoles- cence, although there is more interest than some would suspect in middle adolescence. The later interest in love stories is more affected by the literary form, the psychological problems involved, and the deeper meaning of sex relationships with which later adoles- cence has become familiar. Visual art and music are likewise of dominant in- terest in later adolescence, in most cases, and there is a rather general increase in the interest in literature. 26 DEVELOPMENT TOWARD ADULTHOOD There is an increase of interest in newspapers and pol- itics. In most cases there has been a distinct increase in interest in social functions. In the recollections of one or two of the students, the social functions of the age of fifteen involved a nervous strain which is less noticeable at the present time. Other impulses and tendencies.—These students seem to have developed the ability to control their emo- tions much more readily than they did in middle ado- lescence. With few exceptions, they do not become angry so quickly, although several believe that their anger lasts longer now than it did at the earlier period. Later adolescence appears to be more willing to ac- cept authority than the earlier period, many reporting decidedly unsubmissive behavior at fifteen. At fifteen nearly all these young people are rela- tively care-free. In later adolescence they have much more vigorous feelings of responsibility. In some cases, however, there was rather an abnormal sense of responsibility. One young woman says, “I felt that the woes of the world were upon my shoulders.” An- other says she took responsibility “almost too seriously.” Most of these young people feel that their ability to fix attention and concentrate their minds upon problems has been greatly improved since the age of fifteen. A considerable number of these young people are sure they made no concrete plans for the future at the earlier period and the majority are sure that their plans now are much more concrete than then. Quite generally, however, their memories upon this point are indefinite. 27 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE The climax of adolescence.— Many impulses which have had their budding and blossoming, their earlier and middle adolescence, now come to a highly vigorous development. Thus the spirit of adventure, which has had its development in the life of the early adolescent boy in relation to a gang and its romantic development in the high-school years, now leads young people to a high joy in adventure. Life is at full tide, physical energy is greater than ever before, the mind is active and eager, and enthusiasms demand expression in definite activities. Habits are becoming fixed, the emo- tions are as strong as ever and an increasing surplus of energy tends to find expression in excitement. Young people are capable of self-control and normally have developed habits of working and studying with some regularity. It is not strange that they seek excite- ment in the thrills of amusement and larks and adven- tures which often distress older and steadier people. This indicates a serious need for public interest in properly guided recreational amusements. There is a pathetic lack of social concern for the search of our young people for recreation. Says Jane Addams: It is as though we were deaf to the appeal of these young creatures; claiming their share of the joy of life, flinging out into the dingy city their desires and aspirations after unknown realities, their unutterable longings for companionship and pleasure. Their very demand for excitement is a protest against the dullness of life to which we ourselves instinctively respond. Contradictory characters.—Adolescence as a whole is normally marked by the presence of contradictory characters or differing and apparently incompatible 28 DEVELOPMENT TOWARD ADULTHOOD impulses. In later adolescence many of the traits of earlier periods remain, while the characteristic tenden- cies of adult life are but imperfectly developed. In early adolescence we had a relatively rapid change in moods and in middle adolescence these moods were somewhat longer continued. This tendency to various distinct moods persists in later adolescence and is marked by the recurrence of periods of joy and melan- choly, heightened by the deeper emotional energy of this period. Seriousness and frivolity—There is noticeable in later adolescence a mixture of seriousness and frivol- ity, often marked by the alternation of periods of hilarious fun and periods of serious feelings of respon- sibility. Thus Shakespeare pictures the prodigal spirit of young Henry V, who, in the midst of a group of enthusiastic youths, revels in the frolics of the Lon- don streets, then suddenly breaks with his old asso- ciations, pays his last visit to the tavern, cracks his final joke and then calls to one of his men, “To horse, to horse; for thou and I have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner-time.”’ Thus suddenly the royal vagabond, who has not, after all, gone dangerously far into the land of prodigality, becomes the patriot and the man of action. It is possible for the frivolity of youth, unchecked by religious and moral training, to lead into a dan- gerous “sowing of wild oats.” But in the normal and wholesome development of later adolescence there is much of the spirit of revelry and active enjoyment. Various organizations for young men and women have wisely made use of this tendency of young people in 29 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE their programs. The difference between later adoles- cence and adult life is quite clearly indicated by an examination of the typical college paper or magazine or the local publications of the Young Men’s Chris- tian Association. In many of these papers one notices a broad type of humor which to an adult may seem childish and almost affectedly crude and clumsy. They are apt to make elaborate use of circumlocution and an uncommon vocabulary and far-fetched puns and in many cases this is true of the writings of young people who are otherwise capable of restrained and cultured expression. Irresponsibility—There often remains in young people of this period a tendency to carelessness and irresponsibility. Many a student is satisfied to get through his courses with the minimum of study, cheer- fully goes in debt for the things he wants, and is opti- mistic regarding the outcome of these carefree actions, while at other times he is serious and ready to accept responsibility. During the week of examinations he is regretful of his past indifferences and faces a period of cramming with almost desperate earnestness. In many excellent students there are periods of irrespon- sibility, and in many careless students there is a strain of seriousness to which their teachers may effectively appeal. Independence.—The development of physical and mental powers now approaching their highest point naturally leads to a feeling of independence and a sens- ing of individual problems, of the final preparation for life, self-support, and the growing responsibilities which continue into adult life. It is the time when the 30 DEVELOPMENT TOWARD ADULTHOOD young man or woman must decide how to use life and its powers, whether to spend them in riotous living or to conserve them for the future. These new respon- sibilities are interesting to young people and have the thrill of excitement in them. It is a new thing to be “on one’s own,” and the experience is interesting, ex- citing, and sometimes a bit wearing. With the new sense of independence they may develop an attitude of anxiety and worry, or a spirit of recklessness, a cau- tious dependence upon the advice of trusted friends or a resentfulness against the interference of any coun- sel, or, better than all of these, they may develop that balance between humility and self-reliance which we consider good judgment. Young people of this age need wise and experienced guides. They need the counsel of older people, who will recognize the spirit of independent youth and tactfully, without condescen- sion, suggest proper courses of action. It is very important that young people come into close fellowship with older people who have met the same problems and have worked them out in harmony with a mature philosophy, scientific judgment and reli- gious insight. Such sympathetic older advisers will realize that the attitude of questioning and doubting is a normal element in the process of development. Throughout adolescence boys and girls come to exam- ine critically the statements of their teachers and their parents, and must, in the normal process of things, come to their own conclusions. There are many se- rious struggles necessary to most young people in these later adolescent years. It does not simplify mat- ters to advise young people to give no heed to their 31 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE doubts and accept credulously the teachings of more mature minds. They must make their own decisions. Developing a life philosophy.—In the period of later adolescence a philosophy of life, a practical sys- tem of thinking and behaving, becomes crystallized. It is a fortunate thing for progress that this period, when the direction of life is approaching its relative fixation, is the same period in which idealism is at its zenith. This means that young people conscious of the great problems of life and character, feeling the appeal of a call to service for humanity, feeling the urge to sacrificial helpfulness, carry into the activities of these years the energy for reform, the impulse for higher service, which should carry each generation a little farther toward the goal of Christian righteous- ness than the preceding. Enthusiasm for ideals meets a discouraging check during this period in the discoveries and disillusion- ments which are common. Young people are now com- ing into contact with reality, with its unpleasant as well as pleasant phases. Sometimes the college youth with his weekly check from an unwise father postpones the time of adjusting himself to the realities of life. But normally in this period both the college student and the young man or woman going directly into a vo- cation meet a variety of new problems. They find themselves in a world of competition, in a world where high ideals do not always seem dominant, where hard work is necessary and disillusionments must some- times be met. Meeting thus the realities of vocational and business life many young people are disheartened. Their disillusionment may lead to a blasé attitude 32 DEVELOPMENT TOWARD ADULTHOOD or to self-pity and despondency. It may even lead to a complete abandonment of one’s life ideals, to unwise marriages, or to suicide. Great numbers of young people are facing serious problems the true solution of which depends upon a wholesome, reasonable, Chris- tian philosophy of life. Most valuable service can be rendered by the leader of young people who will study their individual problems, social, economic, in- tellectual, moral and religious, and lend the influence of good counsel to their solution. PROBLEMS 1. Collect student newspapers and magazines. Can you judge some of the traits of later adolescence from them? 2. What additional characteristics of later adoles- cence have you observed? 3. What is the effect of the presence of adults in a young people’s meeting? 4. In what particulars do the average college or high-school students differ from the general average of young people of similar age? 5. Can you classify your pupils as to temperament ? 6. To what degree do your memories of your own adolescence agree with the characteristics here men- tioned ? REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING Handbook for Workers with Young People, Thompson. Girlhood and Character, Moxcey. The Psychology of Adolescence, ‘Tracy. The Pupil and the Teacher, Weigle. The Pupil, Barclay. The Individual in the Making, Kirkpatrick, Chap- LET Le 33 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE The Spiritual Life, Coe, Chapter III. Psychology: A Study of Mental Life, Woodworth, Chapter XXI. Social Psychology, McDougall, p. 116ff. Introduction to Psychology, Seashore, Chapter XXI. GOAPTE RELL EH PLORALS: One YOU fra In discussing later adolescence we face the same danger that has led us to overgeneralize our observa- tion of childhood and speak of “The Child.” We must not forget that both childhood and adolescence have infinite variety. We can only say that there are cer- tain traits which we observe in a relatively large num- ber of young people. To discuss the whole round of the ideals of youth would be impossible. Some young people have high ideals and others have low. Some young people live wholesome moral lives and others live upon a low plane of self-gratification. Some young people have keen minds and others are men- tally dull, and it is well for us to realize that the full significance of the highest idealism requires a devel- oped and well-balanced mind. In this chapter we shall let youth speak for itself. Perhaps in so doing we may learn something about youth and also develop some method of learning more. A questionnaire was recently sent out to several hundred young people of the age group which we have been studying. These young people, some of them college students and others workers in various fields of industry (chiefly clerical workers or sales- men), were asked a series of questions as to their problems, needs, and ideals. Their answers may in- 35 PSY CHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE dicate what some of our young people are thinking and doing. They, of course, do not constitute a de- pendable picture of later adolescence as a whole, but they are valuable as coming from young people them- selves. You will doubtless gain the greatest benefit from this chapter if you seek from young peopie in your own classes similar information about their ac- tivities and interests. Wuat Younc PEoPLE SAY I. QuEsTION: What sort of books do you like to read? 3 Naturally there is a wide variety of answers to this question. A very large majority preferred fiction, but there are many who seem deeply interested in poetry, scientific books, and biography. Of course the reading of college students is largely affected by their subjects of study. One young salesman says he reads few books, as he “‘can get more stimulus from meet- ing with people of my own age in various types of activity.” 2. QUESTION: What magazines do you read regu- larly? 3. QUESTION: What magazines do you read oc- castonally ? An examination of the answers to these two ques- tions reveals a wide variety of reading interests. The magazines preferred by the industrial group are on the whole of a more serious type than those reported by college students. Perhaps it is natural that the students should turn from the solid reading of their study courses to magazines of lighter character. One 36 THE IDEALS: OF. YOUTH of the surprising discoveries is that the magazine which is regularly read by a very large proportion of the college students, standing at the head of all lists, is one which is chiefly given over to the glorification of personal and often material success. There are many who read the better type of magazines oc- casionally. The women’s magazines are fairly popular with college girls and a wide variety of special in- terests is indicated. A relatively small number report reading the sensational fiction magazines so con- spicuous on the news-stands. 4. Question: What kind of music do you lke best? There are wide variations in the answers to this question, some preferring jazz and popular music and others preferring classical or artistic music. Many like a variety according to mood or occasion. In gen- eral, however, the musical preferences of those young people are quite decided. In the case of the college students the influence of strong music departments seems to me very evident in toning up the apprecia- tion of good music. 5. Question: What are your favorite indoor amusements ? Here again is wide variation. In one Northern university the preferences of the boys are in the fol- lowing order: gymnastic games, reading, chess or similar games, cards, dancing, radio. The preferred amusements of the girls in the same institution are: reading, dancing, gymnastic games, music, cards. In a Southern college for women the order is: reading, cards, sewing or fancy work, dancing, music. In all 37 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE my lists of papers from young women reading stands first, although most of the writers are engaged either in college study or in some form of clerical work. 6. Question: What are your favorite outdoor amusements ? Here there are very wide variations. The following are the preferences of several groups in order of number of times chosen: Boys in Northern univer- sity—baseball, football, tennis, hiking, swimming, hunting, track athletics, skating, fishing. Girls in same Northern institution—hiking, swimming, tennis, horse- back riding, soccer football, motoring, skating, base- ball, golf, rowing. Girls in a Southern college for women: horseback riding, swimming, tennis, basket ball, walking. There are similar distributions in the industrial group, walking or hiking being a special favorite with the young women. Doubtless these pref- erences are largely dependent on local customs and opportunities for given activities. For example, the Southern girls might include skating after a winter or two in a Northern institution. It is clear from all the answers to this question that later adolescence is de- cidedly interested in active, out-of-door pleasures. 7. QuESTION: Have you a hobby? What is it? Naturally, there are many hobbies. Those which are mentioned most frequently are given here. North- ern university boys—athletics, radio, reading, followed by a very wide variety of hobbies mentioned by only one or two students. It is noticeable, however, that the majority of these students either do not answer this question or deny that they have hobbies. Girls from the same university—reading, art, swimming, 38 tit 4 DEALS. OF YOUTH collecting for memory book, sewing. About half of this group either deny having hobbies or do not an- swer. Southern women’s college—dancing, reading, tennis, and a variety of hobbies mentioned by one each. The majority say they have no hobbies. The industrial groups show a very wide variety of hobbies. Some of those mentioned by young men are: Young people’s work, Boy Scout work, collecting furniture, collecting coins. One gives this more extensive list of hobbies: Ladies, dogs, autos, arguing. The young women men- tion, among other hobbies, looking after younger girls, “analyzing people about whom I know nothing,” cross-word puzzles, poetry, getting acquainted with queer people, opera, collecting postcard pictures of places visited. 8. Question: What kind of religious meetings do you most enjoy? Northern college men seem to prefer the young people’s meeting to any other type of religious service, the Sunday school standing second and the preaching service third. A few mention a revival service as their preference. Many indicate the type of service they like as “semi-formal,” “not too emotional,” “quiet, spiritual meetings,” “those that the young peo- ple take part in.” Only one young man confesses that he does not enjoy any of them. Northern college women give their preferences as follows: Regular church service, young people’s society, Sunday school, Y. W. C. A., with several choices of single students. The Southern girl students show a different order of preference, with the Y. W. C. A. as the chief prefer- ence, the Sunday school and the young people’s society 39 PSYCHOLOGY |} OF LATER! ADOLESCENCE tied for second place and the regular church service and the revival meeting tied for the next place. Of the industrial group the young men seem generally to prefer some sort of informal service in which they may take part while the young women seem to prefer the regular church services. g. Question: What do you enjoy in them? 10. QuesTIOoN: What good do you get out of them? To these two questions there are many individual answers. Many answer very vaguely or omit to an- swer altogether. The element whose enjoyment is oftenest mentioned is music, discussions coming sec- ond and sermons third. There are many who wish “a balanced program,” “association with others of the same age,” “straightforward speaking,” “a feeling of worship,” “‘a quiet service,’ and in various ways indi- cate an appreciation of well-planned and purposeful services. The profit received from religious meetings is most frequently described in terms of inspiration to better living or broader conceptions and ideals. In various ways these young people indicate a real interest in those services which aid in their own character-build- ing. Religious services make them “feel like accom- plishing something,” lead to “a better understanding of God,” “give a sense of worship and of a good deed well done,” “‘stimulate to a better life,” make one ‘‘feel the beauty of God,” put one “on the right basis for the work of life.” One young man says he gets “enjoy- ment or inspiration out of the good ones; nothing out of the dry ones.” A carelessly planned service does not make a very deep appeal. 40 PED BATS: OR VY OWT H It. Question: If you attend religious meetings often or regularly, what is the real reason? Most of the answers to this question appear to be given in all frankness, although some may have given conventional and perfunctory answers without giving much thought to the question. Three groups of an- swers which seem to be about equally frequent are similar to these: “I go because I like to;” “I go be- cause I think I ought;” “I go because of the benefit I may receive.” Next to these three reasons the largest number of answers give habit and parental training as the reason for churchgoing. There are a few scat- tering answers that indicate higher ideals than these, such as “to be able to serve better,” or “for the help I can give others and the help that I get.” A consider- able number of young people say they go if they like the preacher’s sermons or if there is to be good music. From all the answers I gain the general impression that these young people feel that the church is not in- terested in active service for the world deeply enough to greatly stir their enthusiasm for churchgoing. 12. QuesTION: What sort of religious teaching do you feel the need of now? A large proportion of the papers indicate a conscious need for teaching that practically applies the principles of Christianity to the needs of the world. Another large group are anxious for help to understand the Bible. Many feel the need for the sort of teaching that will harmonize religious concepts with those in other fields of thought. Such answers as these are common: “I feel the need of teaching that will put religion on a sound intellectual as well as spiritual 4I PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE basis.” “TI need teaching that will clear up doubts re- sulting from little knowledge.” One young man asks for ‘more teaching and less preaching.” 13. Question: Do you think Christianity can be applied to business? | Nearly all the young people agree that it can and should be so applied. Many cite individual compa- nies of whose profit-sharing or other practices in the interest of their employees they have heard. Still others mention business men of high personal morality whom they have known. But most of these young people seem to have high ideals with regard to this matter. One young salesman suggests as a way to apply Christianity, “issuing of stock to any or all members of a firm, including those who do the real work in the shop; promotion from the inside rather than from the outside; treating a customer humanly— selling him what he needs rather than what he wants.” A shop worker writes: “Yes, it is applicable, but let’s see the one who does it. I have never seen it applied very largely.” A young woman, a clerical worker in a large tailoring factory, says: “When any one big con- cern comes to do this, really and truly, I think the com- ing of His kingdom will be very near at hand.” Nat- urally, there are very different viewpoints, one young man, a student, holding that the prevailing code of business ethics is founded on Christianity, while oth- ers say “The one who first applies Christianity in the business world will be out of luck,” or “certain scru- ples and ideals must be forgotten in the business world if one wishes to succeed to any great degree.” It is a conscious state of high feeling, marked by such bodily changes as warmth or chill, quickened or retarded pulse, altered breathing, mus- cular contraction and many other observable changes, together with complex activities of the nerves, the blood vessels, the glands, and the various vital organs. The excitement involved in emotion when -whole- somely controlled is of high value to our individual and social life. It is natural for young people to 4An Introduction to Psychology, Calkins, copyright, The Mac- millan Company, I9OI, p. 263. 5 Psychology: A Study of Mental Life, Woodworth, p. 118. SI PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE crave some sort of emotional stimulation. The legiti- mate satisfaction of the craving involves some of the most significant problems of religious education. The needs of young life are by no means supplied by an © attitude of disapproval of the unwholesome stimula- tions. We must support and encourage positive pro- grams of wholesome activity, both in the field of play and in the field of active service. | The Function of Emotion.—The very word “emo- tion” indicates the place of feeling in volition and activity. An emotion tends to stimulate and energize our physical movements and our mental processes. An angry man can strike a harder blow than would be possible when he is not emotionally excited. A man whose house is on fire may be able to carry from the building a chest that he could not lift save under the stress of emotional excitement. The mechanism of emotion has already been described in part in Chapter II. The human organism has two relatively independent nervous systems. The central nervous system, with its network of nerves leading to the brain, is active in all our conscious states and in many bodily processes of which we are unconscious. The sympathetic or autonomic nervous system consists of nerves and nerve centers which are stimulated by all sorts of emotional situations and which control invol- untary muscles and glands. In fact, this nervous sys- tem is coordinated with the endocrene system with its various secretions that are thrown into the blood on every occasion of vigorous emotion. As an example, when occasion arises for terror or anger, the sym- pathetic nervous system becomes active and stimulates §2 ~ FEELING AND EMOTION the adrenal glands, which, in turn, pour into the blood their characteristic secretion, adrenin. This causes. the stimulation of the nerves controlling the muscles, including the muscles of the heart. The heart responds. by beating more rapidly and powerfully. At the same time the adrenin acts upon the digestive tract as a de- pressant and causes the processes of stomach and in- testines temporarily to cease their activity. Thus the whole energy of the organism is mobilized for the ac- tivities involved in meeting the situation that caused the emotion. The Control of Emotion.—In later adolescence emotion is normally more vigorous than ever before, but it is being brought under the control of the will. Even feeling can be educated. Vigorous passions may be inhibited and lethargic feelings may be stimulated to efficient activity. Vigorous participation in the world’s. life demands of our young people vigorous emotional reactions, but these should be under the control of a trained judgment. Some have expressed the fear that the wholesome development of emotion may be checked by the repression of feeling. ‘‘Passions are bred out nowadays,” says a character in a novel. “I don’t be- lieve the next generation will be shook to the heart with the same gusts and storms as the last. We think smaller thoughts and feel smaller sentiments; we're too careful of our skins to trust the giant passions ; our hearts don’t pump the same great flood of hot blood.” In this vein some deplore the turning of _ youth from the vigorous passions of war and adven- ture. The control of emotion, however, is not its abolition, and the fundamental energy of emotional 53 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE reaction is not reduced by being set to more useful tasks than war and piracy. Young people may be stimulated by the challenge of service to battle as vig- orously against selfishness and social injustice as ever men did against their foes on the field of blood. There are battlefields of politics and social justice to supply the full “moral equivalent of war” and the real solution of the perplexing problems of the world must be met by the vigorous, enthusiastic passion for righteousness of our young men and women. An Educational Problem.—By producing the situ- ation to which emotion normally responds we can in- duce an emotion in our students. If we raise an alarm of fire or if we picture very vividly the penalties of sin, we may stimulate a fear emotion. By our words and actions, by reading thrilling stories aloud, by ex- hibiting motion pictures or stage drama we may stimu- late actual emotion. This stimulation may or may not be profitable. There is a wide difference between the story or play that leads one to respond with a generous and worthy act or a positive attitude that leads to such an action, and the story or play that simply stirs the emotions and fails to utilize them in wholesome be- havior. Professor Kilpatrick has said: “The idea of getting people stirred up and then nothing happening, is the worst kind of education. If we get stirred up and do nothing about it, we next time have to increase the dose of being stirred up.” Pro- fessor Thorndike somewhere speaks of a man who boils with rage at idleness but is content to boil idly. _ *§ William H. Kilpatrick, in an address before the Council of Religious Education, 1919. 54 FEELING AND EMOTION Such emotion is of doubtful value. It may even be harmful in its repeatedly ineffective reaction. On the other hand, an emotion that actively stirs one to right a wrong or perform a service is of the highest social significanec. Many of our novels and plays have the effect of stimulating emotions without releasing their energy in useful activity. There are many people who find a strange satisfaction in ‘‘sob stories” ending in nothing more than sentimental tears. This represents an actual waste of emotion. It should be the aim of education to safeguard the emotional as well as the intellectual life so that emotion shall be, in as great a degree as possible, wholesomely productive. Even the church often fails to utilize the emotional reactions which it stimulates, and young people are stirred and stimulated without being given adequate tasks. There is need for emotion in religion—without it the church would be a barren desert of fruitless ideas—but the emotional life of our enthusiastic young people must be har- nessed to the religious problems and moral tasks of the world. Emotional variations—We need not expect the high tide of youthful enthusiasm always to flow in a steady stream. ‘There are various forces contending in young life. Says J. J. Bell, in “Courtin’ Christina”: “Moral earthquakes are not infrequent during our teens and twenties; by their own convulsions they pro- vide constructive material for character; but the ma- terial is mixed, and we are left to choose whether we shall erect sturdy towers or jerry buildings.” Later adolescence has many inner conflicts, some- 55 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE times resulting in a high degree of stress and strain. Many young people seem to wish to do everything and to do it at once. There are paradoxical impulses that seem to pull them in opposite directions.7’ They are sad and glad by turns, and their shifting moods are often perplexing to their friends. In some abnormal! cases there are widely divergent moods that approach the disassociation of personality illustrated by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and in normal young people there are greater or lesser shifts of interests and impulses. But normally in later adolescence one is less erratic, less ready to respond to emotion, more thoroughly self- controlled than in any earlier period. The highest type of young people have vigorous impulses that hold them in harmonious balance. . Adolescent genius.—In the life of Marie Bash- kirtseff there is a typical picture of genius in adoles- cence. In the journal of this remarkable young woman we have a series of life confessions of a girl endowed with unusual intellectual power, force of will, and potency of feeling, but showing very clearly the characteristic spirit of youth. She did not live to attain adult life, but the development of this young artist illustrates vividly many of the characteristics which are less exaggerated in the average young girl. Some have considered Marie Bashkirtseff’s journal the record of an abnormal mind. It was certainly an unusual mind, the mind of a highly temperamental 7 These ‘‘contradictory characters’”’ are more fully discussed in The Psychology of Early Adolescence, Mudge, Chapter VI. _ &The author’s article, “An Adolescent Genius,’’ was published in The Pedagogical Seminary, March, 1921. 56 FEELING AND EMOTION young woman, but its abnormality largely consists in its being so clearly reflected to the world. Other girls have similar emotions, ambitions and ideals, but they have repressed them conventionally and have devel- oped into the adult life which was denied this young woman. ; Like most young people, Marie Bashkirtseff was dis- tinctly and often painfully self-conscious. She seems to have been constantly thinking of herself, her abil- ities, her personal appearance, and her feelings. She was childishly pleased, even within the last fortnight of her life, with her clothes and her face. She was ambitious. She longed devoutly to do the things for which she felt ability. She was determined to be fa- mous, and in this even in her short life she measurably succeeded. She showed the characteristic adolescent tendency to sadness and melancholy and still she had the ability to examine her own states rather objec- tively and watch herself as one might watch an actor on the stage. She says: “However much I may cry and fall into a rage, I am always conscious of what I do.” Her first love affairs are typical of the early development of the tender passion in adolescence. She falls in love with an English duke whom she has never met, and believes herself heartbroken when she reads of his marriage. Later she fascinates an Ital- ian youth and so far yields to his love-making as to give him a single kiss, for which she long continues to reproach herself. It is only late in adolescence that a normal love experience begins to emerge, and even then she does not seem to recognize it for what it is. Many typical adolescent traits were magnified in 57 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE this remarkable girl. She was ambitious, self-asser- tive, high-spirited, finicky in tastes, often restless and irritable, intellectually critical and at the same time highly suggestible. She justly felt, as most young people do, that her friends did not understand her. Indeed, she did not understand herself. In many respects Marie Bashkirtseff was a paradox of impulses; as, indeed, all vigorous personalities are, especially perhaps in adolescence. She is deeply re- ligious, she is highly superstitious, and still she is cynical, skeptical and intellectualistic. Early in her fourteenth year she already considered herself quite blasé and was developing an attitude of introspection. She said, “I compare myself to a piece of water that is frozen in its depths, and has motion only on its surface, for nothing amuses or interests me in my depths.” But within a few days she is in raptures over her voice, which is at this time her artistic hope. “I receive it with tears in my eyes and thank God for it on my knees. I said nothing, but I was cruelly grieved. I did not dare to speak of it. I prayed to God and he has heard me.” Moods of gayety and hopefulness are closely fol- lowed by periods of melancholy and despair. The progress of disease may account for some degree of this in her later years, but she has the true adolescent shifting of moods. One day she is depressed, sorrow- ful, miserable, and another day she expresses the highest joy. In all these things Marie Bashkirtseff is representa- tive of the active enthusiasm, the high and often er- ratic energies of adolescence, but there is developing 58 FEELING AND EMOTION in the midst of all this a certain idealism which un- doubtedly would have made of Marie Bashkirtseff, had she lived longer, one of the notable artists of her day. It is the experience of many educators that young people with a similar high emotional energy may be directed to utilize this energy in important service. In a later chapter we shall show how the impulses of adolescence, rightly directed, flow out into activities of important social value. PROBLEMS 1. What are the results of the highly emotional type of motion pictures? 2. How many of the hymns used in your school seem to you emotionally and practically wholesome? 3. How can the emotional values in your worship service be utilized in the interest of the application of Christian principles? 4. Write a description of the emotional behavior of some highly sensitive person of your acquaintance. Books FOR FuRTHER READING Talks to Teachers, James, page 190ff. The Psychology of Early Adolescence, Mudge, Chap- ters VI and VII. The Psychology of Middle Adolescence, Moxcey, Chapter [V. Introduction to Psychology, Seashore, Chapter XXI. Introduction to Psychology, Calkins, Chapter XX. Psychology: Briefer Course, James, Chapter XXIV. Psychology: A Study of Mental Life, Woodworth, Chapter IX. The Psychology of Adolescence, Tracy, Chapter VI. Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage, Cannon. 59 CHARTER Y, THE ROMANTIC PERIOD Later adolescence is pre-eminently the romantic period. In this period the mating instinct normally approaches its highest activity. Early adolescence saw a decided development of the instincts and im- pulses relating to sex. The interest of boys and girls in the opposite sex appeared quite commonly in the form of an apparent sex-repulsion, but in both sexes this interest was growing in some individuals more than others. Middle adolescence saw a further de- velopment through the tentative approaches, the grow- ing sex consciousness and the early courtships, often brief, but many times intense, which marked the high- school period. The real period of courtship and the selection of mates normally comes in later adolescence. In a sense, love between the sexes may be termed a phenomenon of this period, for normally it now makes its decided appearance in its more permanent form. The significance of this fact may be illustrated by the extent of the love motive in human thought and in- terest. “All the world loves a lover.” Take this motive from the literature of the world and a great bulk of it would be done away. The popular hero or heroine of a novel or a play is nearly always a young man or woman of this age period. 60 THE ROMANTIC PERIOD THE PROFOUND INFLUENCE OF SEX This universal interest in love between the sexes indicates the profound influence of sex upon our en- tire social and individual psychology. There is suf- ficient reason for this. The impulses of sex in human lives are not merely a mechanism for the perpetuation of the species. They are interwoven with all the nobler values and ideals of life. The finest sentiments, the noblest ideals, are in great degree a sublimation of this universal impulse. Springing from the physical and mental elements in sex have come great spiritual forces, idealism, sacrificing service, and the tenderness, sympathy, and appreciation of our social, zxsthetic, moral, and religious characters. “As exemplifying the transformation of which an instinct is capable, the sexual emotion associates with itself a very wide range of emotional experience, manifesting an almost ‘un- limited plasticity.’ Jt fuses mto ‘one immense aggre- gate, as Spencer says, most of the elementary exctta- tions of which we are capable—pride, the pleasure of possession, love of freedom, love of sympathy, and, as directed toward the object of its choice, admiration, affection, reverence. There could be no better exam- ple of the way in which an instinct may practically change the character of its manifestation though re- taining much of its congenital direction and energy.” In this great universal impulse of love between the sexes God has placed high potencies for the develop- ment of mankind. Here is a great spiritual energy which may be so perverted as to lead to all that is 17 he Unfolding of Personality, Mark, p. 90. 61 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE gross or debasing or which may be so guided and ele- vated as to contribute to all that is noble and sacred. Beginning in attraction between two, it relates to itself all the impulses and distinctive tendencies which culminate normally in the wholesome life of the fam- ily. It is during later adolescence that these impulses come to their highest energy. The young man is spurred to high activity in all his life relations for love’s sake, and women under the same inspiration ac- complish things hitherto impossible. It is not an acci- dent that in both men and women idealistic impulses toward nature, toward God, toward human society, toward vocations, toward all things good and true and beautiful, reach a high development in later ado- lescence. Out of the devotions of a normal sex life come impulses that awaken the spiritual capacities of young people. The relationship between this nor- mal sex life and the religious life should be recognized. The failures of many marriages are due to the lack of emphasis upon the spiritual phases of life. We say that marriage is a sacred covenant, but this is true because normal sex love is a sacred relationship and one which should bring young people into harmony with all things high and worthy and with the abiding spirit of love. Abnormalities.—Our chief desire for our boys and girls should be their normal development, and one of our greatest needs is a thorough understanding of what is normal in their training and experience in relation to sex problems. Much depends upon the earlier periods. Without proper guidance, early adolescence is a danger period, and middle adolescence may lead to a variety of 62 THE ROMANTIC PERIOD unwholesome adjustments. There are some young peo- ple who do not pass normally out of one period into the next, but their development remains partially ar- rested and hangs in unstable equilibrium. The abnor- malities of the sex life of later adolescence are very largely due to the persistence of methods of adjust- ments which are normal characteristics of earlier periods. Thus, for example: the impulsive love af- fairs of middle adolescence may be perpetuated in the impulses of later adolescence and a full development of the vital sex passions be arrested so that the young woman whose affections should normally tend to be- come centered upon one object becomes a flirt, a coquette, yielding to the capricious impulses charac- teristic of earlier periods. The young man may cor- respondingly fail to develop the wholesomely nor- mal and powerful impulses to a permanent love ex- perience. The normal young person in late ado- lescence is positively attracted by young peopie of the opposite sex and for the first time is generally free from the restraints of his home and the determination of his elders. The conjunction of the complete de- velopment of the sex impulses and this greater freedom is at once the glory, the high challenge, and the danger of this period. To understand many of the wholesome as well as the unwholesome developments of later adolescence we must know the tremendous influence of the love motive. “Many waters cannot quench love, Neither can floods drown it.” 63 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE It persists in the face of poverty, pain, and death. It survives even hatred and is found holding with re- markable tenacity the forsaken wife to the bitter mem- ory of a husband. Jane Addams has reported case after case in which a young wife has stood by her husband, a cruel and profligate criminal, enduring the sufferings of a long martyrdom for his sake. Prob- ably fewer men than women have been thus faithful in the face of difficulty, but in both sexes there are examples all about us of faithful devotion without stint to the husband or wife of one’s youthful choice. Emerson on love.—The influence of the tender passion upon the lives of the young men and women has never been more beautifully described than in the following paragraphs by Emerson: I have been told that my philosophy is unsocial, and, that, in public discourses, my reverence for the intellect makes me unjustly cold to the personal rela- tions. But now I almost shrink at the remembrance of such disparaging words. For persons are love’s world, and the coldest philosopher cannot recount the debt of the young soul wandering here in nature to the power of love, without being tempted to unsay as treas- onable to nature, aught derogatory to the social in- stincts. For, though the celestial rapture falling out of heaven seizes only upon those of tender age, and although a beauty overpowering all analysis and com- parison, and putting us quite beside ourselves, we can seldom see after thirty years, yet the remembrance of these visions outlasts all other remembrances, and is a wreath of flowers on the oldest brows. But here is a strange fact. It may seem to many men in revising their experience that they have no fairer pages in their life’s book than the delicious memory of some 64 THE ROMANTIC PERIOD passages wherein affection contrived to give a witch- craft surpassing the deep attraction of its own truth to a parcel of accidental and trivial circumstances. In looking backward they may find that several things which were not the charm, have more reality to this groping memory than the charm itself which embalmed them. But be our experience in particulars what it may, no man ever forgot the visitations of that power to his heart and brain, which created all things new; which was the dawn in him of music, poetry and art; which made the face of nature radiant with purple light; the morning and the night varied enchantments; when a single tone of one voice could make the heart beat, and the most trivial circumstance associated with one form is put in the amber of memory; when we became all eye when one was present, and all memory when one was gone; when a youth becomes a watcher of windows, and studious of a glove, a ribbon, or the wheels of a carriage; when no place is too solitary, and none too silent for him who has richer company and sweeter conversation in his new thoughts, than any old friends, though best and purest, can give him; for the figures, the motions, the words of the beloved ob- ject are not like other images written in water, but, as Plutarch said, enameled in fire. The love letters of late adolescence are not all works of literary art. In our later years we should doubtless be ashamed of the soft sentimentality of these early epistles, but they represent a vital, wholesome impulse, a powerful, worthy devotion which is rich in its pos- sibilities for all later social relationships. For it is out of the normal instinctive impulses of sex attrac- tion and parental love that altruism comes, and un- selfishness and tenderness and sympathy. 65 PSYCHOLOGY: OF LATER ADODESCENGE Need for guidance.—lIf there is any impulse which needs guidance throughout childhood and adolescence, it is this most powerful one. Sex education should begin with the earliest years of a child’s life, for it very largely consists in the attitude of parents to one another, in the personal habits which need to be en- couraged very early in life, in the social relationships which are shared even by very small children. A little later more direct methods of sex instruction are needed and in early and middle adolescence it is very important that proper sympathetic guidance should be given. It will be readily seen that many of the prob- lems of sex education are problems of earlier periods than the one now under discussion, but there is great need for wise guidance and counsel during the later adolescent period. Many young people have received no adequate instruction concerning matters of sex, and, sad to say, many young people marry without adequate knowledge of the significance of the married state and the problems which it entails. We need men and women who can sympathetically and tactfully render assistance to the young people to whom the sex rela- tions have constituted an often perplexing problem. Something more is required than to discuss sex prob- lems with young people on a scientific basis, though, to be sure, it is very important that sex education should be scientific, and we should be extremely ac- curate in our statements concerning matters of sex hygiene. There is great need for an interpretation of sex in terms of life and character. The whole subject should be treated with a wholesome emphasis upon the spiritual values to be found in the right sort of 66 TAR ROMAN TIO PERIOD sex attitudes. We should seek to stimulate an ap- preciation of all the fine, uplifting elements, the altru- ism, the mutual helpfulness and appreciation which love at its best and highest means.? Social agencies.—It is important that we provide, as far as possible, for the wholesome and normal expression of the sex impulses by promoting social relationships. It is a serious matter, in relation to the ethical, social, and religious problems of our day, that so many young people have no opportunity for the normal development of social relationships be- tween the sexes. Our social agencies should provide places where young men and young women may meet in wholesome environments. Proprietors of apartment houses and tenements should provide for the social meeting of the young people. The only opportunity of many young men and women in our cities for meet- ing congenial friends of the opposite sex is in the often unwholesome surroundings of public parks or private amusement places. There is nothing which the insti- tutional churches in our great cities can more prof- itably do than to provide places of recreation for our young people, and places where young men and young women may properly meet and develop wholesome acquaintances. Sex and education.—Religious education has an important part in the proper development of sex life. Adolescence is not only the period when the sex im- pulses are approaching their high tide, but it is also 2 There is an excellent article directed to boys—‘‘Love in the Making,” by Edson—in the Journal of Social Hygiene, May, 1925, p. 272ff. 67 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE the time when young people are most susceptible to religious motives. Doctor Exner wisely says: “The parallel awakening of sex impulses and of moral and religious feeling is too significant to be lost sight of in wisely directed sex education.” Because of a gen- eral neglect in sex instruction it is true that in many young men there is a very prevalent struggle with sex problems. Many young men because of a faulty training find the subject of sex altogether too dominant an element in their consciousness and continue unduly the perhaps necessary struggle into which adolescence with its new impulses plunged them. There is equally great need for proper guidance of young women in sex affairs. Many cases of unhappy lives may be traced in great degree to unwholesome ideas regarding matters of sex, or to ignorance. In a study made re- cently by Dr. Katherine Bement Davis, it is seen that some sort of wholesome sex instruction in girlhood con- tributes quite distinctly to the happiness of the mar- ried life of women. Social relations.—There are some valid arguments for the segregation of the sexes in school and college. There are advantages in the cooperation of boys in some activities, and corresponding advantages in the cooperation of girls, but there are great social and psychological advantages in the wholesome association in common tasks of young men and young women. The policy of sex segregation in earlier periods has produced in many cases very unwholesome attitudes toward sex problems. Nature, by providing for the family, seems to indicate the value in the daily asso- ciation of boys with girls and young men with young 68 THE ROMANTIC PERIOD women. Under proper supervision there is far greater benefit than harm in the normal friend!y comradeship between the sexes, and in the development in this en- vironment of the romances upon which depends the future of the race, physically, mentally, and morally. It is not our task to break down or destroy this social instinct. Its repression may involve the destruction of some of our most valued ideals. It is our task to direct this great central energy of human personality into wholesome channels. How young people may respond to sex impulses. —It is one of the important lessons of adolescence that the sex motives cannot always be immediately gratified. Marriage, for example, at the very begin- ning of the first courtship experience would be almost universally unfortunate. What can be done with the impulses that must be denied their immediate gratifica- tion? There are several possibilities which may take either wholesome or unwholesome forms. In the case of the impulse to immediate marriage, which sober judgment recognizes should be rejected in favor of further education and preparation, the attitude of de- ferring the gratification of the impulse may be as- sumed. You are young yet; marriage may well be deferred for a few years. Thus the impulse, while not forgotten, may be held in abeyance. Another possi- bility is the substitution of some other than the direct expression. Thus the denied sex motive may express itself in active work, in social service or in vigorous recreation. Many religious workers have transferred to the service of the church the devotion that has been denied expression in terms of marriage and fam- 69 PSYCHOLOGY: ORVLATERVADOMIES GIy ily life. Another though closely related way to treat denied impulses is by means of conscious and vigorous attacks upon an impulse that otherwise refuses to yield. Sometimes this results in a sort of inverted sex-atti- tude and the thwarted suitor becomes the misogynist, the woman hater. In other cases he throws himself into a strenuous life of labor or war or adventure. In such experiences as the above, young people need the confidence and counsel of more experienced friends, provided they have the qualities of understanding and sympathy. | Few adults realize the effect of their attitudes to- ward the love affairs of the young. Many young peo- ple suffer deeply, perhaps irreparably, from the thoughtless teasing of older people. Especially de- plorable are the superstitious tales about married life with which girls are often frightened by older women. The married state should be lifted, in our thought and in our counsel to our students, into a finer and purer atmosphere. It is a familiar fact that social influences have created a wide variety of conditions in which the sex impulses in young people are modified. In some portions of our country marriages at a very early age—hardly more than “child marriages’—are common. Of course such a condition affects young people powerfully and unwholesomely. On the other hand, our more cul- tured classes are lengthening the premarital period until late in the twenties or even in the thirties. It is interesting to learn, however, that the interval between graduation from college and marriage is, in the case of at least one college for women—Vassar—decreas- 70 THE ROMANTIC PERIOD ing. It is also said that sixty per cent of the graduates of Vassar marry, and that this proportion is increasing. PROBLEMS 1. What provision does your community make for the wholesome acquaintance of young people? 2. What proportion of the leading characters in the fiction you have read are young people? 3. What should be the attitude of older people to- ward the love affairs of young men and women? 4. How can older people properly and wholesomely aid young people in their problems of sex relation- ships? REFERENCES FOR FuRTHER READING The Girl, Dewar, Chapter V. The Psychology of Adolescence, Tracy, Chapter X. A Social Theory of Religious Education, Coe. Chap- as ahs The Psychology of Religion, Coe, Chapter IX. The Psychology of Early Adolescence, Mudge, Chap- ter IV. The Psychology of Middle Adolescence, Moxcey, Chapter VII. Girlhood and Character, Moxcey, Chapters XVII, MVALT The Unfolding of Personality, Mark, Chapter V. Social Psychology, McDougall, Supplementary Chap- ter II. APPROPRIATE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE THEMSELVES Sex and Common Sense, Royden. Men, Women and God, Gray. The Marriage Problem, Foerster. An American Idyll, Parker. Successful Family Life on the Moderate Income, Abel. The Family and Its Members, Spencer. 71 CHAPTER VI SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OneE of the most significant educational essays of the nineteenth century is The Meaning of Infancy, by John Fiske. In this little book Mr. Fiske says that “man’s progressiveness and the length of his infancy are but two sides of one and the same fact.” After showing that low forms of life, such as the codfish and turtle, involve nothing that can properly be called infancy, since they “get their education before they are born,” everything being done for them by heredity and nothing by education, he discusses the educability of higher animals and shows the increasing length of infancy running parallel to the ever-increasing ability to respond to training. Applying this principle to man, he shows that human life requires a far longer period of preparation than that of any lower animal. As mental life became more complex and various, as the things to be learned kept ever multiplying, less and less could be done before birth, more and more must be left to be done in the earlier years of life. So instead of being born with a few simple capacities thoroughly organized, man came at last to be born with the germs of many complex capacities which were reserved to be unfolded and enhanced or checked and stifled by each individual. In this simple yet won- derful way there has been provided for man a long period during which his mind is plastic and malleable, and the length of this period has increased with civil- 72 SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ization until it now covers nearly one third of our lives. It is not that our inherited tendencies and apti- tudes are not still the main thing. It is only that we have at last acquired great power to modify them by training, so that progress may go on with ever-increas- ing sureness and rapidity. The lengthening of youth—By “infancy” Fiske means in his essay something more than the common use of that term. Infancy in the sense in which he uses the term covers the entire period of life prep- aration which somewhat corresponds to immaturity or legal minority. Coleridge speaks of the time when “the human mind was still in its nonage,”’ by which he means infancy in this sense. As Fiske has clearly in- dicated, an extended infancy represents a developing civilization, Among savage peoples boys and girls are grouped with the men and women very early, the ceremonies incident to puberty being frequently asso- ciated with the complete responsibility and recognition that the girl is now to be regarded as a woman, the boy as a man. Among various partially developed peoples the training of girls has been cut short by their very early marriage. With the advance of civil- ization, however, the period of recognized immaturity has lengthened until later adolescence has become a period of highly appreciated value as a preparation for life. Need of time for adjustments.—It is very impor- tant, in view of the need of our day for completely de- veloped and equipped young people, that any short- circuiting of experience which abbreviates the period of preparation shall be so far as possible avoided. Some- 73 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE times we go to the other extreme, our economic and social programs requiring for many of our young peo- ple an undue postponement of marriage and the re- sponsibilities of mature manhood and womanhood. However, there are many young people who are pre- . maturely aged and whose last period of plasticity is shortened and rendered ineffective by their being pushed too soon into the responsibilities of an adult society. A normal later adolescence involves the reg- ular development of social impulses, attitudes, and habits. The young person thus normally trained in social living will become the socially minded and morally adjusted adult. It is hard for adult leaders of young people, and harder still for the young people themselves, to realize how many of the adjustments to social life must be made in later adolescence. Early adolescence was a period of stress and strain, as new impulses and new social attitudes called for readjusted reactions. The high-school period finds young people in the full process of shifting from the reactions of childhood to those of adult life, but there are many vestiges of the earlier methods of response to social situations still remaining in later youth. To make these adjustments requires time. There are many adults striving with difficulty to make up for defi- ciencies in their period of preparation. It is worth while to take time for thorough preparation whether this involves a college training or some other type of well-planned adjustment of life. A SocraL ProGRAM NEEDED Such is the hunger of youth for companionship that 74 SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT the provision for wholesome social life is one of the major responsibilities of religious education. Many young people fail to find wholesome companionships and make their contacts in an unwholesome environ- ment. Other young people fail almost entirely to form acquaintances, particularly the young people coming to our great cities, and are oppressed sometimes to the point of physical and mental harm by an almost intolerable loneliness. Young people should have the opportunity of acquaintance with other young people both of their own sex and the opposite sex. They should have the opportunity of a sufficiently wide acquaintance so that they may form their own closer friendships with some degree of freedom. ‘There should be opportunities for young people to meet in groups, for there is a distinct hunger for a variety of friendships as well as for the more intimate asso- ciations. We can do no more important work for our young people than to provide such social programs as will create favorable conditions for the satisfaction of these special hungers. Because of the new inde- pendence and the sense of freedom from restrictions which were hitherto felt keenly, later adolescence is a critical time in moral development. A new liberty may result in reckless irresponsibility. Some young people have a surplus of money provided them by their parents. Others discover the ability to earn such a surplus, and most of our young people have an increas- ing degree of freedom in the use of money. Without our guidance they may become the prey of unscrupu- lous commercialism. We cannot safeguard young people at this period, however, by prohibitions or en- 75 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE forced inhibitions. We can modify their environment and we can appeal indirectly, if not directly, to the high social idealism of these years. It is important in dealing with young people that we understand thoroughly the conditions under which they have lived and are living. The complexity and variety of the problems faced by workers with young people may be illustrated by the wide variations of social background which we may find in many of our church schools. Here are college students who work their way and others whose liberal bills are paid by wealthy fathers. Here are young clerks and stenog- raphers who work in offices. Here are factory em- ployees who live in crowded tenements. Here are care-free student girls of twenty, and other girls of the same age who are wives and mothers. Some have had the liberal influences of travel and education and others have been for years earning their own living. Of course this means a variety of problems for those who work with young people, for the state of any mind is deeply affected by physical and social environ- ment. Many young people, especially in our cities, are desperately lonely, and the desire for companion- ship may lead them into undesirable associations. The sympathetic teacher should know something of the past and present environment of every student. Some of our underprivileged young people deserve high credit for even a slow and halting progress toward worthy ideals of living. THE YoutH CONSCIOUSNESS No one who is acquainted with present-day world 76 SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT conditions can be unaware of what is generally known as the Youth Movement. Stanley High, in a recent book, calls this The Revolt of Youth. Whatever term be most appropriate in describing this social phenom- enon, it is certain that in various countries young people are coming to a distinct consciousness of their responsibility and power in the world crises of to-day. Out of the social conditions of modern civilization and out of the precipitating retort of the Great War there has come an insistent demand that youth shall be recog- nized and given its opportunity. Young men have always been the fighters. The scattered veterans of the Civil War who are now old men were boys in ’61. But world conditions, a more generally advanced edu- cation, and other circumstances brought from the great world conflict a greater youth consciousness than has proceeded from any previous war. It was fought in a spirit of youthful enthusiasm, whether the aims and purposes of the various governments were mis- taken or worthy. From the standpoint of America, here was a great idealistic cause, a war to end war, to make the world safe for democracy, to establish the principles for which America has long stood in her international relationships with the world. At its close idealistic youth could not be satisfied to see the world conflict merge into a selfish strife of nationalistic diplomacy and political struggle. So there has sprung up in various countries a remarkable, spontaneous movement which illustrates the spirit of later adoles- cence. This involves such individual movements as the Young Republic in France, the Wandervoegel in Germany, and similar movements all over Europe and 77 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE in different form in our own country. Some of these may be traced to impulses before 1914, but all have been vigorous since the Armistice. It is in later ado- lescence that the tremendous energy which has been developing throughout the adolescent years comes to full and practical expression. The world’s progress is a progress of youth. Not only the wars of the world, but the movements for world peace and world progress are dependent upon young people. The young people in our colleges and universities are assuming a decided leadership in matters of moral reform and in matters of social and political improvement. The great stu- dent conferences in Indianapolis, Louisville, and other cities are of special significance. TRAINING IN LEADERSHIP Throughout childhood and the earlier periods of adolescence the qualities of leadership have been de- veloping, but authority has been largely superimposed by adults. Adult control is possible in dealing with children and to a lesser degree in dealing with the earlier adolescent periods; but by the time later adoles- cence is reached adult supervision becomes relatively inefficient. In a democratically organized society, with a normal degree of democracy in the schools, young people of this period should have learned the weak- ness of autocratic or arbitrary government and the value of democratic group control. Developing initiative-——In training young people we should keep this principle clearly in mind. Whether we are working with young people in college or in industrial groups, we should seek to provide them 78 SOCTAL DEVELOPMENT with practice in public speech and discussion, in de- liberative social action under parliamentary rules, in cooperation in a wide variety of civic and economic affairs. It is one of the fine opportunities of leaders of young people to discover, encourage, and develop the qualities of leadership. Our young people’s or- ganizations should recognize as a chief function the development of leadership in the young people them- selves. Sometimes it requires a bit of self-denial for older people who are interested in various organiza- tions for young people to withdraw from such asso- ciations, but the presence of even able and sympathetic adults many times tends to repress the initiative and leadership of the younger folks. And when an older leader takes part in the activities of a young people’s group it should not be as a director but, rather, as a constituent member of the group. A case of group activity—Dr. Mary E. Moxcey gives the following interesting report of a young peo- ple’s group which shows a healthy development from within. A little group of seven or eight young people, called the Ivy Club, planned to take Sunday afternoon hikes together. Then they thought they would enjoy singing together after they returned, and went to the empty church for that purpose. They were hungry and some of the older people agreed to furnish food in the church parlor: the young people waited on themselves and washed their own dishes. They enjoyed the song service, and someone suggested inviting people to tell them about the worth-while things in their own city. The pastor was announced for the last indoor session. “Our minister will speak to us, not preach a sermon.” 79 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE The little group of young people grew and were hav- ing such enjoyable Sunday evenings that the older people asked permission to attend. Doctor Moxcey thus describes a meeting at which she was asked to speak : The young people came in from their supper and occupied the front seats, laughing and chatting quietly and happily. The older people and a few little chil- dren sat further back. The front row on one side was occupied by a class of Intermediate girls, about one half of them from the Orphans’ Home. The front row on the other side was filled with the hikers, four or five of the eighteen-year-old girls being in knicker- bockers and the boys in knickers and sweaters. The president of the “Ivy Club” led the meeting with great poise and dignity but with boyish naturalness. He is eighteen years old and studying for the ministry. First they sang, with good voices and great enthusiasm, sev- eral gospel hymns of the better type. Then a young lady played a selection on the German concert zither, which was heartily encored. After another song or two a young woman from another church sang a solo of excellent church music with a good soprano voice. The president had meanwhile quietly asked one of the girl hikers, who was the Sunday-school teacher of the twenty thirteen-year-old girls and also one of the chil- dren’s librarians at Central Library, to introduce the speaker, which she did delightfully. My talk was mostly an informal weaving in of answers to questions I had been asked beforehand: “How did you go at it to write a book?” “What do you do in a Sunday-school editorial office?” Through this I led up to the importance of religious education and the “thrill” of being young in this particular stage of the world’s history, challenging them to create a Christian world and emphasizing the honor of being asked to teach a Sunday-school class and the necessity of getting ready to do it well. I spoke briefly of the 80 SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT need for religious education directors and professional leaders of boy and girl activity. During the talk I once or twice referred to the twenty-seven million children and young people without religious instruc- tion of any kind. The president referred sincerely to the stimulus the address had been to them, but emphatically to some of us. “We've got to bring that twenty-seven million here!’ This seems to be from first to last the young people’s own project and responsibility. It was truly a reli- gious service, but the progress from the supper after the dusty and hungry people came in from their hike, through the hearty song service to the impressive prayer at the end, without any “change of gear” to mark the beginning of a “‘devotional meeting,” seemed very natural and delightful. THE SERVICE CHALLENGE The chief task of workers with young people is to harness the fine enthusiastic idealism of youth to the practical problems of life and the tasks which are most worth while. This is a period in which a challenge to sacrificial service makes a strong appeal. The sac- rificial spirit is keen in early and middle adolescence and there are many examples of fine courage shown by boys and girls in the early teens. But now courage is tempered by reason, decisions are more likely to be permanent, the expressions of enthusiastic service are ‘more carefully planned and better adapted to secure wholesome results. The altruism of later adolescence is not a vague, dreamy ideal but a definite policy of service. Young people enjoy responsibility for the social life of which they are a part. They turn to prac- tical problems to discharge these responsibilities. The 81 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE dreams or vague ideals of earlier periods are now in- vested with concrete plans of service. It is the ideal- ism of youth that has sent forth the representatives of the Student Violunteer Movement by the thousands into foreign fields. It is this enthusiastic idealism that has carried on the service of a variety of welfare or- ganizations of young people, such as the Christian As- sociations, and in thus harnessing the power of youth to the real tasks of to-day the church can perform her greatest service. It is one of the tragedies of our modern church life that so large a part of the enthusi- astic energies of our young people is diverted from the social service which might be rendered. Give the young people a chance and they are willing and glad to work out practical problems for themselves. Young life needs a great deal of activity. One of the chief dangers of many of our young people is too large a ° surplus of unassigned leisure. This is a danger of normal young people and particularly of the supra- normal. I have in mind the case of a young man who was decidedly above the average in his mental ability. This meant that in college he had a surplus of leisure above his slower-moving associates. This leisure was largely spent in not altogether harmless fun. Because so little time was required to learn a lesson, relatively little of practical value was gotten out of his college work. He needed this inspiration of effort beyond that required for the tasks assigned him. Because of this lack his behavior became more and more obnoxious to faculty and students alike, until at last he was expelled from the institution. Fortunately, he himself was stimulated by this experience to a better adjustment 82 SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT to his work, and his undoubted talents have been dem- onstrated in the brilliant public service of his later life. Various SoOcIAL CHARACTERISTICS It should be remembered that in later adolescence the social impulses are at their high tide. Young people of this age are tremendously concerned with social approbation. It has become important to them now to conform to social standards in speech, manners, cloth- ing, tastes, and interests. Occasionally there appears an independent spirit who delights in being a law to himself and refuses to conform to conventional standards, but, in general, the period under consid- eration is one in which the conventions of society are more highly valued than in the preceding periods. Unconventionality—wWhile later adolescents re- spect conventions, these are their own conventions rather than those of their elders. Many of the conven- tions of later adolescence involve a high degree of free- dom and informal action. Enthusiasm, college songs and cheers, all sorts of jollifications and revelries, even acts of lawlessness, may become conventionalized in the lives of young people. Young people are seldom unapproachable or unfriendly, although they are quick to recognize the infraction of any of their social rules. Organizations.—In this period the development of the “gang instinct” looks forward toward a further de- velopment of the relation of young people in groups. Thus we have various clubs and societies organized during the high-school years and a tendency to form still more closely organized associations of this sort 83 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE in later adolescence. Whatever be their nature, there will be organizations, clubs, fraternities, of some type and under some name, in every college and in every group of young people. The interest in form, ritual, insignia, titles of office, and such symbols of fraternity life is keen during this period, and the loyalty of young people to the various organizations with which they are affiliated is a very distinct element in their social behavior. It is very important that the advisers of young peo- ple stimulate the ideals by which they will rightly de- cide questions of various social alliances. It makes a vast difference in the life of young men and women, whether as students in college, entering business life, or entering a community as residents, with what or- ganizations they become affiliated, whether with those having a high moral tone or with those which may insidiously injure the fiber of character. Individuality.—It is difficult to indicate the prevail- ing social characteristics of this period since all the individual differences between young people and all the differences depending upon racial and social vari- ations are becoming prominent. Young people are more highly individual in their character and behavior in later adolescence than in any earlier period. There are many variations from any series of qualities which might be mentioned. Thus, while it is normal for young people to form alliances with other young peo- ple of the opposite sex which tend to develop into the life partnership of marriage, there are many who still exhibit the characteristics more normal in middle ado- lescence. There are occasional “crushes” of the high- 84 SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT school-girl type, intimate chumships which seem to dominate life, and various other unusual characteris- tics. Normally, our young people in this period have wider social interests which merge into larger social groups and feel broader social sympathies than in any earlier period. PROBLEMS 1. At what age should young people marry? 2. What are the social results of a long period of training for professional life? 3. How can adults help to develop initiative and leadership in young people? 4. Recall your experiences in lacer adolescence with chums and other special friends and compare these ex- periences with those of earlier periods. Books FOR FuRTHER XEADING The Psychology of Religion, Coe, Chapter VIII. The Psychology of Early Adolescence, Mudge, Chapter IX. The Religious Education of Adolescence, Richard- son, Chapter XI. A Social Theory of Religious Education, Coe, Chapter XV. Girlhood and Character, Moxcey,:Chapter XIV. The Girl, Dewar, Chapters V and VI. The Meaning of Infancy, Fiske. Handbook for Workers with Young People, Thompson, Chapter II. 85 CHAPTER VII THE PLAY LIFE OF EATER ADORESGE er Piay is not a phenomenon of childhood only, neither does it end with adolescence. It normally con- tinues throughout life, having various forms and vari- ous manifestations according to age, social conditions, and other limiting situations. Recent years have been demonstrating more and more the value of play for young people and adults as well as for children. Na- ture provides through play for the pleasant restoration of worn and fatigued bodily tissues and nerve cells and for the resulting degrees of energy expressed in bodily or mental activity. Play of the wholesome type is es- sential re-creation. It is a restoration, a revivifying of the organism. Modern civilization perhaps more than that of any previous period in the world’s history is marked by a high expenditure of nervous energy. Ours is a time of intense living, of nervous activity which is a constant drain upon the supporting organ- ism. To offset this drain there must be some type of restorative process. Plenty of sleep, good food, fresh air and other hygienic and sanitary provisions cooper- ate in this restoration. But in an era of high nervous tension such as apparently characterizes our own time, in this country, there is special necessity for play. A safety valve.—Play pleasantly releases various energies which act as a safety valve for the nervous system. For the organism is not merely a machine for 86 PLAY LIFE, OF LATER ADOLESCENCE producing energy—so much production and so much expenditure—it is a complicated mechanism in which certain nerve cells may be overstimulated while others may have a repletion of strength which cannot be transferred, but the discharge of which tends to bal- ance the nervous system. Thus, the office worker constantly employs in his work the nerve cells of the brain, the eyes, the hands. These comprise but a rel- atively small number of the nerve cells of the body. While these cells are being depleted the nerve cells which control action of the large muscles are being overcharged. While there is no direct transfer from a brain cell to a muscle cell, there is a curious fatiguing effect in the high stimulation of one without the cor- responding discharge of the other. But if the office worker, after his working hours, spends an hour in a lively game of tennis, the overcharged cells are pleas- urably discharged while the overstimulated cells are thereby relieved, the total effect being one of restora- tion of nervous balance and energy. On the other hand, the man who is constantly engaged in manual labor may receive a corresponding recreational benefit by engaging in reading or some other form of pleas- urable sedentary occupation during his free hours. It thus appears that recreation should differ accord- ing to individual needs—that, according to the type of expenditure of nervous energy, one should find some means of getting back to a normal nervous state. Types of recreation.—Sometimes, when we are. wholly fatigued, physically and mentally, we need the cessation of activity. Under certain conditions mere relaxation is recreation; but, besides this, most of us, 87 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE when we are tired, prefer to turn to some type of activity determined by our nature and our needs. The hour of rest is made more pleasurable and effective for some women by doing fancywork, for some men by working in a garden or in a garage, and for all of us there are special forms of relaxation and recreation which are agreeable. While most of us have our mo- ments when we prefer solitude, in general, our play and recreation are social rather than solitary. A human social trait—With the tremendous social interest of young people in later adolescence, it is not strange that social play becomes of very great impor- tance. Somewhere, in a wholesome or an evil environ- ment, our young people will assemble for play, for some type of recreation. It is in human nature thus to desire to mingle in the hours of leisure. It is a sad thing that commercialism has played so insistently upon this human tendency that many of our young peo- ple have hardly any place where they can meet in a wholesome social environment for recreation. For many of our young people the unsupervised dance hall, the unwholesome type of theatrical performance, the commercialized gaming place, and the saloon have been the only readily accessible places of amusement. All of these questionable institutions have lived very largely upon the social impulses of our young people. The saloon in the days when that institution was licensed, was not patronized merely for the pleastire of drinking. It developed the drink habit very largely from the social impulses of its patrons. But young people, if they have the opportunity, will take part with equal zest and enthusiasm in more wholesome 88 PLAY LIFE OF LATER ADOLESCENCE pleasures. The play impulse, like any instinctive tendency, may be perverted and wrongly used or it may be employed in the highest service. Play ex- presses joy, but it is not mere frivolity. Frivolity is in reality a very small element in play. Most of our play is of a more serious type. It is enjoyable, but is not a mere wasting of time. In recent years the atten- tion of educators has been directed more and more to play as an essential part of any wholesome educa- tional policy. The need for a general recreational program is fur- ther indicated by the increasing amount of leisure which our young people have. Doubtless we need more leisure hours than our grandparents had, but unless we employ these hours in some sort of whole- some and constructive activity they may do far more harm than good. Play and religion.—It is just as important that play should be allied with religious education as with the education of the public school. A very close con- nection between wholesome play and religion has been indicated by Professor Seashore. He says: We feel more religious when we play golf, sail, climb mountains, or bask in the sun than when held down to our fixed tasks of work. Religion is affiliated with play, in that play implies the launching of oneself upon the elevating forces in life; it represents an attitude of well-being and surrender to the beneficent forces of nature. As life develops and becomes more intellectualized, spiritualized, and refined in its sentiments, the play attitude matures into the more serious types of self- expression. Quiet worship, contemplation, teaching, 89 PSYCHOLOGY ‘OF LATER ADOLESCENCE and ministration become the equivalent, in the devel- oped soul, of games in the undeveloped. The attitude is similar; a parallel purpose is served; kindred in- stincts operate; there is simply an adaptation of the self-expression to the state of development. Sports and athletics——Later adolescence has not outgrown the need for physical play. In fact, the value of such recreation in adult life is recognized to-day more than ever before. President Roosevelt and President Wilson kept themselves fit in the midst of the terrific pressure of the presidency by their regu- larity in athletic games and sports. Our young people need a considerable degree of muscular play. The physical education departments of most of our educa- tional institutions make very inadequate provision for play for the masses of students, while they make thorough provision for the play of chosen champions who get the chief benefit of athletic games. There is very great need for more forms of play whereby, with- out sacrificing the wholesome sport instincts of our young people, they shall all have the direct benefit of athletic games. Sports for girls—lIt is significant that athletic games for girls have made very rapid progress. While there are cases in which they should be specially adapted to the girls rather than being the same for both sexes, vigorous team play and athletic games are wholesome for young women as well as for young men. In a recent study of early adolescent girls? 1 Psychology in Daily Life, Seashore, published, 1913, by D. Appleton, New York, p. 30f. 2 Pedagogical Seminary, March 1923, Vol. XXX, No. 1, p. 45ff. 90 PLAY LIFE OF LATER ADOLESCENCE I have indicated evidence that girls of a superior type, that is, girls above the average mentally, are very fre- quently “tom-boys”’ in early adolescence. They delight in the active games for boys rather than in doll play or in quiet games. For example, one young woman re- calls her early adolescence in these words: “Nobody understood me. I did not wish to grow up. I was just a wild sort of tom-boy who loved to run and have a good time. Why I had not been made a boy always seemed a great mistake. ... Skirts, especially long or tight ones, were an unnecessary impediment to free movement.” It is a wholesome and normal thing for girls in early adolescence to be fond of open-air sports, hiking and tree climbing and similar activities. The interest of early adolescence in outdoor life should be carried over into middle and later adolescence, and throughout this period a regular program of out-of-door exercise is of definite value to young men and young women alike. Social play.—There are many different types of social play which may be of the highest value in char- acter training and in the social adjustments of this period. Much time has been spent in condemning cer- tain forms of social play. Is it not far more impor- tant to develop a positive program of social recreation which will have a definite value in the training of our young people and their adjustment to the social life which is before them? A series of very wise principles to be applied to amusements was stated by Washing- ton Gladden: Amusement is not an end, but the means to an end. 9I PSYCHOLOGY OF*LATERVADOLESGENGE When it begins to be the principal thing for which one lives, or when in pursuing it the mental powers are en- feebled and the bodily health impaired, it falls under just condemnation. Amusements which consume the hours which ought to be sacred to sleep are censurable. Amusements that call us away from work that we are bound to do are pernicious just to the extent to which they cause us to be neglectful or unfaithful. Amusements that arouse or stimulate morbid appre- hensions or unlawful passions, or cause us to be rest- less or discontented, are to be avoided. Any indulgence in amusement which has a tendency to weaken our respect for the great interests of life or to loosen our hold on the eternal verities of the spirit- ual realm is so far fraught with danger to us. The amusement problem.—The regulation of the amusements of young people should not be through coercion from without but through the discrimination and judgment of the young people themselves in the light of the highest moral and religious idealism. The attempt to repress the social impulses of our young people may have a disastrous effect. Henry A. Atkin- son tells of a girl whose parents vigorously opposed her frequenting public places of amusement. She had plenty of leisure and took matters into her own hands, frequently attending parties at a questionable dance hall, where she met a man by whom she was pitifully misled. Hers had been a life of forced repression. Her mother exclaimed: “It seems impossible that she should have become acquainted with such a man. Who is he? I never heard of him.” Is it not possible that a more confidential relationship between this girl and Q2 PLAY LIFE OF LATER ADOLESCENCE her mother might have saved her the danger which meant ruin to her? There are dangers enough in commercialized and unsupervised amusements, but we must not forget the insistent demand of our young people for social recrea- tion. Shutting them up, repressing them, will not solve the problem. It can be solved only through their own discrimination, which it is the work of parents and teachers to guide and direct into wholesome chan- nels through all the years of youth. Clubs and societies.—The play impulse leads our young people to organize themselves into various clubs, fraternities, and other associations. It is said that leisure has to supply three great needs; first, physical refreshment; second, mental refreshment ; third, free social intercourse. It is in the interest of national citizenship, the service of the church and community welfare and the social adjustment of the individual that these organizations be wisely and wholesomely planned. In them young people develop the qualities of leadership. In their community life they learn the give-and-take of social situations. It is an important thing for our young people that they ally themselves intelligently with the organizations which will be of service to them and in which they can be of service to others. Hobbies.—Part of the play of young people should be involved in hobbies. It is no slight thing that young people develop avocations that are pleasant and profitable. In the carrying on of such avocations there is very much of the play spirit. It is not possible for every young man and woman with a musical talent 93 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE to become a professional musician; but it is possible for many to make music a profitable individual hobby. Others, because of a different type of talent, may find some of the manual arts—painting, modeling, lace- making or any one of the vast number of handcrafts— pleasant and profitable as hobbies. Interest your stu- dents in gardening or photography or in country walks or motoring or boating. You may be able to aid them in discovering a congenial and interesting method of spending leisure time. A well-chosen hobby is a valuable safety valve. Play in work.—The spirit of play should also per- meate the vocations of young people. The well-chosen vocation is not drudgery. The successful farmer finds real enjoyment in the activities of his farm life. The highly successful merchant enjoys his day’s work. There are many men who can say that they do not take vacations for pleasure, for they find just as much pleasure in their daily work. They take vacations deliberately for the recreational value which they may add to their own powers. It is very important that our young people, in se- lecting their life-work, find a pleasant occupation in which they can be really interested. This does not mean that one should seek an occupation which is effortless, but it should be a work to which one is well adapted and in which one may in consequence find satisfaction and something of the spirit of play. Young people in later adolescence have, however, reached the point where they may be expected to sacri- fice pleasure for some ulterior end to be attained. Life is not a matter of soft snaps but of hard, inten- 04 PLAY LIFE OF LATER ADOLESCENCE sive work, and this should be the period when our young people are led to devote themselves with serious intensity to the sometimes tedious and arduous duties of life. We should, however, lead them to find in whatever they do the highest degree of satisfaction and to deliberately motivate their hours of drudgery with a high appreciation of values to be attained through such hard work.’ A PROGRAM OF PLAY A program of play for young people should take into consideration the free instincts which are in- volved in play. Joseph Lee has enumerated seven principal play instincts—creation, rhythm, hunting, fighting, nurture, curiosity, team play. There are other instincts which are closely involved in the im- pulse to play. Perhaps all the separate instincts may be in some degree related to the play spirit. Involved in all these instincts is the tendency to be satisfied with self-expressive activity. The little child loves to run without any particular aim or purpose except the pleasure of free activity. Older children develop mo- tives of competition, and run that they may individu- ally win a race. Adolescent young people still enjoy a race, but perhaps the motive is modified into loyalty to an athletic team or a school. But the same impulse to activity, to muscular movement, may be found in all these cases. A program for young people should include various types of play suited to the social and individual varia- 8’ The Psychology of Middle Adolescence, Moxcey, p. 48ff. 95 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE tions and involving the various motives and instincts which underlie the desire for play. Some of the de- sirable activities for young people are the following: PuHysIcAL ACTIVITIES Athletics—Sprints and long-distance runs, hur- dling, relay races, field events such as jumping, shot- put, hiking, skating, etc. Team games such as bas- ket ‘ball, baseball. Mass games such as circle games, opposed line games, competitive games. Aquatic Sports —Swimming, boating, sailing, life- saving, diving, water races and games. Camping is a summer-time program that should be included in our plans. There are several excel- lent books on camping and woodcraft. SocrAL ACTIVITIES Parties and Socials ——Celebration of special days, Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s, etc., wienie roasts, picnics, hikes, indoor track meets, hay rides, sleigh rides, poverty party, story and joke night, father-and-son and mother-and-daughter banquets. Entertainments.—Plays, pageants, mock conven- tions, mock trials, musical programs, lectures, min- strels, stunt night, demonstrations of class activities, athletic exhibition, glee clubs, choirs, orchestras, fairs, festivals, bazaars. Community Nights or Neighborhood Nights.— Motion pictures, popular and familiar songs for community singing. Fundamental importance of play.—All our plans for young people should recognize the fundamental importance of recreation. The relation of religion to play has been stated by J. J. Milnes: Play is religion’s basic ally, and it is high time the church was marshaling all her forces. Religion can 96 PLAY LIFE OF LATER ADOLESCENCE never wholly take the place of play, and should not wage her battles without its aid. Beware of a reli- gion that substitutes itself for everything; that makes monks. Seek a religion that appropriates everything ; that makes Christians.’’4 PROBLEMS 1. How large a part should the church and the church school take in directing recreation? 2. What are the best methods for overcoming the influence of harmful commercialized amusements? 3. What are the values or the disadvantages of fraternities? 4. What are the hobbies or avocations which you have perceived in the cases of socially influential people? 5. How can the church and the church school in- fluence the selection of the more wholesome types of amusement? Books FOR FURTHER READING Handbook for Workers with Young People, Thomp- son. : Psychology of Early Adolescence, Mudge, Chapter Vill Psychology of Middle Adolescence, Moxcey, Chapter i BES The Girl, Dewar, Chapter IT. Play in Education, Lee. Educational Psychology, Briefer Course, Thorndike, Chapter V. The Church and the People’s Play, Atkinson. The Church and the Young Man’s Game, Milnes. Psychology in Daily Life, Seashore, Chapter I. Keeping in Condition, Moore. From Youth to Manhood, Hall. 4 The Church and the Young Men’s Game, Milnes, p. 49. Used by permission of The Pilgrim Press. 97 PSYCHOLOGY) OFMVATERVADOLES CRiGE Leadership of Girls’ Activities, Moxcey. Physical Health and Recreation for Girls, Moxcey. Good Times for Girls, Moxcey. An Introduction to Social Psychology, McDougall, Chapter XIV. Psychology: A Study of Mental Life, Woodworth, Chapter XIX. EE SES CHAPTER, VIII] THE HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY THE ancient Greeks recognized in the harmonious development of the body and in the corresponding de- velopment of the mind and soul the highest ideals of education. A sound mind and a sound body seemed to them the desirable educational attainment. A bal- ance of powers and impulses may well be recognized as a natural ideal for modern education. The normal tendency of adolescence is to settle and fix the nervous constitution so that by the beginning of adult life the personality is relatively harmonious. The adjustments necessary to produce this harmony are various. In early adolescence it is sometimes dif- ficult to see the direction of development, and in mid» dle adolescence there are still perplexing cross-currents and contradictions in the development of personality. To those who deal with boys and girls in these earlier periods, their personalities sometimes seem to be almost without form and void. In later adolescence we can distinguish a decided development in the harmonizing of impulses and the production of a relatively bal- anced personality. We must realize that there are wide individual variations, and that the life of perfect balance—physical, mental, and moral—is ideal and rare, but the processes leading to a balance of impulses are present throughout normal adolescence. 99 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE INFLUENCES DANGEROUS TO MENTAL HEALTH A wholesale development of personality is attained by normal young people in a normal environment. But there are certain influences about us which are constantly providing for an increase of degeneracy. Particularly may be mentioned the two great racial poisons, alcohol and venereal diseases. Both of these are avoidable but they are closely related to the emo- tional and feeling life. These and other influences make the problems of social and mental hygiene ex- ceedingly difficult. Mental abnormalities are not due to some mysterious force coming into the personality. They are caused by the exaggeration or reduction of existing qualities. Some minds are erratic, eccentric, or unbalanced, in that some instincts are overdevel- oped—out of harmony with other natural tendencies. Thus, fear, for example, is a natural, universal, hu- man tendency, but fear may be exaggerated to a point of unhealthful emphasis or may even reach the point of an extreme phobia and become involved in acute mental disease. It is the desirable thing, the normal thing, for all the impulses of a personality to be bal- anced and harmonious. A great personality, a genius, has certain highly developed impulses, but some geniuses are erratic, strong and vigorous in some ele- ments of personality but weak in others. The greatest men of all time have been those in whom a tremendous energy of impulse has been accompanied by a high degree of control. Thus it has been observed that great men are likely to show contradictory characters apparently opposed to one another, each of them being 100 DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY strong. The total effect of these impulses is a strong personality. This seems to be true in the case of the greatest personality the world ever knew. A great number of tendencies strong and vigorous have been observed in the personality of Jesus, but no other has ever held this tendency in such perfect control and balance as he. He could be gentle and he could be in- dignant ; he could be calm and he could become excited ; and there were many other elements in that most mar- velous development of personality. Joy and melancholy.—Among the opposing tenden- cies of adolescence none is more noticeable than the tendency to melancholy as over against the tendencies to joy and hilarity. Melancholy seems an interloper in youth, but there are many hours of gloomy brooding in all periods of adolescence. A study of the earlier work of our English poets indicates that in most of them there is a distinct strain of melancholy which is frequently out of proportion to that appearing in their later works. Thus among Longfellow’s juvenile poems his first verses, so far as we know, written in early adolescence, begin with this stanza: “Cold, cold is the north wind and rude is the blast That sweeps like a hurricane loudly and fast, As it moans through the tall waving pines lone and drear, Sighs a requiem sad o’er the warrior’s bier.” Throughout his earlier poems you find such ex- pressions as “love’s own melancholy,” “our blighted joys,” “sad despondency,”’ and similar melancholy phrases. He writes a “Dirge Over a Nameless 101 PSYCHOLOGY: OF LATER ADOLESCENCE Grave.” He tells a story of the Indian girl who threw herself over the cliff because of her false-hearted lover, and muses as he sits at his window watching the lights of the field disappear: “Thus, thought I, our joys must die, Yes—the brightest from earth we win; Till each turns away, with a sigh, To the lamp that burns brightly within.” The first in the published list of Lowell’s earlier poems is a threnody. The second begins, “The sea is lonely, the sea is dreary’; and although there are expressions of joy and ecstasy in some of his earlier poems, there are many instances of this characteristic adolescent melancholy. Among the earlier poems of Sir Walter Scott is one which concludes with “the tear of parting sorrow,” and his first publication was a translation or imitation of two German ballads in each of which is a distinctly melancholy note. The first of the published undergraduate poems of Edward Rowland Sill begins: “At the North, far away, Rolls a great sea for aye, Silently, awfully,” and throughout these early poems may be found such passages as “... the rustle of a step, Which made my heart beat in those years ago— Which makes me weep to listen for it now.” He writes of “mournful tongues,” or “reluctant sighs,” of “life-long wretchedness,” and at the conclusion of his commencement poem, after discussing hypocrisies 102 I DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY and discontent and the solitude of the soul, he con- cludes with a prayer: “That he, who walks with sanction from Thy hand, Some token of its presence may have seen, Beneath which we may tread the path serene Into the stillness of the unknown land.” Remember that the melancholy here discussed is a natural and normal characteristic of adolescence. It requires sympathetic treatment, and this depends upon confidential friendship and upon our ability to recog- nize the moods of young people. We may compensate for melancholy moods by providing a wholesome, cheerful, social atmosphere in which a mood of opti- mistic cheerfulness may be substituted. Nervous abnormalities—Among our young people are many cases of some degree of nervous abnormality. Aside from the more extreme derangements there are two types of nervous abnormality which may be con- trasted. They represent extremes of deviation from the normally balanced tendencies. One of these is neurasthenia, which may be briefly described as a nervous. condition due to the wunderdischarge of nervous energy. At the other extreme is hysteria, due to an overdischarge of nervous energy. Each of these in a milder degree is a form of what we call nervousness. The normal, healthy person is somewhere near the mid-point between the ex- tremes, but probably all of us have tendencies in one direction or the other, or sometimes to both alternately. While nervous and mental aberrations may occur in any period of life, they often be- 103 PSYCHOLOGY’ OF HATER ADOLESGENGE gin, or at least come to the surface in later adoles- cence. Dr. Stewart Patton, of Princeton, has recently made a study of the mental troubles of the university period in which he has found a surprising amount of pronounced mental trouble and probability of future difficulties. There is no means of knowing whether stich troubles are increasing or decreasing, but it is interesting to know that Doctor Patton indicates that such mental difficulties are part of the “absurdly high price for what we call modern civilization.” Tendencies to a dangerous nervous condition may be largely controlled by a wholesome environment, congenial companionships, and a proper division of time. It is important to our psychic health that we spend some time in play, some time in work, some time in solitude, some time in society. The leaders of young people can be of great assistance to them in observing their needs for a balanced program of physi- cal and mental activity and rest. Daydreams.—‘‘Adolescent time is daydreaming time,’ and sometimes our students develop a pro- nounced tendency to daydreaming. Within limits this is a normal adolescent trait, but it sometimes leads into what has been called the “flight from reality,” the withdrawal of interest from the normally interesting affairs of real life. Often this is the result of personal disappointments or disillusionments or other difficul- ties of adjustment, and sometimes the daydream be- comes the focus for a dangerous complex. Certainly, we would not deny youth its dreams, but it is well for us to encourage those activities that will develop an interest in the problems of reality. We must not dis- 104 DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY courage the future poet or artist or philosopher, but we should set before our students the ideal of a whole- somely balanced attitude toward life. INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT Considering the proportional amount of study which has been given to the intellectual nature, it seems sur- prising that so little definite knowledge of the intelli- gence of later adolescence has been secured. There has been a great amount of testing by means of the various mental measures devised in recent times, but the experimenting has resulted in relatively little defi- nite information concerning the intellectual develop- ment of this period. Intelligence tests have come and gone, have become popular and have been criticized. Certainly, no intelligence test thus far devised is ade- quate as a sole measure of intelligence. We are deal- ing with very complicated elements when we try to measure any factor in our mental life, but the experi- ments in mental measurements should go forward and should be applied to the study of adolescence as well as to the study of childhood and adult life. We should always recognize the limitations of a psychological test. There are many things which it does not measure. There are moral qualities which enter into intelligence and many other elements with which intelligence is correlated which thus far have refused to lend them- selves to any satisfactory test method.? 1 The Psychology of Middle Adolescence, Moxcey, Chapters VI and IX 2For a discussion of the validity and limitation of mental tests see The Psychology of Middle Adolescence, Moxcey, Chapter V. 105 PSYCHOLOGY’ OF; DATER ADOQUESCDAGCE Some elements of intelligence have, however, been tested to a practical degree. A recent volume reports a very thorough set of tests in the case of a large number of high-school seniors in the State of Indiana. These tests have the same difficulty as many others in that they do not represent the average intelligence of our population. They represent rather a quite highly specialized group. Those with only average intelli- gence are seldom able to finish a high-school course. The boy or girl graduating from high school would therefore be placed in a relatively high classification if compared with a group of unselected adults. The difhculty of measuring such a group as this is seen when we realize that it is impossible to measure any mental ability by an absolute scale. We can measure temperature by reference to an absolute zero, or an arbitrary zero, but there is no such thing as an absolute zero in mental measurements. The most reliable in- dex which could be secured for the Indiana test was found to be the central tendency or median score of the total group, affected somewhat by the range of individual cases beyond this median score. Consider- ing the limitations these tests are decidedly useful. An examination of the Indiana tests indicates that — Over 51 per cent of the students who planned to go | to college made scores in the intelligence test above the © State median. Fifty-seven per cent of those who | planned to go to a liberal arts college made scores above the median, as did nearly 59 per cent of those planning to go to a technical school. This indicates, 3 The Intelligence of High School Seniors, Book, New York, 1922. 106 al i nd DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY further, that our college groups who have been the subjects of many of our mental tests are a selected group of relatively high intellectual power. Other tests show a high correlation between general intelligence as thus measured and acceleration in prog- ress through the high school. Seventy-two per cent of those completing the high school in six semesters scored above the State median, while only twenty per cent scoring above the State median required eleven or twelve semesters. The relationship of intelligence to vocation.—The Indiana tests were accompanied by a questionnaire concerning the occupations or vocations selected by the students. Of those selecting science as an occu- pation, 73 per cent had scores above the State median. Next in the list for boys stands the ministry with 63.34 per cent above the State median. Among occu- pations for girls law stands at the head, 66.70 per cent of those selecting law scoring above the State median. Journalism comes second, .66.67 per cent of those se- lecting journalism as a profession scoring above the State median. There are some interesting facts in this investigation concerning the selection of vocations. Sixty-four per cent of the boys among these high-school seniors have chosen their vocation and 60 per cent of the girls, but among over six thousand seniors, only sixteen occu- pations or lines of work are mentioned, which seems to indicate a need for wider vocational information. Of the boys, those going into the ministry, journalism and science rank intellectually above those of other occupational groups, while the girls who select jour- 107 PSYCHOLOGY ‘OF LATER ADOLESCENCE nalism, social service, and law rank highest. However, it is to be noted that the brightest senior boys accord- ing to these tests selected science and engineering, while the brightest senior girls selected clerical work. From these and many tests which have been used with high-school and college students we may gain some information relative to such specialized groups. It appears from observations which have been made that the tests pick out those of poor mental ability much more accurately than those of good mental abil- ity. It is also to be noticed that sex differences in the mental functions measured seemed to be very nearly negligible. There are many elements in intellectual efficiency which are not shown by any mental tests thus far devised. There are, for example, some young people whose minds are very accurate but who work very slowly. On the other hand, there are some minds which work with great rapidity and are relatively in- accurate. There is rare value for many purposes in the possession of a mind which works quickly but in many relations the slower and more accurate mind may be much more desirable and efficient. Many quick minds are decidedly inaccurate. In a series of tests some years ago | discovered that many of my brighter students, judged by intelligence tests, were relatively less accurate than my duller students. Perhaps one reason for this may lie in an educational fault. A recent writer has shown that in our educational practice we place a certain premium upon the relatively careless work of the brilliant, rapid working student, so that a student many times feels that more is to be attained by working rapidly though 108 DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY carelessly, than by spending more time at a given task.4 The Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon tests places the intelligence of the average superior adult at the mental age of sixteen. This may be interpreted to mean that at the age of sixteen the elements which are measured in these tests are quite fully developed. It does not mean that there is no development beyond the age of sixteen. There still remains the possibility of measuring a vast number of other elements in hu- man mentality which develop beyond the age of six- teen and, indeed, in many cases far into adult life. Harmonious intellectual development.—As in the case of physical and emotional development, what is needed in intelligence is a well-rounded, harmonious balance. This does not consist merely in the acquisi- tion of facts in the memory or in the working out of any series of problems in reasoning. It requires, first of all, the wholesome development of the will and the moral nature. It requires all those attitudes toward life and its problems which make students energetic, conscientious, and efficient. Then, of course, it in- volves those definite elements of instruction, problem- atic situations, and intellectual exercises which are related to the actual life situations of our young people. MoRAL AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT There is a close relationship between the physical and mental harmonies discussed above and the har- 4The author’s article, “Time and Accuracy as Related to Mental Tests,” was published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, March, 1921. 109 PSYCHOLOGY: OF TATER ADOLESCENCE monious development of the moral and religious life. Character is not developed in isolation from physical growth and is certain to be closely related with various phases of mental development. Thus religious educa- tion is not unconcerned with the problems of physical development, of a wholesome physical environment, and of the intellectual training of the schools. Indeed, many of the leaders in public-school education con- sider their problems more closely related to ours than some religious workers have been accustomed to think. It is the work of the public school to develop whole- some moral attitudes and produce not merely a highly developed intelligence but a set of physical, mental, and moral habits that will insure the further growth and proper use of moral character. There should be very thorough cooperation between all types of schools in the interest of a wholesome and balanced moral and religious life. Just as in the case of physical development and men- tal development there are various tendencies to be harmonized in the personality in the interest of whole- some personal ethics. The world needs a harmony of enthusiasm, high moral ideals, clear thinking about moral problems, vigorous emotional responses, dis- ciplined will, and common sense. Perhaps the greatest social need of our day is the development among our young people of a highly vigorous, practical reaction to moral social problems. Our young people, prop- erly guided and with a wholesome encouragement for the development of their moral and religious life, carry in their own hands the key to the moral progress and religious wholesomeness of the future. Tio DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY The complex elements in personality.—A discus- sion of harmonious development would not be com- plete without mention of the complicated factors which affect our conscious and unconscious life. Education is infinitely interesting because it deals with an infinity of conditions. There are as many hereditary patterns of life in our classes as there are students, and every student is differently affected by the varying and com- plicated influences of his life. Only a very small part of one’s mental processes are clearly conscious at one time, and many processes which deeply affect our con- sciousness and our behavior never rise above tthe threshold of awareness.® Every life is deeply, perhaps chiefly, affected by ele- ments which lie deep in the recesses of the subcon- scious. Forgotten troubles vex us and forgotten pleas- ures re-echo in our present joys. “A rich mentality or strong personality may be largely due to the richness of the subconscious life.” PROBLEMS 1. What social institutions in your community are definitely contributing to physical, mental, and moral health ? 2. Among your students are there any who are “queer” or odd? What is the attitude of the other students toward them? 3. What sort of books do your students like to read? What sort of magazines? Is there any relation be- tween their tastes in reading and their general moral ideals? 5 The Psychology of Early Adolescence, Mudge, Chapter VIII. 6 The Unfolding of Personality, Mark, p. 189. LEt PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE 4. Have you any students who seem abnormally shy? If so, in what activities of the class are they most interested? Has their social environment been the same as that of the rest of the class? 5. Search the early writings of the great poets and novelists and see if you find the adolescent melancholy described in this chapter? Books FOR FuRTHER READING Talks to Teachers, James, page 190ff. Psychology of Religion, Starbuck, Chapter XIX. Psychology of Social Reconstruction, Patrick, Chap- tere Id. Psychology of Early Adolescence, Mudge, Chapter METS The Psychology of Middle Adolescence, Moxcey, Chapters V, VI, IX. The Intelligence of High School Seniors, Book. Religious Consciousness, Pratt, Chapter VI. Introduction to Psychology, Seashore, Chapter XXI. The Spiritual Life, Coe, Chapter I. The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets, Addams, Chapters IT, III, IV. Youth in Conflict, Van Waters. II2 CHAPTER IX YOUTH AND LIFE WORK Frew human decisions are more important than the choice of a vocation, yet many young people care- lessly and almost fortuitously decide this important question. Many young men select a life occupation because it was the occupation of their fathers, and in many cases the influence of parents has determined a decision which should be largely based upon the nat- ural inclinations and abilities of the young person most concerned. Many, both young men and young women, have entered a given life-work because it is nearest at hand or because their knowledge of other occupations is decidedly limited. The problem of vocation is a most vital one, for it concerns not only one’s personal satis- faction and consequent personal efficiency, but it con- cerns fully as much the service which he may be able to render to the world. It is vastly important from the standpoint of society that each person ren- der his maximum service. It is also of high impor- tance that the motives for the life decisions involved in vocation be thoroughly worthy. Idealism.—As has been indicated in previous chap- ters, adolescent young people are normally marked by a tendency to idealism, to a desire for altruistic service. This human tendency may be encouraged or discour- aged. If throughout the earlier periods our boys and girls are surrounded by people of low ideals, if parents 113 PSYCHOLOGY (‘OF “LATER VADOEERSGHI Urs and teachers appeal to selfish and unworthy motives, there is not much chance for the idealistic and altruistic spirit to develop within them. It is a sad feature of some parts of our educational system that an undue emphasis is placed upon motives of self advancement, personal achievement, and success measured in terms of property and personal power. Selfish motives.——Many of our arguments for higher education have overstressed the self-seeking motives. Even college teachers and Christian minis- ters have emphasized them too strongly. Education has been pictured as a means whereby one can acquire personal power and financial success, and some adver- tisements of secondary and higher institutions of learn- ing have set forth, as a chief incentive, the fact that an educated man can make more money than one who is uneducated. The objection to this sort of appeal for education is not that the appeal of financial improve- ment is altogether unworthy but that it should be dis- tinctly secondary to other motives more idealistic in their nature. ; Idealistic motives, in the spirit of the highest moral interests and religious purposes, make a_ specially strong appeal. It has been proved again and again in the experience of leaders of young people that an appeal to the heroic, the self-sacrificing, the altruistic, is highly successful in determining life decisions of various sorts. The response of the young people in our colleges and universities to the call of the Student Volunteer Movement has demonstrated this fact. A great number of our finest young people have volun- teered, in case the opportunity comes, for that service 114 YOUTH AND LIFE WORK which is far removed from the selfish motives which often prompt vocational decisions—the service of the Christian Church in foreign mission fields. Need of guidance.— Young people need guidance in the selection of a vocation. Many of them have not had the opportunity of vocational direction in the high school, and even where such opportunities have been open to them there are many young people in later ado- lescence who have not definitely planned their lives. The time has now come when some definite decision must be made. The vocational plans made now are not merely for the next year or two; they are likely to be permanent and affect very seriously an entire active lifetime. Being still more or less suggestible, young people tend to respond to those life purposes which are presented to them. Some of these are very inadequate aims. The desire to accumulate money or own a great estate, the desire for a political position or for a high place in any activity of life—these are not adequate life purposes. The weakness of such aims is in their incompleteness. At best they are means for the attain- ment of some ultimate end. The worker with young people who definitely presents a worthy and complete motive for vocational decision takes advantage of the psychology of a completely organized life purpose. He presents not only the ambition to become a successful farmer, the owner of a large tract of land, but the ultimate ambition to be of service, through agricul- ture, to the world, to give his labor and thought that people through him may be fed and clothed and edu- cated and Christianized. It can be shown that a voca- tion is not a complete end in itself, that beyond the 115 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE vocation is the ideal of some service which one may render. PRINCIPLES FOR VOCATIONAL SELECTION What are the principles of vocational guidance which should be presented to young people and to which their natures will normally respond? 1. The only adequate vocational purposes are social purposes. Back of vocational choice should be a thor- ough appreciation of the meaning of. social service, the contribution which one may make to the com- munity, the state, the nation, the world of men. The value of the profession of medicine, for example, is not in developing a personal estate through the ability to earn large fees, but in bringing health to people who are ill and in preserving the health of those who are well. Fundamental to all vocational decisions should be the high valuing of human interest, sympathy, con- sideration, and all that Christianity has invested in the term “love” for men. It is a social spirit of service which is necessary in order that we may make worthy life decisions. 2. Having the desire to be of altruistic service, one should select an industry or profession which clearly satisfies some social need. This, of course, means the elimination of any occupation which is not of decided social value in the world. The world does not need vocationally capable saloon keepers or gamblers or ex- ploiters of child labor, but it does need men who will provide us with food, clothing, shelter, transportation, the essentials of health and sanitation, wholesome — 116 YOUTH AND LIFE WORK laws, intellectual and religious teaching, works of art, and a vast number of other things which satisfy the needs of man. In selecting a vocation, some human need should be distinctly appreciated, and whatever be the vocation chosen, it should be seen to contribute wholesomely and effectively to that need. No vocation is valid and valuable which does not have in it an ele- ment of production or contribution to men’s needs. 3. It is of great importance that the vocation se- lected shall be one to which one is adapted. Native capacities differ widely with individuals. These ca- pacities should be ascertained and decisions based upon them. An occupation for which one is not well adapted may limit one’s usefulness, or even cancel it. Some people, because of having chosen the wrong oc- cupation, are really a drag upon society rather than a help, and many people because they chose in ignorance or by chance are far less efficient members of society than they might be. 4. One’s vocational choice should be made, as far as possible, in a careful, scientific fashion, There has been too much stumbling into vocations, enlisting in a vocation after a brief consideration or in a moment of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm has its place, but it should not prevent a very careful study of one’s investment of life. Self-analysis——A thorough analysis of one’s traits and abilities should be a part of vocational decision. One should as far as possible know what abilities he possesses, what his natural aptitudes are. In some cases there are vocational tests which may be useful. Thus by the use of a series of tests devised through 117 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE years of experimenting, one may determine with rela- tive accuracy one’s native musical ability. The author was in close touch with the use of some of these tests during the experimental period and found that a num- ber of young men who believed themselves incapable of singing with any degree of accuracy, really had considerable native ability to sing. They had been brought up to consider singing an effeminate pastime, or had been otherwise discouraged from attempting to sing, and had never learned the fundamentals of singing, which might have given them much satisfac- tion. On the other hand, many young women were surprised to find that although they had spent very much time in piano practice, they really had decidedly inferior musical ability. Some of them seemed actu- ally relieved to find that their dislike for music practice was not their own fault but was, rather, due to a natural limitation. Had such a test been available in their childhood, both these classes of young people might have been greatly benefited. Vast sums of money are spent in our country every year for the musical training of people who have inferior musical ability. By means of the test above discussed it is possible to determine whether it is advisable for a young person to prepare for the professional career of the musician. Unfortunately, the number of voca- tional tests is relatively few, but it is possible for every young person to examine himself to some extent as to his native ability. General and particular abilities—Among the items of information concerning one’s personal traits and abilities should be an appreciation of one’s general 118 YOUTH AND LIFE WORK traits and a knowledge of one’s abilities with reference to particular vocations. The late Dr. Frank Parsons, who was director of a vocation bureau in Boston, used to ask the applicants for vocational advice the fol- lowing questions: If all the boys in Boston were gathered here to- gether and a naturalist were classifying them as he would classify plants and animals, in what division would you belong? In what respects, if any, would you excel the mass of young men, and in what respects, if any, would you be inferior to most? Would the classifying scientist put you in the me- chanical group or the professional group, the executive group or the laboring group? Would he class you as artistic, as intellectual, or physical, quick or slow, careful or careless, enthusias- tic or unenthusiastic, effective or ineffective, etc.? There are many lists of personal data, traits, and characteristics, found in various works on vocational guidance. Such a chart as the following may be sig- nificant either for self analysis in vocational choices or for the use of one who is estimating the vocational possibilities of another. This chart gives a list of qualities and provides for a measurement of the de- gree in which each of them is found. Thus the first quality is health. It makes a great difference with reference to certain vocations whether one has an un- usually low degree of health, that is, is decidedly sickly, or a low degree, somewhat below the average, or medium health, or good health, that is above the average, or exceptionally good health. In the chart the various characteristics, as in the case of a given II9 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE young person, are measured. By connecting with lines the points marked, one can get a certain graphic repre- sentation of this personality. Of course the qualities chosen are not all the qualities which might be listed, but they may suggest a list of qualities which you yourself may prepare. | CHART OF PERSONAL QUALITIES QUALITIES | DEGREE IN WHICH FOUND Unusually Low Degree Unusually High Degree —_——$—— | — | en 8. = - FON GT Vee ee site Bally sce iW etaia x Promipiness eo lo alee eauueare SV SERITA MSE eNO Fin ata a aes Reliability tee cian os x POTESIBIG Cn a Rion Daas x Knowledge of human nature. . x SVUNDALU Me ye ves en.) Omen rare x CIB ITUUOTE RICCO as Pane neta) -* ae @ bap | mn -. n ct ¢?) =) °Q oO wr A OM Pleasant speech iic/s hee. sb x Imagination (ie i ee ae x Quickness of movements..... x SO: bangs: ws. titteewis.bite x Interest in reading.......... x Interest in sports and games. . x Interest in serious study...... x Interest wivart, 4) pa eee x 120 YOUTH AND LIFE WORK In addition to the qualities indicated in the chart, one should make a list of the qualities needed for any particular vocation which is in question, and estimate himself on the basis of this list as to his fitness for the given work. Of course self-analysis is difficult but an attempt is important. One must not only estimate his own character- istics in order wisely to choose a vocation but must have a considerable fund of knowledge concerning vocations. In the early days of American history, vocational decisions were relatively simple. There were few trades, and these were nearly all familiar to the whole people. Life was largely agricultural, and a large portion of the work which is now done by special trades was done in the home. There were few professions. Indeed, until relatively recent times the term “learned profession’ has been applied only to the ministry, medicine, and law. But in our day there is a great complication of trades, professions, and oc- cupations. The work of the world has become special- ized, and our increasing scientific knowledge and in- dustrial advancement have made possible great numbers of special types of work hitherto unknown. For ex- ample, the surveyor and mechanic of earlier times have given place to a multitude of specialized engineer- ing professions, each of which has its own technique and consequently demands people of characteristic abilities. It is a very great service to young people who are not acquainted with the wide variations in modern vo- cational life to bring to them such information, and many a worker with young people has the opportunity 121 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE of suggesting lines of possible activity in which they may be of great service to society. It is very important that young people shall not be forced by circumstances or by the preferences of their parents or other friends into ill-chosen vocations. The efficiency of society is largely hindered by the vast number of misplaced men and women—square pegs in round holes. The land is full of inefficient physi- cians and lawyers who might be good farmers or mer- chants or engineers. There are young people with unusual gifts for given occupations who have never discovered the opportunity of such work. For exam- ple, Doctor Parsons tells of a young man of twenty- two who seemed fairly successful as a clerk of a small store, but he did not like commerce. He was passion- ately fond of nature, and used to walk ten or fifteen miles to be in the woods. A consultation with a vo- cational expert showed him his opportunity to prepare himself for the government forestry service, and his adviser says, “I have never seen a boy devour science with more enthusiasm than this lover of trees displays in absorbing the principles and practice of forestry.” If we can, by suggesting possible vocations or by directing young people to the services of vocational experts, reduce the inefficiency and waste due to the haphazard selection of occupations in this country, we shall have rendered a real service. 7. An element in vocational choice which may be developed throughout the years of preparation, is the spirit of initiative. We who are older should not make vocational choices for the young men and women. We may guide them as far as possible to choosing intelli- 122 YOUTH AND LIFE WORK gently, but education in a democracy should be directed to the development of individual initiative. An aris- tocracy or an autocracy may be satisfied with training young people for predetermined places in life. A democracy acts upon the saying of Plato, “All men are not quite like each other,’ and seeks to develop each one according to his individual ability so that he may be most highly efficient in the society in which he lives. Thus all of education should relate itself to the devel- opment of those habits of life, those judgments and principles upon which a vocation must be based. A vocation should not be chosen in a moment. It should be the result of a long process, and should test one’s entire previous training. Just what young people de- cide to do and the spirit in which they decide to do it is a most valuable test of the entire process of edu- cation leading up to this decision. 8. A vocation should always be chosen, in the light of one’s thorough knowledge of it and of one’s self, as a divine call to service. No one should enter the Christian ministry who does not feel a call from God, but it is far from the Christian ideal of life service to limit such a call to this one important work. No one should become a physician or a lawyer or a merchant or an engineer or a horticulturist or a carpenter with- out feeling that his work is in response to a divine call. This means that life in its vocational aspect is to be considered as a mission, as a high responsibility in which we are to serve God and serve mankind. We are all stewards of our own time as of our wealth, and all of life should be organized with reference to this stewardship. 123 PSYCHOLOGY, OF iLATER ADOLESCENCE The fields of special service——In this connection it should be said that we as leaders of young people should direct their thought toward those vocations which represent for those who are qualified for them, a special opportunity for altruistic service. The world needs teachers, preachers, deaconesses and mission- aries. It needs social service workers of a vast variety. It needs leaders for service enterprises in the interest of the sick, the distressed, and the strangers in our cities. Do not hold up any one vocation as superior to all the rest, but indicate the great possibilities in the types of work above described for those who are qualified for them. There are many misapprehensions concerning the service of the church. Many young men think that the ministry is a matter of preaching sermons to adult members of a congregation, attending social functions, and visiting the sick. Many young people think of missionary work as a rather narrow round of duties. In reality, the Christian ministry and the work of Christian missions present a vast variety of needs and opportunities. The ideal Christian minister is a community leader, active in a variety of matters which were outside the field of the circuit rider of days past; and a wide variety of occupations are involved in our foreign missionary work. The need of the Christian spirit in all occupations should be brought to the attention of our young people. Among the chief needs of a democracy like ours is the need for political leaders and government officials who combine a democratic spirit with administrative _ efficiency. For young men and women deliberately to 124 YOUTH AND LIFE WORK plan to devote their lives, in a Christian spirit, to this sort of public service would be a very hopeful and wholesome thing. VOCATIONS FOR WoMEN Workers with young women should acquaint them- selves with the wide variety of vocations open to them. The number of vocations commonly open to women is less than those for men. However, in recent years there has been a very remarkable extension of the number of opportunities for women. Woman has en- tered, at least in isolated instances, most of the types of work in which men are engaged. One recent book gives the following list, showing a wide variety of fields of activity. Office girl, file clerk, typist, dictaphone operator, stenotypist, multigrapher, public stenographer, private secretary, bookkeeper, accountant, cashier, cash girl, stock girl, saleswoman, buyer, professional shopper, demonstrator, floor clerk, desk clerk, room clerk, food checker, waitress, employment agent, real estate agent, advance agent, insurance agent, advertising agent, press agent, booking agent, telephone operator, telegraph operator, elevator operator, tearoom manager, florist, model, dressmaker, milliner, hair dresser, manicurist, theater treasurer, usher, detective, commercial trav- eler, home-maker, dietitian, social worker, nurse, physician, oculist, dentist, pharmacist, bacteriologist, newspaper writer, teacher, librarian, statistician, jew- eler, interior decorator, landscape gardener, architect, photographer, costume illustrator, magazine illustra- tor, novelty painter, scenic artist, musician, pianist, 125 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE actress, in addition.to a variety of types of factory work. An examination of this list will reveal its deficien- cies, as there are many types of work in which women are largely engaged which are not represented here. It is of very great importance in these days that young women who are looking for vocational opportunities should be able to find themselves and find their life- work satisfactorily. Among the vocations for women listed above, none will doubt that the chief vocation is that of home-maker, especially if used in its broader significance. Vocational agencies should not neglect the strengthening of the American home and the prep- aration of young women for home life and the respon- sibilities of marriage and family care. The training of children and the various arts and sciences which enter into a wholesome home life are of the greatest importance. In this connection it may be said em- phatically that not only the young women but the young men should be so trained that they will be in- telligent and efficient in the responsibilities of the home life. Our chief task, after all, is to prepare the way for the generation to follow us. THE BROADER SERVICE In selecting a vocation, the young man or woman should seriously consider this great life task a highly important personal contribution to the welfare of the world. Into it should be poured all the idealistic en- ergy of your young life. But the service interests of our young people should not be confined to vocation. Many of our greatest contributions to the welfare of 126 YOUTH AND LIFE WORK the world are in a sense by-products of life or the re- sults of extra-vocational activities of various kinds. Perhaps the greatest service we can render to the world is rearing a family of children who may accomplish social ends which to us are impossible. Certainly, in the many social relationships of life are opportunities for service which our young people should be encouraged to render. Man liveth not by bread alone, and his life is far more than making a living. Man is a member of society, of various social groups, and as a social being he has a variety of responsibilities. Guiding the service motive.—The impulse to serv- ice is one which needs training and guidance. Our young people not only need guidance as to how to earn their living but guidance as to how to spend their leisure, relate themselves to political and social prob- lems, be of service in a vast number of social situa- tions. High standards of social activity may be devel- oped in our young people, since they are normally idealistic and altruistic. There is in our young people not only a native de- sire to serve, but an equally native tendency to ques- tion the established methods and customs of service. Young people are not willing to accept statements on the authority of older people. They are idealists, but with an increasing insistence upon the practical appli- cation of ideals, and in the endeavor to apply their ideals they many times undervalue and perhaps dis- regard the ideals of others. Sometimes a principle which has been proved in the past to be socially valu- able is discarded by young people among the wreck- age of those things which seem to them impractical 127 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE in the concrete situations of life. It is the first tendency of young people in questioning an old ideal, to substitute an ideal of their own, often in- adequately demonstrated. This is where guidance is needed. Young people many times do not know all the facts which lie behind a given social principle or ideal. It is important that they have the oppor- tunity of wide observation and discrimination so that their standards of life may not be founded in their individual experience merely but in social ex- perience. In particular it is important that sympathetic and thorough guidance be at the disposal of young people whose social environment is far from ideal. There are young people who are distinctly skeptical as to the value or power of wholesome family life. Investi- gation may show that the reason for this doubt lies in the type of families with which they are familiar. Thus on the basis of an unbalanced social environment, an environment of poverty or of riches or of sordid materialism, one apparently has real reason to question motives and ideals. It is necessary for such young people—and there are many of them in our church schools—to become familiar, by some means, with the existence of a more wholesome atmosphere. This may be accomplished through making young people living in unwholesome places acquainted with people, fam- ilies, social groups living under wholesome moral con- ditions. There is still something of the hero wor- shiper in young people, and the character of a teacher or other idealistic leader may be of the greatest im- portance in its influence upon their lives. 128 YOUTH AND LIFE WORK PROBLEMS 1. Try to estimate your own qualities according to the chart. 2. What vocations, other than those listed, are ap- propriate for women? 3. How large a proportion) of the social leaders whom you know are young people? 4. What community projects would appeal to the members of your class? 5. Why does the college fraternity appeal to stu- dents? 6. What influences has the war left on the young people of your community? 7. What narrow attitudes do you observe in your young people? Suggest definite activities they could undertake that would remedy these attitudes. Books FOR FURTHER READING Choosing a Vocation, Parsons. The Girl and the Job, Hoerle and Saltzberg. Vocations for Girls, Laselle and Wiley. Builders of the Kingdom, LeSourd, Chapters I and IT. The Vocational Guidance of Youth, Bloomfield. Vocational and Moral Guidance, Davis. The Spiritual Life, Coe, Chapter V. Handbook for Workers with Young People, Thomp- son, Chapters X, XI, and XII. Education in Religion and Morals, Coe, Chapter VIII. A Social Theory of Religious Education, Coe, Chap- ter XVI. Principles of Educational Sociology, Clow, Chapters XIII and XIV. Girlhood and Character, Moxcey, Chapter XIX. Out Into Life, Horton. Finding My Place, Moxcey. CHAPTER X RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE LATER adolescence normally completes the process through which youth develops a wholesome adult re- ligion. There is, however, no sudden leap from the adolescent to the mature type of religious experience. Like all other elements in personality, the religious life is a growth, and sometimes in later adolescence there are traces of the experience of earlier periods, even those of early adolescence or childhood. Religious development.—The religious experience of childhood is very different from that of adult life. Usually, in the minds of children God is a great man with exaggerated human powers. © In another volume the author has shown that chil- dren picture God in visual terms much more than adults do. Many of them think of God as a man, old or young, according to the impressions gained from the teachings of older people, who is somewhere in the sky above. Some think of God as in the clouds. Some picture him as having a great record book before him. Many think of God as always watching to see what they do, often conceiving of him as a sort of detective or policeman who watches for wrongdoing, although others think of God as a kindly, fatherly friend, who watches to protect them. Of course much of our teaching is responsible for this, but it is doubtful if 130 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE children can get any satisfactory idea of God that does not partake of this anthropomorphic character. It is clear that the form of these visual images of God is largely determined by the teachings which children receive. Some picture God as a young man, evidently through the pictures of Jesus. Others con- ceive of him as an old man with a flowing beard. A large proportion of Jewish children seem to have, when they think of God, a visual image of fire or of “a mountain of fire,” the origin of which is evidently in the dominant Jewish teaching. But whatever its par- ticular content, visual imagery seems to take a large place in the religious conceptions and experiences of childhood. The external world, the world of sight and hearing and touch and taste, constitutes a greater part of the child’s world than of the world of adult life. It is natural that God should be external to childhood—a being away off somewhere rather than an immanent presence. The internalization of religion, which is the normal experience of an adult, depends upon a long process of development through childhood and adoles- cence. Adolescent development.—The adolescent young person is between the externalized religion of child- hood and ‘the religion of the adult. His world is in process of being internalized. He is developing the life of feeling and emotion by which his inner universe is being formed. An examination of several hundreds of cases shows the following apparent results. The statistical value of these cases is limited, but they are not without significance. Four age groups show an 131 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE apparently dominant visual imagery of God in the following proportions: Childrett 0. cae ee ee) a eee 7790 High-school “Students 2). Jn... see 72% College Students: P0222 11% Advanced ) Students eae One ae 0% The final zero above does not mean that the ad- vanced students consulted had no visual imagery of God, but that it was relatively insignificant, the more dominant elements in religious experience being the intimate feelings of relation toward an indwelling and immanent God. Persisting visual imagery.—Many people in later adolescence and adult life confess the persistence of visual elements in their experience of God. One says, “Sometimes when I am very tired, a mental picture of an understanding father’s face seems to flash and dis- appear.” Others say that a visual image “adds a sort of reality and assurance” to their experience. There are doubtless many, even in adult life, whose visual imagery is more relatively significant, who retain more or less of the objective relationship toward a distant God that is characteristic of childhood and the earlier adolescent years. ) The religion of later adolescence has an inner warmth and intimacy that arises in very complex feelings and emotions. It is a spiritual fellowship such as was im- possible in childhood. It is marked by vital personal attitudes toward a God who is a Spirit, a presence, a deeply intimate factor in the lives of his creatures. Temperamental differences——Attempts to stand- 132 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE ardize religious experience have always failed. Expe- rience differs with the personalities of the experiencers. Some fairly broad classifications for human temper- aments have been made, but human personalities pre- sent an infinite variety of blended traits. We may say that Henry Brown is one of the “sanguine” or “prompt-weak” temperament, but there are wide dif- ferences between him and John Thompson, whom we would also classify as of the sanguine type. This being true, we cannot reduce adolescent religious ex- periences even to four temperamental classes without leaving many important life factors unanalyzed. Later adolescence is a period of more controlled emotions than any earlier period, but there is still a degree of emotional energy which distinguishes this period from adult life. Adult emotions are normally deep but controlled and refined or sublimated. Those of adolescence are close-linked with the general high nervous and physical vigor of life. But some adoles- cent young people are especially suggestible and emo- tional. Those differences appear in their religious atti- tudes, and are carried over into adult life. Practical problems.—How the church and the church school may best minister to a diversity of reli- gious types is among our most serious problems. To some extent it is met by the existence of various de- nominations. Some appeal to the clear-thinking, in- tellectual type, others to the highly emotional type, and still others to the practical worker type. Unfor- tunately, most of us are introduced into churches not by our temperamental natures and needs but by those of our ancestors, or by what seems to be chance. 133 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE Then we who live in cities may sometimes choose the particular parish to which we are temperamentally adapted. But this, too, is frequently not practically possible nor socially desirable. How can the church and its school be, properly and helpfully, “all things to all men’? Clearly, the leaders of youth must under- stand the various types of youth and consequently be continually aware of the variety of needs. Cer- tainly, we should introduce into our program a balance of emotional and intellectual and practical activities. Probably such a balance of factors in religious devel- opment will restrain the emotional excesses of some and encourage others who are emotionally diffident to self-expression. It will prevent the overintellectua!l- ization of religion in some and unthinking response to suggestion in others. It will reveal to some the need for works of social service and to others the spiritual motive by which such service 1s made most effective and constant. This balanced type of religious teaching is thus championed by Professor Coe: To seek to experience religious emotion, or, rather, to put oneself in the way of experiencing it, is as reas- onable as any other part in religious aspiration. To take feeling out of religion would be as absurd as to take parental or conjugal fondness out of the family. Yet it is not possible to maintain the family solely, or even chiefly, by reliance upon feeling. What we pro- test against is one-sidedness; what we plead for is symmetry. Religion ought to rest upon and call into exercise all the faculties of the mind. Developing the individual—One of the needed lessons for workers with young people is that our 134 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE students must be treated as individual persons. We cannot successfully treat the masses with one prescrip- tion. Effective teaching means variety of work and methods in our classes and personal acquaintance with our individual students. Childhood is a period for developing habits which the race has found good. It is properly a period of conformity and obedience. But with adolescence comes a new sense of individual worth. Now come those forces which are to make the child a strong, self-directing unit in society. A degree of nonconformity is natural to adolescence. “Whoso would be a man,’ says Emerson, “must be a nonconformist.” “The function of adolescence,” writes Starbuck, “is to lay the foundation through self- realization for strong, healthy and vigorous manhood and womanhood.” The social ideal.— But throughout adolescence there is developing another center of life-interest. Increas- ingly the social world is overshadowing, in the normal mind, the world which centers in the self. In later adolescence the vicarious nature of life—self for others, the individual for society—should be empha- sized. So a large element in our teaching should be the social, altruistic element of applied human brother- liness. For now as perhaps never before the normal life.demands an expression in service. During early and middle adolescence our boys and girls have been finding themselves; now they must, in order to follow the normal line of development, lose themselves in worthy service. ) The condition of human progress is the utilization of youth. The spirit of youth, keen and thoughtful, 135 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE impelled by wholesomely developed emotion, applied to worthy tasks and waiting problems—this is a great need of the world. One of the chief needs of the church is a certain carrying-over of adolescence into adult life, together with the actual utilizing of youth in the service of the Kingdom. In a peculiar sense it seems to be true that Christianity keeps men active and interested in life with its current moral problems even to old age. Dangers of the period.—The teacher of a class of young people must be acquainted with the personal and temperamental nature of his individual students in order to be of help to them in solving their perplex- ing life problems. Later adolescence is a period of reflection and criticism and the developing of a work- ing philosophy of life. The keen-minded youth in- sists upon thinking all things through for himself. He is no longer satisfied to accept another’s convictions or authorities as his own. It is a time of doubt and un- certainty for many young people. There are special problems for those whose studies reveal new principles of science and philosophy which they cannot readily adjust to their earlier body of thought. Wise guidance is greatly needed; not the authority which may satisfy a child but the reasoned and seasoned wisdom which challenges confidence and demands a friendly respect. “There is more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.” The honest doubt of youth is not an unwholesome thing. Often it is faith in the noblest and most ideal- istic principles seeking for a reasonable expression. 136 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE It is a rather general characteristic of adolescence, judging from Starbuck’s studies, that almost all the religious doubts begin between the ages of eleven and twenty, with a few scattered ones during the twenties. This period of doubt is not necessarily an inevitable characteristic of adolescence, but it is certainly a very common experience in young people to question au- thority and ask the reasons for things. This may not be an upsetting process, although a wrong type of guidance through childhood and the earlier periods of adolescence may lead to some very painful experiences of readjustment. Professor Athearn suggests two ways to meet the needs of the honest doubters among our young people. The first way is to throw about the doubter a social wall of those who have more faith and lead him in this environment to apply himself to idealistic service for humanity. The second is to meet his doubts and ques- tions frankly and freely and seek to broaden his out- look upon new realms of truth. Both these methods should be used. Honest thinking and honest service will do much to correct our errors of moral and spiritual vision. The serious need of thoughtful leadership in the in- tellectual problems of religion cannot be overempha- sized. Young college students report that the reli- gious services of the church help them solve their problems of personal ethics and inspire them to lives of service but do not aid in the solution of their intel- lectual problems. If this is true, it is vastly important that ministers and all other teachers of young people prepare to meet these often unsatisfied needs. 137 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE A teacher’s vision.—The dangers of the teachers of young people are just as real as the dangers of the young people themselves. Perhaps our chief danger is that we shall misinterpret tags and labels or arbitrary rules. Sometimes by identifying Christianity with a type of emotional experience or with one’s ability or practice in taking part in religious meetings we have emphasized a secondary expression of religion rather than its most vital elements. There are many sensi- tive souls who do not feel free to express their deep- est personal experiences in public. It is important that we recognize religious experience in its wide variety of forms and that we provide for our young people means of religious self-expression and programs of activity in which all may whole-heartedly join. We should utilize the ability of some to occupy the con- spicuous places in our religious meetings. We should also recognize the ability of others as it expresses itself somewhat differently. To prevent misunder- standing our young people we must be much with them, study them, not as mere specimens of human biology, but as vital personalities, as understandingly as may be and in the spirit of sympathy. Applied Christianity—No exposition of Christian- ity that stops with theology will satisfy the idealistic soul of our young people. There is current among them a growing belief, often amounting to a profound conviction, that religion may and should bring order out of the social chaos of the world. With sympathetic and wise guidance the force of youth applied to the world’s problems will contribute to progress as nothing else can. In the heart of youth is a vision, sometimes 138 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE vague and indistinct but vital and significant, of the kingdom of God. Give youth a consecrated and in- telligent leadership, which really believes in the ap- plicability of Christianity to the needs of the world, and the power of the floodtide of developing life will carry the world forward toward this divine consum- mation. It should not be forgotten that there is in normal young people a spirit of idealism which may nor- mally lift a system of religion into a deep personal experience. Whatever the theology of our young peo- ple may be, there are certain native tendencies to reli- gious mysticism which should, I think, be recognized. This may express itself, as in the case of Wordsworth, in a feeling of a presence in nature, or it may express itself in a sense of an intimate inner relationship with God. It is such a consciousness of contact with real- ity beyond the perception of our senses which makes adolescence the time when poets and artists as well as religious leaders must be developed. Mysticism does not necessarily mean, as some have been inclined to think, an erratic and unreasonable superstition. It may relate itself to a very reasonable life philosophy but it is actively or potentially present in the life experiences of most of our young people. Certainly, a wholesome system of religious develop- ment will encourage the harmonization of this mystical consciousness with the highest moral and religious conceptions. PROBLEMS 1. Of your class whom would you call upon for an inspiring speech on a moral question? Why? 139 PSYCHOLOGY OF LATER ADOLESCENCE 2. Describe the eeueiins activities of young people of your acquaintance and indicate their relation to temperament. 3. Ascertain the ages at which the members of your class made a definite decision to live a Christian life. 4. What degree of attention do the young people’s classes you know give to social service? In which are they more interested, the doctrines of Christianity or the application of Christianity ? Books FOR FURTHER READING The Religious Consciousness, Pratt, Chapter VI. The Spiritual Life, Coe, Chapters III and V. The God-Ex perience, Mudge, Chapters I and II. The Psychology of Adolescence, Tracy, Chapter XIII. The Psychological Phenomena of Christianity, Cut- ten, Chapter XIX. The Girl, Dewar, Chapter X. The Coming Generation, Forbush, Chapter XXXII. Adolescence, Hall, Vol. II, Chapter XIV. The Psychology of Religion, Starbuck. The Youth and the Nation, Moore. The Psychology of Religion, Coe. A Social Theory of Religious Education, Coe. The Psychology of Early Adolescence, Mudge, Chap- ter X, The Psychology of Middle Adolescence, Moxcey, Chapter X. The Pupil, Barclay, Chapter XI. Life in the Making, Barclay and others, Chapters XVIII and XX. Girlhood and Character, Moxcey, Chapter x xs Handbook for Workers with Young People, Thomp- son. 140 Wi PA oe ¥ * is f * j Set on if Ai hats “ fi i A i t 1 y A \ ri : ; ¢ vy iy al ‘ : Fi ‘ ' ‘ hit i { Ae a 7) i ; i] iu i ; 4 4 ‘ R i { nis Ws f i ” ; eat ’ i 7m Mj ] . a ’ * M, J A i ah ; % lab a8 Dae 5 : , +> i y 7 Ae \ t ¢ AS Po “ a Tee Aa lade EG SOM te hg fs hile yh ene crow (eu Ve a ye ere + ee * 4 ¥ \ - 3 4 ie us t Mid Ws, ’ ROR ey OF ea eee 5 ee i = ‘ant 4 ) ° Tew rae 1 4 Date Due © Lo EH SE ee a ae Cae Reel ea ca ee ae hee | Prasmreet ieee ee aes oe? 7 i > ie ous ae as nee rae 3 * ss a Boe cuca” 7 ih 44) vis LB1135 .M94 The tae iibtin of later adolescence il nA 1 1012 00164 2281