I a PLEAf"". DO NOT REMOVE THIS BOOK CARD! ^UIBRARY0/c University Research Library :c n > r r z c i < This book is DUE on the last date stamped below AUG 1 1924 APR 2 3 1925 '■■' R 2 6 192* MAR 13 1931 DEC 1 * 1W* MOV 2 5 1959 ^rfEtEIVED LD-UFIL gS. NOV 3 1*05 OCT 15 AM 7 ; 4 fc 1965 ' rD pM 9-tO m L-9 :.».-li,'2:: YOUTH: Its Care and Culture. AN OUTLINE OF PRINCIPLES FOR PARENTS AND GUARDIANS. BY J. MORTIMER-GRANVILLE. With American Notes and Additions. i ' NEW YORK : M. L. HOLllROOK AND COMPANY, Ha CONTENTS. PAGE i. Development and Improvement . . . . . i 2. The Eradication of Disease .... 12 3. The Threshold of Life . . . . 28 4. Boy-Manhood — In the Early Stage .... 36 5. " " In Later Years 59 6. Girl-Womanhood — In the Early Stage ... 92 7. " " In Later Years . 114 8. Jottings on Detail 136 PREFACE. This little work makes no pretension to the formal dignity of a treatise. Its chief aim is to expose certain fallacies which prevail on the subject of child-management and education. I have simply tried to indicate, in suggestive outline, the principles which should guide parents in the care and culture of youth. Whether I have done any service must be left to the judgment of those who adopt the hints thrown out and embody them in practice. The "Jottings on Detail," which I have placed at the end, are gossiping notes, and scarcely skim the subjects of which they treat; but they may give rise to useful trains of thought in other minds, and with that hope I offer them. J. MORTIMER-GRANVILLE. YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. 4-1/3 DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVEMENT. Self-improvement is impossible. Every seed contains within it certain powers of self- development y but when these are called into operation, they produce a predetermined result — namely, an organism like that whereby the seed was itself produced. The young animal is ushered into life, en- dowed with energies which, in their exercise, will give rise to processes of organization, and establish functions similar to those of the parent inism from which it sprang. To this rule there is no exception, and the human offspring conforms to the ordinance of procreation "in tin- likeness" of body and mind. 2 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. Left to itself the germ or embodiment of vital force in the individual must work out its destiny, and no power or energy arising within it can reverse, or even modify, the ancestral decree. Meanwhile two laws of development control the progress, and determine the results, of growth : First, the forces within the living organism will exert an authority proportional to their relative intensities. For example, the general tendency to produce a being of the type of man may be dominant, and the result will be an individual undistinguished by peculiarities of physique, mind, and temperament ; or, the tendency to produce a representative of a spe- cial race or nation may prevail, and the conse- quence will be a strongly marked display of national characteristics. Or, again, the ten- dency to produce a new member of some par- ticular group may sway the development so effectually as to endow the organism with traits of character and peculiarities of form which DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVEMENT. 3 stamp it from the outset with a strong family likeness. To the operation of these tendencies in their several degrees — sometimes one and sometimes another exercising supreme influence — we owe the existence and perpetuation of distinctive qualities, powers, and temperaments. CWhat we call transmission or heredity is simply the effect of a law, which makes the forces pent-up within a living organism its fac- tors, and the controlling agents of its growth. The child receives the impress of its parents' peculiar tendencies, and these were the off- spring of previous manifestations of force and character propagated from individual to indi- vidual through a line of ancestors. The operation of hereditary tendencies is remarkable and full of interest. Their effects may not be apparent in every successive mem- ber of the family line. Sometimes the tendency to perpetuate peculiarities seems to lapse in a neration. This is termed Atavism, for the bi communicated, and will reveal its pies- 4 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. ence in subsequent organisms. Thus a child may be like his grandfather, or great-grand- father, although his immediate parents have exhibited no such resemblance. Likeness of body may be accompanied by likeness of mind. It is not certain that the two forms of similarity will go together in any individual, because they are not so con- stantly associated as would be the fact if all the Positivists affirm concerning the physical origin of mental phenomena were true ; but physical likeness is often found with, and, in a sense, as the apparent cause of, mental likeness. The degree of resemblance, or, in other words/the effect of the tendency to produce an organism of a particular family type, is deter- mined by laws with which we are very imper- fectly acquainted. It is not surprising that the most strongly marked peculiarities of body and mind should be those commonly transmitted, because the production of striking characteristics is in itself DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVEMENT. 5 evidence of the strength of the tendency by which they are produced. The point it would be interesting to elucidate is the reason or cause of this perpetuation of likeness. Is it a higher or a lower achievement, in the process of development, to produce an offspring strongly imbued with racial and fami- ly characteristics, or one more cosmopolitan and purely generic in its type ? This is a ques- tion which science is not yet prepared to an- swer. The only contributions towards a possible solution of this enigma are stray notes of fact; such as that intermarriage within a limited class tends to perpetuate the least noble qualities of body and mind, while the more excellent, which are generic rather than special characteristics, show a tendency to lapse. ( The peculiarities most constantly transmitted are those which stand in closest relation to the functions of life, and are dependent upon conditions of sex, of locality, and occupation. This points to the second law of develop- 6 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. ment, which controls and determines the growth of the individual — namely : the forces within an organism are called into activity, repressed, or counteracted by forces outside, which spring from, or constitute, the "surroundings." These are the force of circumstances, the force of example, the force of habit. The "survival of the fittest" — that is, the fittest for life amid the circumstances in which the individual is placed — is the dominant law of development throughout nature, and to its operation we owe the varieties, if not the origin, of species. When a particular demand is made upon an organism by the surrounding conditions of its existence, its inherent forces are stimulated to conform to the requirement and supply the need. The energy of vitality in the organism, be it a plant, an animal of the lower orders, or man, is concentrated in the endeavor to adapt itself to circumstances. If the effort is suc- cessful, it survives, and its offspring is endowed with the specially developed capabilities in an DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVEMENT. 7 enhanced degree — the cumulative result of the parental energy of adaptation and its own. This progressive development goes on, and in time the type is so modified by continuous effort that a new species is said to be formed. In obedience to the same law, unstimulated forces languish, and after a time become dor- mant or extinct. The external elicits, con- trols, or counteracts the internal, and the result is a mean sum of the work done by the forces in operation. Mind and matter are both as- sociated in this struggle for existence, and the impress, of necessity, is left on each. In the same way example appeals to the imitative fac- ulty, which obtains to a greater or less degree in all forms of life ; and habit not only facili- tates the repetition of particular acts, but, op- erating reflexly upon the organism, specially adapts it to their performance. The body of the child is endowed with ances- tral qualities of good and evil import. It is charged with pent-up forces, which in their evo- lution will resemble other manifestations from 8 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. which they sprang. By a long succession of developments, under the influence of cease- lessly changing surroundings, the generic type has become merged in the special family for- mula ; but such as the individual has received he will give out. So far from body or mind being a blank page on which the world may, by education, write what it pleases, or a lump of clay to be fash- ioned by the pressure of circumstances, the physico-mental organism is a complex machine constituted and wound up to perform a prede- termined series of actions, which will prove more or less suitable to the surroundings of the new individual, as these, or similar circum- stances, may or may not have played a part in the production of the special type of being to which he belongs. J The child of a savage will be born with pecu- liarities of physique, and mental and physical apparatus and energies, suited to the require- ments of savage life ; while the child of a race reared under the conditions of civilized life will DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVEMENT. 9 be unprovided with the qualities and capacities of the savage. This is a broad statement, but it comprehends the narrower views of heredity. Bearing in mind that the properties of a particular type of organism may remain latent in the individual, and yet be transmitted to become active in his progeny of some succeeding generation, we may say, generally, that every child is likely to reproduce, in greater or less degree, and sub- ject to the influence of forces brought to bear upon him from without, the characteristics of his parents, namely, the qualities which they received from their parents, modified by the discipline of development to which they were subjected previous to his birth. If the organism fail to work out its destiny, the non-fulfilment of this mission will be due to weakness, in so far as it is not the effect of external influences. Self-improvement of the Ort which requires that self shall rise above its natural level and grow better than itself by its own internal force, is a myth. It may grow IO YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE worse by degeneracy, but it cannot improve, because nothing can be added to the stock of innate tendencies, except what may be produced by the interference of forces operating upon the organism from without. A war of self with self is impossible. A house divided against itself could not stand. It is only in proportion as the mind applies the principles of natural husbandry and training to its own development it can be said to carry on a work of self-improvement ; external forces being the agents of culture, and the measure of their efficacy being their suitability and power. What is called " Nature," that undefined patron of the bewildered and the inert, to whose arbitrament it is the custom to leave everything in an extremity, is the nature of the physico- mental organism with which we have to deal. The power of self-preservation and of amend- ment assumed to exist, in some way bound up with the life — the vis medicatrix natures, as it is called — is nothing more or better than the power and tendency of the self-constructing DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVEMENT. II forces in an organism to adhere to the course of development on which it has been impelled, and to preserve the type of health. It follows from what has been said that im- provement as applied to the compound organ- ism, the physical and mental nature of man, must include the essential processes of culture, planting or grafting, uprooting or pruning, and growth-stimulation and training. Unless this threefold purpose of education — employing that term in its comprehensive and only true sense — is fulfilled, genuine improvement is im- possible, whether consciousness strive to im- prove self or others labor to nurture and train it. This is true of both body and mind — sub- ject to the mutual relations which exist between these two parts of man's nature, if indeed they arc separate. Every child born into the world is charged with potential energies which need to be stimulated ; and with some which, in the interests of individual happiness and social expediency, it is necessary to eliminate, or at least, repre THE ERADICATION OF DISEASE. Parents are too commonly content if their offspring pass through the child-state without any serious form of illness other than those which are known as children's maladies. These have come to be regarded as a toll levied in the first stage of life, and to be paid submissively, if not with gratitude, as though the tooth-rash, whooping-cough, chicken-pox, and the measles were blessings in disguise, for which it were a duty to be thankful. Meanwhile nothing is done to cut off the entail of consumption, gout, hereditary brain, and nerve, disease, or a score of other trans- mitted constitutional affections. Excepting vaccination, as preventive of small-pox, we have no systematic plan of treatment for the elimination of those congenital tendencies and THE ERADICATION OF DISEASE. 1 3 potentialities from which spring some of the most formidable diseases. Any measure likely to be effectual for the eradication of inherited disease must needs in- volve a considerable expenditure of time and trouble, and as the benefit which might result from such a treatment would be purely negative in its aspect, it is, perhaps, scarcely surprising that none has been devised. The omission is, however, one of grievous consequence to youth. When the young man, or the young woman, comes to face the toil and risks of life the strength of body and mind is found to be impaired, and existence itself handicapped by the burden of entailed consti- tutional weakness and disease. To cut off this entail completely it would be necessary that, at least, two or more lives should be placed under discipline. Parents and children must both avoid modes of life and practices calculated to increase the mischief, and further prejudice the estate. The sins of the fathers are visited upon their 14 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. children, even to the third or fourth genera- tion. Many a youth falls a victim to consump- tion or brain disease because his father or grandfather elected to gratify his coarse animal appetites and lead a vicious and dissipated life. When the inheritor of organic peculiarities, thus acquired and transmitted, himself adds recklessness to danger, the result can scarcely fail to be signal disaster. Nevertheless it is because his path in life has been made slippery by those who have gone before him, the youth readily falls, and because the constitution hand- ed down to him is deficient in stability his own indiscretions receive a prompt and bitter re- compense. "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and their children's teeth are set on edge." Parents need to be told these truths plainly, and the duty of self-discipline every man and woman owes to posterity should be clearly pointed out. Let us assume that parents are duly im- pressed with the sense of their responsibility in this matter of transmitted disease. What is it THE ERADICATION OF DISEASE. 1 5 yet possible for them to do when their children are growing up around them ? Certainly not all that could be earnestly desired, but still much that may spare sorrow and suffering to those dear to them, and even save life. It is no part of my purpose to treat of indi- vidual cases or details. I can only sketch the policy to be adopted, and indicate the outline of principles of culture. The parent's duty as regards the specific diseases in his own or his wife's family, or any which may be transmitted directly from the father or mother to their child, is obvious. The little one should be placed under hygienic treat- ment to eradicate the evil entailed. It is in its insidious workings in the infant organism, during the child-state, the hydra- headed monster of hereditary disease must be encountered if it is to be thoroughly van- quished. The maladies communicated from parent to child through many generations gain a firmer hold on the constitution as each suc- ive embodiment of the disease conforms l6 YOUTH : ITS CARE AA'D CULTURE. the type of the organism more closely to its requirements. What are called " morbid germs" would pro- bably be more accurately described as abnor- mal developments or states of the system which render the phenomena of disease likely to occur. When these states begin in disorder of function, the irregularity speedily reacts on the organism, and in obedience to the law of natural development produces a change of structure correspondent to the disease. In the course of two or three generations a morbid peculiarity of the physical system — whatever it may be — which at first was an effect, begins to operate as a cause, and thus the disease, by which the change was wrought in the system, is rendered hereditary, being reproduced by the special morbid type of development to which it gave rise. This is how it comes to pass that certain families are distinguished by what is known as a "consumptive physique," while others are " asthmatical," "gouty," and the like. THE ERADICATION OE DISEASE. 1 7 Special diseases, of course, call for specific treatment. It is not sufficient, nor is it wise, to wait until the children of gouty, rheumatic, asthmatical, bronchitic parents, and those laboring under other known diseases, exhibit the formulated symptoms of a constitutional taint. Before that point is reached the young organism will have suffered serious injury by the occult workings of the malady. Preven- tive Medicine "should recognize the evil, and grapple with it while it is still burrowing in the dark. Specific tendencies and specific weak- nesses demand equally prompt measures, and if these are skilfully employed, it will seldom happen that the interposition is without result. The precept for parents is to make thorough- ly confidential advisers of their family doctors, and strive to enlist the full knowledge and wisdom possessed by these trusty counsellors, in an earnest endeavor to eradicate inherited disease. Meanwhile men of science would do wisely to bestow increased thought and labor on a 1 8 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE, province of the remedial art which is almost unexplored, but wherein unexpected success is likely to reward enterprise. The effort would be amply requited if only a small measure of relief could be found for the vast class of children who now enter life burdened and crippled with constitutional maladies, more terrible and humiliating than the brand of Cain, and of which they are the innocent victims, solely because the inheritance is en- tailed. The general principles which must guide the effort made in this direction would seem to be briefly these : i. Specific diseases known to exist in a family should be treated in every member with- out waiting for indications. The maxim " let sleeping dogs lie," is often of value in dealing with adults, but it is inapplicable to the case of children, because in the child-state, and while the organism is still in process of development, the constructive forces can be enlisted in the work of cure. THE ERADICATION OF DISEASE. 1 9 2. The growing organism should be thought- fully trained, and conformed to the standard of health with special attention to those known, or suspected, variations from the normal, which would render it a suitable habitat or agent of disease. In the attempt to carry out this in- dication, intelligent use must be made of the natural law of development, by healthy and orderly exercise — a law applicable to every organ and tissue of which the body is com- posed. Development may thus be made hygienic, and growth so controlled and directed by train- ing as to antagonize, and finally conquer, con- genital tendencies to disease, but this result can never be gained by care without culture; because, as I have tried to show in the first chapter, the child-organism has no power or force within it capable of raising it to a higher level than its own — which is generally a little lower than that of the parent organism from which it sprang. 3. The measures taken to accomplish the 20 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. result desired must be specially adapted to the character and needs of the individual state, and should include the use of remedial agents which operate directly on the body, or indirectly upon the organism through the consciousness. There can be no greater or more short-sighted mistake than to suppose that medicine is wholly an affair of drugs, or even of drainage and ventilation ; good food and pure air are essentials of health, but so are good mental in- fluences and pure associations for the mind. The brain and nervous system are especially approachable through the medium of the senses, and if these centres of vitality are to be restored to a normal standard when depraved, if the constructive and controlling forces of the organism are to be brought under remedial influences at head-quarters, mental remedies must be made to play a prominent part in the treatment ; and this will require not only a skilful management of the surroundings, but that the whole system and course of education shall be made a ministry of health and cure. THE ERADICATION OF DISEASE. 21 This is, perhaps, the most important of the general principles of treatment it is possible to lay down. I am not writing a treatise on the manage- ment of infancy, and must, therefore, leave this branch of the subject at the point to which we have brought it. It was needful to glance at the broader topics to which I have adverted, but the theme is Youth. Note. — As an illustration of the value of hygienic and physical culture in the eradication of disease, I give the following extract from a letter received from Grace Greenwood con- cerning the care Dr. Hosmer gave his delicate daughter Harriet, and the result that came from this fatherly wisdom. She says : " In a late letter from Italy I find the follow- ing paragraph : " ' Miss Hosmer is often seen in public in Rome, at times driving a handsome carriage and span rapidly along the streets, at times on horseback, making her way to the meet of the 22 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. foxhounds, or the Campagna. Miss Hosmer is an expert rider, and may be often seen going at a furious rate over walls, fences, and ditches, close upon the heels of the hounds.' " Had the late Dr. Hosmer been governed by conventional ideas of delicacy and propriety in the education of girls, there would probably long ago have been on the banks of the Charles River a little grave, overgrown with daisies and buttercups, with a little headstone bearing a name scarcely known beyond the village of Watertown. Perhaps, on summer Sabbath evenings, kind neighbors, dear simple-hearted old ladies, strolling through the graveyard for mournful recreation, would have paused beside the small mound and striven to recall the little buried face, one perchance saying to another, ' This was Harriet, the Doctor's youngest and brightest daughter. She was always puny and delicate, and though they took dreadful good care of her, and nussed her, and doctored her, and kept her in out of the wet and the east wind, and had her sleep by the fire, and wear THE ERADICATION OF DISEASE. 2% furs, and a big plaster on her chist, she jest pined, and pined, and died at last as easy as a baby goes to sleep. Yet the child seemed to have spunk ; if she only hadn't been so weakly, she might have been a credit to the Hosmers. She had queer old ways and notions ; she never played with dolls, but I've heard her folks tell how, on bakin' days, she would sit in her little rockin' chair with a plate in her lap covered with bits of dough, and out of them she'd make little figures of animals and human creturs, as nateral as life. Well, she wasn't for this world ; the angels called for her, you see, and it was a blessing for the poor dear to be called so early from this wicked world ; for, young as Harriet was, she was hopefully pious, and said -lie didn't want to live, she was so tired of coughin' and lying awake nights. She made a lovely corpse, and there was a beautiful Me- moir written about her by her Sunday-school teacher.' "Doubtless if this early death had taken place, Sunday-school libraries, mediocre sculp- 24 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. tors, hard-ridden hunters, and the foxes of the Campagna would have been the gainers ; but the world of art would have been the loser, by many a fair and stately shape, unguessed at possibilities of that little maiden's genius ; the artistic and social circles of Rome would now have had one attraction the less. Many a heart would have missed the pleasure of one loyal friendship, and the aspiring womanhood of the age would have lacked one brave, triumphant life. " Miss Hosmer's early education had evi- dently much to do, not only with the moulding of her character and the formation of her pe- culiar tastes, but with fitting her for her present unique and arduous career. Her father, who was a man of unusual talent, originality, and force of character, having lost his wife and several daughters by consumption, resolved to devote himself to the perfect physical education of this, his last child, who seemed to have in- herited her mother's delicacy of constitution. He took her out into the fields, by the river- THE ERADICATION OF DISEASE. 2$ side, the seaside ; he let her run wild among the hills ; he horrified all the prudent old ladies in his neighborhood by inuring her to sun and storm, and teaching her to ride, drive, hunt, fish, row, skate, and swim. In all out- door exercises she became a proficient, and, as a matter of course, grew up strong and vigor- ous. She is remarkable for her power of endurance, for steadiness of nerve and courage. She is not only the bravest woman I ever met, but I know no man more utterly fearless than she. " I was with Miss Hosmer during her first winter in Rome. She was then small and slight, singularly vigorous and muscular, a bundle of healthy nerves, energy, and will. The strong head, borne with infinite spirit, was crowned with beautiful brown hair, short and curling. The face was fresh and piquant, but full of force and character. About her mouth the lines of a strong purpose were hardening already into resolution, fixed and inexorable ( )ut of her gray eyes shone the steady light of 26 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. well-assured ambition. Her style of dress was slightly after the masculine order, but in admir- able keeping with her chosen work. In man- ner and conversation she was the farthest pos- sible remove from the conventional fine lady, yet neither coarse nor unwomanly. I have, it is true, since heard some startling stories of her manly, independent goings-on, her ' tricks and her manners.' A few seasons ago she rode a steeple-chase against a fast young Eng- lishman, and came out second best. Had I been her mother, I certainly should have re- proved her — for allowing herself to be beaten ! On another occasion, she is said to have se- verely ' punished ' an extortionous cab-driver, felled him to the earth with one blow of her valiant little fist, as he stood bullying and cursing her, in the Piazza di Spagna. I should, perhaps, not quite approve of my daughter doing a deed so subversive of proprieties and cabmen, but I should like to be assured that she possessed the nerve and the biceps muscle that would make such an exploit possible. THE ERADICATION OF DISEASE. 27 " Aaron Burr seems to have possessed many of the ideas of Dr. Hosmer, and to have car- ried them out in the education of his daughter, Theodosia, of whom he made a companion, more than supplying the place of a son — a strong, healthful, unconventional, Shaksperian woman ; intellectual, but not pedantic ; sym- pathetic, but not sentimental." THE THRESHOLD OF LIFE. Man seems to pause on the threshold of his mature life, to put forth fresh powers and evolve new functions, indispensable to the fulfilment of his destiny. It is at this epoch in the his- tory of personal existence that the strength and unity of his development as a physico-mental being are first severely tested. If the life of development, which has preceded the period of special evolution, with its awakening of con- sciousness, has been natural and healthy, if the vigor of growth has been fairly well distributed, and the several parts of the organism have been developed in harmony — no constituent tissue of the body, or component faculty of the mind, having been allowed to lag in the progress, or to outrun its fellows, so as to make the organic result abnormal — the health of maturity, in its THE THRESHOLD OF LIFE. 29 full sense, will be established. In proportion as these conditions — namely, harmony and strength — are unsatisfied, the process of evolu- tion will be difficult, and adolescence com- menced under embarrassing circumstances. The history of this epoch of life is full of practical significance. It commences with a more or less notable period of stagnation. The rapidly developing organism appears in a strongly marked case to have been suddenly arrested in its progress. The child loses heart in its work or play, and energy of body and mind is replaced by listlessness and apathy. The physical growth may proceed, but the mus- cular strength fails ; the back is bent and the shoulders are rounded. The figure becomes awkward, the movements are graceless, the habits indolent. The eyes are dull, with droop- ing lids, producing a stupid or languishing expression of countenance; the mouth beto- is a feeling of nausea, or is twisted or com- sed irritably. The appetite is capriciou , now dainty then ravenous, with strange and 30 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. often unnatural likes and dislikes. Vague aches and pains are frequent subjects of complaint ; and the temper is sullen and moody, with out- bursts of almost hysterical excitement. This is a broadly marked outline of the state, which will be more or less pronounced as the individual organism is, in a higher or lower degree, responsive to sympathetic impressions, and the temperament indicates a closely knit or unstable constitution. There will also be dif- ferences of force and character in the finished picture, due to the mode of life and sex of the individual. Of these special matters I shall have more to say presently ; for the moment, however, the sketch may be taken as fairly accurate. How long this "dead point" in the onward roll of life may persist will depend on personal peculiarities ; on the quality and extent of the growth which has taken place during childhood ; on the surroundings, food, clothing, habit, cli- mate, social position ; and very largely on the amount of brain and nerve power possessed by THE THRESHOLD OF LIFE. 3 1 the individual. In short, the event will be de- termined by the past and present conditions, internal and external, acting in combination : the result being the net or mean effect of all the factors concerned. Whatever the length of the period may be, it is essentially one of dis- covery, and often of surprise. Childhood has its special influences on the growing body and strengthening and opening mind, and adult life is nearly always artificial ; but at the moment of putting away childish things — or, as it were, allowing them to drop from the grasp — the true inner life is, for the instant, apparent. It is generally at this junc- ture diseases and defects of the organism are first brought to light, and those morbid irregu- larities of function — they are not diseases — known as hysteria and epilepsy, with the allied disorder, St. Vitus' dance, in one of its severe or lighter forms, make their appearance. These arc not new evils, but at the moment of inter- rupted pi during the temporary suspen- sion of impetus, they declare themselves. 32 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. At this point also the mental and moral char- acter may be easily a^nd accurately studied. The indications will perhaps be few, and chiefly negative, but they are sure to be significant. The propensities proper to childhood, if not unnaturally developed by bad or defective train- ing, will have been abandoned, and the more permanent underlying passions and inclinations begin to express themselves. It is only for an instant these are seen in their true character, because the awakening of consciousness quickly places them under restraint ; but in the dead point they may be recognized by the watchful parent. After the pause comes an outburst of fresh energy, the first expression of the life which has been, as it were, quickened again in an organ- ism energized by powers and impulses hitherto dormant. We all know what dangers beset the undisciplined youth when he commences life, intoxicated with the new consciousness of man- hood, impelled by impulses of whose nature he is as yet ignorant, and possessed with an exag- THE THRESHOLD OF LIFE. 33 gerated notion of his own powers, for example notably over-estimating his power of self-con- trol. The risk run by a man who for the first time handles the reins of a spirited and un- broken team suggests a faint and inadequate notion of the danger dared by the youth who rushes impetuously into the world with un- trained powers, and an unproved armor of defence against its countless aggressive lures and blandishments. The awakening of consciousness bears an un- certain relation to the evolutionary processes which take place at this period. Sometimes it seems to be the cause, and at others the con- sequence, of the passage from childhood to youth. The natural order of events is that in which it follows the physical change. It is a regretable circumstance when a precocious self-consciousness, aroused by unwise manage- ment or unsuitable associations, stimulates de- velopment prematurely. That isa matter about which those who have the charge of children should be especially careful. The physical, 34 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. mental, and moral effects of mismanagement at this crisis are apt to be very serious. The error of overlooking the awakening when it does occur is scarcely less grave, because the mind is in that case left to form its own no- tions of life and its duties ; and the misconcep- tions into which it is almost sure to fall are not easily corrected. It is well when the awaken- ing is gradual and naturally induced, the faculty of self-control being tutored by wholesome ex- ample and timely counsel in the intercourse of that confidence which ought always to exist between children and their responsible and natural guardians. If the induction to life takes place thus happily, the several functions of body and mind are established on the prin- ciples of physical and mental health, and many an error and pitfall of youth is avoided. Self-consciousness is the recognition of self by its attributes. Its weakness lies in the fact that it is necessarily imperfect until experience has deepened the impression to the depth and dignity of self-knowledge. The dawn of con- THE THRESHOLD OF LIFE. 35 sciousness is like the breaking of day. The sun- light first gilds the tops of the mountains. The valleys and even the lower levels of life are not perceived until later on, when the morning mists have cleared away. Distant objects appear near, and within easy reach. The perspective of color and light and shade is apt to be false, the size and even the forms of things are distorted. The rugged and precipitous path seems an easy ascent, and the deep gulf between one point of vantage, and another that looks to lie only just beyond, is unrecognized. It is this fallacy of appear- ances which misleads the youth who either has no guide for his footsteps on the threshold of life, or is unwilling to give a trusty friend that confidence without which the best counsel will be of little avail. BO Y-MANHOOD. IN THE EARLY STAGE. The experience of a youth emerging from the boy-state into that of manhood is full of the deepest interest ; not only because it is the experience of nearly half the human race, but on account of the revelations it makes as to the springs of energy, motive, and character. In our modern civilized life the outward indications of the development having com- menced are not either constant or trustworthy, In the case of girls, the recognition of youth is easier than it is in that of boys ; indeed it would scarcely be too much to say that as regards the latter the transition is commonly unnoticed, to the detriment of health and happiness. Boys are usually less communicative with their associates — even those of their own age and of BO Y-MANHOOD. 37 like feeling and pursuits — than girls are ; while towards young men a little older than them- selves they generally exhibit marked reserve and a want of sympathy which render personal confidences, particularly in regard to their inner thoughts, impulses, desires, and aspirations, im- possible. A boy feels humiliated by the close friendship of a man older than himself. He has a sense of being protected by it ; and nothing is more uncongenial to the spirit and tempera- ment of early manhood than any feeling of de- pendence or patronage. At school boys natu- rally ally themselves against their masters, and any young fellow who does not willingly assume this bearing towards his superiors is regarded with distrust. In the rare instance, when strong personal friendship breaks down the barrier which the mind of a boy erects around himself, and he seems to court the intimacy of his ciders, there is a part of his nature held in reserve. At home in the family the like feeling prevails, though its manifestation maybe modi- lied by circumstances, Bo) <>( one age concert 38 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. together, but more for the purposes of mischief than mutual intercourse, and difference of age constitutes an obstacle to communion of thought and personal confidence, which is seldom over- come. Any longing there may chance to be in the heart of a boy for the sympathy of one older than himself, is generally directed towards his mother, or occasionally an elder sister. There is not the same humiliation in accepting the counsel and guardianship of a member of the other sex. A mother is more cheerfully obeyed than a father, towards whom there is generally an undercurrent of feeling which mingles the respect of fear with a secret longing for the day when the full rights and privileges of manhood being attained, the state of subjection will be ended. Many a young man who in early life cherished no warm regard for his male parent, has in later years conceived the highest reverence, and re- posed the greatest trust in a character which, so long as it was regarded as that of a superior BO Y-MANHOOD. 39 armed with the rod of discipline, inspired neither reverence nor love. It is important that this natural bias of the boy-mind should be recognized by those who have responsible charge of the young, and who, being ignorant of the true springs of their motives and bearing, are apt to draw the most erroneous conclusions from the conduct of a class they fail to compre- hend. It would be strange that men who have them- selves only recently — for the most part — passed from the boy-state to maturity, should so com- pletely forget their own feelings as to expect the personal confidence of their juniors, if it were not one of the characteristic qualities of young-manhood to be unappreciative of diffi- culties and sanguine of success, especially in directions where those who have gone before failed. Probably nearly all the enterprising young men who set out hopefully on their career as tutors and trainers of youth, whether in private families or schools, believe themselves to be 40 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE, possessed of some peculiar talisman by which the boy-nature may be tamed and made to un- bosom itself. As well try to establish confr dential relations with the man you are outrun ning in the race for a coveted prize. The natural aim of the boy is to become a man, and all the homage he can render to those who inspire him with emulation is respect, not confidence. He emulates so strongly that he is unable to trust ! It is therefore a common ex- perience that boys do not make confidants of members of their own sex who would be able to help them with counsel or influence ; and when the dawn of manhood overtakes them they stumble in the dim light for want of a hand to grasp, and a friend in whom to confide. It is impossible to fix the period at which boy-manhood begins ; and as the physical indi- cations often fail, it is in the highest degree politic to anticipate rather than delay the change of treatment which befits the transition. Boys suffer irremediable injury to mind and morals by being left too long in the nursery, under a BOY-MANHOOD. 4 1 female protectorate. Most of the regrettable habits and propensities of youth date from the earliest years of child-life, and it is then they ought to be checked. The mismanagement of male infants by their nurses, and even their natural friends and guar- dians of the female sex, is one of the greatest of personal and social evils. This may seem to be an exaggerated statement, but it is made under a sense of responsibility, and on evidence which it is impossible to confute, or even call in question. It will be difficult to convince those who have formed the habit of expressing affec- tion by fondling the little objects of their regard that they are doing them an irreparable mis- chief by this kindness; but in the interests of health and future happiness the fact must be stated. No boy-baby ought to be too warmly ca- ressed, or even in play treated indecorously. Nor should he be tended in company with fe- male children of his own, or more advanced, is. The practice of allowing boys above the 42 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. age of three years to sleep with their nurses, mothers, or sisters, is a mistake. Youths who have been kept too long in the nursery and treated, perhaps on the score of a delicate con- stitution, more like girls than boys, compose the worst sets of wrong-doers in the large schools of England, America, and the Conti- nent ; and the grown-up men of this class form the multitude of haggard and "nervous" crea- tures encountered at every turn of life in every grade of society, in every profession — particu- larly the most active of brain and the least active of body — and among the most ardent and sincere professors of every creed. It is needful to speak plainly on this painful subject, and I cannot shrink from the discharge of a pressing duty. It must not for a moment be supposed that we should set a low value on that natural and, in the highest sense, salutary influence which a mother is impelled by love to exercise over her offspring. The purest, the most enduring, and the useful impressions a man carries with him BO Y-MANHOOD. 43 through life, and which exert the strongest in- fluence for good over his actions, are those he has been permitted to receive from an affec- tionate mother ; but this fact does not com- pensate for the evil consequences of early mis- management ; and mothers who would leave their sons an unsullied memory of love and care should see that they do not allow the warmth of their endearments to transgress the limits set by prudence ; while every judi- cious parent must perceive the prudence of prohibiting or restraining the caresses of ser- vants. The period of evolution in boys may be as- sumed to begin early, and to occur rapidly, but it involves a long series of changes which often extend over many years. Some boys become thoroughly manly at an age when others arc as yet scarcely more than infants. This suggests the utmost caution in classing the pupils in a school, or the members of a large family al home, by age alone. Other circumstances, and notably the indications of individual character, 44 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. should have weight in the choice of associates for youth, rather than years. One great difficulty the trainer of youth en- counters arises from the fact that development is apt to be irregular in the several parts of a boy's nature. His feelings are likely to outrun his principles, his mind-powers to exceed the strength of his body, his self-consciousness to be fully awakened before the house is set in order and ready for the reception of its new tenant, who is almost sure to begin by over- playing the role of master. Foremost among the powers which dawn on the consciousness at the moment of their, and its, awakening, with the effect of producing new traits of character, is that of indulgence in the pleasures of solitude. Up to the period of this change no simple-minded boy, be he "young" or "old" for his age, backward or forward, sweet-tempered or morose, really likes to be alone. Very young children will make companions of their toys ; later on boys have their tools and their pets : but even these B Y-MA NHO OD. 45 things may be made the excuse for seeking solitude with a sinister object when boy-man- hood has commenced. The credit many children and young folk obtain for "studious habits" and a "love of reading" has, it is to be feared, no better ground than a propensity for communing with self in secret and a practice of dramatic mus- ing that grows naturally out of the habit of "making-believe," which constitutes the main source of amusement in earlier years. A longing for loneliness — the solitary life of self-consciousness in which social and personal intercourse of the closest kind can be idealized at will — is one of the most significant tokens of the transition to man's estate having com- menced ; and when this indication is observed, it ought to be at once met by measures sup- plying the mind with subjects of interest suili- cicntly attractive to take it out of itself before the habit of evil imagining is formed, or con- firmed. Another characteristic discovered on tin 46 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. threshold of boy-manhood is a greater liking on the part of the youth for female society than for the companionship of playmates of his own sex. Not unfrequently this evolution of passion, for such it is, is so strong as to pro- duce what is called girlishness in manner and predilections. A child who has previously exhibited, in his little way, the boisterous qualities of boyhood, with a becoming amount of intolerance for feminine restraints and occupations, suddenly evinces what is regarded as "great tenderness" of disposition, puts on winning ways ; desires nothing better than to sit doubled up in a comfortable corner of the nursery, or girls' book-room ; and manifests an inclination to adopt their manners and engage in their pur- suits. At the same time he probably shows tokens of physical lassitude, gives up running, leaping, and climbing, affects to be weary of vigorous exercises, shrinks from excitement, dislikes the noise and turmoil of boyish games; greatly BO Y-MANHOOD. 47 preferring a romp with his sisters and their playmates. To his other peculiarities he gen- erally adds a growing love of ease and lying in bed, with the strongest reluctance to rise in the morning or engage earnestly and persist- ently in any serious work. These characteristics, which are not uncom- monly found among the earliest tokens of boy- manhood, and point significantly to the exist- ence of a morbid tendency, are too seldom recognized by those who have the care of youth, or if they chance to be noticed are encouraged rather than corrected by the treatment adopted. The lowered tone of physique is attributed to incipient disease ; the boy is taken to a medi- cal man, who hearing the story, and noticing the short hacking cough which commonly ac- companies this state — as a purely nervous and almost hysterical phenomenon — prescribes a tonic, or, mayhap, a course of cod-liver oil, strengthening diet, a careful encasement of the chest and limbs in flannel, modcrat- exereise in suitable weather, the avoi-danee of cold — and 48 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. particularly damp — air, and a generally luxuri- ous or pampered life. If the practitioner first consulted does not recommend this regimen the parents are dis- satisfied, and other advice is sought, until a prescription closely resembling that sketched has been obtained. Then, comforted by the assurance that there is nothing seriously wrong with the lungs — only a little weakness which, with great care, may be surmounted as the child grows older — the loving but misguided parent takes her hopeful offspring back to the fireside and inaugurates a period of mental and physical degeneracy, from which the victim of the mis- take rarely recovers. He outlives the "chest Weakness," and the doctor may get the credit of a cure, but habits of self-indulgence are formed which are scarcely ever abandoned ; or if they are, it is only late in life, when the time for enterprise and industry has been wasted. Not unfre- quently the course taken is different : it is scarcely possible to say worse. The weakness BOY-MANHOOD. 49 which at the outset was purely nervous be- comes real, for there is now a cause of physical exhaustion, and the disease it was desired to avert is induced by the measures employed to prevent it. Far better would it have been if the victim of so much anxious care had been turned out to paddle in the brooks, or work in the garden or on a farm, instead of being set to nurse his subjective experiences until they became first his pleasure and then his doom. The blame for this sort of mismanagement cannot fairly be cast on medical men. The fault lies with parents who will not take the advice of their family practitioner, the only man who is so placed as to be able to form an accu- rate judgment of the case and its requirements; but must run away to a physician — a London physician — who cannot possibly, in the twenty minutes at his disposal, with all his experieni obtain a better insight into the constitutional needs of his young patient than the experienced man who has carefully and continuously ob- 50 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. served the case in the light of a family history at home. This has not been a digression, but I will now venture to make one sufficiently wide to point out that the health of families, and par- ticularly of growing children, cannot be ade- quately studied until it is understood that no medical skill is so effective for ordinary pur- poses as that of the "general practitioner." When the opinion of a physician or surgeon is desired, it should be taken in consultation with the family adviser. The consultee exists for the profession, not for the public. The special function he has undertaken is to investigate dis- ease from its more recondite stand-points, and his powers of diagnosis and suggestions for treatment are no more directly available for lay use than the technical judgment of counsel on abstruse points of law. Patients and their friends who think they are acting prudently by going to a consulting prac- titioner — away from the medical man who has the great advantage of acquaintance with the BO Y-MANHOOD. 5 1 family, as well as with the personal constitution — labor under a misconception from which grave evils may arise : one of which is likely to be the confounding of disturbances incidental to development with disease. It should be needless to observe that these remarks are not intended to apply to the case of special maladies in which the practical skill of a physician or surgeon who has pursued a selected line of study is required, and to be of service must be secured at the outset. Prominent among the exceptional cases are those in which a particular organ, such as the eye or the ear, may be affected with acute or insidious disease. Nor is there a word to say against practitioners themselves seeking any advice they please. The point on which, in the interests of health and the eradication of disease, I desire to insist is this — the general practitioner in attendance should be tin- judge when "further advice" is necessary, or if he be unwilling to take the initiative in calling in another opinion, it ought 52 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. to be regarded as indispensable that he should assist in the consultation, before a judgment — for the purposes of treatment — is formed. Another indication of the awakening to manhood that must not be overlooked, is the appearance of a family likeness. It not uncommonly happens that children bear no resemblance of feature or expression to their parents or grand-parents, until an uncertain period, which may be early or late, when they are said to be " growing like father" or mother. Boys often, at first, turn after their female par- ent, while girls more closely follow the father. Any suddenly appearing resemblance of this nature is in itself a sign. When it is per- ceived, boy manhood has, almost always, com- menced. Often the development occurs long before the appearance of the likeness, but the latter surely indicates that it has begun. The resemblance is not likely to be wholly facial : figure, gait, and manners, even the reproduc- tion of tricks of expression or movement, may be recognized. BO Y-MANHOOD. 5 3 The wise parent or guardian, when he recog- nizes a tendency in a youth to grow like any particular member of the family, will cast about for measures to protect the sapling from such distortions of development, physical or mental, as may have befallen the parent-stock. More- over, by the experience of the parent, the child may be saved from wrong-doing or going as- tray.* Those who have the charge of youth are not sufficiently concerned to recollect how, and why, they pursued particular courses of con- duct, and formed certain habits — perhaps highly injurious — under the influence of a dis- position and tendencies like those exhibited by the boys in their care. The food, habits, clothing, and regimen of young children should be as simple and natural as possible. That of boys ought to be essen- illy boyish. It will have been gathered from observations made in other quarters that I am * Sec chapter on " Failings," in " Common Mind Troubles." 54 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. strongly opposed to the practice of encasing children in "warm wraps." The notion of swathing in flannel with a view to keeping the body and extremities warm I hold to be a seri- ous cause of susceptibility to cold. It is far better that children should be inured betimes to such changes of temperature as the climate in which they are born entails. I would let children of both sexes run bare- footed, in their play, with arms and legs freely exposed to the air, as was the practice in Scot- land, Ireland, and many parts of England and Wales in the last generation, and is still the custom in certain districts of the Continent, not only for the poor but the well-to-do. I think it is a physiological mistake to trust to the conservation of heat, instead of to its con- stant generation in sufficient quantities by ex- ercise and food.* In any case the dress should be very easy and light, the shoes broad and * Those who care to pursue this topic further will find it dis- cussed in the chapter on "Heat," in "The Secret of a Clear Head." BO Y-MANHOOD. 5 5 soft so as to bend with the foot, which must be allowed to spread, and fine thin socks, easily shifted, should be preferred to stockings, as the lesser of two evils. The inner clothing of the lower limbs ought never to cling so closely to the hips and upper part of the thighs as to keep that region of the body over-heated, or subject it to confinement or irritation of any kind. This is a matter of very high import- ance to the youth, and, for obvious reasons, it is one on which parents should bestow especial care. Trouser-pockets are objectionable at all ages ; in the dress of young children, I regard them as wholly inadmissible. Frequent and thorough washings with soap, first in warm and then in cold water, are essen- tial to the health of a child, but care ought to be taken that they are conducted in private, and by a responsible and wise nurse. If this precaution be neglected, it is easy to see how great harm may be done. Bathing and the u e of the douche should be encouraged, but not roughly enforced. 56 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. I have said that boys over three years of age should sleep alone ; their covering by night ought to be light but warm, and never tightly "tucked in." The habit of sleeping with the head under the clothes should be discouraged — as " unmanly" — and it is most desirable that when a boy is put to bed he should be left in- stantly, with the injunction to go to sleep ; nor ought this to be an idle command. A subject of thought should be left on the mind by some pleasing incident of the past day. It is better that a child should fall asleep, musing on something done or seen, than an- ticipating some work or pleasure for the ensu- ing day. The sleep that comes after pleasant reflections is sound, that which occurs while the mind is busy scheming for the future is apt to be incomplete and unnatural* Lessons do. not leave the brain easy, but burdened. No child should, therefore, go straight from work to rest. *See the chapter on " Going to Sleep," in " Sleep and Sleepless- ness." BOY-MANHOOD. 57 The food at this period of life ought to be especially simple and nutritious — bread, milk, eggs, green vegetables, and meat and potatoes, in moderate quantities, may form the staple of diet ; but frequent change is desirable. Alco- holic beverages are generally unnecessary for children, and should not be given except for remedial purposes. Plenty of exercise in the open air is essential to health, and it is a mistake to bestow too much thought on the weather. It is unreason- able to expect that children who are pampered in early life can be strong and healthy in after years. Is it likely that boys, who have been wrapped up and delicately nurtured in child- hood, will be able to endure the exposure, fatigue, and privations of a campaign ? I have no great faith in systematic gymnastics; but running, climbing, and the sports of the field, are natural outlets for energy, and conducive to the health and temper of boys. The time should be fairly parcelled out with a moderate amount of work, only once a day. $8 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. Much study is a weariness of the flesh, and it is well to get rid of it by a single effort, so that the mind may be quite free of lessons for at least six or eight hours out of the waking fifteen. Nine hours' rest is not too much for a growing boy if he sleeps all the time ; but he should rise instantly when he wakes, and this ought to be at a regular hour. Method is the secret spring of an orderly life, and it is well to begin as we wish to go on in these matters of rhythm and daily routine. BOY-MANHOOD. IN LATER YEARS. In his further development the boy-man is a more abstruse subject of study and treatment. Up to the point now reached, which, as we have seen, is one of growth rather than of age — a circumstance that should be kept in mem- ory — it has been possible to speak of the care and culture of youth as a process akin to hus- bandry, the peculiarities of the case being recognized and the special indications satisfied 1))' suitable management, without making the boy himself a party to the scheme pursued. It now becomes necessary to consider the young intelligence as a being endowed with a will of its own ; which it is only possible to influence through circumstances, with counsels and by example appealing to the personal instincts 60 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. affections, or judgment. The youth can no longer be " provided for" and " managed" as one of the lower animals might be trained. Parents and guardians readily fall into errors of policy, and court disappointment, when this is forgotten. The position of a youth growing rapidly to man's estate is one which should command the utmost sympathy. We have already spoken of his inherited burdens. These press heavily upon him. Even if, as he feels discordant forces at work in his nature, a strong desire to mould his character after the pattern of some ideal conception should be stirred within him, he is not so completely his own master as to be able to carry out his purpose without an effort, the strength and cost of which he alone can ade- quately estimate. It is cruel to accord neither sympathy nor praise to the many who struggle gallantly, ere they fall before what some per- sons call temptation, but which is in fact im- pulse. It is only just to assume that a leaning towards virtue is present in every mind ; and BOY-MANHOOD. 6 1 though probably few youths pass througn the novitiate of life without sorrow of heart, it should be a matter of sincere consolation that the majority survive the ordeal and are after- wards the stronger for the discipline. In dealing with youths from twelve years upwards, it is indispensable to assume they have obtained so much knowledge of the world that nothing short of honest truth-telling will secure their confidence. It is idle to speak in riddles about the wickedness of the surround- ings and the waywardness of the young and the inexperienced. Probably the less of preaching the better, not because " boys will be boys" in going astray, but obstinacy is a prominent ele- ment in the character of youth ; and if any demonstration be made by a parent or tutor in favor of a particular line of conduct, the boy is almost sure to suppose that the advice ten- dered is in accord with the feelings of age ratlin than of youth, and a strong pulling in the op- ite direction will thru be provoked. The young never give the old credit for remember- 62 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. ing their own early aspirations, or for a desire to make the opening years of life as happy as may be for those who follow them. Boys have exaggerated notions of what their fathers did before them — often created by the vainglorious fashion in which too many well-meaning but ill-advised men of mature years regale their young acquaintances with highly-seasoned nar- ratives of their early exploits. It is only natural that with the passion for adventure strong with- in them, young folk thus treated should be more powerfully influenced by the example set before them than by the precept doled out for their guidance. The same feeling is largely stimulated by the fiction of the day. Not that it is more vicious than that of other periods ; but when presented to the imagination in con- trast with the superficial pretence of morality which the restraints now imposed on society have established, it is powerfully exciting. The ge is another continuous provocative to a wild and vicious life. I say this without the slightest puritanical feeling on the subject. On BO Y-MANHOOD. 63 the contrary, I hold that theatrical entertain- ments, if pure in themselves and properly con- ducted, would be likely to afford much pleasure and relief to the mind ; but how often is this the experience ? For the most part plays are immoral in their suggestion, and the performers intensify the evil. I am not speaking of ballets, burlesques, and the coarser forms of public amusement. I doubt whether the effect of these is at all com- parable for the power of corrupting youth with the dramas commonly counted moral. I believe the young are more impressed by the glimpses of what is called "life" which they obtain from books, pictures, newspapers, and occasional visits to the theatre, or pick up from the con- versation of their elders, than by the good ad- viee given to them ; and the posture of mind induced is what seems to youth a clever detec- tion of pious fraud. They regard the advice tendered for their good as a prepared dish which been carefully provided for their moral im- provement. Tiny are convinced that their 64 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. own fathers did not feed on such food when they were young, and they quickly pass it. Can youth be blamed ? It meets deception with deceit. The young do not perceive the fact — and small wonder considering the efforts made to conceal it — that a fairly honest father or guardian is really anxious to be the friend of his boy, and would not willingly deprive him of any source of happiness which really satisfies those who draw upon it. There is too much prating of morality in the education of the young. A little plain speak- ing between father and son on the subject of false appearances, Mephistophelean lures, and the humiliating disappointments encountered in the pursuit of pleasure, would result in a less frequent repetition of the Faust-like experiences of life. Confidence must always form the basis of the relation between those who give, and those who are expected to take, advice. This is especially necessary when the counsellor is old, and therefore not unnaturally supposed to be satiated with, or perhaps, even, to have had BO Y-MANHOOD. 65 a surfeit of, the enjoyments he contemns. Confidence begets confidence. A prudent con- fession of the truth about a parent's experience of life would do good service to many a youth setting out on a dangerous path, whereas the little stories of the past he hears half-boastfully narrated by his father or mentioned in a spirit of banter by the old man's compeers only stimu- late his appetite for adventure, and urge him on a career where sorrow and regret await him, with bitter disappointments he might well have been spared. Another source of embarrassment in dealing with the young, is the deep inner conviction they have, and must needs feel — that the pas- sions they are warned and entreated to restrain are natural. This may be assumed as a self- evident process of reasoning : and I venture to think it is necessary to concede that what has been implanted in the nature of man, cannot in itself be evil. The fault of the personal situa- tion lies not in the circumstance that human nature is endowed with certain inclinations, but 66 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. that the impulses of a subordinate part of the organism are prone to override the dictates of judgment and the higher consciousness. The case stands thus. The youth finds himself the possessor of a nature which is compounded of four parts or systems, each of which is the source of an independent series of forces and impulses, i. There is the stock animal nature or system, with its appetites and propensities. 2. There is the inherited human nature with its ancestral vices and virtues, the former being generally the more powerful. 3. There is his own personal nature, with its good and bad qualities ; and 4. There is within him an ever- present spirit of purity and goodness, an ideal conception of right and duty, with, or against, which he struggles at the behest of will.* A perpetual war is waged in the self-con- sciousness of every young mind, for the su- premacy of one of these natures. The conflict is even more clearly recognized in compara- *See the paper on "Will," in "Minds and Moods'' (Renshaw). BOY-MANHOOD. 6? tively early than in later years. The triumph of one or the other system of influences and the combination of the whole to compose the mature character, will depend, in a very great measure, on the surroundings of the young life ; and it is with and through these the par- ents and tutors of the boy-man must seek his preservation from an evil and unhealthy moral development. It will be well to devote a few moments' attention to each of the topics indi- cated, in the order in which I have placed them. Man is not the less an animal because he stands in an advanced position at the head of the animal kingdom, with a missing link be- tween himself and the order of intellect, or brain-power, next below him in the scale of serial development.* Whether the supremely * I use the term serial in this connection because I do not think the natural fact that the world of organisms is grouped in sei higher and more complex as we ascend the scale, is scientific evi- dence of progre ;imcnt in the sense that each new prang from those below it. There may have been a pro- 68 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. complex constitution of the human species be the evolved and accumulated result of pro- gressive development, or simply the most com- plete and latest organic work of a Creator, who made and endowed man for special purposes — in short, whether the theory of progressive development be the whole truth about creation, or the Darwinian principle of evolution be true, while the conjectures of Darwin and his school as to the origin of species and of man are false — it is a self-evident fact that in his own person man embodies, so to say, the sum of the powers, faculties, and propensities of the animals below him. It is a popular belief that most persons re- semble some one or more of the inferior ani- mals in form, feature, gait, or manner. A more exact statement of the cognizable fact, gressive unfolding of the complete plan of Creation, and this evolution is likely to have been orderly, without anything corre- sponding to the " progressive development" of those who conceive that Nature had been working out an unknown process in the dark, and at length evolved man as a crowning episode of the biological experiment. BOY-MANHOOD. 69 would be that in nearly every individual of the human species there are to be found surface indications of the animal nature which under- lies the character. This nature forms the base of the compound physico-mental consti- tution as a whole. It is the foundation on which the solid masonry and the wood, hay, and stubble of personal life have been built together in a vast succession of years, by an incalculable series of operators. It can never cease to form the base of humanity, however much it may be overlaid and hidden from sight by the intellectual trophies of civilization. This should not be forgotten, because it ex- plains much that without it must remain inex- plicable. The brutish propensities, the vulgar passions, the crude moral — or immoral — in- stincts, and many of the low-pitched virtues of the human character, arc the evolvings and attributes of the animal nature. It is the mis- n of the higher intelligence, the spirit, the soul — call it as you please in man, to subdu and train this basal part of his being, so that it JO YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. may become the docile agent and minister of his intelligent will. When humanity is outraged in the person of a man, the lower part of his compound nature has supplanted the higher. This may be the effect of disease, or the consequence of im- perfect education or culture. If the governing functions of mind are in abeyance, either from defect of development (idiocy) or by disease {e.g. general paralysis of the insane), the ani- mal nature will assert itself and the propensities of the lower life are then evinced. An idiot of low type generally perforins the tricks of a monkey, a cat, or some other creature ; while a being in whom the mind is disabled by weak- ness, lies, steals, exhibits brutish passions and ferocity, or shows a tendency to wallow in the mire. We sometimes wonder why the idiotic and the insane betray bestial propensities. The answer is to be found in the simple physi- ological fact that man is an animal, and when the restraints of reason imposed by conscious- ness are withdrawn, or have never been prop- BOY-MANHOOD. 71 erly instituted, the animal nature and its work- ings are seen. The general effect of civilization, and the cu- mulative results of personal education, extend- ing over many generations, might be supposed sufficient to have reduced the animal nature in man to a humanized formula. Experience abundantly shows that this is not the fact. The lower strata of the human crust are rocks of adamantine hardness, and, if I may be pardoned the solecism, they do not conform — probably they arc unconformable — to the strata above them. To revert to our previous simile, the perfecting of the compound nature consists in the development of the higher elements of the organic constitution, so that they shall perpetu- ally restrain the lower ; and when disease attacks the most highly cultured nature, or a member of some family which has enjoyed the advan- tages of education and training through many developments is accidentally placed beyond the reach of persona] training, we see how essen- tially superficial all this culture really is. The 72 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. moral suggestion of this part of our subject obviously points to three considerations. First. There is nothing too brutish to come out of man. It wants but the withdrawal of personal and social restraints, or the crude pres- sure of circumstances, to call or force into activity passions and propensities which human- ity may blush to own it possesses, but which at best it can only conceal. Therefore " Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall ;" and when we encounter a more than com- monly repulsive specimen of brutish nature in the shape of a man, let us not suppose it is the result of special corruption, but recognize its true character as a simple unveiling of the nature and passions which lie dormant or under restraint in our own character, and which dis- ease or accident may at any moment liberate. Second. Knowing that there is deep down in our nature this fierce and untamable animal organism, let it be understood that the object of self-education or training must be to con- struct a cage of principle around the wild BO Y-MANHOOD. 73 beast, and so harness him for the business of life that any outburst of rage or passion in which the will might be unseated, shall be im- possible. We cannot eliminate animal passions from our nature, but it is practicable, and a duty we owe humanity, self, and society, to hold them in never-relaxing bonds of reason and good sense. Third. All the strong and base passions of man's being are associated with his animal na- ture, and enjoyed by him in common with the beasts. They may be ennobled by the use he makes of them, but the instant they get the upper hand of Will, or begin to occupy too prominent a place in his consciousness, he ceases to be a reasonable being and sinks to the level of a brute Some individuals seek to compromise matters by contentedly sinking to the level of the beasts of the field for the pleas- ures of indulgence, and rising again to the level of humanity for the business of life. This is an abuse of the dignity of manhood that Nature holds in peculiar contempt, and which she bit- 74 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. terly avenges. If a man will not be always manly, and refrain from abusing his privilege of self-control, the Great Mistress takes away his intellectual gifts one by one, and abandons him to the lower rank of animal life, where the freedom from self-restraint he covets is to be found. The will must be always dominant. If it is subjugated by passion, passion reigns supreme, and manhood is at an end. We now pass on to consider the second part or system of man's nature in relation to this question of culture — the inheritance of human- ity as it is entailed on the individual, with racial, national, and family characteristics acquired by the habits and personal culture of a long line of ancestors. The human animal being a man, has in pro- cess of time become impressed by his surround- ings — and the reaction of the forces within him in response to the external — with the distinctive characteristics of race; that is, with special adaptations of form and color, of body and mind, of habit, powers, speech, and the ways of BOY-MANHOOD. 75 life generally, to the particular districts of the earth and epochs in its history. These localiza- tions of development are further subdivided — by the operation of the same forces — into sub- ordinate modifications of type or species to meet the requirements and fulfil the destiny of life in small congregations such as the populations of countries or nationalities ; and within these smaller divisions, though in a certain sense above their influence and related to the generic, rather than to any special classification, there is the grouping of family. The qualities appertaining to each of these classes or groupings, and the specialties of form and attribute which make them distinguisha- ble, are transmitted from parent to child, each individual life exerting an influence of its own, and adding something to the entailed type of the organism, while it may seem to take away, but really only repn i and helps to obliter- ate, certain characteristics by the impression of others. It is nol necessary to dwell on the dark aspect of this part of the subject, after 76 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. what has been said in the opening chapters ; but the deductions to be made from the facts and consequences of heredity are of the highest practical moment. When a child is born, it is in the position of a seedling which has never yet produced leaf, flower, or fruit. We know it will be like the stock from which it has been produced, but there must be a doubt, and curiosity to see, how far it may exhibit features resulting from the culture bestowed on the parents ; and to what extent and in what particulars the transmitted peculiarities may prove to be influenced and modified by combination in the new individual. This is the subject of apprehension, often rising to the point of great anxiety, felt by observant and well-informed parents and guardians with respect to youth ; and it is in the later stage of what I have called boy-manhood, this expect- ancy reaches its highest tension, because it is then the characteristics of the mature organism come to be first clearly perceived. The majority of parents probably think little BOY-MANHOOD. fj or nothing of heredity, and take children as they find them. That is why the qualities of the young are little understood, and their wants and weaknesses ill-supplied. If we would help a youth on his way through life, we must take pains to discover the sources of his need, and the perils that beset him. This can only be accomplished by a careful study of the family to which he belongs. It is, therefore, obvious that when it is possible to secure wise and firm training by a person acquainted with the peculi- arities of the family, that constitutes the most promising mode of education. In any case the aim must be to read the individual character in the light of the ancestral ; bearing in mind what has been stated with regard to the lapse of certain peculiarities in one generation and their reappearance in another, which shows that little, if anything, is really eliminated from the nature of man! What is lost to sight is hidden, rather than destroyed. In striving to influence a youth for his phys- ical and mental Improvement, or as the saying 7& YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. is to "make a man of him," it is necessary to watch very narrowly for the appearance of in- herited qualities, and if these are not forthcom- ing — whether good or evil — to ascertain why they are repressed. The skill of the educator consists in so ordering the life of the youth, and the surroundings through which his mind is impressed, that the weak parts of his nature may be strengthened, and those it is undesir- able to encourage restrained in their develop- ment by training other faculties across them. It is not so much by direct opposition as by counter-manoeuvring that a nature may be improved. We can only deal with general principles ; but the following suggestions will be found to cover a wide field. The first duty of the trainer of youth — in regard to the inheritance of human nature — is to promote the physical health and well-being of his charge. This is not to be accomplished by vague sanitary precautions, or a simply " hygienic" regime. There must be a prudent but zealous persistence in the endeavor — de- BO Y-MANHOOD. 79 scribed when treating of " Eradication, etc.," — to cut off the entail of constitutional weak- ness, and disease. The youth has now reached a point, in his life of consciousness, at which it is reasonable to expect that he will take an active share in the enterprise of improvement. The plan of action must be especially laid and adapted for each individual case. There is nothing difficult in this task, if only it be clearly recognized that the history of the family may be made to furnish the leading lines of the scheme. As a rule, first-born children will present the closest likeness to the father or grandfather, and the mother or grandmother. In early years, as we have noted, the resemblance is not generally very apparent ; but as age advances the boy-man grows more like his mother or grandmother, in disposition, if not in form and feature ; and still later, when the development is complete, and manhood begins to mature, a likeness to father or grandfather becomes evident. There are many exceptions to this 80 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. rule, but its influence may be recognized in most families. Where the characteristics of one of the parental stocks are especially dis- tinctive, they may override the characteristics of the other, the relatively strongest of pur- pose being supreme. It is necessary to take these and cognate considerations into account in forming a plan of training ; but the course to be pursued will be easily found by any in- telligent person having it seriously in quest. The practical method of training for physical purposes should consist in an endeavor to fos- ter the growth of good and healthy parts of the inheritance, and to avoid calling into action those which are bad or weak. The treatment must, however, be more than negative, as re- gards the " sleeping dogs," if success is to be attained. For example, it is not enough, nor is it wise, to avoid exposure to cold in the case of those who are believed to inherit a tendency to tubercle : the constitution, by which I mean the organism as a whole, needs to be raised to a tone of health and tension higher than that BO Y-MANHOOD. 8 1 which would favor the deposit of tubercle. It may be requsite to order the conditions of life, the place of residence, and the surround- ings, so as to call out energies incompatible with the consumptive habit of body. It would not be easy to make the principles of treatment — so purely scientific as that to which I refer — intelligible to the lay reader, nor am I concerned to attempt the hopeless task of enlightening him on this subject. The matter is one in respect to which he will stand in need of professional advice, and the best counsellor will be the regular medical attend- ant of the family, whose special knowledge of the stock is priceless, and not to be replaced by any personal intelligence or skill. My sole object in this place is to point out to the par- ent or guardian his urgent need of counsel, and to tell him where it may be obtained. In one respect, only, will I adventure a word of warning on a matter of detail. There is no greater or more dangerous error than to suppose that direct measures for st lengthening 82 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. weak parts or repressing disease will always be effectual, or even safe. It is rather by acting upon the various points of the inherited or- ganism obliquely — as it were — that permanent good can be done. No skilful cricket-player tries to catch a ball by opposing the strength of his hand in the direct course of the flying missile. If this were done, either the hand would be struck down and injured, or the ball would rebound instead of being caught. The illustration is confessedly crude, but it will serve my purpose. Strong local tendencies to disease require to be encountered by inducing states of health and vigor in other parts of the sys- tem which will antagonize the morbid forces at work. The youth with what is called a "weak chest" is more likely to be saved from the lurking demon of tubercle by measures which tend to develop a robust and vigorous nervous em and a fairly strong muscular organiza- tion than by subjecting him to a course of gymnastics intended to "expand his lungs." BO Y-MANHOOD. 83 The direct method, which has of late years found favor with many authorities on the sub- ject of physical training, must, I am convinced, have injured more youths than it has benefited. In the same way, and for the same reasons, it is often better to oppose "nervousness," or a tendency to " mental disease," by measures to promote the health of the body than by operat- ing immediately upon the mind. Direct means adopted to remedy the neuroses are seldom effectual, and the mere fact of being "under treatment " for maladies of this class is in itself a fruitful source of disease. The principles laid down when considering the early years of boy-manhood, in relation to the food, clothing, and habits of youth, apply, modified as circumstances and the age of the individual may require, to the later period. The same dangers need to be avoided, the like general intentions to be formed and ful- filled. In dealing with the tempers, dispositions, and mind-faculties of the young, pains should 84 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. be taken to prevent rather than oppose the irregularities it is desired to repress. For ex- ample, instead of devising means to avert the morbid consequences of solitude and reverie, so order the life that the occurrence of circum- stances in which these evils are likely to arise may be impossible. If one half the pains which parents and tutors take to amend the errors of youth were directed to preventing the formation of bad habits, by engaging the mind in healthy pursuits, the result would be a far less amount of actual vice. I do not mean that the young should be delicately preserved from what is called " temptation." That is a mistaken policy, which generally issues in a youth being brought suddenly face to face with evils which he does not recognize and before which he falls. It is well that boys should be made ac- quainted with the world before they are re- quired to walk alone amid its pitfalls and seductive allurements ; but the true nature of things should be pointed out judiciously and BOY-MANHOOD. 85 at opportune moments, not so as to create curiosity and awaken desire, but to explain the whole truth about objects and subjects of ob- servation and thought, which, so long as they remain mysterious, are fascinating. Nothing stimulates the mind of youth more than the prospect of adventure. It should be the aim of the watchful parent or tutor to be at hand with a satisfactory, and truthful, solution of every enigma of life before it becomes the sub- ject of too conscious thought. If a youth is moody, look to his general health, win his confidence, and make sure that he has no secret trouble, or problem of experi- ence which has commenced to worry the mind. If he is irritable — what is termed " peevish," — see that this docs not arise from preoccupation with some morbid train of thought, in which he is loath to be interrupted. One half the surliness, the abruptness alternating with peri- ods of abstraction and awkwardness, observed in boys, is caused by the fact thai their atten- tions are i n d with subjects which exert 86 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. a baneful influence on mind and body alike. Under cover of innocent and improving pur- suits, boys often debauch their intellects with sinister imaginings which it is most desirable to arrest. This cannot be accomplished by per- secuting the youth with exhortations and re- monstrances ; he will resent both. Nor is he to be diverted from unsavory topics by the clumsy obtrusion of subjects of thought useful but unattractive. The only plan is to seek out some congenial occupation, or strive to awaken a new interest. Infinite mischief is often done by mismanagement in this respect ; but it needs a power little short of genius to fulfil the indication wisely and well. It must not be assumed that all qualities or dispositions which are developed to excess in the character of a youth are essentially bad. Thus, pride may save a weak man from many errors : vanity is capable of being turned to good account in life; and reserve, properly nurtured, may be a priceless boon. It should be recognized that the keynote of a manly life BO Y-MANHOOD. Sj is energy. The boy conjugates the active and middle voice of the verb. It is his passion to do and to be. His interest in the passive phase of existence is less strong. This may seem an irrelevant observation, but experience shows that it points to the unravelling of many tangled skeins of character. The mind of the boy-man ought to be full of enterprise. When he sits down to brood over things as they are, or might be, he is in peril. We now come to speak of the individual nature. This is composed of the personal re- sults of the inheritance, the new states and feelings produced by the combination of peculi- arities of body and mind received through the mother and father respectively — as salts are created by the combination of acids and alka- lies — and the effects of the surroundings. The individual is a resultant of the two parental forces, plus the force of external circumstances on his personal growth. There is not a great deal to be urged on the consideration of parents in relation to the indi- 88 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. vidual characteristics of youth, beyond what has been already submitted. The principles which must guide the cultivator are those we noted when discussing the inherited nature. I will only offer one suggestion, and it shall be this : try to fancy yourself in the place of the boy-man you are trying to help. Feel with him, weigh his motives and incentives to con- duct, think of the ancestral impetus under which he acts and by which he is in large measure controlled, make full allowance for his difficulties and for his weakness. Above all, do nothing to engender a policy of dis- guise on his part. Many a youth has been ruined by a regimen of suspicion, or too rigid discipline, which has driven him to conceal what he could not amend. There is no m ore blighting fault of youth than untruthfulness. Disguise is lying in principle, and it soon leads to lying in practice. Even though expressed falsehood or dishonesty may not be detected, the self-consciousness that something must be and is concealed, either to BOY-MANHOOD. 89 avoid punishment or preserve a good charac- ter, dries up the spring of moral rectitude, destroys the respect for honor, and leads to the grosser forms of falsehood and deceit. This vice is the bane of morals in youth and of happiness in age ; and too many parents have themselves to thank for the evil influence it exerts on the character of their offspring, if not for the very existence of his worst faults. The presence of a good spirit — or innate principle of virtue — in the heart is too often denied. I believe there is no being so debased as to be utterly bad. In every breast there is a consciousness of right. " Those who have not the law are a law to themselves." Call this inner monitor what we may, it is the last, and often the only, appeal in dire extremities. The culture of conscience in the heart of a youth must begin in early childhood, and never cease throughout the process of education if the character is to be perfected. Those par- ents who, cither by example or the neglect to recognize this inner principle in their dealings 90 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. with youth, fail to encourage its growth, not only lose a powerful adjunct in the task of education, but leave the minds of their chil- dren without stay or guiding star on the threshold of life. Not a few of the systems of training adopted in public institutions, and imitated in private schools and families, are defective in respect to their appeal to conscience. This is why so many young persons of both sexes, who have been brought up under a firm discipline, fail when they come to act for themselves. They have been accustomed to lean on a prop which has been removed, and the mind has no staff of its own. Youth must be trained to act on principle, not merely in obedience to the will of others. It should be encouraged to order its own ways, to shape its own course, while there are those at hand who can aid and strengthen the will in forming a correct and stable judgment. The motive, thought, and purpose of culture for the boy-man ought to be to develop a per- BO Y-MANHOOD. 9 1 feet man ; physically healthy ; good as a repre- sentative of humanity, his race, and family ; his own master ; and in no sense the slave of pas- sion, the victim of imagination, or the creature of other minds. Such an ideal can only be reached by dealing severally — and yet in con- cert — with the four parts of nature. To neg- lect the culture of any one element of the compound-being must be to impair the integ- rity, and jeopardize the happiness and success of the whole. The task is full of perplexities and embarrassments, but it is not impracti- cable, or it would not have been entrusted to man. GIRL- WOMANHOOD. IN THE EARLY STAGE. Child life, in its early conditions and charac- teristics, differs little for the two sexes ; but, as we have seen while reviewing the facts and experiences of boy-manhood, the point of de- velopment after which it is unsafe to treat a boy as a child — and nothing more — is not easi- ly recognized, and must be assumed to occur early. I have fixed the period at the termina- tion of the third year, and I do not think it should be placed later. Boys being practically removed from the night-nursery and the dress- ing-room at that age, a wise system of feminine government may be established in this depart- ment expressly for girls. It is not within my purpose to treat at length of infancy and the nursing of little children ; GIRL- WOMANHOOD. 93 but the hints thrown out incidentally, when dealing with the case of boys, may be repeated with equal earnestness for the sake of girls. Parents do not adequately realize the extent or permanency of the mischief done by leaving the management of their children to coarse, and, as it often happens, lascivious servants. It is necessary, I repeat, to speak plainly on this subject. Mothers are apt to be satisfied if they can secure the services of young women who evince feelings of kindness towards their little ones, and may be trusted to "take care" of them. It will seem a strange remark to make ; but the nurse who allows her charge to fall into the fire or scalds it, does not do a greater or more enduring wrong than she who under the pretence of fondness, or to gratify her own vicious propensities, discharges the duties of her office immodestly and blights the life and happiness of a child, by prematurely awakening that self-consciousness which nature lias ordained to slumber until riper years. I believe the beginnings of epilepsy, hysteria, 94 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. rickets, and a score of weaknesses and obscure maladies which make adult life a burden, be- sides vicious inclinations which render it a sor- row, may be traced to the excitement, and even physical injury, to which young children of both sexes are subjected in the nursery. It is too much the practice to give morbid states of the organism and disorderly conditions of the ner- vous system long names and, raising them to the dignity of diseases with a set type, to cast about for great causes. The seed of a vast plant may be very small, and the effective cause of a revolution with results extending over centuries, may be comparatively insignificant. This is not the place, nor am I the person, to discuss the etiology of general disease ; but in respect to those disorders of brain and nerve function which form so large a proportion of the ills that flesh is heir to, I can have no hesi- tation in affirming that they are more frequent- ly than parents suppose, the fruit of practices encouraged and even suggested or induced by women of vulgar habits, grossly ignorant of GIRL- WO MA NHO OD. 9 5 the special duties their sex imposes upon them, and which it should be their pleasure to dis- charge. It is probably too much to expect — in days when young women of humble family despise domestic service, and kitchen maids give them- selves the airs of " fine ladies," while women of gentle birth neglect their home duties to seek honor and happiness in public life — that the care of children will receive the considera- tion or elicit the interest it demands. Never- theless, it does seem odd that fathers and mothers who love their offspring and desire their welfare, should hand them over to the custody of females who in their own persons embody the accumulated depravities resulting from early mismanagement and neglect. There is something so grotesque that it would !)<■ comic if the subject were less serious, in the expectancy thai young women who have themselves been reared in utter disregard of the decencies oi life, p< rhaps in the midsi oi unfettered license, should be fil guardians foi 96 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. children whom it is above all things wished to train wisely. From twelve to sixteen hours in every twenty-four, the younger members of an ordinary household are left at the mercy of servants whose only qualifications for the trust are apparent cleanliness, seeming good-temper, honesty so far as actions are concerned, and such sobriety as consists in not getting openly drunk. If I write strongly, let those upon whom it devolves to search for the remote causes of disease, say whether the case is over- stated. No young woman who has not herself been brought up with more than common prudence, or whose character has not been so reconsti- tuted by experience and principle that she is keenly alive to the faults and defects of her own early management, should be entrusted with the care of children. Persons of un- known antecedents, or who are either vulgar or vain, ought to be rigidly excluded from the nursery even as visitors. Household servants should not be permitted to intrude on the GIRL- WOMANHOOD. 97 " home" of childhood, and it is almost too ob- vious a remark to make, that a kitchen is no place for the young. I repeat : it is a fact which cannot be gain- said, that many of the formidable troubles of adult life are the remote effects of frets and frights, the neglect of natural functions, physi- cal injuries and corrupt moral influences^ to which young children are exposed through the wrong-doing or negligence of those to whom the care of their infancy has been confided. It is a common rejoinder to this sort of remark that our grandmothers did well enough under the system here condemned. My answer to this is that there were servants in those days. With such variations as will suggest them- selves to the thoughtful reader all that has been said about the treatment and training of little boys is applicable to the care of young Is. There is, however, the important cir- cumstance that Nature is commonly supposed to have given a specific Indication of the dawn of womanhood; and upon this parents too 98 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. confidently rely. A very little reflection must suffice to make it plain to any mother that this token of development cannot be trusted. The formation of habits opposed to health and happiness may antedate the functional crisis by several years ; setting up diseases, disturb- ances, and abnormal states of the organism difficult or impossible to cure. It is therefore the obvious duty of every parent to devote the utmost care and wisdom to the personal management of her female children from early years. The aim of training for girls should, from the outset until late in girl-womanhood, be to avoid the recognition of sex and its consequences. This is one reason why I insist that boys should be removed from the nursery. The difference of ordinary treatment and bearing towards the two classes of children in their management, discipline, and sports may, and as a matter of fact does, awaken thoughts and feelings from which the mind of a young girl ought to be jealously guarded. Harm may be GIRL- WO MA NHO OD. 99 done, quite unintentionally, even by too much "fondling." I am strongly of opinion that fathers are not justified in romping with their girls, and it is necessary to point out that the practice of caressing female children warmly, dandling them on the knee, tossing little girls in the arms and kissing them, except decor- ously on the forehead or cheek, is not a becom- ing mode of showing real parental love. That these things are generally done thoughtlessly I have no doubt, but occasionally it is other- wise ; and therefore, apart from their inexpedi- ency, they need to be condemned. It is pos- sible to be very fond of a child without either tickling, squeezing, or nursing her. Such pas- times should be left to the mother. All that it is requisite to say about clothing, after the general remarks made when speaking of boys, may be said briefly. The dress should be simple and in no way suggestive. How- ever grown women may please to disfigure and bedeck their own persons, they should hold ii a duty to abstain from deforming the bodies, and 100 YOUTH : JTS CARE AND CULTURE. corrupting the minds of their children. If it be pleasant or wise to strangle the waist in violation of all the laws of Nature and canons of physical beauty ; to cripple the feet by en- casing them in tight and falsely constructed boots or shoes ; to mount the heels on stilts and distort the toes ; to cloth the lower ex- tremities in tightly fitting stockings which com- press the arteries and deprive the extremities of their natural supply of nutrient and warm blood ; to encircle the legs with tight ligatures ; to adopt a gait that compels the weight of the body to be carried so as to transgress the most obvious laws and principles of gravity ; and gen- erally to mar the use, and abuse the anatomical and physiological intentions, of the human form at the behest of Fashion — the indulgence in these caprices ought to be deferred until the growing girl can form her own judgment on the question of expediency, and is herself re- sponsible for the evils that ensue. As it is, children are dressed like women: in high boots worn for show not use, silk stock- GIRL-WOMANHOOD. 10 1 ings, and the mimic gear of fashion, to their infinite discomfort. Little girls are not in- sensate dolls, to be tricked out in finery, with impunity. The practice of clothing them as grown women is a fruitful source of precocity. Attired in the same fashion as their mothers and elder sisters, they affect their manners. The seeming is not without effect on the organ- ism. The very feelings and functions it is all- important to leave in abeyance as long as may be, are prematurely excited by the assumption of "grown-up" ways. Even if the dominant idea of female life must be to attract the notice, and appeal through the eye to the lowest feel- ings and sympathies, of man, it would seem only reasonable to put off such an appeal un- til the stage of womanhood has been fairly reached, and the period best graced by inno- cence and maidenly simplicity is past. The costume of girls should consist of the smallest practicable number of distinct articles, to avoid a long process of dressing, which is, on many accounts, most undesirable Every- 102 YOU TH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. thing should fit well but loosely, and I do not think the practice of wearing flannel is to be recommended. The irritation set up is an evil. Each article ought to be hung from the shoulders, not the waist. There should be no constriction or ligature round any part of the body. What I have said about foot-coverings when speaking of boys [p. 54], is especially applicable to the case of girls. The old Scotch practice is the most healthful, and tends to the growth of straight, well-shaped, and serviceable limbs, besides obviating one of the commonest causes of cold — namely, the susceptibility to an impression of " chill " from cold or damp feet — which susceptibility is certainly unnatural. The same principle applies to covering the neck and arms. The issue of the system that now finds favor with timid parents, who spoil their children in trying to prolong their lives, and which is commonly recommended in books written, and advice given, to the pattern of popular opinion, must, unless some great en- lightening is effected, be that children of the GIRL- WOMA NHO OD. 1 03 next generation will be invulnerable only in the face. They now wear gloves, and their throats and mouths are carefully enveloped. It has recently been suggested that they should also be wrapped up about the ears ! A truce to such weak tampering with a body which God has made for man, instead of, as might be sup- posed was the fact, the intellect of man having been vouchsafed as a supplementary gift, to enable him to take care of his body. The hair, which is an important appendage in the estimation of women, should be worn short and cut frequently during childhood ; it will then grow long and strong in after years. A practical point is to keep it well out of the eyes of both girls and boys, and to avoid its hanging about the neck and cars, which is very apt to be the first exciting cause of ungainly and choreic tricks. Washing from head to foot, properly conducted, is a process which ought to be effectively performed at leasl once — 1 think twice — every day, because the health of the body is mainly dependent on the action 104 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. of the skin. It is well to wash with warm water and plenty of soap, using cold water as a finishing bath, applied gently, not in a way to frighten the child, but so that it may stimulate the surface. The proper source of bodily heat is a free circulation of blood duly oxygenated and richly laden with the nutrient elements fur- nished by good plain food. The diet should be ample in quantity and varied in form ; meals being taken at regular hours. The practice of feeding children with dainties at odd times is destructive of a healthy appetite. The principles that should underlie the man- agement of young girls are the same which I have tried to explain in relation to boys, with the important qualification that more care needs to be taken of girls in respect to the body, while in relation to the mind, the chief aim should be to preserve innocence and pro- long childhood. With this view, there ought to be in the conduct of those who have the care of girls, a studious avoidance of act or man- ner which may awaken suggestive thoughts. GIRL- WOMAN HO OD. I O 5 All children should, when practicable, sleep in separate cots, with light but warm clothing, and care must be taken that they go to sleep happily and peacefully, without worry, grief, or fear ; and that on awaking they rise immedi- ately and are quickly dressed. Note. — " Too much White Frock and too lit- tle Sunshine for Girls." — Dr. Emily Blackwell says : " This was the comment that came into my mind as I sat at the table of a summer hotel and watched a party seat themselves in the chairs opposite mc. It consisted of a refined, delicate woman, and three pretty, frail little girls, in spotless white from head to foot, with faces and hands almost as colorless as their immaculate clothing. Their manners were faultless, their sharp-featured little faces intelli- gent, their arms like pipe-stems. Their whole appearance suggested most careful training, their nerves were developed, their muscles sup- pressed, until their frames seemed coveted by skin and nerves only. They were charming I06 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. parlor ornaments, most convenient nursery fur- niture, pleasant little companions in the orderly confinement of a neat city home, model pupils for the decorous class-room of a city school. They were equally certain, if they lived, to be invalid mothers, and profitable patients for some fashionable physician. I thought of a certain riotous little eight-year-old friend, who had confidentially informed me of her inten- tion to get up a ' Children's Rights Society,' to claim for them from their unreasonable elders, their natural and inalienable rights to unlimited noise, disregard for appearances, and disorderly activity. I remembered her protest that to require her to keep her face clean was to violate the injunction of Revelations xxii. 2: • He that is filthy, let him be filthy still,' which she considered to have been inserted for the especial benefit of childhood ; and I felt that her view of the subject was essentially correct. "What wide-spread consternation would pre- vail among all classes, should the ' Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children ' extend GIRL- WO MA NHO OD. I OJ its work so as to embrace all those who are being 'killed by kindness'! Under this cate- gory would be embraced, in the eyes of any hygienist, nine tenths of the girl children of all city families not inhabiting tenement houses. In that lowest stratum, the necessities of over- crowded quarters and overworked mothers in- exorably claim for girls as well as boys the neglected freedom of the street, and a ragged, dirty liberty from the restraints of respectable clothing and refined cleanliness. So great is this physical advantage, that it counterbalances to a degree the, at first sight, crushing disad- vantages of poverty, and allows a considerable proportion of the daughters of the poor not only to grow up, but to reach to a more vig- orous physical womanhood than is attained by their richer sisters. What but this liberty re- sulting from being below the requirements of 'decency' brings up multitudes of Irish girls to be strong workers, healthy mothers, unfail- ing nurses, amid a squalor of lodging, a ragged- ness and scantiness of clothing, a misery as to 108 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. food, which would disgrace a nation that in- flicted such conditions as a punishment upon its criminals. In falling below the level of civilized life they have regained the freedom of animal existence. " But the girls of respectable classes have, in popular estimation, forfeited their ' birthright membership ' in the animal kingdom. Muscles are supposed to be as foreign to their constitu- tion as a beard, and no more provision is made for the development of the one than of the other. Indeed, the term 'muscular develop- ment ' is repugnant to most persons, in con- nection with girls. They do not associate it with the idea of beauty, and forget that it is as essential to the grace of the kitten or the fawn, as to the rough force of the ox or the bull-dog. In all the arrangements of life and education we ignore the fact that perpetual muscular ac- tivity is a necessary condition for the healthy growth of all young animals, for the little girls of the most refined families no less than for the wildest denizens of the forest. GIRL- WOMANHOOD. IO9 "It is not too much to say that it is simply- impossible, as a rule, to bring girls to vigorous maturity in city life. A judicious mother may prevent their growing up confirmed invalids, but she cannot command the conditions re- quired for positive health. As the fragrance of a garden or of a hayfield, which is exquisite diffused through the open air, would be sicken- ing and oppressive in the confined air of a par- lor, so the activity of healthful childhood would be overwhelming in a city nursery, and is never called forth by the freedom of the back-yard, or the measured exercise of city walks, neatly dressed, under the care of a nurse or governess, supplemented perhaps by a few dog-day weeks in the restrained freedom of a country hotel or boarding-house. The presence of Bridget ex- clude, them from household exercise ; a higher I of refinement and morality shuts them in from the freedom of the street, and no sub- stitute for these outlets is provided. "We repeat with our girls the experience of Caspar 1 [auser. Wesurroun 1 them from birth HO YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. by conditions that so stunt their growth that they early cease to crave a freedom which their weak frames would find burdensome. The foundations of future invalidism are solidly laid before they are ten years old. They have by that time been so trained to physical passivity, so imbued with the idea of the unbecomingness of activity, and the desirability of being orna- mental, that they are thenceforth unconscious cooperators in the work. Like the caged canary, if they attempt flight they find it so fatiguing that they return voluntarily to the open cage. They have no idea that the strong pinions and soaring flight of the wild bird should have been theirs. "The great difficulty in the way of improving the health of women is that they have lost the idea of physical vigor out of their own concep- tion of women, and therefore out of the stand- ard at which they aim for their children. The arrangements of the nursery and the school reflect this fatal disbelief, and make it a reality. " The work begins from the very cradle ; from GIRL- WOMANHOOD. Ill the assumption of short clothes every step for- ward is in the direction of increased freedom of movement and stimulus to activity for the boy, and of diminishing liberty and indirect repres- sion of activity for the girl. Nature makes no such difference in bringing up the young of other animals ; she implants precisely the same impulses to physical freedom and activity in all, independent of sex. The kitten gambols and climbs with the same uncontrolled energy, whether it be destined to develop into the de- mure Tabby or the pugnacious Tom. Nature grants the same privilege to human beings. In them also she holds sex in abeyance through all the early years of life, that the individual growth may be accomplished, untrammelled by its re- quirements and restraints. The laws for healthy growth at this age are identical for both sexes. Nature has not one standard for the girl and another for the boy. But we do not imitate her wise resen We do not, like her, regard childhood • neuter sex. Reversing her laws, we do not wait for sunrise, but even at 112 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. earliest dawn make ' coming events cast their shadows before,' and thus modify the girl's surroundings, to the detriment of her whole future, by ideas and feelings which should exert no influence upon her until the approach of maturity. " Out-door life, muscular activity, a dress that is a protection, and that is not a constraint, freedom from any sense of being required to be an ornament of society — these are as abso- lutely essential to the physical welfare of the little girl as of the little boy ; they are the sim- ple necessities of childhood, irrespective of sex. 11 When these are provided, in whatever shape it may best be done, Nature will take care that the physical vigor thus developed shall be turned, at the right time, as surely into the grace of womanhood, as into the force of man- hood. Then, and only then, we shall cease to hear complaints of the feeble health of women. " Until then we must console ourselves by far-fetched theories for the fact that other races — the Africans, the Irish, the Germans, — whose GIRL- WO MA NHO OD. 1 1 3 women have retained the uncivilized freedom of physical growth, supplant us whenever they come into competition with us. In house- work, they take the widest and most profitable field of occupation out of our hands. As mothers and nurses, their superior vigor raises up a posterity which is rapidly entering into and taking possession of our land." GIRL- WOMANHOOD. IN LATER YEARS. Girls generally grow rapidly and awkward- ly just before the period at which they are destined to assume the form and habits of womanhood. Self-consciousness may, as we have seen, commence in very early years ; but if this calamity should happen, it will be even more directly and obviously the result of neg- lect, mismanagement, or evil communications, than is the like premature awakening in boys. Under the care of a prudent mother, or sen- sible governess, amid suitable surroundings, girlhood should merge in womanhood before the subjective experiences of sex begin to ex- ert a powerful influence on the mind. The special functions of female life are des- tined to occupy so prominent a place in the GIRL- WOMA NHO OD. 1 1 5 economy of her nature, that a girl must needs be conscious of the physiological development which occurs when she approaches maturity. It is not, however, necessary, nor has Nature designed, that the advent of self-consciousness shall be synchronous with the physical evolu- tion. A serious mistake is made when by changes in her dress, in the altered bearing of those around her, a young girl is prematurely inspired with the feeling that she has reached the confines of womanhood. The policy of female education and the fashion of the day err greatly in this respect. Children of even tender years are costumed like women, and girls scarcely in their teens are inducted, by example and the influence of dress, into the ways and affectations of a period of life fully ten years in advance of their age. It is, of course, impossible that habits can be formed and a set mode of life adopted, with- out the reaction of thought on function, and function on the organism. These influences of thought and habit, which Il6 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. I have ventured to designate mental reflexes, are among the most potent of the forces that produce and control development. If attention be concentrated upon a particular organ, its functions will be stimulated ; and, in conform- ity with the law of nutrition and growth, use promotes development. In this way, anything which brings the subject of sex strongly home to the mind of a youth, whether boy-man or girl-woman, is likely to expedite the advance towards maturity, and to force the growth of parts and feelings of the personality it is de- sirable to restrain. During the stage of special evolution, and particularly when development is unnaturally stimulated either by thought or act, the health is apt to suffer. It is at this juncture heredi- tary diseases make their appearance, and an- cestral traits of character and family likeness are reproduced. The " awkward age" in girls may be very short or prolonged, but it is in the later weeks, or months, of that period the traits and likeness GIRL- WOMANHOOD. 1 1 7 to which we have alluded become apparent. A girl who in earlier life has, perhaps, borne a noticeable resemblance to her father, first loses his peculiar cast of countenance or gait, then puts on a vague expression of weariness and ungainly stupidity or sullenness, and at length almost suddenly grows like her mother or some female relative with whom she is closely as- sociated, or for whom she entertains a strong feeling of regard. While this change of physical character is in progress, there is often a corresponding change of mind ; but, as we remarked when speaking of the same epoch in the life of boys, it by no means constantly happens that the feelings and temperament follow the form. It is a popular fallacy to suppose they do. Closer observation would convince any intelligent student of character that while tricks of man- ner and surface-peculiarities of temperamenl .• commonly go with special varieties oi form and expression, the deeper elements of mind, its principles and constituent qualities, Il8 YOUTH: ITS CAKE AND CULTURE. are not thus closely allied. This is why mis- takes are so often made in friendships. Sym- pathies are awakened and affections stirred by " ways" which do not spring from the feelings with which they are assumed to be associated. Thus a courteous demeanor may conceal an ungracious heart : an attractive and innocent surface-character made up of smiles and pleas- ing manners, may veil a repellent and vicious nature. When the change from childhood to youth begins to be apparent, by the awkwardness to which I have alluded — in the first stage of the process of special development that is to cul- minate in full womanhood — it is desirable to bestow particular attention on the physical health. It is not necessary, nor is it prudent, to pamper a girl at this period. Any notice- able change in her mode of life or the regime to which she is subjected, ought to be avoided, but it is necessary to see that indications of disease or special weakness calling for treat- ment, are not overlooked in the commotion of GIRL- WO MA XHO OD. 1 1 9 the crisis. This is peculiarly important when hereditary disease is known to exist in the family. There will always, at this epoch, be present symptoms corresponding to those I have noted as marking the like period of transition in boys, and it not uncommonly happens that the seeming weakness and the complainings of girls cause needless anxiety. In any ordinary case, they are likely to be unimportant and easiiy remedied by a timely aperient, such as a dose of castor-oil. Nearly all the " palpitation," giddiness, nausea, "hysterics," and fainting-fits, to which young girls — especially those who have witnessed these disturbances in others — are subject, fall into this category, and may be treated by the same means; but there are graver matters that do not make nearly so clamorous an appeal for sympathy, and may ape Hi' 1 attention they require. Among the number musl be mentioned the morning cough of incipienl consumption, readily mistaken for the hysterical cough com- 120 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. mon at the period ; and the aches and pains of rheumatism — which is a far more frequent af- fection of early life than it is supposed to be. The premonitory symptoms of this malady may be confounded with what are called "grow- ing-pains." Again, deformity of the spine or limbs arising from a constitutional tendency to disease of the bones, may be ascribed to a habit of stooping, leaning, or walking badly. In short, there are special and general forms of morbid activity for which a parent should be on the alert, and the moment misgivings arise, competent advice ought to be sought. What are called " blood disorders" and dis- turbances of the apparatus of circulation, are common in youth. The blood itself, or the heart, the arteries, the smaller arteries [arteri- oles] and the network of vessels called the capillary system — which permeates every tissue of the body, and, in large measure, determines the local supply of the nutritive fluid — may be the seats of a morbid state. I have preferred to treat this branch of the subject in connec- GIRL- IVOMAXHOOD. 1 2 1 tion with girl life, because females are more likely to be affected by maladies of the class indicated, than are males. The reason will be evident whim we reflect that what may be termed the energies of organic construction, which in the male diminish with the dawn of maturity, become the distinctive, and, in a sense, the central and most potent forces of the adult female economy. Womanhood consists in the embodiment of these powers of organic construction ; and in- stead of occupying that subordinate place in the system which nature assigns to the corre- nding energies in man, the forces destined for the propagation of the species are domin- ant in woman. Her whole being is conformed to this purpose, and the physiological conse- quence must be that she is more amenable to special impressions thin man, while her blood is habitually loaded with the materials of growth, and needs to be periodically relieved, It fol- lows that maladies having their origin in dis- ordered conditions of the nutrient lluid are 122 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. more common in the youth that ushers in womanhood than in that of man. Neverthe- less boys are exposed to blood-disturbances as they too approach maturity, and the observa- tions I am about to make will apply, subject to obvious qualifications, to the youth of both sexes, though in different degrees. The blood may be bad, that is, deficient in some natural element or surcharged with mate- rial that ought to be cast out ; and the distribu- tion of the fluid of nutrition may be defective either from disorder or weakness of the heart, of the blood-vessels, or of that part of the nervous system by which the size of the smaller tubes is controlled and the supply of blood regulated. Blushing is the result of a nerve-impression which causes the minute vessels forming a close network under the skin to relax and ad- mit more red blood than they commonly carry, so that the surface appears suffused with color. Blanching is the effect of a nerve-impression of exactly opposite character, which causes the GIRL- WOMANHOOD. 1 23 superficial vessels to contract and squeeze out the red blood, thereby producing pallor of the skin. These phenomena will serve to illustrate the whole series of physical changes which at- tend, or, as some say, cause, the states of blood- lessness or congestion, to which every organ is liable. Parts which are mechanically, that is, by pressure and constriction — or as the re- sult of nerve action diminishing the calibre of the vessels — deprived of their due quantity of blood, are starved, and not only cannot grow or perform their functions properly, but are in danger of wasting. On the other hand, parts of the organism to which blood is directed in unusual quantity by thought or irritation, or by the local action of heat — pent-up in the ; on or applied externally — have a tendency to exaggerated function and too rapid develop- ment. The principles embodied in these laws apply to every part of the organism, and should be clearly understood They are the principles which should guide the judgment in the use or 124 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. avoidance of particular articles of clothing, and in the construction and fitting of the various parts of dress. Remembering that the single source of animal heat is the oxidation of organic elements in the blood and the tissues of the body, it will be seen how directly the warmth of any part must depend on the free- dom of the circulation within it, rather than upon the thickness of the clothing with which it is enveloped. The bearing of these remarks on the question of expediency as regards the details of costume and personal habit will be obvious. I will not discuss the subject at greater length here, as I have sketched its out- line for popular purposes somewhat fully else- where.* The pallor so common during youth, espe- cially in girls, is partly due to a weak — and easily disturbed — circulation. When this is the chief cause of the appearance, there will be rapid alternations of flushing and paleness rather The chapter on " Heat," in "The Secret of a Clear Head" GIRL- WO MA NHOOD. 1 2 5 than persistent bloodlessness of the surface. In such a case the nervous system is prob- ably the chief seat of the disorder, and the aim should be to secure that all the functions of the organism are properly and regularly per- formed, as any obstruction or source of irrita- tion may be the disturbing cause. Probably very simple remedies will suffice to remove obstacles of the ordinary class, if the treatment be supplemented by an intelligent application of the principles I have laid down with regard to heat. The only warning it may be worth while to give is against the recourse to stimu- lants, which young girls should never take ex- cept under medical advice. The constant — as contrasted with the vari- able alternating — paleness which often attends this period of special evolution is a matter <>l greater concern, and if strongly marked, pari icu- larly when accompanied with a yellow, parch- ment-like color of the skin, will call for medical interference. It i- not safe to assume that the hue to which I now allude is the simple result 126 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. of a deficiency of red corpuscles in the blood, and to give " steel-drops," or some other prepa- ration of iron, as parents are apt to be advised. It may be that the indication points to a blood- state which is the result of organic disease, or to one that will, if neglected, set up serious mischief. The experience of a mother or elder sister is often of priceless value to the growing girl, but sometimes it does harm by leading to the reference of significant symptoms to causes with which they have no relation, and conse- quent errors in the course pursued. The paroxysmal disturbances — under which head we may include "fits," faintings, outbursts of temper, moodiness, and the nocturnal teeth- grindings, nightmares, and sleep-walking phe. nomena — incidental to this period of life, are the effects of disorderly activity in the organism caused by the incorporation of new functions in its economy to which the system is not as yet accustomed, and which it resents. Setting aside cases in which hereditary diseases and morbid tendencies are aroused and strive to GIRL- WO MA NHO OD. 1 2 7 establish themselves at this crisis, it commonly happens that when the womanly habit is fully formed, incidental disorders subside. At the same time it must be borne in mind that hab- its of rhythmical convulsion are readily formed in constitutions of weakly mould, and hysteria, epilepsy, and St. Vitus' dance are likely to be perpetuated if paroxysms of disturbance are allowed to be often repeated. If, therefore, any of the phenomena mentioned do not at once yield to simple measures, or threaten to recur, advice should be obtained. The guiding intention of girl-management at this period should be to maintain the general health by simple food taken at regular meals, moderate exercise — chiefly muscular — a cheer- ful life free from undue excitement of any kind, sufficient but not too much study, and a mini- mum of emotion and "romam It is not ible t<> prevent the young from reading works of imagination, but nothing can be more injurious to tin; mind of a self-conscious girl than the intellectual food for which she usually 128 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. evinces the largest appetite. Books of fiction abounding in word-pictures of love-making, and describing or portraying the passions under a flimsy disguise, are the bane of female youth. The like is true of plays and theatrical perform- ances. Ballets and vulgar exhibitions do less mischief to an unsophisticated mind than the suggestive and emotional productions which popular taste not only tolerates but applauds. As the period progresses, the traits and cha- racteristics of womanhood become more appa- rent in the girl-youth. Her form develops and she puts on the peculiarities of gait and of movement proper to her sex. If parents are prudent, it will not be until late in her novitiate as a woman the girl assumes the adult garb of her sex. Premature adoption of the dress and manners of mature life cannot be too strongly or repeatedly condemned. Precocity in clothes and habits is silly in a boy, it is perilous for a girl, both on account of the effect produced on her own mind directly, and the treatment she receives from others. When the proper time comes, GIRL- WOMANHOOD. 1 2Q the effect of a becoming attire is beneficial, if the induction to womanly ways has not been anticipated by folly or caprice. Now arises the great practical question : What ought v to be the ruling thought and pur- pose of advanced girl-womanhood ? Marriage is the object most parents and daughters set before them : Is this the best and most worthy aim ? If the reader will let me vary the form of expression and say married life instead of marriage, I will answer unhesitatingly — it is. I have no sympathy with the strong-minded womanism of the day ; it is unnatural and ignoble, and it will sooner or later infallibly destroy the respect in which woman is held by man, and undermine the feeling which gives her a claim to his protection. It is not, however, worth while to waste words on the movement ; it is a craze and will die out. The natural and legitimate obj( of female life is to share the lot of man, and be his "helpmeet." No description has been found to surpass that employed in 1 1 I30 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. Writ for fitness and fulness of import and elearness of purpose. It is not to the incident of marriage, but to the life beyond, the atten- tion of girls should be directed. Household duties, the pleasures and obligations of do- mestic authority and influence, the opportu- nities and work of home life with its associa- tions, constitute the future upon which the energies of the female mind need to be con- centrated, and wherein they will find both pleasure and rest. It is so much the fashion to look with con- tempt on the house, the family, and home, and to seek occupation and happiness in other di- rections, that while I write these sentences it is easy to forecast the severity or contempt with which they will be treated. Truth is, however, greater than any mere caprice of "pinion, and I am convinced the time will come when it will once more be discovered that the natural sphere of female influence is home, and that for the true woman there is no place of safety or contentment beyond its GIRL- WO MA NHOOD. 1 3 1 limits. If mothers really desire the happiness and physical, mental, and moral health of their daughters, they will make the domestic future the keynote of their culture and discipline. The physical training of girls in the later years of youth should consist chiefly in the performance of womanly exercises. A word of caution as to the general character of these occupations may not be out of place here. It is important that, both as to the amount and the character of the exertion made by girls during the critical period of youth, anything which might tend to strain the body or to irritate the internal organs unduly should be avoided or used in great moderation. There can be no question but that many of the most formidable troubles of adult life have their origin in the prolonged standing, the kneeling, and some of the gymnastic exercises to which girls are subjected, or in which they are al- lowed to engage, during youth. There can be no difficulty in deciding whether a par- ticular occupation or pursuit is likely to be 132 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. hurtful, if parents will take the pains to obtain such a general notion of the human form as may- be gathered in a few moments' serious thought. The trunk of the body contains all the heavy organs (except the brain), and the weight of these has to be supported by the bony, shell- like cavity between the hips [the pelvis\ It is true that a shelf-like muscle [the diaphragm~\ stretches across the hollow of the trunk on the level of the waist, and the lungs and heart are in the space above ; but the shelf is elastic, and every time the breath is drawn in the dia- phragm contracts and forces down the organs, so that they have a perpetual tendency to bear heavily on the pelvis. This, owing to the large natural outlets which exist below, is equiva- lent to a constant tendency to extrude the ins of the abdomen ; and if no worse harm is done by straining, the ligaments supporting them may be stretched, and weakness or chronic disease ensue. Nature made the female chest peculiarly ex- pansive, so that there should not under any cir- GIRL- WOMAXHOOD. 1 3 3 cumstances be an undue pressure downwards in ordinary breathing ; but art has interposed, and with corsets and tight-lacing this measure of protection has been rendered nugatory. Women prefer mechanically induced deform- ity and disease to the figure Nature designed, but which Fashion, in her higher wisdom, dis- likes and undertakes to improve. Enough has been said to inform those who really desire knowledge, and to convince all who are open to conviction, of the truth in regard to the prejudicial effects produced by the use of stays and tight-lacing. It is needless to multiply proofs of the mischief wrought by these and other equally monstrous devices, by which Fashion defies Nature and pours contempt on common-sense. I only refer to the subject, to point out that a reasonable consideration of the anatomy of the human body will show how iin forms of activity and occupations which are just now in high favor must needs be inexpedient for the growing girl. If 1 am not greatly mistaken, it will be found thai 134 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. many of the exercises provided for the young are wholly unsuitable, and can scarcely fail to injure. What, for instance, can be more in- jurious to girls than the posture of body and the long standing involved in croquet ? or to boys than the use of the bicycle ? An honest game of ball, such as lawn tennis for girls, and cricket for boys, or horse exercise, and the sports of running, leaping, and climbing prop- erly conducted, are incomparably better than the weak, purposeless, and wearing pastimes in which it is the fashion of the day to engage. Croquet has, I believe, to answer for many serious cases of weakness in young women ; and bicycling is certainly chargeable with the ruin of many manly forms, not merely by " accident," but by the shaking received through the spine, and the injury done to the lower centres of the spinal cord. Skipping is an admirable exercise for youth of both sex, and neither unwomanly nor unmanly. Dancing, of the natural and decorous sort, in moderation is also useful, GIRL- WOMANHOOD. 1 3 5 The sum of the conclusions at which the patient and unprejudiced truth-seeker must, I think, arrive, is that to insure success in the care and culture of female youth it is, above all things, necessary to fulfil the simplest and most obvious of the suggestions of Nature. The moment the mode of life becomes arti- ficial, and nearly always when it essays to be "advanced" and "scientific," it errs. It is thus with every department of enterprise in which man is the actor, and the task he under- takes is a duty. Simple obedience to the law in Nature is the only safe course ; and, as we tell children, " obedience consists in doing what is bidden, in the way bidden, and at the time bidden." Neither in the matter, method, nor in the order of life, can the trainer of youth disobey the great Mistress, or leave the path she has traced for her disciples, without en- i ountering formidable difficulties, and incurring the risk of going astray. JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. HABIT AS A REGENERATOR. A great deal has been written and said — much to the purpose — on the demoralizing effects of bad habits ; but comparatively little notice has been taken of the constructive and, in that sense, possibly regenerating influence of good habits. It is a common observation that any act or feeling which has become a matter of habit is, as it were, incorporated with the nature. We call it " second nature." The explanation of this fact, for such it is, would seem to be that the organism by use or action becomes physically adapted, or we may say disposed, to act in the same way and receive similar impressions under like condi- tions ; and each repetition of an act or feeling adds to the likelihood of its being repeated, JOTTINGS ON DETAIL: 137 by increasing the fitness of the arrangements and apparatus or force for the performance or experience. We know how by compelling the tendril of a creeping plant in a particular direction, it after a time inclines to grow as the force applied has directed it. It is not only that the force of circumstances constrains compliance, it gives a bias to the constructive motive of growth — if I may use a vague ex- pression — so thai* after the restraint is re- moved, the line imposed upon development is pursued. This is an inadequate illustration of what takes place in the human organism when a habit is formed. The brain, the nervous system generally, and the dependent parts of the apparatus of existence, are educated by habit so that they become conformed to the law imposed upon them. This is the principle of natural development, and it may be intelli- gently applied to the purposes of mental and physical culture in youth. It is little use struggling, or urging the young to fight, against inclinations. How of- 133 YOUTH: ITS CARE AMD CULTURE. ten does it happen that a bad habit is actu- ally cured ? Who by dint of hard tugging or bending can disentangle the gnarled stem of the oak, even while it is still a sapling? If success seems, now and again, to be achieved in "breaking off" bad habits, the organism is lacerated and the strength spent painfully for that which is not an orderly mode of life, and the conquest adds little to the stock of happi- ness. The true policy of reform in regard to bad habits is to leave them alone, and to con- centrate effort on an entirely new task — name- ly, the creation of good habits which, acting independently on the character, shall supplant the old, without, as it were, actively thwarting them. Many a youth has been cured of untoward habits of idleness, such as lying in bed, of un- tidiness, untruthfulness, and vice, by giving a fresh bias to life and creating a new interest. Remonstrance and entreaties have failed, good resolutions have broken down, the moral force of will has not been strong enough to over- JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. 1 39 come the bad inclination, but some novel at- traction or newly stirred motive has almost instantly produced the reform desired. Nor is this all : the old habits have become actually distasteful, so that after the new motive has ceased to influence the conduct, there has been no return to the previous customs of life. What has happened, is that the new act or feel- ing has operated reflexly on the organism so as to produce a physical conformity to the al- tered practice or, in other words, to construct a physical basis for the new habit. By forming good habits in and for youth, it is possible to react on the minds and bodies of the young, so as to give both an improved de- velopment, and render them better fitted for, and therefore more likely to produce, good customs of life than bad ones. There is, how- ever, one coil' lit ion of success in this endeavor which is too often overlooked, the two parts of the nature must be influenced ^> as to com- bine their energies in the new line of action and sympathy; else the reform will be one of I40 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. simple restraint instead of growth, and there can be no regeneration of the organism. If a child is to be trained in the way he should go so that when he is old he will not depart from it, his mind must be bent in the direction of improvement, and this can only be accom- plished by setting an object of hope, an incen- tive to exertion before it, one that will stir the heart and influence the emotional nature. The lure must be neither a bait nor a reward, lest having detected the nature of the attraction or secured the prize, the mind should rebound to its old bent. A solid and growing interest in right conduct — valued for its own sake — needs to be created. The difficulty which is often found in dis- covering a sufficient incentive of youth, gener- ally arises from awkwardness or lack for knowl- edge on the part of the parent. Either there is a want of tact in dealing with the young, or the requirements of the situation, as I have d to explain them, are not understood. Take for example the endeavor to cure a JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. 141 habit of idleness. It is useless to drive a boy or girl to work. The task may be done, but there will be no heart in it, and the coercion will be resented. It is equally vain to procure exertion by a bribe, because the effort is felt to be a sacrifice, and it will not be repeated with- out a like inducement. Little will be gained by inciting the child to act from love of its parent or teacher, as in that case also the toil is uncongenial in itself ; and although it may be endured by way of a tribute of affection, it is not the less irksome to one who loves idleness. The spirit of emulation is equally ineffectual as a reformer of indolence. There is only one sufficient influence which can create a new habit of industry capable of supplanting the old habit of indolence, and that is the awakening of pleasure in work for its own sake — not a mere reflected or ulterior satisfaction associ- :d with the motive or recompense of labor. ( live a youth of either sex a sense of pleasure in exertion, and idleness will be cured. It will aid that this is appealing to selfish moth I4 2 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. It is, and rest assured there is no higher instinct or principle in the human heart to which an appeal can be made. It is the fashion to preach of ruling by love as better than govern- ing by fear. I fail to see any difference in the two forms of influence, except that the youth who responds to the suasive appeal to his af- fections is probably of a more clinging and associative nature than the one who can only be intimidated. I doubt whether the heart is really better, although it may seem more con- genial to the parent's nature, in the one case than in the other. We make a great mistake in condemning Selfishness. Self is the highest object of care of which man can take cogniz- ance ; but it is the inner Self, made in the image of the Creator, and innately gifted with attributes of the Divine character, which should be the object of regard and self-seeking, not the little puny self, the image a time-serving Dictator has set up and which man so readily falls down and worships.' •* See the paper on "Self," in "Minds and Moods" JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. I43 Principle, which rightly interpreted is another word for pleasure, is the only sufficient motive of conduct. Let a youth be taught to feel that there is pleasure in doing right and fulfilling the behests of a noble nature, and he will do right nobly. We hinder rather than help im- provement by our pain-sparing and protective discipline, and complicated educationary system of arbitrary penalties and rewards. If instead of commanding their children and seeking to control their conduct by fear, or to constrain it by love, parents would strive to teach by ex- ample and allow youth to learn by experience, in circumstances carefully adapted to their wel- fare, there would be incomparably greater hap- piness in the world, a higher tone of virtue would prevail, and there would be less sorrow and disappointment. Moreover, the effect of conducl formed on principle for pleasure's sake, and eng iging the energies of body and mind, would react on the organism of thought and ivity, so as to effeel a regenerative recon- struction, and to produce an adaptability of 144 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. development whereby virtue would become in- creasingly natural and vice alien to the charac- ter, and distasteful. If any one asks how is all this theory to be reduced to practice, I reply, by a systematic endeavor to influence the young through their surroundings. The idle boy or girl should be placed in the midst of industrious associates who are happy in their work. He should not be hounded on to exertion, but treated as a being to be commiserated, because he cannot enjoy the pleasure tasted by those around him. An untruthful child should be treated with studious frankness, and quietly debarred from the pleasures of confidence. A vicious youth should see virtue in others, not have precepts of morality hurled at him in and out of season ; before long he will recognize and come to value the joys of innocence, if those with whom he is associated are sincere in their happiness. Enormous mischief is done by making the Religion of common life an affair of gloom and long faces, melancholy Sabbath-keeping, and JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. 1 45 restraints associating the ideas of goodness and virtue with self-denial instead of freedom and joyousness. It is through the associations alone the character can be permanently influ- enced. As these are, so will it be, good or evil. If they are corrupting, it cannot fail to be corrupt. Temper and Moodiness. Temper is a good word to denote the tension or resistance of character. We know what is meant by the temper of steel or the tension and elasticity of a bow. A corresponding quality appertains to the development of our physico- mental being. It is not necessary to repeal here what I have said elsewhere on this sub- ject* Suffice it to point out that in dealii with the young it should be continually re- membered that temper is "temperament," and when what is called an outbreak takes pla that it is a display of the inner nature, to which * " Tempers— Good and Bad." " Common Mind Troubles." 146 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. the surroundings and the method of training have to be adapted. It is quite useless to expect that the same treatment will prove equally successful with tempers of different degrees of tension. The qualities of resistance and impressibility, of steady persistence, and easy mobility, of strength, or irritability, require totally dis- similar modes of approach and bearing, if good is to be done. These qualities are themselves often the effect of disease or de- fective development, inherited or acquired, and they need special measures for their remedy. It is indispensable to bear such facts in mind, and to make them the bases of a plan of edu- cation suited to the individual peculiarities. Moodiness — that is, fitfulness, with a certain tendency to the persistence of states of feeling — shows a tendency to dwell on impressions, or linger in ways of thought, which augurs ill for the health of mind. It is a fallacy to sup- pose the mind will grow out of this tendency. If it be not cured in youth, it may reappear JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. I47 in an incurable form in mature life or in old age. A moody youth is never safe ; and even if he seems to have developed into a sound man, the demon lurks within him. This is one of the most significant temperaments with which the parent or tutor can have to deal, and it should be treated as morbid, which in fact it is. In adapting the policy of education to tem- perament, much may be learnt by a careful study of the history of parents and grand- parents. Changes the most unexpected and inexplicable will appear in a character if no notice has been taken of the hereditary bias by which it is swayed, whereas if the congeni- tal tendency be recognized, many a phase of development may be anticipated and provided for, or prevented, by appropriate measures •lied in time. What is called Phrenology ilirows little light on this question, although I am not prepared to say it is useless. Every system of close observation must produce sonx valuable results. 148 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. It is more to the past than to the present that we must look for guiding light on the future of life. Both families, that of the fa- ther and that of the mother, need to be stud- ied, and allowances made for the probability that the character of the young life will be a resultant of the several forces acting in the two lines, modified by the individual peculiari- ties and the effect of the surroundings. The enigma will not be an easy one to solve, but the parent should not give up the task in despair. The formation of a tentative judg- ment is not nearly so difficult as it would at first sight appear to be. Appetites. Fastidious tastes and capricious appetites betoken either a bad condition of health, or a morbid state of the sensibilities. Parents make a serious mistake, of greater moment than immediately appears, when they do not check these vagaries of the child-nature, but the JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. 149 rather encourage them as evidences of fine feeling, or pamper them as symptoms of deli- cacy in early life. Peculiarities of this kind nearly always begin as whims and affectations, or they are adopted by way of imitation, or originate in pure wilfulness. One child will take an aversion to fat, simply because another does not like it, or in opposition to the ex- pressed wish of its elders. Some of the des- pots of the nursery will not eat salt, but crave sugar. Others profess an aversion from par- ticular descriptions of meat, or will refuse animal food in every form, and prefer fruit and vegetables. It is not good policy to give way to these likes and dislikes. Children should be trained to take what is given, as good for them, and the indulgence in preferences or aversions de- ferred until riper years. Not only are the istes and appetites of the young often injuri- ous to their well-being and vexatious, but the exercise of judgment, which a youthful mind is permitted to make in respect to its personal I SO YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. gratification, reacts disadvantageously on the faculty of self-control. The boy or girl who has been allowed to grow up with a habit of thinking about preference in the matter of feeding, and of trying to please self in the small affairs of appetite, will afterwards long to minister to its pleasure by acts of greater moment and consequence. I am far from recommending those who have the care of the young to thwart their inclinations without reason. It would be diffi- cult to condemn with too great severity the practice of imposing on children a regime of austere "self-denial." Life should be made as pleasant to young folk of both sexes as it can be without the sacrifice of principle in their management and the encouragement of re- bellious inclinations ; but there is, probably, no part of the economy of human nature which it is necessary to hold more jealously in re- straint than the lower system of appetites; among which the love of eating and drinking — for the pleasure these acts are capable of JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. I 5 T giving — occupies a prominent and typical place. Self-control in respect to the animal pro- pensities generally is the primary condition of an orderly and moral life; and "the pleasures of the table," even of such a simple sort as may be involved in this indulgence of capri- cious appetites in childhood, are not of a nature to be cultivated before the mind is fully orga- nized, and trained to the discipline of self, without entailing a certain weakness of charac- ter, the weakness which always results from the presence of an element in the system of faculties, passions, and propensities, which is perpetually striving for the gratification of its own immediate longings. In the growth, unfolding, and decadence of life, we find that appetites and inclinations, springing from the underlying brute nature, alternate in their development. Thus, in the child-state greediness and capricious desires in nil to food are the expressions of selfish- ness; farther on the youth seeks pleasure in 152 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. the gratification of other passions, which too often sway the whole nature, defy conscience, and dethrone the will ; later in life, when the robust animal instincts are palled by satiety or exhausted by dissipation, self reverts to the earlier appetites as a means of gratification, and age beguiles the tedium of a failing vitality with the "pleasures of the table," properly so called. This is a return to childish ways of self-indulgence. I do not wish to lay undue stress on this sub- ject, but it is important to point out that by encouraging the likes and dislikes of children in reference to food, parents are fostering the growth of a particularly troublesome part of the nature, as w T ell as giving way to desires which may be inconvenient and even injurious to the infant, and ruinous to the youth. The consideration I would press is that these appe- tites, unimportant as they may seem, are the representative passions of the lower animal nature, as that part of the being shows itself in the early stage of existence; if they are not JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. 153 checked, other forms of passion will take their place, and when this happens, it will be too late to cultivate that habit of restraint without which no person can be either happy or safe. There is a crude idea floating in many minds that a strong inclination for, or aversion from, a particular kind of food should be taken as an indication of nature as to its use. This notion needs to be exposed. That there are condi- tions and states of the system under which an appetite of instinct may be developed I do not deny, but these seldom obtain in childhood. The caprices of children are scarcely ever in- stinctive. They commonly take their rise from a sense of pleasure, and are pure longings for indulgence. Distinctly morbid appetites should be made the subject of investigation by medi- cal skill. It is often difficult to determine how far what is called an appetit< is real, or imagin- ary, that is in some way associated with strange thoughts or particular sensations. For exam- ple, a love of vinegar and acid fruits may be a longing for the animal gratification produced 154 YOUTH: ITS CARE AND CULTURE. by the thrill that passes through the body when the teeth are, as the saying is, " set on edge." The seemingly unnatural tastes of what are called "hysterical" girls — a fine name for a vulgar form of animalism — are nearly all trace- able to the sense of pleasure elicited from re- mote parts of the system by the local action of the substance taken into the mouth. The young female who swallows chalk, note-paper, and other material, or who is filthy in her per- sonal habits — as most children of both sexes are without the knowledge of their parents — does not derive pleasure directly from the taste indulged, but remotely through the excitement set up in the organism elsewhere. This should be understood, and the practices of children carefully watched, that bestial propensities may not grow up unnoticed, to form germs of grave trouble in after life. It is a not uncommon er- i >r to attribute these strange tastes to " worms." That they are very often associated with the presence of parasites in the stomach or intes- tines is the fact, but what seems to be the cause JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. 1 55 is, I think, the effect. The eggs of worms are introduced into the mouth with the unclean things taken. This is a disagreeable subject, but it is one in respect to which parents need to be informed. It would let a flood of light in upon the real origin of many diseases and disturbances if the veil could be drawn aside which hides the mystery of wickedness to which I believe the Apostle alluded when he spoke of "cham- bering." It is impossible to go further into this matter, but children and young persons should never, I am convinced, be left long alone. It is not necessary, nor would it be wise, to worn' them by direct interference with their inner life, but the duties of the day may be so arranged, and the domestic system so organized, that there shall be few waking mo- ments when the bod)' is not active, and no when the mind is not healthily employed. 156 youth : its care and culture. Pleasures. It has been remarked that the lives of young folk should be made as pleasant as possible. Pleasures are the birthright of youth, but they should for the most part be simple in them- selves, and easily gratified ; they ought also to be immediate, that is to say, honest and open delights obtained directly from the means of enjoyment that meets the eye, not pleasures to be reserved for secret enjoyment, or remotely producing other sensations than those which seem to be associated with them. No incon- siderable part of the pleasure the young receive from reading exciting stories and debasing novels is of this secondary character. Nothing is more unreasonable than to make the fireside dreary and expect young folk to be contented at home. The evening ought to be the happiest part of the whole day ; the time of re-union, and communion of the minds which are placed together by Nature that they may be mutually useful and happy in their JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. 1 57 intercourse. Whether work in the study, science at a society meeting, business in the counting-house, devotion in a place of wor- ship, or sensual gratification in the company of friends at a club, or in a box at opera or play, takes the father of a family frequently from home in the evening — he is out of the path of parental duty. It is even in a higher sense the duty of the wife to make the family circle happy for hus- band and children. The home is woman's proper sphere. There she reigns supreme, and it discredits her power of government, and her queenly qualities, if her kingdom is unattractive. Incomparably more rests with the mother than with the father in this matter; but I haw- noticed theman'sduty first, because this chiefly affects the boys, who are most likely to be restless, and seek to escape. Pastimi Much of the pleasure enjoyed in youth derived from pa-times. I do not speak of th< 158 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. games of early childhood. These are not very important. The money and time spent in providing pleasure for children — except the very dull — in the shape of toys, are generally vain investments. Give a little child a few rags and a block of wood, and it will make itself a more pleasing doll than any you can buy, although the gaudy model may excite a warm passing interest, which generally culmi- nates when it is destroyed. A little later a knife and a stick, some twine, and perhaps a lump of lead, will make a boy happy ; while a girl will be content with a few odds and ends of colored fabrics for dresses, and the where- withal to compose them into fashionable shapes. The pastimes of youth have not improved in recent years, and it would be well to re- vert to the ways of old times. No private house in which a large family is resident ought to be without its billiard-room and full-size table. This is peculiarly one of the best and most improving of evening amusements for JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. 1 59 those who do not care to read ; but it should be carried into effect without the accompaniment of excessive smoking, strong drinks, and an over- heated atmosphere. I have not a word to say against a little tobacco for elderly youths. The fragrant weed has done nothing to cause it to be tabooed in society, nor is there anything to be urged against stimulants, in their proper place, and for proper uses; but alcoholic drinks should never be employed to quench thirst, and it is unwise to trust to the soothing effect of tobacco for a steady stroke. The principles which ought to guide parents in the selection of pastimes for youth will be obvious from what has been said, with this warning that health must be considered, and not less health of the mind than health of the body. This is why crazes and prejudices with respect to pleasure are mischievous in the family. The home where teetotalism, anti- tnbaccoism, jetarianism, Sabbatarianism, puritanism, or fanatical objection t ( > charades, to cards, and even to billiards prevail, cannot l6o YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. be really congenial to youth, and is at best endured rather than enjoyed by the young. Rewards and Punishments. It is, I think, doubtful whether the system of " encouragement" by rewards for exemplary conduct is a healthy way of fostering goodness in the mind of youth. Better let it be once for all understood that virtue is its own best reward — because it brings a sense of comfort to the consciousness. Work and self-denial, for the sake of a bribe, draw out the worst and lowest principles of greediness and self-seeking. Punishment is an appeal to the sense of fear through the feeling of pain. I have no sym- pathy with the outcry against corporal chastise- ment. Judiciously employed, the rod is an agent of discipline incomparably better fitted to attain its object than any substitute which has yet been proposed. Keeping children in the dark or alone is a cruel and short-sighted device ; depriving them of their customary JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. l6l food is perilous to health. Boxing the ears is dangerous. The cane, temperately used, and after the manner of our predecessors in the work of education, on a part of the body which cannot be injured by the chastisement administered, is, I am convinced, the natural and proper mode of punishment. When boys and girls grow too old to be " birched," I think they should be disciplined by experience. That is to say, when a youth of either sex does wrong wilfully, the parent should either by some appropriate disappointment, or, in the case of girls particularly, by imposing a rela- tively degrading description of dress, cause it to be felt that obedience and entire truthful- ness alone entitle the young to respect; confi- dence, and the kindly thought of those above and around them. I will not dwell longer on this subject, but it is one which could not be allowed to pass unnoticed. 1 62 youth : its care and culture. Study and Pursuits. Overmuch mind-work is not safe for the young. Education should be understood to consist rather in the development of faculties of knowledge than the heaping together of information. Book-learning' will be easy to acquire if the powers of intellect are nurtured by moderate exercise while the mind is matur- ing. Children lose their strength by wasting it in efforts of memory when it ought to be devoted to the training of mind-powers. Just enough study to cultivate the mental faculties is all that ought to be permitted to trouble the season of early youth ; and later on, the time spent in study should be very brief, and the mind wholly freed from the burden of mental work in the intervals of labor. Morning is the time for study, when the strength is as yet unexhausted ; the afternoon should be given to physical exercise, the evenings to quiet pleasure. Girls are over-educated in these mad days, JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. 1 63 and it would be well if some apostle of com- mon-sense could rouse the world from its dream of " competitive examinations," the "ele- vation of woman ;" and other vain and mis- chievous imaginings which threaten to end in a nightmare of disappointment. I know well that what I am saying will be unpopular now, but some writer who comes after me will suc- ceed in making the remonstrance effectual. That the time will arrive, and that it is not far distant, when the education movement will be found to have been a curse to this country instead of a blessing, I am persuaded. The proofs that more harm than good is being done by a feverish effort to " educate" our youth, are many and distressing. Minds are being ruined, and bodily strength wasted in the pursuit of a bubble object. We shall have to try back in the enterprise, and then it will be found that what are called high attainments do not necessarily imply great powers The youths of half a century ago were betti l trained and furnished for the struggle of life 164 YOUTH : ITS CARE AND CULTURE. than the young people of to-day ; and this is due to the fact that it was the fashion of that time to cultivate the mind by intellectual ex- ercises, selected and applied for their develop- ing effect on the faculties ; whereas now the sole aim is to load the memory with a burden too vast for any healthy brain to bear. Note. — This subject of education for girls will ever be a source of discussion until we have wiser views on this subject than we have at present. It is not too much, but misdirected and inharmonious training that does harm. No person ever yet had too good an education. It is the harmonious development of all the facul- ties and powers that makes a woman broad and many-sided that is needed. Of course there is a limit to the powers of acquiring knowledge and also to the power of human activity. Be- yond a certain point no human being can go, be he strong enough to stop the earth in its course. It seems to us that if our system of training the young of both sexes consisted in JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. 1 65 teaching them to do something, to accomplish some labor as well as of acquiring knowledge, they would not only be happier but healthier. The acquiring of knowledge for its own sake is not the highest aim in life, but action. He or she who knows how to act wisely and well in all the conditions of life is best fitted for its duties and for enjoyment. The path marked out for a man will, of course, determine his mode of equipment ; but the bases of a sound general training must underlie every rational education. Then comes the question of a pursuit or occupation. The golden rule in solving this problem is to select a course which may be reasonably expected to lead to success. I do not think it is necessary or desirable that a youth should be put to the bu iucss or vocation for which he has the strongest fancy. A thoroughly distasteful task should not be thrusl on any young person, bul it is possible that a certain amount of scll- sacrifice in this matter at the out et of life will l66 YOUTH: ITS CAKE AND CULTURE. be no bad preparation for its long and difficult duties. Moreover, the liking or the disliking of youth for a vocation is apt to be illusory, and, therefore, misguiding. The parent cannot surrender his judgment to the whim of his child, and it is well if the son's business in life is assumed rather as a duty than in a spirit of self-gratification. There must be pleasure in work, but that may be found in the fact of enterprise as readily as in the congenial character of the task undertaken. For girls, as for boys, there should be a means of self-support provided by proper training. It is most undesirable that a young female should be left without any alter- native but marriage or dependence on relatives. Every girl should be taught a trade or inducted to an occupation by which she may earn a livelihood. There is no lack of employment for women ; but one occupation is pre-eminently womanly, that is the business of making a home. To this work young women ought to be care- fully trained, and whatever their station in life JOTTINGS ON DETAIL. 167 may be, they should be taught to feel that the share of life's burden allotted to them is neither unworthy nor ignoble. Let girls be educated to work with the needle, to keep house, and to throw over that most sacred of all temples, home, the grace that charms, and the pleasure that purifies the heart, and inspires it with a true love for the happiness that springs from duty and right. The care and culture of youth is a great mission, but it is one which Nature has provided man with the instincts and the power to fulfil. THE END. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This hook is DUE on the last dale stamped below. ii 10 «w WW'- ~ M r/o lo-urC JUL 1 A* 1 58 0060 3881 UN .> m UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY II III II III AA 000 458 588 L'fM. $ t o*yfc >