ii 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 /" 
 
 
 1
 
 THE 
 ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 STARR 
 
 274a a
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE 
 HYGIENE OF THE NURSERY 
 
 INCLUDING THE GENERAL REGIMEN AND FEEDING OF 
 INFANTS AND CHILDREN AND THE DOMESTIC MAN- 
 AGEMENT OF THE ORDINARY EMERGENCIES OF 
 EARLY LIFE, MASSAGE, ETC. 
 
 Eighth Edition. Enlarged and Improved 
 WITH TWENTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS 
 12mo. xiii+331 Pages. Cloth, SI. 00 
 
 Designed for the use of Parents, Nurses, and 
 all interested in the Care and Management of 
 Children 
 
 P. Blakiston's Son & Co., Philadelphia
 
 THE ADOLESCENT 
 PERIOD 
 
 ITS FEATURES AND MANAGEMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUIS STARR, M. D., LL. D. 
 
 FELLOW OF THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF PHILADEL- 
 PHIA; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF 
 MEDICINE, LONDON, ETC. 
 
 > J 3 J 
 3 3 S I 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 P. BLAKISTON'S SON & CO 
 
 1012 WALNUT STREET 
 3^7 3 X7
 
 Copyright, 1915, by P. Blakiston's Son & Co. 
 
 < t 1 c c 
 
 ,c c ere 
 
 c c I c c t « 
 
 C k. 
 C K 
 * C * 
 
 K* i C « 
 
 « «»*•••• 
 
 XHB MAFZ.X: PRl 
 
 I B TORS PA
 
 ^a. 
 
 at 
 
 Si? 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In response to many requests from readers of 
 the ''Hygiene of the Nursery" it is my purpose 
 in this httle book to present an outHne of the 
 physical and psychical changes that are to be 
 expected in the period of life between the end 
 of childhood and adult age. Also to point out 
 some of the methods of management that 
 should be adopted to combat the dangers of 
 these trying years and reasonably insure the 
 evolution of adolescence into healthy and useful 
 maturity. 
 
 My book makes no pretence at being an 
 exhaustive treatise. Its intentional avoidance 
 of technicalities and its brevity may, I hope, 
 make it acceptable to the ordinary reader and 
 lead to greater interest in, and closer attention 
 to, matters that are of vital importance to the 
 future well-being of our boys and girls. 
 
 LOUIS STARR.
 
 r 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Page 
 
 Growth, and the Development of Muscle Power . . 1 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 Physical Education 32 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 The Diseases of Adolescence 67 
 
 CHAPTER IV ^-^ 
 
 The Faults and Criminal Tendencies of Adolescents 113 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Menstruation 140 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Sexual Enlightenment 150 
 
 Index 193 
 
 vu
 
 ISO SL\'ii-^ 
 
 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 I 
 
 J 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 GROWTH, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MUSCLE 
 ' ^ POWER 
 
 General growth, or increase in height and 
 weight— after the first two and one-half years, 
 when it is more rapid than in any other 
 period of life — is quite regular and constant 
 up to the eighth year. After this, though 
 continuous, it is slower until the age of eleven 
 or twelve in girls and thirteen or fourteen in 
 boys, when, as puberty is established, there 
 is a decided acceleration, most noticeable 
 during the fourteenth year in the former, 
 when height and weight may exceed boys, and 
 the fifteenth in the latter and continuing to 
 the seventeenth or eighteenth year respectively. 
 After this time there is a marked lessening in 
 the rate of growth, as if the developmental 
 energies were spent and in need of recupera- 
 tion. In consequence, many girls almost stop
 
 2 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 growing at seventeen, but with boys, under 
 favoring conditions — good food, proper hygiene 
 and judicious physical culture — there is a final 
 period of increase at nineteen or twenty, which 
 gradually and irregularly terminates in full 
 height several years later, while weight aug- 
 ments until thirty or longer. 
 
 In growth, then, there are periods of accelera- 
 tion alternating with intervals of comparative 
 rest, and in these latter it is probable that 
 qualitative improvements of structure are 
 taking place through the same life force that 
 produces gross increase in size. 
 
 In both sexes gain in height antedates gain 
 in weight. Weight often increases long after 
 full height has been attained, and during the 
 years when both are augmenting their incre- 
 ments are not synchronous, the greatest of 
 one frequently coinciding with the least of the 
 other. 
 
 Gain in height alone is but one evidence of 
 normal growth, and this must be associated 
 with a proportionate increase in weight to 
 show perfectly healthy vigor. Great tallness 
 without corresponding weight and symmetrical 
 development is abnormal and is usually at-
 
 GROWTH 3 
 
 tended by a lack of reserve force or ability to 
 resist strain or disease. The same is true, in a 
 less degree, where weight markedly exceeds 
 height. Between both of these features of 
 growth there is an approximate standard of 
 proportion for different years, and the nearer 
 the individual approaches the average height 
 and weight of his special age the closer will 
 be his conformation to a model of complete 
 symmetry and health. 
 
 A fairly accurate standard proportion of 
 height and weight in the two sexes from the 
 age of eight to eighteen years is shown in the 
 following table: 
 
 Age 
 
 Males 
 
 Females 
 
 
 
 
 
 in years 
 
 Height in 
 
 Weight 
 
 Height in 
 
 Weight 
 
 
 feet and inches 
 
 in lbs. 
 
 feet and inches 
 
 in lbs. 
 
 8 
 
 3-IO 
 
 49 S 
 
 3-9^ 
 
 47-7 
 
 lO 
 
 4.2 
 
 59 -6 
 
 4 
 
 i>^ 
 
 57 
 
 4 
 
 II 
 
 4.3M 
 
 6S-4 
 
 4 
 
 3M 
 
 62 
 
 9 
 
 12 
 
 4 sH 
 
 70.7 
 
 4 
 
 sH 
 
 69 
 
 5 
 
 13 
 
 4.7M 
 
 76.9 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 78 
 
 7 
 
 14 
 
 4-9^ 
 
 84.8 
 
 4 
 
 loM 
 
 88 
 
 7 
 
 IS 
 
 S 
 
 9S-2 
 
 5 
 
 H 
 
 98 
 
 3 
 
 i6 
 
 5.2H 
 
 107.4 
 
 5 
 
 iK 
 
 106 
 
 7 
 
 i8 
 
 5-6^ 
 
 123 
 
 5 
 
 2M 
 
 IIS 
 
 4
 
 4 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 Height and weight may be increased by good 
 food, comfortable and hygienic surroundings 
 and judicious exercise. School-work, prop- 
 erly conducted, has little influence upon growth 
 in strong children, but, with the weak, appears 
 to be helpful by leading to a more natural 
 and regular rate of gain, and by giving an 
 interval of rest through its tendency to retard 
 the establishment of puberty, a rest which 
 is later followed by more rapid growth. Hard 
 mental and physical work, insufficient food, 
 malnutrition and disease retard growth, but 
 if the hampering condition be removed there 
 is more or less rapid compensation, and an 
 ultimate attainment of equality with those 
 who have always lived in a favoring environ- 
 ment. Still, weight gained at the proper age 
 is better retained than if made up late, and 
 general growth is more normal when it takes 
 place during the periods when the tissue- 
 building force is naturally most active. In 
 late adolescence, contrasted with earlier life, 
 there is more variation in growth, much 
 greater liability to retrogression and increased 
 susceptibility to outside influences; unfavorable 
 surroundings and conditions more readily
 
 GROWTH 5 
 
 causing arrest of growth and preventing perfect 
 maturity. 
 
 As adult age is reached, growth force seems 
 to expend itself in a final effort to produce full 
 stature and the individual is left physically 
 slack and morally dependent upon his elders 
 to whose influence also there is now a much 
 greater susceptibility than in earlier years. 
 Consequently those nearly approaching man- 
 hood or womanhood should be well looked 
 after and receive physical care and parental 
 guidance and protection. 
 
 The growth of the various parts and organs 
 of the body is not uniform. The muscles, for 
 instance, grow more than the lungs or stomach, 
 and many rudimentary structures atrophy or 
 disappear as age advances, so that at birth 
 and at maturity the component parts of the 
 body are very different in relative size. Most 
 organs and parts of the organism grow inter- 
 mittently; they are, too, subject to variations 
 in order and degree of development in different 
 individuals notwithstanding a similarity in 
 height and weight, and they reach their 
 greatest size at different ages; for example, the 
 brain almost ceases to grow at puberty, when
 
 6 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 the reproductive organs, the pelvis and the 
 muscles generally are in their nascent stage — 
 that is, growing at the most rapid rate. Other 
 organs — such as the lungs — continue to grow 
 into advanced age, when the muscles and 
 bones, having reached their maximum, are 
 steadily decreasing in bulk causing the loss of 
 weight and feebleness of senescence. (There- 
 fore the age of the body is relative, some 
 organs continuing to grow or keeping young 
 while others stop growing or become old, 
 and the individual is senile, not because all 
 parts of his body are old, but because the 
 bones and muscles, which are the heaviest 
 organs and those giving growth its chief' 
 characteristics, are retrograding. ,J 
 
 The manner of growth of the different organs 
 of the body is of much scientific interest, but 
 attention need be given now only to the 
 development of the muscles and their functions. 
 
 The importance of the muscles is readily 
 understood when it is considered that they 
 constitute in weight nearly one-half of the 
 human body, that they are intimately con- 
 cerned in circulation, respiration and digestion, 
 and above all that they are organs of the
 
 GROWTH 7 
 
 will through which all its manifestations are 
 accomplished. Besides performing ordinary- 
 motor tasks the muscles are instruments of 
 expression, every change of mental condition 
 unconsciously altering their state of tension, 
 though there may be no actual movement, 
 and they are thus organs of thought as well as 
 of volition. In the brain, too, the motor and 
 purely mental centres are so closely associated 
 that proper development of the muscles tends 
 to improve intellection, and for this reason at- 
 tention to muscle training is very necessary in 
 the young and should be a part of the scheme 
 of all educational systems. 
 
 As children advance in age their muscles 
 increase markedly in length and thickness and 
 become more firmly attached to the bones. 
 In girls, with the exception of the uterine walls, 
 the muscular growth is less than in boys, but 
 decided differentiation in the sexes in this 
 respect does not begin until the age of thirteen. 
 Muscle growth may be unsymmetrical, causing_/ 
 unusual postures of the body or limbs and 
 changing facial expression; or the bones may 
 be twisted out of shape by arrest of some and 
 over-development of other muscles, and a dis-
 
 8 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 proportion in bone and muscle growth is at the 
 root of the clumsiness so often exhibited by 
 adolescent boys. With the establishment of 
 puberty, since there seems to be an intimate 
 sympathy between sexual and motive energy, 
 special growth features are seen. There is 
 first decided increase of leg power; next, of the 
 biceps and back, and, later, of the forearm 
 with its repulsive force. This gain is espe- 
 cially to be noticed and most rapid in boys. 
 
 Power gain, like general growth, is incon- 
 stant, being subject to periods of greater 
 or less rapidity of increase; this is especially 
 true of the legs, and as their power is very 
 closely connected with sex and as sedentary 
 habits tend to arrest development in this 
 direction it is essential to encourage the taking 
 of sufficient exercise to profit by the nascent 
 intervals. \rhe most rapid development of 
 muscle power occurs between the ages of 
 fifteen and nineteen years. After this the 
 increase is slower but continues, especially in 
 males, for six or seven years. The age when 
 the greatest possible power can be attained is 
 between twenty-five and thirty-five years.
 
 GROWTH 9 
 
 Later there comes a slow decrease, though 
 this is not marked until the fiftieth year is 
 reached. 
 
 In addition to the gross features outlined 
 above the child as it becomes older exhibits 
 new expressions of motor force. These can 
 be better understood by dividing the voluntary 
 muscles into two functional classes, namely, 
 the fundamental and the accessory. 
 
 The fundamental muscles are large and 
 powerful, ^ those of the Hmbs, shoulders and 
 trunk for example. Their movements are sim- 
 ple, almost instinctive and take place synchron- 
 ously, as in straining to lift a burden, or in 
 alternating rhythm, as of the two legs in the 
 act of walking. This group is best developed 
 in the class of toilers doing the rough, heavy 
 work of the world, and having little intelligence 
 and less mental training. 
 
 The accessory muscles are smaller and much 
 more numerous than the fundamental. They 
 are concerned in more delicate movements, 
 like those of the fingers, and are capable of 
 combining for the production of very complex 
 acts such as those involved in writing or 
 articulate speech. Functionally they reach 
 perfection later in life and proportionately to
 
 lO THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 education. Their activity directly reflects 
 mental states, the influence of the latter being 
 shown either by movements or by alterations 
 in fibre tension which change the expression of 
 the face, the modulation of the voice or the 
 character of the hand-writing. In a word, the 
 accessory muscles are practically organs of the 
 mind. 
 
 Incomplete development of either of these 
 two groups of muscles is quite possible. Hard, 
 coarse toil or undue athletic training tend 
 to hypertrophy of the fundamental muscles 
 and, with coincident neglect of the acces- 
 sory muscles, produces a being capable of 
 feats of great strength but one incapable 
 of fine, accurate work either mechanical or 
 mental. On the other hand, and here there 
 is greater danger of permanent ill-effects, 
 too much school work associated with a seden- 
 tary life or a too early employment in trades 
 requiring long hours of close attention and 
 extreme manual accuracy over- strain or even 
 arrest the development of the accessory muscles, 
 with consequent nervous or muscular irrita- 
 bility and predisposition to choreic disorders. 
 As both of these conditions are abnormal the
 
 GROWTH II 
 
 end to strive for is full development and 
 adjustment of each group, and the best time 
 to accomplish this is during the years when 
 the increase of motor power is naturally most 
 rapid, and when there seems to be the greatest 
 response to appropriate regimen and exercise, 
 measures which also promote mentality and 
 general health. The small muscles are most, 
 readily over-strained from the fourth to the 
 eighth year; after this to the age of twelve 
 there is less danger, but more again as puberty 
 is established^ particularly if fundamental ac- 
 tivities be neglected. This being the period of 
 very rapid power growth in the large muscles 
 of the legs, back and arms and in those in- 
 volved in circulation and respiration, there is 
 less fatigue-resisting force left for the accessory 
 muscles. Therefore, at this time, there 
 should be less confinement and study or 
 delicate hand-work and more outdoor life 
 and play, with its relaxation and exercise. 
 When it is desired to train the accessory 
 muscles for complex and delicate acts, as 
 playing some musical instrument, or any 
 intricate hand work, the task should be begun 
 at the age of eight or nine, taking advantage
 
 12 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 of the interval when the functions of these 
 muscles are not dominated by the great 
 strength increment taking place in the funda- 
 mental muscles at puberty. 
 
 In children almost every impression received 
 from without causes some response in the 
 muscles. This may be either a mere change in 
 fibrillar tension or an actual movement, which 
 is often automatic. These latter, termed 
 automatisms, are extremely numerous in early 
 life and are illustrated by such acts as grimac- 
 ing, twisting a button or lock of hair, tapping 
 with the fingers or feet, sucking the tongue, 
 etc. They may be exhibited by any muscle of 
 the body, but those of the accessory group are 
 mainly concerned in them, and whereas the 
 fundamental automatisms soon disappear as 
 age advances, the accessory ones are apt to 
 increase until adult years or even remain 
 permanently in peculiarities of facial expres- 
 sion, in certain habits of attitude or pronuncia- 
 tion, or such abnormalities as stammering or 
 local muscular twitching. 
 
 Automatisms are increased by continued 
 physical inactivity and mental effort, as long 
 sitting at a desk in hard study, or at a bench
 
 GROWTH 13 
 
 in some labor requiring concentrated attention 
 and delicate finger work. Their character 
 varies with the task, though they are not 
 necessarily shown by the muscles used in it, 
 and they indicate its difficulty and tendency to 
 induce fatigue. When pushed too far they 
 may advance to true chorea; may become 
 excessive as in head-beaters, shakers, etc., 
 or may pass into fixed attitudes and postures 
 of body or limb indicating morbid cerebral 
 conditions. 
 
 Ordinary automatisms must not be regarded 
 as abnormal nor should efforts be made to 
 suppress them, for, short of exaggeration, the 
 more and stronger they are the better, and a 
 good deal of restlessness is desirable in child- 
 hood. Many of those movements usually 
 attributed to nervousness, such as fidgets in 
 school and the awkward actions of the em- 
 barrassed or of those making efforts or greatly 
 excited, indicate an abundance of untrained 
 power of intellect, feeling and will. In the 
 beginning of life, too, each part of the body 
 should act freely and independently, and many 
 automatic movements may be essential for 
 proper growth in size and for development
 
 14 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 of the brain centres. To this end it is neces- 
 sary, in some cases, to produce these move- 
 ments artificially by reflex stimulation, just as 
 exceptional children must be purposely famil- 
 iarized with the sensations of hunger, thirst, 
 cold, heat, etc., and even be taught to cry and 
 laugh. While, then, the automatisms should 
 not be suppressed they must, after they ap- 
 pear, be controlled and moulded into smoothly 
 co-ordinated acts. This is a difficult process at 
 first. Even in so simple an act as sitting still, 
 a young child often closes his jaws tight, shuts 
 his fists, holds his breath and sets all his 
 muscles tense, with an effort great enough to 
 quickly cause fatigue; but control becomes 
 easier and more and more complete as age 
 advances and intelligence and will power 
 increase. 
 
 The efficiency of the muscles depends upon 
 their strength, their rapidity of response to 
 will-commands, their diversity of motion, and 
 the completeness with which these factors 
 can be voluntarily co-ordinated. Modern con- 
 ditions are not favorable to the best develop- 
 ment of these desirable qualities. In the 
 agricultural and manufacturing industries too
 
 GROWTH 15 
 
 much is done by labor-saving machinery, and 
 with more complicated processes, the worker 
 takes the product — a book or a watch, for 
 instance — through only a single step of its 
 manufacture and has no interest or pride in 
 it as a finished piece of work. Even with 
 adolescent sports there is a tendency to limit 
 them to the few and very expert and the 
 majority, finding it not worth while to try to 
 make the "teams," fail to avail themselves 
 of the benefits of the regular muscle training 
 involved. Girls suffer more than boys in this 
 respect, and, while there is no question of the 
 evils of child-labor, more of the young suffer 
 from too little than too much use of the 
 muscles. When harm comes the blame should 
 not be put upon the mere work but upon 
 unhealthy surroundings, bad work-rooms, long 
 hours, great monotony, over-specialization and 
 excessive use of the accessory and neglect of 
 the fundamental muscles. 
 
 The effects of this imperfect development of 
 muscle efficiency are exhibited in the number of 
 ordinary physical acts that many abolescents 
 find it impossible to accomplish. They are 
 also shown in the care that must be taken
 
 1 6 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 to spare them any toil that is severe or trying 
 in nature, and in their thin arms and legs, 
 stooped shoulders, and shrunken chests and in 
 persistent automatisms and other marks of 
 constitutional feebleness. 
 
 Recognizing the importance of complete 
 structural and functional growth and accurate 
 adjustment of all muscles, not only for motor 
 efficiency but for mental development, and 
 remembering the fact that existing conditions, 
 industrial and recreational, do not favor this 
 result, it is easy to appreciate the necessity for 
 certain definite systems of muscle culture. 
 The best of these are the foUomng: 
 
 I. Industrial Education. — Modern increase 
 of competition, complexity of manufacturing 
 processes and the abolition of the old system 
 of apprenticeship, in which a youth was bound 
 to a master to learn his craft, make industrial 
 education necessary, not only to attain excel- 
 lence in any trade but for the mere ability to 
 make a living wage. This instruction is at- 
 tended with more or less success in the various 
 work-schools and trade classes which are 
 slowly becoming more numerous and better 
 in our country. Such instruction should be
 
 GROWTH 17 
 
 diversified and not limited to a single tool or 
 process, in order to develop the fundamental 
 before the accessory abilities required in 
 delicate work. In this way automatisms are 
 best subordinated and a firm foundation laid 
 for future intellectual efforts. This training 
 may be undertaken safely during the periods 
 of rapid increase of muscle power, about the 
 age of puberty, when strictly manual training 
 is apt to over-strain the fine muscles. 
 
 The best industrial education is obtainable 
 on a farm, partly on account of the many 
 different things that must be well done if it 
 be properly managed, and partly because 
 of the favorable health conditions pertaining 
 to life in the country. The worst, on the 
 other hand, is factory training. It is too 
 specialized. It is ordinarily limited to a 
 single step of some long and complicated 
 procedure, and has for its object only rapid 
 preparation for earning a living, and very fre- 
 quently, too, undermines the general health 
 through unsanitary surroundings. 
 
 n. Manual Training. — This method as car- 
 ried on in special institutions and in allotted 
 courses in the public schools tends to a better
 
 1 8 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 practical education. The idea, as the name 
 implies, is to train the hands primarily. As 
 this cannot be done without training the mind, 
 on account of the already mentioned intimate 
 association of the motor and mental nervous 
 centres, the results are to broaden the intelli- 
 gence and increase interest in the acquisition of 
 knowledge, to create promptness in action, 
 dexterity, and a desire to do really good work 
 and thus to augment effectiveness and prepare 
 the student for some useful life occupation. 
 Practically these ends are not, at present, 
 perfectly attained. The ordinary methods of 
 this system have the faults of not appealing 
 sufficiently to the intellect. They are too 
 centred upon teaching skill in technique and 
 to the making only of parts rather than of 
 completed things. They over-develop one 
 side of the body and the hands, to the neglect 
 of the muscles of the legs, back and trunk. 
 Finally, manual training has not advanced with 
 the changes in modern industrial methods. 
 To be really useful it should, according to the 
 age of the student, furnish for the muscles the 
 best and most hygienic work for increasing 
 their efficiency and symmetrical development,
 
 GROWTH 19 
 
 while for the mind an understanding of the 
 scientific side of methods, tools and products 
 should be insisted upon. Further, instead of 
 placing all pupils of an age in a class to be 
 taught the same rigidly fixed task, the in- 
 struction should be adapted to the carefully 
 studied needs of each individual. 
 
 in. Gymnastics. — As now used this term 
 includes only the exercises employed in physical 
 culture. Their objects are: (a) to bring out 
 all motor possibiHties, (b) to increase voHtional 
 control so that all actions may be consciously 
 willed, (c) to economize force in postures and 
 movements, and (d) to ensure symmetry and 
 normal proportion. 
 
 (a) The ordinary activities of life, the various 
 forms of labor and even many of the outdoor 
 games exercise only a limited number of 
 muscles, leaving the others and many possible 
 combinations latent and wasting, and, in 
 consequence, there are many things that the 
 average youth cannot do. One system of 
 gymnastics, originated by Jahn, aims, by a 
 variety of postures and movements, to de- 
 velop dormant or degenerating and also new 
 motor powers, and by really general culture
 
 20 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 to establish the greatest muscle capacity. 
 This plan is very applicable to adolescents, 
 and would be perfect if it were possible ac- 
 curately to measure the amount and character 
 of exercise required by each muscle or neces- 
 sary to the best co-ordination, especially in 
 the direction of neglected or new activities. 
 Still, though this cannot be done, it is un- 
 questionably useful if careful attention be 
 paid to the personal element, different in- 
 dividuals requiring very diverse courses of 
 training. 
 
 (b) Many of our activities are, or become, 
 matters of habit, and are to a greater or less 
 degree automatic. The more these can be 
 brought into the province of consciousness, 
 the more the engaged muscles come under the 
 restraint of the will and a greater number of 
 new combinations become possible and much 
 energy is conserved. Some of the Swedish 
 exercises are employed for this purpose. The 
 most useful of these are those that require 
 close attention and quick volition to convert 
 into muscle movements the commands of 
 a leader and accurately and promptly to 
 imitate his actions. Here, also, individ-
 
 GROWTH 21 
 
 ual prescription, though difhcult, is very 
 important. 
 
 (c) Force may be economized by a method 
 (Ling's) which tends, by position and move- 
 ments, to relax the flexor and increase the 
 strength of the extensor muscles and thus 
 overcome the effects of the doubled-up position 
 assumed by the body before birth and seen 
 after in sitting and in states of fatigu^ The 
 head is balanced upon the spine with little 
 help from the muscles, the shoulders are 
 thrown back easing the chest, the spine is 
 held erect freeing the abdomen, and altogether 
 bones are made to relieve muscles. This 
 means an erect posture with the greatest ease 
 and the least waste of energy, and, at the same 
 time, a better mental poise, as there always 
 seems to be more buoyancy when the extensor, 
 rather than the flexor, muscles are in control. 
 The movements of this method educate feeble, 
 neglected muscles, those not called upon in 
 common activities, and secure better general 
 development. They prevent the deformities 
 resulting from excessive use of muscle groups 
 and over-specialization in labor. Like other
 
 22 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 exercises they must be carefully adapted to 
 personal requirements. 
 
 {d) Gymnastics, to secure symmetry and 
 proportion, involve primarily measurements 
 of physical dimensions and tests of strength, 
 and secondarily, prescription of the exercises 
 calculated to correct whatever deficiencies may 
 be present, the standard being the average for 
 the age, weight and height. These measure- 
 ments are charted and so, later, are the results 
 of exercise, and this record of progress creates 
 an interest in and encouragement to continued 
 work, especially if thereby some hereditary 
 imperfection or weakness be seen to be disap- 
 pearing. Further, accomplished physical im- 
 provement may lead to a desire for moral and 
 intellectual betterment. 
 
 In the efforts for general physical culture, 
 care must be taken not to warp any particularly 
 good growth tendency, and not to ruin in- 
 dividuality by monotonous uniformity. Weak 
 parts, too, must not be over-worked. Ordi- 
 nary gymnastics do more for the arms, shoulders 
 and trunk than for the legs and are almost 
 entirely wanting in mental influence, and in 
 these respects are open to amendment; still
 
 GROWTH 23 
 
 they are very serviceable during adolescence 
 and the use of the gymnasium should be 
 general and not limited to a few athletes. So 
 far as the body is concerned the effects of 
 systematic exercise with "training" are re- 
 markable; the muscles are strengthened, vital 
 force increased, and ability developed to endure 
 the strain of city life and resist disease; at the 
 same time habits of temperance and chastity 
 are encouraged. 
 
 IV. Play, Games and Sports. — Play brings 
 out many hereditary and rudimentary motor 
 habits and, in contradistinction to toil, is never 
 concerned with anything really new. For this 
 reason play is a pleasure and, unlike set 
 systems of exercise, is as much a matter of 
 mind as of body. It neither over-trains the 
 physical side of the organism — exaggerating 
 the muscular elements — nor unduly cultivates 
 the mental side, causing weakness or automa- 
 tisms. Play develops each. Besides being 
 the natural it is the best sort of exercise 
 because it produces perfect growth. Play 
 gives an enjoyable outlet to tendencies which 
 might otherwise lead to the use of stimulants 
 or to sexual vices. It does much to realize
 
 24 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 the ideal of a sane mind in a sound body. It 
 develops muscle power and courage. It leads 
 to purity of life and good habits. It gives 
 energy, individuality, quick decision and 
 promptness in willed actions. It lifts troubles 
 from the mind and, to the healthy, is a never- 
 failing source of exhilaration and recreation. 
 
 Some plays give greater pleasure and are 
 more absorbing than others because they bring 
 into action old racial traits. Thus in man's 
 beginning, accurate throwing, running, hitting 
 with a club were essential to survival both in 
 obtaining food and in combat. While this 
 need no longer exists, the same activities 
 instinctively demand cultivation for motor 
 efficiency. Hence, games with a bat and ball 
 are racially familiar and correspondingly at- 
 tractive, and the degree of interest and enjoy- 
 ment attending any form of play is a measure 
 of its developmental value. 
 
 As previously stated, the process of growth 
 is not uniformly continuous. It is subject 
 to times of rapid increase alternating with 
 intervals of comparative rest, and to get the 
 best results from any form of physical culture 
 advantage must be taken of the former or
 
 GROWTH 25 
 
 nascent periods. The natural exercise of play 
 is no exception to this rule, and in this con- 
 nection it is interesting to note the manner in 
 which play instinctively changes in character 
 at different ages. Before the age of six 
 children rarely play games spontaneously, but 
 do so at the suggestion and under the direction 
 of their caretakers. After eight, games requir- 
 ing physical activity are preferred, and ten or 
 eleven is the age when the variety is greatest. 
 Then selection begins and more attention is 
 given to fewer pastimes. Games involving 
 pursuit increase markedly from six to nine, are 
 almost abandoned at sixteen and the use of 
 toys and "make believe" plays decrease still 
 earlier. With boys, to eighteen, games with a 
 ball rise constantly in popularity. In girls, 
 cards and other table games increase steadily 
 from ten to fifteen. In boys, after twelve, a 
 large proportion, one-third or more, of games 
 involve contest and struggle to gain physical 
 advantage and mastery over companions. 
 "Team" games soon begin, in which the 
 individual is subordinate to his mates and to a 
 leader, all working to a given and planned end. 
 Now, too, the games are often of a rough, out-
 
 26 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 door character. Later, there is still closer 
 association in sports with more call upon the 
 virile qualities of bravery, loyalty and self- 
 control. In girls, there is a steady decrease 
 in running plays from nine to eighteen years, 
 with a rapid leaning to games of chance. 
 Organization and specialization, so noticeable 
 in boys, are almost absent, and seasonal games 
 far less common, on account of a greater in- 
 clination for indoor life. The desire to play 
 with dolls is most marked about the ninth 
 year and is usually over by fifteen, though it 
 may continue for years longer. 
 
 The fundamental muscles naturally incline 
 to rhythmic movements at all times but 
 especially during the age of greatest increase in 
 strength, and such movements are more facile 
 because they require less conscious mental 
 effort or attention. This accounts for the 
 pleasure the young take in dancing, marching 
 or exercising in time to music, and for the 
 work-songs of sailors and others which ease 
 and socialize labor and at the same time con- 
 centrate the efforts of a number of hands in 
 lifting or pulling. Dancing under proper re- 
 strictions and in good surroundings besides
 
 GROWTH 27 
 
 being an amusement is a rhythmic exercise 
 which exceedingly well meets the motor re- 
 quirements of the young, and, while much has 
 been said against the purity of modern dances, 
 it is quite possible that they may work off 
 vicious propensities in a comparatively harm- 
 less way. 
 
 About the time of the onset of puberty in the 
 male, a spirit of pugnacity normally appears. 
 Though more or less brutal, no effort should 
 be made to stamp out this instinct, but it 
 should be tempered and directed; this may be 
 done by boxing, fencing, wrestling and military 
 training. 
 
 Over-pugnacity is certainly a bad trait, but 
 a cowardly refusal to fight when necessary is 
 worse, and every healthy boy at or about the 
 age of twelve years should be taught to box in 
 order to hold within bounds and discipline the 
 fighting tendency. With bad associations re- 
 moved, boxing is a very manly art. It trains 
 the muscles, cultivates quickness of eye, hand 
 and foot, increases decision, will power, self- 
 reliance and self-restraint. It lessens nervous 
 irritability and greatly amends passionate, 
 peevish and effeminate dispositions.
 
 28 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 Fencing is an allied art which, while improving 
 the figure and bodily poise and giving quick- 
 ness of eye and suppleness of arm and wrist, 
 develops one side excessively, and is less 
 attractive to the Anglo-Saxon boy, since it does | 
 not satisfy the instinctive desire to physically 
 punish without maiming an antagonist. 
 
 Wrestling, the primitive method of un- 
 armed conflict, affords, by the close contact 
 of body to body, so many opportunities for 
 unfair practices that as a sport it must be 
 very carefully guarded. In a crude form wres- 
 tling is a very common amusement with boys I 
 and is also a popular branch of scientific ath- 
 letics and, under proper restrictions, a good 
 one as it cultivates many varied movements 
 and increases strength, waryness and agility. 
 
 A judicious amount of military training 
 very successfully and healthfully regulates 
 the combat desire and has other advantages. 
 Company marching requires correct and 
 simultaneous movements of the legs and arms 
 and good carriage; the drill with weapons 
 gives the individual a feeling of co-operation 
 and care for personal appearance and of 
 equipments, and the uniform removes dress
 
 GROWTH 29 
 
 distinctions. Further than this, discipline, 
 regular hours, wholesome food, outdoor exer- 
 cise, tactics and camp life all favor health 
 of body and mind. A drill master, a uni- 
 form or a few features of a soldier's life 
 introduced into the ordinary school give a 
 better character to its teachings, create new 
 standards of honor and tend to increase 
 patriotism. 
 
 With the longing for combat, the boy in his 
 teens develops a desire of organization leading, 
 in his play, to association into teams and 
 crews. Football, baseball and rowing involve 
 such association and have an educational 
 value. The rules governing these sports are 
 quite intricate, and in learning and following 
 them the mind is cultivated at the same time 
 that the muscles are trained. The subordina- 
 tion, too, of each member of a team to its 
 captain augments the social and co-operative 
 instincts, and the glory of school or college 
 arouses a spirit of servitude and devotion. It 
 must be remembered, however, that to obtain 
 the best educational results for the individual, 
 any team must assume the sportsman-like 
 attitude of preferring a clean game with defeat
 
 30 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 to victory won in an unfair way, and the 
 temptation to "do anything to win" must be 
 rigidly avoided. 
 r Of other forms of sport, swimming — espe- 
 cially in natural water, in contradistinction to 
 tanks — is an admirable exercise and one that 
 satisfies a racial instinct so prevalent that to 
 reach water and get a swim has been found to 
 be one of the chief incentives to truancy. The 
 movements required in swimming, unlike those 
 in walking or running, exercise the involuntary 
 muscles and strengthen the heart and blood- 
 vessels. The surface contact of cold water 
 contracts the capillaries and sends the blood 
 inward and thus increases the activity of 
 kidneys, lungs and digestive organs. The 
 reaction on leaving the water is a tonic to the 
 cutaneous circulation, and finally, this form of 
 bathing powerfully reduces plethora of the 
 sexual organs. 
 
 When games and sports receive the attention 
 that they do now in school athletics, which will 
 be the subject of the next chapter, they 
 possess in a marked degree the very desirable 
 attributes of play already mentioned, and in 
 addition supply safe subjects for thought and
 
 GROWTH 31 
 
 conversation. But this is the case only when 
 they are reasonably managed. If given too 
 prominent a place and overdone they are 
 fraught with dangers that, while less accen- 
 tuated than after the boy has entered college, 
 are still present and must be avoided. Among 
 these are distraction from study; undue de- 
 velopment of brutal impulses and of muscle to 
 the neglect of mind; harmful newspaper 
 notoriety; exaggeration of the importance of 
 winning contests, often leading to unsports- 
 man-like methods of play that ruin the morals, 
 and a tendency to over-specialization and 
 limitation of participation to a few experts. 
 
 In conclusion it must be understood that 
 playfulness is energy left over from the per- 
 formance of vital functions, digestion or res- 
 piration for instance, and children who cannot 
 play are unable to study or work without 
 over-draft upon their life energies. Any task 
 is best and most easily accomplished when a 
 play interest can be infused into it, and general 
 education might well begin with properly 
 chosen and directed games. A school that 
 discourages play favors dulness.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 ATHLETIC TRAINING IN BOYS 
 
 The beneficial effects of muscle culture, and 
 particularly of the outdoor sports now so 
 uniformly encouraged in good schools, can be 
 seen in the better health and development of 
 the past few generations of boys. Yet, like 
 many another useful thing, academic athletics 
 require careful guidance, and there is little 
 doubt that they should have more skilled 
 attention than they usually receive. No one 
 can rightly claim that, up to the present time, 
 a close approximation to the best possible 
 results has been attained; nor can the fact be 
 denied that they may produce undesirable and 
 injurious effects which may escape attention 
 until detected by a physician after the lad's life 
 is ruined by a crippled heart or broken-down 
 nervous system. 
 
 These unfortunate issues are encountered 
 
 32
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 33 
 
 most frequently between the thirteenth and 
 eighteenth years, when the greatest growth 
 changes are taking place in the body and its 
 organs, and when the school-boy's training is 
 not looked upon as seriously and is placed in 
 less competent hands than it is after he enters 
 college, older, better grown and really in less 
 need of very careful management. Every 
 college team has its medical attendant, its 
 trainer, its masseurs, its highly salaried coach 
 with his corps of assistants, and its units are 
 looked after as thoroughly as a pugilist or a 
 horse about to enter the ring or run a race. 
 On the other hand the younger boy, while now 
 given a playground and set hours during which 
 he is required to play, is fortunate if his sports 
 be overlooked by a master who has been 
 something of an athlete in his time. This is 
 certainly better than no supervision whatever, 
 but is quite inadequate. 
 
 The qualifications for a director of juvenile 
 athletics are an understanding of normal 
 growth processes; a capacity to make a suffi- 
 ciently thorough physical examination to de- 
 termine individual needs; ability to adapt 
 exercise to and determine its effects upon 
 
 3
 
 34 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 development and health, and familiarity with 
 dietetics and hygiene. Such requisites imply 
 a special knowledge that is not possessed by 
 ordinary masters or by parents with whom 
 often rests much of the general management, 
 and consequently both must have assistance. 
 This in boarding-schools can be secured by 
 adding to the staff a medical director who 
 should be responsible for both physical training 
 and hygiene, and in day-schools through the 
 family physician who should make preliminary 
 investigations, suggest appropriate exercises 
 and subsequently keep the boy under careful 
 observation. 
 
 The school-boy after the age of thirteen 
 years enters a period of rapid growth in height 
 and weight. At the same time, as will be seen 
 later (Chapter III), there may be dispropor- 
 tionate development, as of the two sides of 
 the body for instance, or of the bones or 
 muscles, and a liability to poor health that is 
 very decided from the twelfth to the four- 
 teenth years. In this interval, too, the sys- 
 temic strain of the establishment of puberty is 
 at its maximum. Besides these general condi- 
 tions the synchronous growth changes in
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 35 
 
 certain parts and organs of the body are im- 
 portant and may be studied in more detail. 
 
 The hones, like other organic tissues, are 
 composed of cells and supplied with blood- 
 vessels and nerves, and increase greatly in size 
 from birth to maturity, their most rapid growth 
 taking place just before and after puberty. 
 They are subject to developmental irregulari- 
 ties; thus ossification may be retarded or 
 arrested, or calcareous hardening of cartilage 
 may be premature or excessive, making them 
 too dense and large and causing them to en- 
 croach upon adjacent structures. Again there 
 may be faults in chemical composition. Some- 
 times, an over-proportion of lime salts resulting 
 in brittleness with great liability to fracture; 
 at others, a deficiency of these salts making the 
 bones too soft and readily bent and twisted, 
 the condition encountered in rickets. 
 
 Without any actual disease, different forms 
 of spinal curvature are apt to occur during the 
 period of rapid bone growth, and now, also, 
 irregular or inordinate traction of unduly 
 developed muscles is quite capable of produc- 
 ing deformities. Like this unequal strain the 
 carriage of the body has a marked effect. An
 
 36 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 habitual stooping posture leading to contrac- 
 tion of the chest with consequent impeded 
 respiration and depressed vitality; so, too, 
 prolonged sitting with the legs crossed inter- 
 feres with pelvic development. 
 
 The heart materially increases in size from 
 birth to the fourteenth year, and with the 
 advent of puberty must respond, by increased 
 functional activity, to the widening area of 
 circulation that takes place at this time. This 
 demand on the cardiac muscle is attended by 
 enlargement which may be great enough to 
 appear abnormal, but this is only temporary 
 and, provided general health be good and there 
 be no excessive or continuous strain, is soon 
 compensated and the size of the organ again 
 becomes proportionate to that of the frame. 
 
 Before puberty, the blood-vessel area is 
 large compared with the size of the heart; 
 after, the reverse is the case. This latter 
 condition is attended by a more forcible cardiac 
 impulse, by higher blood-pressure, and often 
 by transient palpitation, alteration in the 
 rhythm of the ventricular contractions and 
 other disturbances that, while entirely inde- 
 pendent of structural disease, give rise to con-
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 37 
 
 sciousness of the presence of the heart, a 
 common and uncomfortable symptom at this 
 age. Now, also, the pulse rate decreases, a 
 change which depends more upon height- 
 growth than age, the beats being uniformly 
 slower in those of tall than of short stature. 
 The lungs and chest increase in size with the 
 y. rest of the body and take part in the rapid 
 '^y' growth of the pubescent years. In boys the 
 rapidity of yearly increase in the volume of 
 air that can be expelled after a full inspiration — 
 the vital capacity — measured by spirometer, 
 augments at the age of fourteen years, de- 
 creases..^a_little at fifteen, and is greatest at 
 sixteen, though there is a constant and decided 
 gain throughout these years, and the rate of 
 increase is much greater in those who have the 
 advantage of proper physical culture The 
 development of vital capacity is an important 
 element of strength and attends gain in weight 
 more closely than in height. At puberty 
 the chest capacity is lessened by the normally 
 rapid cardiac growth, though this reduction is 
 more than compensated by the coincident 
 expansion of the thoracic space and the 
 increased area of the pulmonary air cells.
 
 38 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 The girth of the chest, measured on the nipple 
 line, enlarges most markedly from the four- 
 teenth to the seventeenth years. Its increase 
 is less rapid than that of vital capacity, as it 
 is little dependent upon tissue elasticity. 
 
 The relation between vital capacity and body 
 weight is called the vital index. One object 
 of athletic training is to increase the former 
 while reducing any excess of the latter. 
 Exercise also gives greater efficiency to 
 respiratory surfaces, and the ability to breathe 
 freely and deeply insures an abundant supply 
 of essential oxygen. It frees the blood from 
 carbon dioxide and augments endurance under 
 effort and resistance to disease, and is a funda- 
 mental condition of normal growth and health. 
 
 The number of respiratory movements de- 
 creases from infancy, when it ranges as high as 
 forty per minute, to puberty, when, in a state 
 of quiescence, it falls to twenty or eighteen. 
 Afterward the rate continues unchanged unless 
 affected by disease. 
 
 The growth of muscles and of motor power 
 as well as some methods of securing their due 
 evolution have been considered already (Chap- 
 ter I). It is necessary, only, in this connection
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 39 
 
 to reiterate the need of a proper estimation, in 
 relation to growth processes, of the periods 
 when exercise will be most beneficial, and to 
 recall the desirabihty of symmetrical develop- 
 ment of the fundamental and accessory muscles 
 and the dangers of over-forcing either group or 
 of over-cultivating mentahty. A boy should 
 leave school neither a muscle nor a mental 
 machine, but with a sound foundation for 
 subsequent thorough training of both body 
 and intellect. 
 
 The hrain grows most during the first six 
 years of life, though there is a slight and steady 
 increase until the age of fourteen when it 
 peaches about its full size. After this, de- 
 velopment is continued by the folding in of 
 the convolutions and by other structural 
 refinements, tending to the greater functional 
 power and perfection exhibited at maturity. 
 Some of this tissue refinement is necessary for 
 rational thought and the higher mental proc- 
 esses that are rarely possible before the 
 twelfth or fourteenth year. Before this age 
 instruction should be simple, restricted as to 
 hours and well interspersed with play, and 
 devoted chiefly to the cultivation of the
 
 40 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 memory and the special sense centres, i.e., 
 those of sight, hearing, etc. 
 
 The kidneys may be referred to here because 
 their function is connected with certain phobias 
 that are common in early adolescence. These 
 glands grow from birth well into adult life, 
 and their secretion is the medium of removal 
 from the body of urea, which is the principal 
 nitrogenous product of retrograde tissue change. 
 Sometimes about the age of fourteen there is 
 transient albuminuria, sufficiently marked to 
 suggest renal disease, and another occasional 
 occurrence is a temporary appearance of sugar 
 in the urine. At this time, too, the nervous 
 fears mentioned above are prone to arise in 
 those who have had their attention directed 
 to the urine by other victims or by reading 
 misleading advertisements. They begin to ex- 
 amine the excretion daily and become much 
 alarmed if they find it turbid or containing a 
 red or white deposit, or if its odor be strong or 
 the reverse, and exaggerate these trifling fea- 
 tures into indications of serious disorders of the 
 kidneys or of the sexual organs. Urged by 
 their fears they adopt some special diet and 
 regimen; enter into minute comparisons with
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 4 1 
 
 their youthful companions, and unless they 
 be conJ&ding enough to find a ready ending of 
 their anxieties through the counsel of some 
 experienced older friend, they frequently drift 
 into the hands of charlatans to undergo need- 
 less and purposely prolonged treatment. 
 
 From this brief outline it is easily seen that 
 throughout the school years important develop- 
 mental changes are taking place in the com- 
 ponent parts of the frame — the bones and 
 muscles— and in such vital organs as the heart, 
 lungs and brain. In addition we know that at 
 this period growth progression varies markedly 
 in different individuals and that it is greatly 
 influenced by exercise or the lack of it, either 
 extreme being harmful. All of these condi- 
 tions should weigh in prescribing the quality 
 and amount of muscle training, and should 
 be investigated in the preliminary physical 
 examination. This must not be delayed after 
 the desultory plays of childhood have given 
 place to boyish sports. 
 
 The points to be determined are weight and 
 height and their approximation to the normal 
 correlation; the presence or absence of spinal 
 curvature; the equality in length of the legs
 
 42 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 and arms and the general symmetry of the 
 body; the normahty of the heart as to size, 
 sounds, rate and rhythm of pulsations; the 
 girth of the chest; the \4tal capacity, and the 
 effect of such moderate exertion as a short 
 run upon the frequency of pulse and respira- 
 tion. The state of the throat in regard to 
 enlarged tonsils, and of the nose as to adenoids 
 or other obstruction, and perfection of sight 
 and hearing are important but are matters 
 for a medical expert, as are also opinions on 
 general health and robustness and predispo- 
 sition to constitutional disease. 
 
 Should this investigation place the boy in 
 the average normal class he may safely enter 
 into all the school sports, being subject only 
 to the general restrictions to be stated later. 
 On the other hand, should the spine be bent, 
 the shoulders stooped, or should there be 
 inequality in the development of the limbs or 
 sides of the body, special exercises are required 
 and he should be trained by himself until the 
 deformity has been overcome. Again, a boy 
 with over-large heart or a contracted chest 
 must not take part in the active games of his 
 fellows until comparative rest in the one
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 43 
 
 instance and special breathing and expanding 
 exercises in the other have removed the hamper- 
 ing condition. Of the latter cases there are 
 many in which constriction, with consequent 
 embarrassed breathing, is the result of adenoids 
 or hypertrophied tonsils obstructing the res- 
 piration high up in the air passages. Unless 
 these growths be removed by efi&cient surgical 
 operations very little can be done to increase 
 the circumference of the thorax and vital 
 capacity. 
 
 Besides these instances with noticeable phys- 
 ical defects there are other city-bred boys 
 who have been pampered and unduly guarded 
 by mother or governess, who have taken no 
 exercise beyond dancing lessons or formal walks 
 and have no idea of really boyish pastimes. 
 These unfortunates are puny or lax fibred 
 and effeminate, and before they take part in 
 any athletic games require individual and 
 gradual but progressive muscle culture, and 
 must be taught co-ordination of eye and hand, 
 familiarity with the implements of sport and 
 interest in pursuits involving motor dexterity. 
 Otherwise their ineptness is a source of em- 
 barrassment and is so ridiculed by their play-
 
 44 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 mates that they are quickly discouraged, give 
 up trying and become uninterested onlookers 
 if not actually influential in demoralizing their 
 associates. 
 
 Just as these weaklings are to be trained 
 apart, so is it necessary in athletics to separate 
 normal boys of different ages, letting the 
 beginners compete with each other and not 
 with their older schoolmates. These, through 
 their greater strength, may injure them, or so 
 overwhelm them by their greater expertness 
 that, on either side, interest in sport is quickly 
 destroyed. 
 
 Measures to counteract special bodily de- 
 fects and those for conditioning purposes 
 require more constant and critical attention 
 and more frequent estimation of results than 
 are necessary in the physically fit. They 
 embrace light gymnastics, a variety of move- 
 ments without apparatus, and breathing ex- 
 ercises, and should be accomplished as much as 
 possible out-of-doors, or in a spacious, sunny 
 room with plenty of fresh air when the weather 
 is very cold. The effects of the allotted 
 exercises should be ascertained at intervals 
 six or eight weeks. The same applies to well-
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 45 
 
 developed boys, though in them the re-examina- 
 tions need not be made oftener than once or 
 twice each year. The findings of the pre- 
 liminary and subsequent examinations should 
 be carefully recorded. 
 
 With a boy in fair condition there are, in 
 addition to betterment in health, growth and 
 endurance, improvements in certain special di- 
 rections marking the good effect of athletics. 
 These are a decided increase in the important 
 matter of vital capacity and a gain in muscle 
 power, indicated by greater lift, pull, and 
 putting ability, i.e., the height and distance that 
 a weight can be hurled; by a rapid strengthen- 
 ing of leg, biceps, back and forearm in the 
 order named, and a more forcible hand grip and 
 greater wrist strength. Such gains are most 
 decided and readily produced during the several 
 years of pubescence when the involved funda- 
 mental muscles naturally undergo an accession 
 of growth. They are also attended by increase 
 in stabihty, control of reflex impulses, and 
 precision and co-ordination of movement, 
 conditions indicating progressive mental de- 
 velopment and in which the delicate accessory 
 muscles take part. In this connection, how-
 
 46 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 ever, it must be understood that athletics have 
 merely an indirect bearing upon the accessory- 
 muscles. Also while the fundamental group 
 is being developed, during the period of 
 naturally rapid growth, no attempt should be 
 made to cultivate extreme accuracy in acces- 
 sory muscles by intricate hand or brain work. 
 These should be trained earlier or later, since 
 a double strain upon growth force may pro- 
 duce precocity and nervous and muscular 
 disturbances. 
 
 Motor education, including play, games and 
 sports, has already been studied (Chapter I), 
 and here it will be necessary only to refer 
 briefly to gymnastics and then pass to a further 
 discussion of open-air sports which are so 
 valuable for development and which now take 
 such a prominent place in physical training. 
 
 Gymnastics are very useful in their way, 
 particularly as a substitute for outdoor work 
 in the earlier months of the year when the days 
 are short and play-grounds often too soggy for 
 use, and when there is neither snow nor ice 
 for winter sports. The gymnasium floor 
 affords space for boxing, fencing, wrestling, 
 and basket-ball, and it is quite possible, also,
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 47 
 
 to keep up a continuous training for outdoor 
 sports by providing rowing machines, cages 
 for practice with bat and ball, squash and 
 hand-ball courts, vaulting bars and so on. 
 These make for interest and furnish a play 
 element, both very desirable features that are 
 lacking in the old-fashioned exercises with 
 dumb-bells, Indian clubs, or pulling weights. 
 Another useful sphere of gymnastics is that of 
 putting in condition the under-developed and 
 correcting spinal curvatures and various de- 
 formities. Such cases, at first, are much bene- 
 fited by simple movements of the body and 
 limbs either entirely without or with the 
 lightest weights, and later, by very carefully 
 selected exercises on the trapeze, swinging 
 rings, and vertical and horizontal bars. With 
 either feeble or strong, all gymnastics require 
 the closest individual oversight and adaptation 
 and should be planned to give strength and 
 agility to the muscles, without straining or 
 hypertrophying them or injuring the vital 
 organs, results which frequently attended the 
 old-time work with parallel-bars, weight lifting 
 and other ponderous exertions that filled the 
 monotonous and wearisome hours of exercise.
 
 48 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 Outdoor sports combine both play and 
 interest, have the added pleasure of contest, 
 and make a decided appeal to the intellect. 
 They surpass gymnastics in general evolutional 
 value, and by their popularity make an easy 
 matter of any course of training. But all forms 
 of sport are not equally safe and even the 
 best may do harm if pushed to excess. This 
 fact is demonstrated in a boy when he becomes 
 pale and nervously irritable; sleeps poorly; 
 has little appetite after exertion; suffers from 
 indigestion; rapidly loses flesh; is constantly 
 tired and apathetic ; is stupid with his studies, 
 or, in other words, "goes stale." For this 
 "over- trained" condition a competent phys- 
 ical director is always on the lookout, and 
 will anticipate serious trouble with nerves, 
 heart or other organs or a complete break- 
 down by shortening the exercise, changing from 
 one sport to another or, if the warnings be 
 sufficiently grave, by ordering a temporary rest. 
 
 The best of the sports for schoolboys are 
 those in which a ball is employed. First 
 baseball, then tennis and next . football. 
 In these the interest of play and contest, 
 already referred to as very essential in youth-
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 49 
 
 ful athletics, enter markedly. Each exercises 
 the motor system generally, but primarily the 
 arms, back and legs, the systematic use of the 
 muscles of the latter being of great conse- 
 quence in those leading a sedentary student's 
 life. Besides, they involve enough short-dis- 
 tance running to increase vital capacity; they 
 train the eye; produce alertness and activity, 
 and improve judgment and ability to think, 
 decide and execute quickly. Accomplishing all 
 with little risk of straining the heart or ex- 
 hausting nerve force, as the exertion involved 
 is not sustained, there being frequent oppor- 
 tunities for brief rests while the game is in 
 progress. The dangers of football, about 
 which so much has been said and written, 
 have been very materially lessened by recent 
 revisions of the rules of play. Those that 
 remain cannot be fairly used as arguments 
 against one of the most interesting and manly 
 games, and they can be practically eliminated 
 by establishing a rule permitting only boys of 
 about the same age, weight and strength to 
 compete with one another. 
 
 Golf is another excellent exercise that trains 
 many good qualities. For schoolboys, how-
 
 50 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 ever, it is too sedate, requires too much time, 
 and altogether, so far as males are concerned, 
 appeals most to those who have passed the 
 age of impetuosity and the enjoyment of 
 strenuous pastimes. 
 
 Of track and field sports the broad and high 
 jump, pole vaulting, weight putting and reason- 
 able walking matches have their value, though 
 these are wanting in interest and compara- 
 tively few boys are willing to persevere in their 
 practice. Running races — whether the dash, 
 hurdle, relay or long distance — are open to 
 adverse criticism. This cannot fail to be the 
 opinion of every unbiased observer who has 
 attended track meets and has seen the ex- 
 hausted state of the majority of runners as 
 they reach the tape. The effort is excessive, 
 puts entirely too much strain on the heart at 
 any age, and is especially trying about the 
 period of puberty when the organ has a 
 tendency to temporary enlargement. If em- 
 ployed at all at this time, with the object of 
 improving "the wind," the run should be 
 limited to a jog-trot covering not more than 
 half a mile. A distinction must be made 
 between the running incidental to ball
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 5 1 
 
 games and race-running, and though strongly 
 favoring the former I would entirely forbid 
 the latter as an exercise for schoolboys One 
 expects more from athletics than the mere 
 development of muscle and lung capacity, and 
 in these days of motor cars, telephones and 
 aviation it is difficult to recognize any advan- 
 tage in an ability to run a few miles or sur- 
 vive a Marathon. 
 
 Rowing is an efficient developing agent, as 
 well as an accomplishment that may be 
 serviceable on occasion, and hence is desirable 
 for everyone. Outside of the rather remote 
 risk of drowning it has few objections, cardiac 
 strain being the principal, and this comes under 
 consideration and is to be guarded against 
 only in hard racing over a long course. Pulling 
 steadily and easily one may row a light boat 
 for hours and miles with little fatigue of 
 general or cardiac muscles, but a fast two- or 
 four-mile race often causes one or more mem- 
 bers of the crew to faint or even fall from the 
 shell in exhaustion, and of course such an ex- 
 penditure of force can only be hurtful. A 
 quarter- to a half-mile course is quite long 
 enough for school racing.
 
 52 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 Swimming, both a very favorite pastime 
 and an admirable exercise, should be taught 
 to every one in childhood, since at some time it 
 may be the means of saving life. No one 
 should be allowed to take up rowing or other 
 water sport until swimming has been reason- 
 ably well mastered. Its good results have 
 been detailed already (Chapter I), and no bad 
 effects are to be looked for except in long- 
 distance swimming and racing, or from too 
 prolonged immersion. 
 
 Of winter sports skating and coasting are 
 good substitutes for the outdoor games of 
 warm weather and acceptably relieve the 
 monotony of the gymnasium, and in hockey 
 on the ice the boy gratifies his never-fail- 
 ing longing for some form of ball play. 
 
 Training, as the process is usually under- 
 stood, is quite out of place with schoolboys. 
 The question of abstinence from tobacco or 
 alcohol requires no consideration for they 
 presumably use neither, and there is little 
 change to be made in diet since, on account 
 of the rapid growth that is taking place at this 
 period of life, all ordinary forms of food are 
 required by the system and — given health —
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 53 
 
 are readily digested and assimilated. This 
 does not mean that any sort of food will do. 
 On the contrary, it is essential that it should 
 be of good quality, simple, sufficiently varied, 
 and well cooked — that is, so prepared that it 
 is appetizing and that its nutritious principles 
 are retained. Neglect of these fundamentals 
 is inimical to both economy and health, but is 
 far too frequent, and one sees many homes 
 and not a few boarding-schools where the best 
 that the market affords is spoiled by a bad 
 cook, the food put upon the table being so 
 tasteless and ill-served that even a hungry 
 boy will turn from it, wasting more than he 
 eats. 
 
 Another common fault is the use of the same 
 article over and over again at successive meals, 
 though in different forms, until it is com- 
 pletely consumed. For instance, roast beef 
 served hot for Sunday dinner, cold for supper, 
 hashed for Monday's breakfast, and if there 
 should be, unfortunately, any still remaining as 
 a meat and potato rissole for the next mid-day 
 meal. With fish the poor boys have often the 
 same experience, the changes being run from 
 hot boiled fish to fish cakes, and finally a cold
 
 54 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 fish salad. Diet schedules have been sent me 
 for criticism because so many of the athletes 
 were going stale, lacked appetite and had to be 
 ordered extras. No fault could be found 
 with the quality of the food, but the cooks 
 prepared it badly, otherwise there probably 
 would not have been so much left over for 
 tiresome repetitions. The matrons, also, who 
 had charge of the commissariats were filled 
 with false ideas of economy and without proper 
 understanding of their duties. 
 
 Again, vegetables often do not have a 
 sufficiently prominent place on the school 
 table, and there is a tendency to over-use the 
 ready-to-eat cereals, to serve tea and coffee 
 too freely, and to misunderstand the food value 
 of milk. 
 
 With one or more farinaceous articles — 
 potatoes, rice, hominy or macaroni — there 
 should be at least two green vegetables for the 
 mid-day dinner. This is easy enough in 
 summer, and may be continued throughout the 
 year by making use of peas, beans, asparagus 
 and tomatoes properly canned or preserved in 
 glass, and by freely using the winter vegetables 
 — turnips, carrots, celery and cabbage — which
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 55 
 
 are exceedingly wholesome and nutritious. 
 None of this class of foods should be fried 
 or prepared with rich sauces, but should be 
 simply boiled and served plain or seasoned 
 with a little good butter and salt, or — in 
 the case of potatoes — baked and for variety 
 mashed or creamed. 
 
 The ready-to-eat cereals are very analogous 
 to toasted bread, having been so heated in 
 their manufacture that a great part of their 
 nutritious constituents has been converted 
 into charcoal, and while they taste very good 
 have little food value. The best breakfast 
 foods are ordinary coarse oat-meal, cracked 
 wheat, corn-meal and hominy grits, that 
 require soaking over night and slow boiling 
 for two or three hours in the morning. By 
 this process all the gluten of the grain is 
 retained, uninjured by the moist heat that 
 dextrinizes the starch, and the resulting soft 
 porridge eaten with cream or milk and slightly 
 salted or with a little sugar is highly nourishing. 
 With the four cereals mentioned it is easy to 
 secure enough variety. 
 
 The need for tea and coffee in boyhood is 
 about as small as for wine or tobacco. For
 
 56 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 hot drinks in the morning a cup of cocoa and 
 milk or hot milk flavored with chocolate meet 
 all demands and are preferable because free 
 from undesirable stimulation of the nervous 
 system. 
 
 Milk contains albumin, fat, sugar and salts, 
 and must be assigned its proper place as a 
 food and not a beverage. On entering the 
 stomach its casein is quickly coagulated by the 
 gastric juice, and forms a firm curd that 
 separates from the whey, and is quite as solid 
 and requires as much digesting as a bit of 
 masticated meat. Milk, therefore, may be 
 taken as an addition to the lighter meals — 
 breakfast and supper — but it must never be 
 allowed at dinner lest it cause repletion. Nor 
 at any time should milk be substituted for 
 water to relieve thirst. 
 
 As to meals, breakfast should be substantial; 
 dinner, at mid-day, the heaviest, and supper 
 always light. They must neither be hurried 
 nor should there be study or active play until 
 half-an-hour has elapsed after eating. 
 
 Of other health measures the question of 
 sleep will be fully considered later (Chapter 
 III) but it cannot be too often repeated that
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 57 
 
 each boy must have his separate bed and a 
 room to himself. This may be accomplished 
 in boarding-schools by dormitories divided 
 into cubicles, of which the number must not 
 be so large that they cannot be thoroughly 
 overlooked by a master or some trusted 
 member of the highest form. The dormitory 
 must, if possible, have a southwest exposure; 
 be capable of ventilation by large windows and 
 of moderate heating in winter. Of course, the 
 bed and bed covering must be kept absolutely 
 clean. Boys from twelve to sixteen require at 
 least ten hours sleep and when they are healthy 
 and lead a rational life with study and outdoor 
 play properly proportioned, they usually sleep 
 soundly from 9 p.m. to 7 or 7.30 in the morning, 
 and the demands of study never warrant any 
 curtailment of these hours. If a boy be long 
 in dropping off to sleep or waken early, he is 
 probably being overworked mentally, is being 
 badly fed, or is getting insufficient fresh air 
 and exercise. An hour for retiring should be 
 fixed. A rising bell may be rung at a set 
 time before breakfast, though no boy should 
 be forced, if awake before, to remain in bed 
 waiting for this call, but be free to rise as soon
 
 58 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 as his sleep is finished provided he be quiet, 
 dress quickly and does not study before he has 
 taken food. 
 
 Provision should be made for regular bathing, 
 and with younger boys some attention may be 
 necessary to insure personal cleanliness. If a 
 bathing-tank be accessible the bath becomes 
 more attractive and is sure to be more fre- 
 quently taken, than if only an ordinary tub 
 be at hand, A tank also is useful for teach- 
 ing swimming during the months when open 
 waters are too cold. 
 
 The temptation to cram a boy with book 
 knowledge and, if he be bright, to push him 
 on to more and more advanced branches will 
 be avoided by the sensible master. Five 
 hours of actual brain work — and these divided 
 between study and recitations — are quite suffi- 
 cient for the age under consideration. These 
 hours must be distributed throughout the day; 
 three, with fifteen minutes rest intervals — 
 forty-five minutes in all — in the morning; one, 
 after mid-day dinner and one in the evening. 
 The fourth hour should be movable so that 
 during the season of short days the early 
 afternoon may be utilized for outdoor exer-
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 59 
 
 cise. Saturday afternoon and Sunday should 
 always be free. 
 
 The expediency of such moderate study 
 combined with the recreation and physical 
 culture of proper athletics and general hygienic 
 management will be demonstrated in the boy 
 by more ready learning, by better remembrance 
 of instruction, and by a proportionate develop- 
 ment of mind and body and by sound health. 
 These qualities will fit him, when he leaves 
 school, to take up the harder work of college 
 and, later, the sterner duties of mature life. 
 
 MUSCLE CULTURE IN GIRLS 
 
 In the consideration of this question one 
 must remember that girls are physiologically 
 unlike boys. It must be recognized, too, that 
 strength of body is even more important to 
 them; that well-developed muscles act as a 
 counterpoise to weak and irritable nerves, and 
 that, in consequence, all schemes of education 
 for girls should devote as much attention to 
 physical as to mental culture. Further, the 
 old-fashioned though sensible view that mother- 
 hood is the noblest object in a woman's life
 
 6o THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 must be accepted; emancipation and higher 
 education relegated to a less prominent posi- 
 tion, and the idea abandoned that there is any 
 shame in femininity and its functions. This 
 should not be taken to imply that women must 
 be subservient or ignorant. Their nervous 
 and mental health require absorbing occupa- 
 tion, especially so if they do not marry reason- 
 ably young — before twenty-five — and they 
 should be sufficiently instructed to take ad- 
 vantage of the opportunities for independence 
 and self-support to which they now rightly 
 have access. At the same time it is grievously 
 wrong to lose a good wife and mother in the 
 making of a mediocre competitor in the ma- 
 terial affairs of men. 
 
 Much that has been written about boys in 
 regard to the investigation of physical condi- 
 tion; the importance and the effects of exercise; 
 the laws of sleep, feeding, bathing, regulation 
 of study and general hygiene, applies equally 
 to their sister. It is a serious mistake, how- 
 ever, to attempt to follow the same lines in the 
 athletics of the two sexes. Their sports must, 
 in the main, be different and no one ought to 
 think of really "training" a school-girl.
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 6 1 
 
 Contrasted with boys, girls are neither so tall 
 nor so heavy, except for a short time about the 
 age of fourteen years; their bodies are rounder 
 with more fat and less muscle; their strength, 
 as measured by dynamometer, is inferior by 
 about one- third; their bones are lighter though 
 their pelvic development is greater, and their 
 vital capacity is smaller. There are, of course, 
 other marked anatomical and psychological 
 differences, but the distinctive feature of most 
 importance is menstruation with its periodic- 
 ally recurring hemorrhage and systemic dis- 
 turbances. The appearance of menstruation 
 at the proper age and its subsequent regularity 
 are essential to health, and yet the function 
 interferes with physical and mental education, 
 and together with the other structural differ- 
 ences indicates that ordinary exercises and 
 sports must be specially modified if they are to 
 be advantageous. 
 
 Many mothers are negligent of the regimen 
 that should be adopted to secure the bodily 
 welfare of their daughters, and in boarding- 
 schools, where the best care would naturally be 
 expected, there is much mismanagement. This 
 unfortunate condition is the outcome of ignor-
 
 62 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 ance or of the illogical assumption that the 
 question of sex is of little consequence and that 
 after puberty there is such a close general 
 similarity between boy and girl that any 
 routine suitable for the one must be equally so 
 for the other. 
 
 That there may be a better understanding of 
 the subject the following points require con- 
 sideration. First, and quite as important as 
 any, comparative rest of mind and muscle 
 must be maintained during pubescence, or 
 from the age of thirteen to fifteen, and even 
 longer if this interval be insufficient for the 
 establishment of regularity in the menstrual 
 flow. In regard to the muscular system, 
 however, a life of too great inertia must not be 
 led. On the contrary, a girl must live much 
 in the open air; drive or motor; walk a mile or 
 more once or twice daily, and exercise the arms 
 and back in garden work or some kindred 
 occupation. In winter and when the weather 
 forbids going out she may practise dancing ; play 
 battledor and bean-bags; take deep-breathing 
 and movement exercises, and do the hghter 
 part of the work of keeping her rooms tidy. 
 
 Some time early in these years and before
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 63 
 
 menstruation is too imminent, the mother or, if 
 at boarding-school, some responsible person, 
 must prepare the girl for the coming change, 
 and with the first and subsequent periods the 
 same authorities must order and see to it that 
 retirement and rest are absolute while the 
 discharge continues (see Chapter V). These 
 lay-ofifs cannot be omitted safely even after 
 the function becomes quite regular, and conse- 
 quently any form of exercise must be subject 
 to periodical interruptions of from five to seven 
 days out of every four weeks, and the remain- 
 ing three-quarters of the time, only, can be 
 utilized for muscle culture. 
 
 Of the various methods of exercise, gym- 
 nastics are less useful for girls than for 
 boys. In fact a girl's gymnasium should be 
 merely a large, light and airy exercising 
 room without heavy apparatus, ball-cages 
 and rowing machines. There should be 
 plenty of floor space for marching, deep- 
 breathing exercises, calisthenics, fencing, 
 basket-ball and dancing, with, when possible, 
 an annexed squash court and a swimming 
 pool. The gymnasium, too, is the place for 
 correcting deformities and for strengthening
 
 64 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 the feeble girl so that she may take her part in 
 the general class exercises. 
 
 As is the case with boys, the outdoor games 
 and sports are more popular with most girls 
 than gymnasium work, and, at the same time, 
 are more developmentally useful. They have 
 objections, though, in that many of them are 
 much too strenuous, while with others the 
 player becomes so keen and so interested in the 
 contest element that they may do harm unless 
 duly restrained. Games to be encouraged are 
 golf, tennis, basket-ball in the open, croquet 
 and bowles, and of sports swimming, light 
 boat-rowing without racing, and moderate 
 cycle riding in summer, and skating and coast- 
 ing in winter are the best. Walking to be a 
 good exercise must always have an object. 
 Otherwise, it is a mere monotonous muscular 
 labor that does little but fatigue. 
 
 In this connection it must be noted that 
 the act of walking is too often improperly per- 
 formed. A little observation will prove this 
 and show the necessity of making sure that 
 every child uses feet and legs properly, that 
 there is no lateral bending at the ankles and 
 that the gait has ease, firmness and spring.
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 65 
 
 Good walking is largely a matter of training 
 and should cease to be exceptional enough 
 to attract attention. 
 
 Every girl as she passes into womanhood will 
 add much to her happiness, be less prone to 
 neurasthenia and invalidism and more com- 
 panionable if she can play games well enough 
 to take a hand. Unlike boys, the majority 
 of girls do not take naturally to active 
 sports, and require more teaching. Some 
 are so diffident and so fearful of being 
 thought awkward that they will not attempt 
 to play unless they be expert, and others, if 
 they have not begun early in life, become dis- 
 couraged by the exploits of their companions, 
 lose patience and will not take the time or 
 trouble to practise. For this reason the love 
 of games should be encouraged and the form 
 of play taught in every girls' school. But 
 here, more indeed than in boys' schools, 
 athletics demand the close oversight of a 
 physician or instructor who has the required 
 medical knowledge to detect physical defects 
 and adapt muscle work to their correction, who 
 knows the organs susceptible to strain and is 
 capable of measuring the effects of exercise 
 
 5
 
 66 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 and of deciding when it must be modified or 
 discontinued. In addition, this director should 
 be, in a sense, a coach and be experienced 
 in games in order to teach them properly. 
 Also sufficiently broad-minded to be interested 
 in backward pupils and devote more attention 
 to them than to those who are apt and learn 
 readily.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 
 
 The years immediately before and after 
 puberty, while showing a very low death rate, 
 are marked by much poor health and many 
 disorders depending upon the physical and 
 mental changes incident to development. 
 These ailments are minor when compared 
 with the pronounced diseases of the child or 
 adult and are, consequently, often overlooked. 
 During this period the boy or girl is subject to 
 both the diseases of childhood and to those 
 of mature life, but the former — meningitis, 
 the eruptive fevers, bronchial catarrh and 
 acute disorders of the stomach and intestines — 
 occur with less frequency and gravity, and the 
 latter, such as rheumatism and affections of 
 the bones, muscles, nerves and circulatory 
 system become more common, though in type 
 they are simple and present less severe symp- 
 toms. Now, too, nutritional processes are 
 markedly influenced by climate, occupation 
 and surroundings; there is much variation in 
 
 67
 
 68 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 the resisting power of different parts of the 
 body; many changes depending upon the estab- 
 lishment of the sex functions, and synchronous 
 disturbances of digestion. An array of con- 
 ditions predisposing to various diseases, of 
 which the most usual are chlorosis, anaemia, 
 hysteria, and chorea. At the onset of any of 
 these there may be an arrest of growth, 
 especially in weight, at a time when it should 
 be rapid, and this occurrence is a valuable 
 warning that considerably antidates character- 
 istic symptoms. 
 
 Again, at this age, mental disorders are apt 
 to begin and a condition is often noted in which 
 there is a decided alteration in character and 
 behavior that falls short of insanity but is far 
 from normal and is incompatible with the 
 attainment of full mentality. Aberrations 
 and illusions, when present, are not so complex 
 as when they arise later, and the insanities are 
 more emotional. Further, disorders that are 
 trifling during pubescence may assume serious 
 features afterward and the years of develop- 
 ment seem to be the nursery for many chronic 
 and inherited troubles. Now also the robust 
 may become delicate or the reverse.
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 69 
 
 Many of the minor troubles of adolescents I 
 are due to disproportionate development. For 
 instance, if height increases very rapidly and 
 abnormally, "growing pains" are experienced 
 because the muscles fail to keep pace with the 
 bones. The stretching also causes vascular dis- 
 turbances such as varicose veins in the legs — a 
 quite common condition — and the bones them- 
 selves may be curved and twisted. Acromeg- 
 alia — abnormal development of the bones of 
 the face and extremities, with disease of the 
 thyroid gland — is an exaggerated example of 
 lack of proportion in growth. This dispro- 
 portion may be due, in part, to some tissues 
 appropriating more than their share of plastic 
 material from the blood, a condition that leads 
 to their more rapid growth and produces de- 
 formities, as, for example, lateral asymmetry. 
 Boys, especially, show this tendency and in 
 them equality of arms, legs and shoulders may 
 be wanting for a time to be later regained, 
 as if the growth of the two sides of the body 
 alternated. Unless, also, growth energy is 
 equally divided, each organ or tissue receiving 
 its due proportion, there is danger of un- 
 equal growth and of some parts remaining
 
 yo THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 immature; thus height may be far in excess of 
 weight or the reverse, or the muscles and 
 nerves may be comparatively over- or under- 
 developed. 
 
 Considerable blame for the ailments of the 
 young rests upon school authorities, who are 
 too frequently ignorant or careless of health and 
 are so bent on pushing instruction that they 
 force into invalidism or stupidity very many 
 of their pupils, only those who are with 
 difficulty made to work safely weathering 
 these years of trial. The proper plan is to 
 reduce radically school work at this age. The 
 girl or boy should get sufficient sleep each night 
 and have a good appetite and digestion or be 
 kept away from school. Apart from ex- 
 cessive work, the mere fact of attendance in 
 the study room interferes with nutrition, 
 slows growth, favors neurasthenia and tends 
 to arrest the development of the higher 
 powers which should unfold later. Children 
 who study over four or, at most, five hours a 
 day suffer more illness than those who under- 
 study, and this is more noticeable the younger 
 the child as there is less resisting power. 
 
 Sleep, by resting and re-building worn-out
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 7 1 
 
 nerve cells and by affording an opportunity for 
 the removal of waste material, is a potent 
 health preserver. Children of all ages, while 
 attending school and especially during puberty, 
 seldom get enough sleep, and hours merely 
 passed in bed must never be a measure of the 
 amount of sleep obtained. Young children 
 should sleep twelve hours daily, and the time 
 should not be reduced below ten hours as 
 age advances and studies begin and become 
 harder and require more time. This is par- 
 ticularly essential in pubescent years and holds 
 true until adult maturity, but the unfortunate 
 tendency is to constantly increasing curtail- 
 ment. Sleeplessness often occurs as a morbid 
 condition and, as such, reaches its highest point 
 at the age of twelve in boys and thirteen in 
 girls and can be controlled by reducing school 
 work and allowing more outdoor freedom 
 and play. 
 
 It is a matter of easy observation that in the 
 autumn, when school begins, children are more 
 alert and robust than during the winter, and 
 that in the spring, a month or two before the 
 summer vacation begins, illness increases 
 greatly and at this time school work has the
 
 72 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 most decided influence in undermining health. 
 These results depend partly upon seasonal 
 conditions and partly upon the strain of con- 
 tinued study. 
 
 Excluding the acute diseases, interesting 
 deductions have been made in connection with 
 chronic conditions such as anaemia, headache, 
 various eye troubles, nasal hemorrhage, loss of 
 appetite, nervousness, curvature of the spine 
 and so on. The frequent occurrence of these 
 affections and their rapid increase in early 
 adolescence is very noticeable. 
 
 More than thirteen per cent, of schoolboys 
 have recurring headache and nearly as many 
 are anaemic. From the eighth to the tenth 
 years, illness increases markedly and the 
 increment steadily augments until it is greatest 
 from the twelfth to the fourteenth year and 
 then becomes less and less up to eighteen when 
 there is again more ill-health. The most 
 sickness, therefore, is associated with the 
 beginning of puberty, and when this function is 
 thoroughly established there is a decided and 
 continuous decrease. In regard to growth, or 
 gain in weight and height, the former is far 
 more favorable to health. While weight is
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 73 
 
 increasing most rapidly there is less proneness 
 to illness and, on the other hand, as this rate 
 decreases disease becomes more prevalent, 
 rising to a second maximum about the twenti- 
 eth year. 
 
 Of girls, in the upper classes socially, from 
 fifty to sixty per cent, are unhealthy to a 
 greater or less degree; of these thirty-six per 
 cent, are anaemic; about the same proportion 
 have constant headache, and ten per cent, 
 have curvature of the spine. Illness is most 
 common during the twelfth and thirteenth 
 years when puberty begins. It then lessens, 
 next remains stationary, to increase again after 
 seventeen when the time of rapid growth is 
 over. If girls who have been ill earlier do not 
 rebound as their weight augments, their condi- 
 tion demands serious attention, and it will 
 often be found that their training is unsuitable 
 in being too much on the same lines as their 
 brothers or that there is something else very 
 wrong in their general management. They 
 should be taught to bear disappointments, to 
 be content and hopeful, to enjoy simple pleas- 
 ures, and encouraged to assume some of the 
 ordinary light domestic duties of their homes.
 
 74 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 They must be saved from great fatigue or 
 exposure, over-excitement or over-study, and 
 allowed only plain, unstimulating food. 
 
 Mortality statistics in the young curiously 
 prove that the fewest deaths occur between the 
 ages of ten and fifteen years the interval in 
 which gain in height and weight is very rapid — 
 the years of minimum death rate being twelve 
 for girls and thirteen for boys. Hence, when 
 children are most liable to ill-health there is the 
 least mortality, because throughout this nas- 
 cent period there is great nutritional activity 
 and vital resistance. 
 
 The disorders commonly occurring to ado- 
 lescents are the following: 
 
 Disturbances of Digestion. — These are very 
 frequent in early adolescence because at 
 this period of life there are many systemic 
 changes requiring nutritional readjustment 
 and the digestive organs are still im- 
 perfectly matured. At the same time the 
 need for functional activity is urgent since 
 growth is very rapid and requires the perfect 
 digestion of not only a greater quantity but of 
 more complex foods to meet the demands of 
 the different organs for special elements, such
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 75 
 
 as lime for the bones, iron for the blood, phos- 
 phorus for the brain, protein for the muscles, 
 and fat for heat maintenance. 
 
 About puberty a normal appetite, or a de- 
 sire for the sort of food necessary to meet the 
 tissue needs, is often absent or perverted and 
 a tendency arises to experiment with new 
 dishes and to eat strange and sometimes of- 
 fensive things. Boys challenge, or even force, 
 their fellows to taste or swallow foul and hurt- 
 ful substances, boast of what they eat and in- 
 stitute eating and drinking contests, the latter 
 often being the initial step in forming the habit 
 of inebriety. Girls affect daintiness, grow 
 fastidious and very particular as to candy or 
 cake or sweet drinks. Very generally the ap- 
 petite becomes irregular, with abstinence and 
 gluttony alternating, or there may be strange 
 longings, and repulsion for some and extreme 
 desire for other dishes. 
 
 These unnatural and perverted tastes may 
 readily pass into fixed bad eating habits, lead- 
 ing to many of the breakdowns of students 
 and causing irritability, anaemia, malnutrition 
 and a condition of weakness in which marked 
 fatigue follows such trifling exertion that proper
 
 76 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 exercise is precluded, and in which may arise 
 a craving for stimulants often ending in drunk- 
 enness. It is essential, therefore, to establish 
 an appropriate diet during puberty. This is 
 difficult, but quite possible if the faults of 
 appetite are early recognized and personal care 
 and authority exerted; on the other hand, if 
 correction be neglected until after sex develop- 
 ment is completed little improvement can be 
 expected. 
 
 At this age, too, the wisdom teeth are form- 
 ing and the lower jaw and the muscles of masti- 
 cation are growing, features which excite the 
 automatism of biting sticks or finger-nails and 
 encourage the habit of chewing gum, all help- 
 ing to impair digestion through over-stimu- 
 lation and waste of the salivary secretions. 
 
 Other digestive disorders of adolescents are 
 flatulence, various forms of gastric and intes- 
 tinal indigestion and constipation. 
 
 Cardiac Disturbances. — About the age of 
 puberty the heart normally nearly doubles in 
 size and moderate dilatation is apt to occur, 
 with shortness of breath, palpitation, feeble 
 pulse and general languor. This condition, 
 however, is usually of short duration, as com-
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 77 
 
 pensation quickly takes place as growth 
 progresses. 
 
 In girls, nervous palpitation — mild or severe 
 — often precedes, by a few weeks or longer, the 
 initial menstrual flow, but as a rule disappears 
 when this function is well established. These 
 palpitations are accompanied by loss of appe- 
 tite, flatulence and other digestive disturbances 
 and by nervous irritability, physical slug- 
 gishness and wakefulness. This condition, 
 also, is very common in over-worked students 
 between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. Ir- 
 regular or rapid and feeble cardiac action 
 attend marked delay or continued irregularity 
 of the menses and depend upon the blood 
 changes occurring in the associated anaemia 
 and chlorosis. 
 
 Hypertrophy of the left ventricle with 
 shortness of breath and a sensation of fulness 
 in the cardiac region is frequent in girls of 
 the leisure class who, healthy as to blood and 
 nerves, have grown inordinately just before 
 puberty and are very tall and thin, the heart 
 having to work against increased resistance. 
 This condition is favored by wearing clothing
 
 78 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 that fits too closely about the abdomen and 
 lower part of the chest. 
 
 Irregularities and alterations of cardiac 
 rhythm are quite frequent in children. They 
 are not serious symptoms, are generally trans- 
 ient, most often noted in anaemic and rapidly 
 growing pubescents, and are due to relative 
 narrowness of the arteries directly increasing 
 tension and sometimes leading to hj^per- 
 trophy of the heart muscle. Spontaneous 
 irregularities are more common in boys; the 
 pulse may be either too slow or too fast for 
 a time at puberty, and this condition may be 
 constant in sleep, or a fright, an attack of 
 indigestion or the shock of a cold bath may 
 cause it. Sometimes a deep inspiration is 
 attended by the loss of a beat. 
 
 During sexual development many become 
 morbidly anxious about their hearts, frequently 
 feel the radial pulsations, and count them, and 
 get into a state of nervous dread that at some 
 moment they may die from cardiac arrest. 
 At night, when the reclining position normally 
 reduces the frequency and force of the pulse 
 beats, this fear may reach a panic pitch until 
 some restless movement, as springing up in
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 79 
 
 bed, starts the heart into forcible action again. 
 These fears are generally trifling and temporary 
 and are nearly always outgrown in time, but 
 when marked, the subjects often consult medi- 
 cal books; invent excuses for pulse comparison 
 with companions; imagine cardiac pains and 
 sensations of obstructed circulation; avoid ex- 
 ertion so far as possible; adopt some special 
 regimen of their own, and, being seemingly 
 ashamed to proclaim their symptoms, suffer 
 silently until the phase naturally comes to an 
 end. 
 
 Spinal Curvature. — Numerous accurate meas- 
 urements have demonstrated that a want of 
 body symmetry is almost universal in the 
 young, and slight differences must not be 
 taken too seriously. The custom of many 
 schools is to have each pupil measured on 
 entrance and at stated intervals afterward, 
 for the purpose of prescribing exercises and 
 noting improvements, and enough can hardly 
 be said in favor of this plan; still, parents are 
 often greatly alarmed if these records show a 
 little bending of the spine or a trifling dif- 
 ference in the length of the legs, and physical 
 directors err in making their reports too bald
 
 8o THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 and in failing to state the naturalness of the 
 variations and the readiness with which most 
 of them may be righted by proper physical 
 culture. However, morbid curvature of the 
 spine occurs quite often between the ages of 
 seven and fourteen, and especially in the 
 twelfth and thirteenth years. The bending 
 may be due to ligamentous or muscular 
 relaxation, to asymmetrical muscular develop- 
 ment and contraction, or to softening and dis- 
 ease of the vertebrae themselves. It is fre- 
 quently brought about by prolonged sitting 
 in a cramped position with the trunk resting 
 more upon one buttock than the other; by 
 undue strain from the use of high pillows; 
 constant sleeping in one position; side-saddle 
 riding; a stooping posture in bicycling; care- 
 less corset lacing, and occupations requiring 
 cramped positions or the constant use of the 
 same hand or arm. Bad inheritance, sur- 
 roundings or habits are predisposing influences, 
 and the rapid growth of pubescents, associ- 
 ated with these unfavorable conditions, account 
 for the increase of the deformity at this age. 
 
 The onset is very slow and without symp- 
 toms other than some slightly abnormal and
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 8 1 
 
 often overlooked posture, which is another 
 reason for the careful and repeated measure- 
 ments above referred to. But as the disease 
 progresses it can be seen that the same leg is 
 always crossed over its fellow; the weight of the 
 body constantly supported upon the right or 
 left foot, instead of on both or alternately; the 
 head uniformly inclined to the same side; one 
 elbow always leaned upon and identical bad 
 positions taken when reading or writing at a 
 desk. Right dorsal and left lumbar are the 
 usual forms of curvature, and the consequent 
 changes in the shape of the chest and abdomen 
 lead to disturbances of circulation, respiration 
 and digestion. In the management of these 
 deformities it must be remembered that, 
 except in very marked instances, corsets or 
 other mechanical supports are better avoided, 
 as these restrict the free movements necessary 
 to preserve muscle tone. Better results are 
 obtained by exercises adapted to strengthen 
 weak muscles. 
 
 Abnormalities of Speech. — Stuttering is a 
 spasmodic affection of the muscles involved in 
 speech, in which the act of expelling the 
 breath, the vowel production of the vocal cords
 
 82 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 and the consonant forming of the lips and 
 tongue are not co-ordinated; in other words, 
 it is a form of chorea of the muscles of articula- 
 tion combined with faulty breathing. Stam- 
 mering, an allied condition, is a defect in pro- 
 nunciation, and its features are much less 
 severe and explosive. These anomalies occur 
 most frequently between the ages of seven and 
 sixteen years, appearing a little later in boys 
 than in girls, and are imitatively contagious 
 in a high degree. They may be persistent or 
 intermittent, are produced by long-continued 
 and monotonous mental effort at school, by 
 physical over-work in trades, by bad training 
 in speaking and reading aloud and are much 
 increased by diffidence. Both stuttering and 
 stammering can often be prevented or over- 
 come by careful and early speech training and 
 special breathing exercises. 
 
 Ocular Disorders. — About the time of pu- 
 berty weakness of sight with evidences of eye- 
 strain and even retino-choroiditis and hemor- 
 rhage are observed, particularly in girls. The 
 latter condition is vicarious and soon disap- 
 pears after the menstrual flow is regularly 
 established. At this age, also, near-sightedness
 
 ^<i» 
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 83 
 
 begins to be troublesome and requires the aid 
 of glasses. 
 
 Chlorosis increases steadily from the eighth 
 to the twentieth years, with the exception of 
 the fifteenth which is the most immune of the 
 interval. Some observers have detected a 
 slight excess of iron in the blood in early 
 puberty, which may be a natural effort to 
 prevent this disease. 
 
 Sleep Anomalies. — The hours given to sleep- 
 ing not only become shorter near puberty but 
 sleep becomes restless for a while, later to grow 
 either distinctly better or much worse. At this 
 time, also, sleep is apt to be irregular, there be- 
 ing periods of days or weeks in which it is sound 
 and prolonged, followed by intervals of wake- 
 fulness and disinclination to sleep or even in- 
 tense dislike to the idea of going to bed. 
 Normal adolescents — boys pre-eminently — are 
 often seized by a desire to wander romantically 
 about in the open at night in search of adven- 
 ture, a tendency particularly marked when the 
 moon shines and one that is probably a racial 
 reversion to the predatory and amatory pur- 
 suits of primitive man. This youthful im- 
 pulse is not always innocent, some using night
 
 84 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 to cover excesses and as an excuse for evil 
 deeds, as if darkness removed the sense of 
 responsibility dominating their actions in the 
 daylight; but when trained and controlled it 
 may be converted into an ability to do good 
 mental work in the evening hours. Dreams 
 now become more emotional; have a greater 
 effect upon the trend of waking thoughts; are 
 often so vivid that the night's sleep instead of 
 refreshing is followed by much weariness, and 
 in them the sexual organs frequently show their 
 psychic influence as well as the first evidences 
 of their full functional activity. Sleep-walk- 
 ing may make its initial appearance at this 
 time, and reveries, day dreaming and trance 
 states — midway between waking and sleep- 
 ing — are often observed. 
 
 Nervous and Mental Disturbances. — Es- 
 tablishment of the sex functions has a powerful 
 influence upon the nervous system generally, 
 and psychoses and neuroses are more common 
 in early adolescence than at any other time of 
 life; then, too, morbid impulses are diflBcult 
 to control. 
 
 The following are some of the conditions 
 worthy of study:
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 85 
 
 Epilepsy. — This, in the idiopathic form, is an 
 affection in which there is a fixed tendency to 
 spasmodic muscular movements of a special 
 t)rpe, attended by unconsciousness, which recur 
 until a convulsive habit is established. The 
 period of greatest liability to the appearance 
 of epilepsy is during the development of 
 puberty, a large proportion of cases occurring 
 between the ages of ten and twenty years; no 
 time of life is exempt, though the probability 
 of its onset lessens after the latter age. More 
 girls are affected than boys before the tenth 
 year. After twenty, nearly four times as many 
 males as females become victims. 
 
 Direct heredity is a common factor in this 
 disease, and all inherited nervous disorders pre- 
 dispose to it. Some cases may be traced back 
 to ordinary convulsions taking place in infancy 
 and even in children up to two or three years old, 
 these often mark the beginning of true epilepsy. 
 A paroxysm may be brought on by fright, over- 
 excitement, exposure to the sun and blows or 
 falls on the head; one of the most active ex- 
 citing factors is putrefactive fermentation of 
 the intestinal contents, combined with intes- 
 tinal indigestion and chronic constipation.
 
 86 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 In gravity, the paroxysms vary greatly from 
 a violent general muscular spasm, with uncon- 
 sciousness, to the mild petit mat, in which there 
 is merely a trifling shudder or a momentary 
 lapse of consciousness. 
 
 The marked seizures may take place without 
 warning, but they are usually preceded by pre- 
 monitory symptoms — the epileptic aura. The 
 aura may be motor, as a local spasm of the 
 hand or face; or sensory, as numbness or tin- 
 gling or other abnormal feeling in one extrem- 
 ity, which mounts slowly upward until it reaches 
 the head when unconsciousness occurs. Some- 
 times there is pain in the region of the stomach; 
 nausea; palpitation or giddiness'; flashes of light 
 may appear before the' eyes, and there may be 
 other subjective sensations of touch, taste, 
 smell and hearing. The fit begins with uni- 
 versal and continued muscular contractions, 
 and uttering a hoarse cry, the sufferer falls 
 to the ground unconscious. After a moment 
 or two, rigidity passes into alternating mus- 
 cular contractions and relaxations which 
 gradually subside after lasting from several 
 minutes to half an hour. Then consciousness 
 may quickly return, though the patient is 
 
 am
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 87 
 
 somewhat dazed at first; but more frequently 
 the senses are not regained until after a deep 
 sleep of an hour or more. 
 
 Petit mal shows many very diverse features 
 which can only be classed as epileptic by their 
 periodicity. Characteristic loss of conscious- 
 ness may be absent entirely and at most is 
 only momentary. The subject does not fall, 
 but the head may drop a little; there may be a 
 brief, staring fixation of the eye-balls and 
 a shivering of the body, and nothing more. 
 An aura may or may not precede the trifling 
 seizure. Sometimes after an attack there may 
 be mental confusion and various automatic 
 actions. 
 
 Epilepsy has a decided effect upon mentality, 
 all degrees of deterioration being encountered 
 ranging from dulness, apathy, retarded de- 
 velopment and uncontrollable temper to mel- 
 ancholia, idiocy and mania. The earlier in 
 life the disease appears the more marked is 
 the mental disturbance. This is due to the 
 greater susceptibihty of the actively growing 
 brain tissue to the evil influences of the sudden 
 and violent discharge of nerve force in the 
 paroxysms.
 
 88 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 The outlook so far as checking the recur- 
 rence of the paroxysms is concerned is very 
 unfavorable. Somewhat more encouraging, 
 perhaps, in the cases which begin under ten years 
 of age than in those between ten and twenty, 
 and in these than in instances of still later 
 origin. The disease in its ordinary form does 
 not directly endanger life, death when it does 
 occur being usually due to some accident, 
 such as an injury to the head in the fall, or by 
 drowning if a fit occurs while bathing. 
 
 Hysteria is a condition of brain weariness 
 marked by poor general nutrition, local excess 
 of sensibility or loss of sensibility, anomalous 
 motor features and psychic abnormalities, 
 such as perverse behavior, lack of thought 
 composition, limited consciousness and divided 
 personality. 
 
 In young children, though a rare affection, 
 it appears in boys and girls equally, but after 
 the tenth year becomes much more common 
 and the proportion of female sufferers increases. 
 The onset of puberty has a powerful influence 
 in producing hysteria. First, on account of 
 the physical and psychical changes taking 
 place in the organism, and secondly, a few
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 89 
 
 years later, because important problems re- 
 lating to a choice of occupation, the necessity 
 of earning a living, the questions of love and 
 religion arise and must be decided. These 
 matters often completely occupy the intellect, 
 still naturally weak, leaving none for other 
 subjects. This thought deficiency, in brains 
 nervously predisposed, may gradually be in- 
 tensified and specialized until it terminates in 
 hysterical manifestations. Heredity is another 
 frequent etiological factor, the disorder occur- 
 ring in those who inherit a nervous con- 
 stitution or whose parents have been insane, 
 hysterical or addicted to drink. Further causes 
 are anaemia, chlorosis or other nutritional 
 troubles; excessive work in school; the acute in- 
 fectious diseases; any condition leading to 
 nervous irritability and impairment of the 
 general health, and it may be excited by an 
 injury, a fright or by imitation. 
 
 The manifestations of this disorder are very 
 numerous and diverse, and it may simulate 
 almost any organic disease of the brain, lungs, 
 digestive organs, bones or joints. However, 
 the ordinary symptoms may be grouped as 
 follows :
 
 pO THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 Psychic Symptoms. — These include periods 
 of depression of variable duration; alteration 
 in disposition, in which there may be indiffer- 
 ence, capriciousness or extreme irritability 
 with paroxysms of causeless laughing or crying; 
 great irascibility; hallucinations; disturbed 
 sleep with complex and romantic dreams or 
 night terrors and somnambulism; an inclina- 
 tion to continued deception about very trifling 
 matters and a tendency to imitate the symp- 
 toms of diseases read about or seen in others. 
 
 Sensory symptoms are local or general 
 excess or loss of sensibility, the former espe- 
 cially; headache with, at times, tenderness of 
 the scalp; neuralgia; severe pain in the region 
 of the stomach, occasionally attended by 
 vomiting, and, sometimes, temporary assumed 
 blindness and deafness. 
 
 Joint symptoms, really sensory in character, 
 are frequent between the ages of ten and four- 
 teen and are very perplexing. They are 
 usually referred to the hip and next often to 
 knee, ankle and spine, and all forms of articular 
 disease may be simulated. There is fre- 
 quently acute pain which is increased by 
 movement or any attempt to overcome an
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 9 1 
 
 associated deformity; excessive sensibility of 
 the affected limb or whole body; tenderness 
 of dorsal spine on pressure; slight or marked 
 deformity that may continue for a long time 
 and is always more decided during examination, 
 and moderate atrophy of the neighboring 
 muscles due to want of use. 
 
 Motor and Convulsive Symptoms. — Mild 
 cases present many varieties of maintained or 
 interrupted muscle contractions. There may 
 be local spasm — either constant or intermittent 
 — of eyes, face and lips; wry-neck from con- 
 traction of the cervical muscles; disturbed 
 breathing when respiratory muscles become 
 tense; hiccough from involvement of the 
 diaphragm; loss of voice from laryngeal con- 
 stricture; difficulty in swallowing and regurgi- 
 tation from spasm of the oesophagus, and 
 eructations and obstinate vomiting — sometimes 
 of blood — when the stomach and abdominal 
 muscles are affected. Hysterical cough is 
 another paroxysmal feature, and it may be so 
 constant and severe that it suggests grave 
 pulmonary trouble, especially when, as oc- 
 casionally happens, it is attended by bloody 
 expectoration.
 
 92 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 The more severe cases may be marked by 
 choreic movements or by attacks of hystero- 
 epilepsy. The latter is less common than in 
 adults and the character of the convulsive 
 movements differs widely. There are localized 
 sensitive areas upon which pressure produces 
 pain, nervous manifestations and occasionally 
 convulsions; the breathing is rapid and irregu- 
 lar; arching back {opisthotonos) of the body is 
 often noted; consciousness is not completely 
 lost, but the patient is dazed and has hallucina- 
 tions. Hysterical paralysis is another possible 
 occurrence, and though it is not usual in the 
 young, it has been observed as early as the 
 middle of the second year. 
 
 Other symptoms are absent or capricious 
 appetite, poor digestion and assimilation; pro- 
 fuse urination or incontinence; alterations in 
 the secretion of the salivary glands and of 
 perspiration; disturbed sleep; anaemia and 
 general malnutrition. 
 
 In the management of this disease, pre- 
 ventive measures are most important. When 
 a child inherits an hysterical tendency or is 
 nervous, special attention must be given to 
 developing the muscles, while the nervous
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 93 
 
 system, on the contrary, is kept as passive 
 as possible. Such a child should lead an out- 
 door life, in the country preferably; be sent to 
 bed early each evening to secure plenty of 
 sleep; play freely and in this way exercise; 
 eat regularly and plainly, avoiding tea, coffee 
 and all stimulants; live simply without the 
 stress of exciting reading or of theatres or 
 children's parties with their late hours, and 
 educational work must be restricted to a few 
 hours each day and very carefully guarded 
 from over-forcing. 
 
 When the disease develops it is essential to 
 remove the subject from the influence of an 
 hysterical parent, that the danger of imitation 
 may be avoided, and remedial measures are 
 most successful when applied outside of the 
 home and under the care of a trained nurse 
 who is trustworthy but not over-sympathetic. 
 In other respects the treatment should be 
 placed in medical hands. 
 
 In addition to epilepsy and hysteria there 
 are other nervous conditions — neuroses — all 
 showing a close dependence upon the develop- 
 ment of the reproductive organs, seeming to 
 be much influenced by the process of es-
 
 94 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 tablishing a mean between over-activity and 
 arrest of the sexual functions. When the 
 proper balance is not struck, many abnormal 
 features appear and there are strange psychic 
 transformations. For instance, mental suf- 
 fering, loathing or anxiety are expressed, in 
 turn, by localized neuralgia, nausea or cramp- 
 like muscular contractions, and so with nu- 
 merous other abnormal symptoms common 
 in this unstable period of life. These trans- 
 ferences follow sudden and violent impres- 
 sions, especially when they affect females and 
 have to do with the sexual realm. They often 
 take the form of hysterical outbursts associated 
 with violent emotional and motor disturbances, 
 and are incited by sub-conscious influences 
 resulting from suppressed recollections of some 
 previous act against which natural delicacy 
 protests and about which there is nerve- 
 wearing remorse. Such cases require full 
 discussion of the distressing experience in- 
 stead of its repression. This need has sug- 
 gested the psycho-analytic method of treat- 
 ment in which the patient is questioned re- 
 garding and encouraged to freely talk of the 
 origin of the disturbance, or, if the memory be
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 95 
 
 at fault, hypnotism is employed until its whole 
 course can be lived over again and told or 
 acted in all its details, the result being relief 
 of tension and restoration of balance and 
 tranquillity. Without this skilfully induced 
 reaction of confession, the cause — usually 
 some sexual shock — is almost uniformly con- 
 cealed, with the effect of keeping up and 
 magnifying psychic disturbances. The good 
 results of this procedure also point to the 
 importance of guarding pubescents from all 
 nervous shocks, and to the necessity for the 
 young of wise advisers, sufficiently human and 
 sympathetic to encourage complete confidence 
 and confession. 
 
 Before taking up the detailed study of the 
 nervous disturbances referred to, it must be 
 understood that there are certain mental 
 processes which are usually and normally 
 established about puberty. These are reverie 
 and abstraction ; imagination ; self-consciousness 
 and self-examination, the reverse of childish 
 absorption in external objects; assertion of 
 individuality; imitation; tendency to silliness 
 to divert criticism and to be dramatic; bashful- 
 ness and a desire for solitude. Such traits
 
 96 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 may be greatly exaggerated or modified 
 and may pass beyond control and so become 
 symptomatic in the disorders to be next 
 considered. 
 
 Over-conscientiousness and Self-observa- 
 tion. — This phase of abnormal mentality occurs 
 most often about the age of twelve or thirteen, 
 and the subjects, previously normal, become 
 peevish and given to moods; are concerned 
 about their incentives to actions, dreading that 
 they may be bad; make uncertain statements 
 to avoid the risk of falsehood; are troubled 
 about giving deceitful or unintended impres- 
 sions; are so careful in conversation that they 
 distort details; fear that their childish thoughts 
 are sinful and their acts wicked, and sometimes 
 worry as to whether they have not even 
 injured a passerby they have brushed against 
 in the street, or caused a conflagration with a 
 match they have struck, blown out and thrown 
 away. If there be much sexual unbalance 
 these morbid obsessions are accentuated or 
 changed; there may be a passion for destroying 
 things, or a desire to create astonishment by 
 mischievous acts; skilful distortion of truth 
 to cover misconduct; absence of natural affec-
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 97 
 
 tion and of a sense of right and wrong. These 
 cases — even the worst — often become quite 
 normal after the sex functions are regularly 
 established. 
 
 Anxiety neuroses — exaggerations of the 
 above conditions — are related to neurasthenia 
 and hysteria and are characterized by extreme 
 apprehension of some approaching calamity. 
 The patient — usually a female — suffers from a 
 more or less constant anticipation of loss of 
 self-control, illness or even death; fears the 
 attempt at, or the results of, any action; has 
 the sex organs constantly in mind, and dreads 
 impotence. Physically there are alternating 
 pallor and flushing; sudden perspiration; pal- 
 pitation of the heart ; abdominal discomfort ; ver- 
 tigo, muscular twitching and localized numb- 
 ness, tingling or other sensory manifestations. 
 This state, besides being due to general emo- 
 tional disturbances, is also attributable to 
 imperfect sexual hygiene, the fault lying in the 
 direction of over-restraint in the exercise of this 
 function and celibacy. In this way it differs 
 from neurasthenia, which is a product of 
 excess, and both disorders may be largely 
 prevented by a normal sexual life. The various 
 7
 
 98 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 phobias or fears are further described on 
 page loi. 
 
 Educational Incapacity. — Many children, 
 though mentally healthy before, begin to de- 
 teriorate at puberty and become difficult to 
 teach. Their power of mental attention and 
 reception decreases; they fail in lessons and, 
 becoming butts for their companions, have their 
 dispositions ruined. Removal from school and 
 careful management for several years alone 
 offer any prospect of restoration. 
 
 Confirmed invalidism is a pecuHar neurosis 
 encountered in adolescent girls whose repro- 
 ductive organs are undeveloped or impaired 
 in function. These unfortunates imagine that 
 all their organs are diseased and they drift 
 from specialist to specialist for operation or 
 treatment. They greatly try their physicians 
 and friends by their detailed description of 
 symptoms and their selfishness, their accusa- 
 tions of neglect and unfair treatment, their 
 display of resignation at being misunderstood, 
 and, above all, by their constant demands 
 for sympathy. This condition is often seen in 
 rather advanced students who study not from 
 interest or thirst for information, but merely
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 99 
 
 to pass class tests, or to demonstrate that the 
 female mind is equal or superior to the male. 
 Sometimes they become proud of their troubles, 
 almost challenge a cure, and are little benefited 
 by medical treatment unless they can be lead 
 to believe that the fact of being restored to 
 health will excite more interest and afford a 
 more wonderful topic of conversation than their 
 symptoms have ever done. 
 
 Depression and its reverse state, gaiety, are 
 often accentuated and out of proportion in 
 youth. The former is prone to deepen into 
 melancholy even in those with the merriest 
 temperament, when misfortune is experienced 
 and, especially, when there is a hereditary 
 tendency. 
 
 Melancholia is not very common until after 
 maturity, though it begins to appear with some 
 frequency about the thirteenth year. Then its 
 onset is sudden and severe, its type impulsive 
 and passionate, and the prospect of a restora- 
 tion of mental balance is directly proportionate 
 to the normality of inheritance and previous 
 health. At the same time, features that would 
 be discouraging in later life mean less in the 
 young and are more curable. Youth is easily
 
 lOO THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 depressed to despair and as readily reacts into 
 hopefulness and gaiety, provided the make-up 
 be sound. 
 
 Neurasthenia — chronic nervous exhaustion 
 — and psychasthenia — mental fatigue — are 
 symptom groups depending upon various causes 
 and arising frequently during adolescence, espe- 
 cially in girls. Their features — abnormal sen- 
 sations, feelings and psychic attitudes and 
 reactions — are essentially mental and, as dis- 
 orders, they belong in the neutral field between 
 mental health and actual insanity. While 
 both conditions may herald the beginning of 
 organic disease in some organ only indirectly 
 connected with the central nervous system — a 
 notable example being colitis — their onset 
 depends largely upon abnormality of the sex 
 functions existing synchronously or having 
 been present in early childhood, but they may 
 also be due to other emotional disturbances. 
 
 Neurasthenia often begins in the adolescent, 
 to become fully developed later. Its subjects 
 are irritable, very sensitive, have a poor appe- 
 tite and are constipated. They suffer from 
 headache or a feeling of pressure at the back 
 or top of the head; pain in the back and legs;
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE lOI 
 
 insomnia; mental depression with apprehen- 
 sion and exaggeration of trifling disturbances in 
 digestion or circulation, and have their atten- 
 tion fixed upon the genito-urinary organs. 
 Other features are incapacity for mental ap- 
 plication, with a disinclination for any muscular 
 effort that is so marked that they are only 
 satisfied when lying in bed in a darkened and 
 perfectly quiet room. There is a disposition, 
 too, to go into long descriptions of symptoms 
 with anyone who will listen and — a much more 
 dangerous one — of resorting to stimulants or 
 narcotics to relieve depression and discomfort, 
 with the frequent formation of drug habits. 
 The nearer puberty the neurasthenic symptoms 
 appear the more they suggest mental instability 
 and the greater the care required to prevent ac- 
 tual and lasting mental impairment. 
 
 In the practically closely allied psychasthenic 
 state, patients experience sensations of in- 
 completeness; of unreality; have obsessions; 
 pseudo-hallucinations ; abnormal impulses ; phe- 
 nomena of depersonalization, and phobias in 
 great variety. Phobias, or pathological fears, 
 are exemplified in the algias or bodily fears, 
 in fears of objects, of situations, and of ideas.
 
 102 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 The phobias of the body involve different 
 parts of the frame, such as the hands feet, 
 head, chest or genital organs. They also 
 have to do with different functions and ac- 
 tivities, such as walking, swallowing, breath- 
 ing, speech, sight, hearing, smell, and so on. 
 The dread of objects includes not only those 
 that are actually dangerous, but extends to 
 very ordinary things, such as dirt, people and 
 animals. Fear of situations extends to both 
 physical conditions — dread of open spaces or 
 crowds; dread of elevated places; dread of 
 confined places — and to social matters, such 
 as dread of mistakes and of looking or acting 
 peculiarly. Phobias of ideas pertain to moral 
 and religious ideas, also to death and to the 
 onset of insanity or to the attack of any disease. 
 The prevention of these abnormal psychic con- 
 ditions is more satisfactory than their treat- 
 ment when established. Certain races, notably 
 Americans, show a marked susceptibility to 
 this form of nerve disorder. But no people, 
 class nor condition is exempt, and heredity is a 
 potent factor in the causation. The latter 
 fact indicates that prevention should begin 
 even before the birth of the individual. In
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 103 
 
 other words, marriage must be discouraged 
 in all those having inherited neuropathic 
 tendencies, but is permissible when one of the 
 parties to the contract has overcome the dis- 
 order in the acquired form, and if there be no 
 nervousness in the family into which he or she 
 enters. If one parent only be neurotic, the 
 children are likely to be healthy. 
 
 In the event of a nervous history in one or 
 both parents, preventive measures should be 
 begun for their child very soon after its birth. 
 These include regular hours of feeding; food of 
 proper quaHty and quantity; suitable clothing; 
 sufficient sleep; abundant fresh air and careful 
 general regimen. Over-anxious mothers do 
 much harm by constant fondling, or by walking 
 with, rocking or nursing their infants every 
 time they cry or show the least restlessness, and 
 by neglecting early to teach regularity and obe- 
 dience. Infants are easily trained and whether, 
 assuming a normal brain, their habits are to be 
 good or bad depends entirely upon the mother 
 and nurse. 
 
 In childhood the same careful regimen is 
 essential. This age, too, being the most im- 
 pressionable and plastic, is favorable to the
 
 I04 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 ready establishment of habits, and if bad ones 
 predominate, efforts toward nervous or mental 
 hygiene are greatly hampered. Everyone is 
 familiar with the pampered, selfish, insolent 
 child who rules the household and must have 
 his own way, and who, if he be thwarted, 
 either sulks or bursts into a violent passion. A 
 foolish, nervous mother defends such a child 
 by asserting that it has always been delicate; 
 or that it is ill; or attributes its disposition to 
 inheritance — an excuse for all bad behavior — 
 and maintains that scolding and discipline 
 merely increase the trouble. In reality cases 
 of this type are already in the nervous class, 
 but, being young, it is still quite possible to 
 overcome the symptoms. These children 
 should be handled carefully and in a firm kind 
 manner, be taught obedience, self-restraint, 
 consideration for others and any bad sex habit 
 must be watched for and broken. Care must 
 be taken that they get plenty of rest, sleep, 
 fresh air and regular moderate exercise, with 
 a daily sponge bath of cool or cold water; that 
 the bowels be properly evacuated, and that 
 they eat regularly and simply , coffee, tea and 
 stimulating drinks being forbidden. Excite-
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 105 
 
 ment, competitive games and over-severe ex- 
 ercise are especially harmful. 
 
 To carry out properly the above measures 
 it may be necessary to remove the child from 
 home and family influence, under the care of a 
 carefully chosen governess or an intelligent 
 trained nurse, the selection falling upon one 
 who is kind, firm without harshness, and one 
 who has had some experience in similar cases. 
 
 Lessons at school should not begin before 
 the seventh year and under no circumstances 
 should nervous children be forced in their 
 studies. When home conditions are unfavor- 
 able educationally, it is best to send the child 
 to a good boarding-school, where regularity, 
 obedience and outdoor exercise take a promi- 
 nent place in the curriculum. 
 
 An only child is frequently spoiled and often 
 becomes nervous. Children need, and should 
 have, the educational influences of companions 
 near their own age. 
 
 When the preceding preventive measures 
 have been thoroughly carried out, good nerve 
 habits should be sufficiently well formed to 
 carry the individual safely through adolescence. 
 Certain risks, however, accompany the dawn of
 
 Io6 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 sex consciousness, and the passage from child- 
 hood to maturity, in either sex, should be 
 carefully supervised. The physical changes of 
 this transition period are marked, and often 
 surprise and shock the uninformed. This is 
 particularly the case in girls who, from false 
 modesty as to sexual matters on their mother's 
 part, have received no instruction about the 
 menstrual function. Those uninitiated are in 
 danger, too, of the occurrence of mysterious 
 and vague ideas and the formation of habits of 
 self-inspection, masturbation and other abnor- 
 mal practices. On this account all children 
 approaching puberty should be given a brief, 
 plain explanation of sex functions. (See Chap- 
 ter VI.) 
 
 In addition the physical, mental and moral 
 training of adolescents requires close attention. 
 With the nervous, brain work must be moder- 
 ate and secondary to muscular exercise which, 
 in turn, should be systematic and carefully 
 selected to meet individual needs. Rowing, 
 swimming, games of ball, riding and gymnas- 
 tics, under an experienced instructor, are 
 useful. When it is thought best to educate 
 away from home, the boarding-school to select
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE 107 
 
 is one in which physical exercise is compulsory, 
 and one situated in the country or in a small 
 town. The latter because, on account of there 
 being fewer distracting influences, master and 
 pupil come into closer and more constant asso- 
 ciation, and because the principal amusements 
 are the healthy open-air sports. The best 
 modern schools are showing an increasing 
 tendency to shorten the hours of study and 
 increase those of play, making the more moder- 
 ate athletic games an important part of the 
 student's life. Schools having a drill master 
 and mihtary methods of training are the best 
 for young boys who have not learned, at home, 
 to be obedient, punctual, self-restrained and 
 respectful. 
 
 The management of existent neurasthenia 
 and the different phobias and neuroses must be 
 left to the medical expert. Like hysteria, how- 
 ever, they are best treated by removing the 
 patient from home to any suitable place where, 
 in new surroundings, emotional control be- 
 comes much easier, and where the daily life 
 can be strictly regulated. Beyond this and 
 proper nursing the requisites are a nutritious 
 diet, rest — but not a complete "rest cure" —
 
 Io8 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 massage, proper bathing and a tonic regimen. 
 Thus the bodily health is established and, 
 gradually, emotional control is brought about 
 by occupation and suggestion and, in appro- 
 priate cases, by the employment of psycho- 
 analysis as already explained. 
 
 Disturbed Mentality. — The years of sexual 
 evolution — from twelve to twenty or more — 
 are quite prone to mental unbalance bordering 
 upon insanity, and this epoch marks the de- 
 rangement with special characteristics. The 
 want of balance is influenced by heredity in 
 both sexes, but is more common in females on 
 account of the relative preponderance of the 
 sexual organs, their more rapid developmental 
 changes and the periodicity of their function. 
 
 The power of restraint becomes impaired; 
 modesty, generosity, sympathy and natural 
 tenderness give way to self-assertion, selfishness 
 and cruel lack of affection, and there are alter- 
 nating stages of depression and excitement, 
 bearing some relation to the menstrual periods. 
 The intervals of depression are marked by va- 
 rious phobias; thus the patient dreads being sus- 
 pected of bad conduct or of evil acts never 
 done; fears that she is being tracked or watched,
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE IO9 
 
 and refuses to eat lest she be poisoned; all so 
 real and despiriting to the sufferer that the idea 
 of suicide is suggested. In the opposite state 
 of excitement there are tendencies to foolish 
 jesting, levity in situations of gravity, and al- 
 together excessive hilarity, the distressing 
 fears being entirely forgotten. Further, in this 
 state, there may be restlessness; great irrita- 
 bihty; quarrelsomeness with outbursts of vio- 
 lence — very disproportionate to the provocation 
 received-jfimpulsiveness of affection or hatred; 
 suspicions of ill-usage and personal slights, and 
 exaggeration of the trouble attending any 
 undertaking. - 
 
 Sometimes the mental bias takes some 
 special, single direction. One girl may develop 
 a passion for wasting. She may order an 
 extravagant dinner, let each course remain 
 untasted, and after it is all served and refused 
 call for and eat a little of some other ex- 
 pensive dish. She may squander her parents' 
 money in dresses which she hardly wears 
 and when she already has plenty; fritter away 
 her own and her servants' time by demanding 
 service which she could perfectly easily perform 
 herself. She may waste many of her own
 
 no THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 hours by going to bed in the face of any trouble 
 — no matter how trifling — and after marriage 
 is apt to ruin her husband's disposition and 
 waste his Hfe by unceasing demands and by 
 constant nagging to gratify some new desire. 
 Another, very contented and loving as a 
 child, experiences a complete reversal of dis- 
 position during adolescence, turning against 
 her parents and devotedly attaching herself 
 to some one else; becomes very unhappy 
 and is possessed with the idea that she is being 
 watched and persecuted, and finally throws 
 off all family ties and duties to be independent 
 and support herself. This type of case shows 
 two features that are very common and un- 
 fortunately on the increase at present. These 
 are suppression of natural affection with a 
 craving for some unrelated, or even imaginary, 
 older person of the same sex on whom to lavish 
 affection, and a desire to lead what is called 
 "one's own life," duty to family or to society 
 having no place in certain schools of modern 
 thought. Patients like these too often show 
 to the world the best side of their natures and 
 are frequently very charming to strangers, so 
 that their true character is only known in the
 
 THE DISORDERS OF ADOLESCENCE III 
 
 homes they have broken up and rendered 
 desolate. 
 
 All decided cases of mental unbalance have 
 Httle power to resist instinctive impulses and 
 mental impressions, and if not carefully man- 
 aged may drift into grave and established in- 
 sanity. They require change of environment; 
 judiciously prolonged rest in bed, as their 
 general condition is usually one of exhaus- 
 tion; careful nourishment; treatment of any 
 physical disorder, and general management 
 which must be kind and firm but free from 
 over-sympathy. 
 
 Dementia praecox a prominent form of in- 
 sanity in the young is due to heredity or to a 
 constitutional predisposition to nervous dis- 
 turbance, and is characterized by an early 
 deterioration of brain power. It includes the 
 conditions formerly classed as insanity of 
 pubescence; of masturbation; ovarian insanity, 
 and hebephrenia, in which periods of shyness 
 and depression alternate with boasting, self- 
 assertion and delusions in regard, for instance, 
 to property, religion or personality. Also 
 katatonia with its states of insensibility, mus- 
 cular rigidity, word repetition, imitation and
 
 112 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 unconscious actions, and finally stuporous 
 melancholia. 
 
 Juvenile paresis is another disorder appear- 
 ing about puberty or even at a much earlier 
 age. 
 
 But it is not in place here to go further into 
 the subject of insanity than to state the im- 
 portant causal factors. These are heredity, 
 especially from the mother's side; too early 
 and difficult brain work; severe over- tax of the 
 emotions; fright; imitation; the development 
 of puberty, and bad sexual habits. Etiolog- 
 ically, too early over, or under, mental training 
 is as bad for the leisure class, as are excessive 
 manual work and imperfect hygiene for the 
 poor. Girls inherit insanity more readily than 
 boys, and as a class are more liable to mental 
 diseases, this is due partly to the pubertal 
 changes being more extended, and partly to 
 the fact that they are more prone to such 
 nutritional defects as anaemia and chlorosis, 
 with attendant systemic weakness and men- 
 strual irregularities.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FAULTS AND CRIMINAL TENDENCIES OF 
 ADOLESCENTS 
 
 There are abundant records to show that 
 criminal actions, in both boys and girls, greatly 
 increase between the ages of twelve and fifteen 
 years, and that at this time most vicious careers 
 are started. It is well known, too, that the 
 number of juvenile delinquents is constantly 
 growing, and that wrong-doing begins at an 
 increasingly early age; these occurrences de- 
 pending upon the precocious attainment of 
 maturity, which, in turn, is encouraged by the 
 many forcing conditions of modern life, espe- 
 cially in cities. 
 
 Usually conduct is good at the age of eleven 
 Ni^years, less so at twelve ^nd thirteen, and worst 
 *>— at fourteen. After this there is improvement 
 s^ Aintil at seventeen, adolescents behave as well 
 as children of eleven, and at eighteen distinctly 
 - better. 
 
 In the causation of crime the most impor- 
 
 8 113
 
 114 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 tant factors are bad inheritance; ill-health in 
 early years; neglect and desertion by parents; 
 illegitimacy; entire want of homes or corrupt 
 ones; over- crowded, filthy dwellings in which 
 adults and children are huddled together in one 
 room and often sleep in the same bed, and the 
 contaminating environment of slum life with 
 its disregard for decency and law. 
 
 As to the nature of the offenses, vagrancy 
 and crimes against property are most common 
 from twelve to fifteen and even up to the 
 twentieth year, and show the difficulty which 
 the young have in adapting themselves to their 
 social surroundings. The restraint of school 
 brings out the nomad instinct, and the passing 
 from the communal condition of family life 
 to industrial strife with its many restrictions 
 develops the natural impulse of self-maintenance 
 and resistance to the laws of property. Crimes 
 against person arise later, from twenty-one to 
 twenty-five, and depend upon undue self- 
 consideration. In more detail, truancy, usu- 
 ally the first violation of established rules, is 
 most common at thirteen; fourteen is the year 
 of incorrigibility, maliciousness and trespass; 
 fifteen for petty larceny and open drunkenness,
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE II5 
 
 and seventeen for sexual crimes. Children 
 under sixteen lack the strength and knowl- 
 edge to become worse than vagrants or to 
 indulge in more than trifling thefts; neverthe- 
 less their faults must be corrected, since they 
 are the first steps toward habitual adult crimi- 
 nality. Crime, unfortunately, tends to increase 
 and intensify as age advances. 
 
 Children neither possess the ability to con- 
 trol self nor have they a realization of the neces- 
 sity of restraint, both coming only with time 
 and experience. If the child be degenerate and 
 belong to the criminal class and live in a bad 
 environment or have brutal instincts more 
 developed than intelligence, there is great 
 danger that this essential power may never 
 be acquired with the resultant yielding to the 
 faults and desires natural to, but repressed by, 
 all normal individuals. Self-control then is the 
 foundation of right living; its culture is the 
 chief aim of family life, of the laws and customs 
 of states and religion, and the most advanced 
 and free communities are those in which it is 
 best and most generally established. 
 
 In dealing with youthful delinquents it must 
 be remembered that, so long as there is devel-
 
 Il6 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 opmental progress, it is quite possible to over- 
 come vicious traits and place the individual 
 upon a straight path. Many criminals are 
 capable of leading correct lives and of being suc- 
 cessful in honest undertakings; requiring, only, 
 to be properly guided and removed from bad 
 surroundings. 
 
 The age of moral responsibility — when the 
 child becomes able to discern the difference 
 between right and wrong — is variable. Most 
 communities set it legally as beginning at ten 
 or twelve and being fully established at six- 
 teen or eighteen years. However, this knowl- 
 edge when it comes, does not always bring 
 the power to resist lawless acts, and this fact 
 should be taken into account in measuring the 
 punishment of the young. First offenses, 
 especially, being investigated for extenuating 
 conditions and judged temperately. The of- 
 fenders should be sentenced by special officers 
 in comparatively secret courts. Instead of a 
 prison with its contaminating influences, dis- 
 grace and risk of criminal contagion, separate 
 .placesof detention should be provided by state 
 or private rneansTOT reformation and training. 
 Further, and best of all, those not in the in-
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE 1 17 
 
 corrigible class should be taken from vicious 
 parents or from the streets and placed in 
 selected families where they are subjected to 
 home influences, sent to school, and, in addi- 
 tion, taught to work regularly and systemat- 
 ically, a very important element in their 
 salvation. 
 
 Without going deeper into the question of 
 juvenile crime/ consideration may be given to 
 certain faults and traits of frequent occurrence 
 in children who are far from being in the crimi- 
 nal group, but which, under favoring circum- 
 stances, may lead to occasional or habitual law 
 breaking. 
 
 Conduct seems to be considerably affected 
 by atmospheric conditions; more misdemeanors 
 are committed when there is great humidity; 
 when the temperature ranges over 9o°F. ; when 
 there are decided barometric variations or ex- 
 cessive wind movements, and the state of the 
 weather has a marked influence upon truancy, 
 a fault to which youth is much inclined. 
 
 Truancy. — The tendency to this fault in- 
 creases markedly at puberty. This age craves 
 a free, outdoor life and rebels against school 
 with its restrictions and stilted methods of
 
 Il8 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 instruction, or against colorless and uncom- 
 fortable home life, and a desire arises to run 
 away in search of something newer, better and 
 less limited. Again, accustomed surroundings 
 grow tame and monotonous and a wandering 
 life affords a chance of escape and change. 
 Sometimes the truant feels that he must get 
 to and bathe in some shaded water pool, or 
 the spring weather is so fine and warm and the 
 world of nature so beautiful that he cannot 
 endure the confinement of the class room and 
 must be out. This craving show^s that dis- 
 position and surroundings are not in harmony, 
 and when the bonds are once thoroughly 
 broken there is danger of drifting to settled 
 vagrancy. The truant is often more than ordi- 
 narily energetic, requires interesting bodily ex- 
 ercise, and, if properly directed is capable of 
 great usefulness in open-air occupations. Over- 
 repressed he becomes a tramp, and soon a thief 
 as he wanders about irresponsible, uncontrolled 
 and little noticed. 
 
 Lying. — Distortion of facts or the telling of 
 deliberate falsehoods are, sadly enough, the 
 usual methods of concealing misconduct and a 
 lie springs naturally to vicious lips, or is soon
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE II9 
 
 adopted to avert suspicion and punishment. 
 All untruths are not equally bad. Children 
 at various times in their early lives — after the 
 fourth or fifth year — begin to imagine and en- 
 joy telling experiences and talking about things 
 that have no real existence. They say that 
 they have seen strange creatures in their walks; 
 pretend that they are horses and dogs, play at 
 house-keeping and at such serious matters as 
 weddings and funerals; or make believe to be 
 some relative or older friend and rehearse their 
 sayings and doings. These pretences, while of 
 course false, are very innocent untruths and 
 have self-deception for their chief pleasure. 
 They show merely the beginning of imagination 
 and should not be crushed but carefully di- 
 rected, being important elements in certain 
 spheres of mental activity, notably romance 
 and dramatic writing. Sometimes, when un- 
 controlled, they may lead to morbid imitations 
 and hypocrisy, but more good than bad results 
 from them. 
 
 Children often reserve the truth for friends 
 and consider that they are justified in deceiving 
 those they dislike, and in telling lies to help their 
 fellows. They find it difficult to be untruth-
 
 120 THE .ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 fill with a parent they love or to cheat at school 
 if they admire their teacher; at the same time 
 promises made in hours of intimacy seem less 
 binding and are readily broken when friend- 
 ship wanes. Such lies show a lack of moral 
 sense and a need of its awakening and cultiva- 
 tion, and while not necessarily bad, may be 
 the beginning of worse and habitual deception. 
 
 The chivalrous lie has some of the same child- 
 ish characteristics. It is used not for any self- 
 benefit but to help another out of some diffi- 
 culty or to prevent injur}' to a friend. The 
 object may seem to justif}- the deception by 
 being seductively noble, as when a falsehood 
 may save a classmate from the disgrace of ex- 
 pulsion from school, but the difficulty is, that, 
 while the indiN-idual would not He to save him- 
 self, the initial untruth, however generous, 
 weakens the truth habit and makes meaner 
 Ij-ing easier. Nevertheless this form of false- 
 hood may become a questfon of duty and honor 
 which must be left to the indi\'idual conscience. 
 
 Childish weakness and timidity encourage 
 concealment to avoid punishment, and lies are 
 ready shields for mischievous or \'icious acts 
 and bad habits. These, purely selfish lies are
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE 121 
 
 the most common and demoralizing forms of 
 untruth, are very difficult to overcome and pre- 
 vail in the criminally inclined. 
 
 Lying may also result from a desire to gain an 
 advantage over companions; from imitation; 
 self-interest; rivalry and retaliation, and from 
 indolence. 
 
 Some boys, but more especially girls of thir- 
 teen or more, together with an extremely selfish, 
 affected disposition, a longing to attract atten- 
 tion and a tendency to pose, are habitual liars 
 and take pleasure in deceit because it gives 
 them a sense of importance measured by the 
 trouble they occasion others. In contrast to 
 these constitutional liars are those who be- 
 come over-exact and look upon every departure 
 from the literal truth as equally sinful. They 
 avoid the risk of telling a falsehood or of 
 conveying an untruthful impression by a men- 
 tal or whispered reservation, and are continu- 
 ally depressed by the fear that they may have 
 deceived. 
 
 The faculty of truthfulness develops late 
 and with some difficulty. It can be established 
 by striking at the root of each type of lie. It is 
 not favored by modern social usages, such as
 
 122 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 the butler's reply "not at home" when the 
 hostess is really within but not willing to re- 
 ceive callers. On the other hand, it is encour- 
 aged by precept and example to shun pretence 
 of any kind, to be fearless, and to speak plainly 
 and without exaggeration either as to matter or 
 phrase. 
 
 Anger in its marked form is a passing insan- 
 ity, which for the time being hampers rational 
 self- direction and sometimes is responsible for 
 grievous injury to an offending person through 
 the animal instinct of revenge. After the storm 
 there is weakness and relaxation, occasionally 
 nausea, and great remorse, with apologies and 
 resolutions to refrain in the future from giving 
 away to fits of temper. 
 
 Anger may flare out without apparent provo- 
 cation, though it is usually caused by the denial 
 of some strong desire; interference with as- 
 sumed personal rights or liberties; objectionable 
 commands as to dress or behavior; ridicule; 
 hurts to self-esteem, and other slights and dis- 
 appointments. Adolescents are more influ- 
 enced by these various causes than young chil- 
 dren, but, when normal, they very soon begin 
 to see the futility and evil of rage and make
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE 1 23 
 
 great and more or less successful efforts at con- 
 trol. This is particularly true of girls, who with 
 the arrival of puberty seem to develop a re- 
 markable capacity of repression, though they 
 show an unfortunate tendency to substitute 
 harsh and cutting words for violent physical 
 acts. 
 
 While youth is both peculiarly sensitive and 
 very susceptible to the causes that excite ill- 
 temper, any undue repression at this age is 
 apt to ruin the general disposition, making it 
 bitter and vindictive. Indignation is bottled 
 up and its expression postponed, and when it 
 explodes finally is more serious in its effects, 
 because of the long-considered toll of reprisal 
 required, as well as the greater knowledge and 
 strength for its taking. It is better, therefore, 
 not to try to eradicate entirely this fault, but 
 rather to turn it toward the mean and bad 
 things of life and bend it to making the indi- 
 vidual forceful in the struggle for place in the 
 world and in his opposition to cowardice and 
 all wickedness. 
 
 The passionate who have no power of re- 
 straint grow worse as age advances and many 
 become criminally dangerous, while the morose
 
 124 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 who continually brood over affronts and in- 
 juries may nurse their anger to the point of 
 crazy violence. All are benefited by firm, 
 carefully directed management, and made 
 worse by indulgence and by insufficient correc- 
 tion or too ready forgiveness for their conduct 
 during a paroxysm of rage. 
 
 Envy and jealousy are faults that preclude 
 true friendship and, when extreme, may lead 
 toward criminal acts. These traits are much 
 more frequently present in growing girls than 
 in boys, are most noticeable in small and poor 
 communities, and it is probable that they are 
 the echoes of instinctive efforts for survival and 
 to obtain for self the choice things of life. It is 
 hard for anyone, particularly the young girl, to 
 acknowledge that companions of the same age 
 are handsomer, more cultivated or more favored 
 in a worldly way, and sometimes base and sly 
 steps are taken to discredit them, or hatred of 
 their success may be expressed by insults and 
 even bodily injury. Further, with the develop- 
 ment of puberty competition for the notice and 
 regard of the opposite sex begins and gradu- 
 ally becomes intense. With this rivalry comes 
 jealousy, the coarse fault as well as measure of
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE 1 25 
 
 physical love. Much may be done to over- 
 come these faults by more home attention and 
 more demonstrative parental affection. En- 
 couraging results, too, can be obtained by point- 
 ing out individual good qualities and, so far 
 as truthfully possible, making favorable com- 
 parisons with those supposedly more fortunate 
 or successful. 
 
 Teasing. — Many boys and some girls who 
 are quite good natured and entirely without 
 hatred take delight in, and cannot resist, an- 
 noying younger and weaker companions, and 
 are most pleased when their worrying causes 
 weeping or excites a burst of anger. The 
 methods of teasing differ greatly: it may be 
 doing some one unpleasant thing or applying 
 some one hated epithet; in taking and hiding 
 an article of personal property; in ridiculing 
 dress or mannerisms; in inflicting physical 
 pain; in forcing some action by menace or 
 actual violence, and in general domineering 
 and bullying. The ordinary teaser generally 
 becomes sorry for his victim when his suffer- 
 ing reaches distress and, growing sympathetic, 
 desists. The disposition to tease is difficult to 
 overcome. The tormentor is apt to develop
 
 126 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 into a bully and does himself more harm than 
 his victim in whom the persecution frequently 
 brings out valuable qualities of resistance. 
 Something may be accomplished by cultivating 
 the quality of generosity, which few children 
 really lack, and by pointing out the humanity 
 of helping the weak and inferior and of disre- 
 garding defects of person or fortune. An ap- 
 peal to pity will often do much good. 
 
 Organization for Law-breaking. — Boys from 
 ten to fifteen years of age show a marked 
 disposition to associate themselves into bands 
 which, under normal conditions, are later per- 
 petuated and perfected in athletic clubs. 
 These groupings may have very innocent ob- 
 jects, as when the young make believe that they 
 are Indians, build forts or play soldiers. On 
 the other hand, in the older and with boys of 
 the streets the aims of the gang may be theft, 
 fighting with sometimes serious results, other 
 forms of crime, and general disorder and de- 
 fiance of law. It is important to recognize 
 the existence of this instinct of association, 
 and by proper influence give it a healthy 
 direction toward athletic sports and muscular 
 development.
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE 1 27 
 
 Theft. — Young children in comfortable 
 homes are accustomed to look upon household 
 things as belonging in common to all members 
 of the family. Being dependent, they are 
 brought up to believe that the necessities of 
 life — food, clothes and bed — are free to them, 
 and the same idea is unwisely accentuated at 
 many schools where pupils are allowed to take 
 from one another, with little or no asking, any 
 article they may need or want. It is readily 
 seen, therefore, how outside of home or school 
 the child may take things he fancies without 
 realizing he is doing anything wrong until 
 taught, sometimes by bitter lessons, the sacred- 
 ness of property rights. Notwithstanding this 
 faulty preliminary training, very few normal 
 and respectable children steal, and those who 
 do, very soon learn to control themselves. 
 
 Older children often steal from a spirit of ad- 
 venture or to tease, as when they rob a neigh- 
 bor's garden, finding more pleasure from 
 annoying and outwitting the owner and dis- 
 regarding the "no trespass" sign than in eating 
 the fruit they take. 
 
 Still neither these depredations nor the petty 
 pilfering of the younger child should be over-
 
 128 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 looked, as either may bring out some latent 
 criminal taint and be the first step in the gen- 
 eration of a stealthy thief, swindler or robber 
 who plans his crimes and steals to gratify selfish 
 desires; who wastes his life in vicious idleness, 
 and heaps up criminality by inducing others 
 to adopt his profession. Once formed, the 
 theft habit is very difficult to eradicate, espe- 
 cially in the case of females, and these are 
 strangely most disposed to steal during the 
 time of the menstrual flow. 
 
 Incendiarism. — Very young children are 
 given to lighting matches or throwing things 
 on the flames to see them burn; the same in- 
 clination is seen in boys when they run to fires, 
 and all are at heart fire worshippers and delight 
 to sit near and watch a pile of logs burning. 
 Incendiarism is an exaggeration of this instinct. 
 It is a crime of adolescence and originates from 
 various motives. These may be simply a pas- 
 sion for seeing things burn, or for the excitement 
 of the hurrying engines, the working firemen, 
 and the saving of property or life, and often 
 having started a fire the incendiary shows his 
 humanity by calling for help and assisting in 
 extinguishing it. Again the blaze may be
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE 1 29 
 
 kindled for revenge, gain or jealousy, and in 
 *'pyromaniacs" at the instance of imagined 
 commands to destroy. 
 
 Intemperance. — The abuse of alcohol in 
 children is not so rare as one would imagine. 
 I have myself seen a case of delirium tremens 
 in a boy of ten years. But inebriety does not 
 usually begin until after the fifteenth year when 
 the boy or girl associates more freely with older 
 men and women and generally has a social 
 origin. Alcohol first stimulates and subse- 
 quently stupefies, and the pleasure of intoxica- 
 tion attends the primary effects, namely: a 
 feeling of well-being; freedom from care; a 
 sense of increased mental and physical power; 
 sociability; broadening and deepening of the 
 emotions, or, in a word, general exhilaration. 
 Adolescence, more than any other age, longs 
 for excitement and new sensations; these are 
 produced by alcohol quickly and surely. 
 There is, consequently, great danger of the 
 formation of the drink habit at this time of life, 
 and this is particularly true of students and 
 those who have a bad inheritance in this 
 direction. 
 
 It is an unsettled question whether it is 
 9
 
 130 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 better to accustom the young to see wine con- 
 stantly upon the home table and to teach them 
 to use it temperately or to forbid it entirely. 
 Both plans have their advocates, but total 
 abstinence seems safer. The young, when 
 healthy, do not require stimulants; on the con- 
 trary, the ageing often do, and if use of alcohol 
 be begun only when needed by general physical 
 deterioration — after middle life — the result 
 would be the making of very few drunkards. 
 
 Prostitution. — It is unnecessary here to go 
 further into this subject than to counsel the 
 parents of pubescent girls to encourage in them 
 modesty, self-respect and the natural sense of 
 shame which are the chief fortifications of 
 virtue. Also to prevent their reading immoral 
 books and looking at indecent pictures or 
 actions; to give them some suitable instruction 
 in sexual matters; to secure them the privacy 
 of separate sleeping rooms; to be sure of the 
 purity of attendant servants, and reasonably to 
 supervise the character of, as well as the rela- 
 tions with, male companions. In the mixed 
 play of children, even in the quite young, it is 
 always well to be watchful, as one pervert is
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE 13I 
 
 capable of working wide and lasting moral 
 damage. 
 
 Suicide. — Self-destruction may occur in early 
 childhood but is more common about the be- 
 ginning of puberty, though still much less so 
 than in adult and middle life. It is a crime of 
 greater frequency in males — except in the 
 interval from the fifteenth to the twentieth 
 years, when the suicidal impulse is more 
 marked in females — chiefly on account of the 
 greater and wider changes accompanying sex 
 development. Motives for the act may be ob- 
 vious or apparently entirely wanting. Young 
 children who kill themselves usually do so be- 
 cause they wish to grieve those who, while lov- 
 ing them deeply, have, nevertheless, wounded 
 their feelings, a method of getting revenge 
 for offenses or supposedly unjust punishment 
 which they are too feeble physically to get in 
 any other way. They have no proper con- 
 ception of either life or death and think, and 
 often say, that if they die, the injuring person, 
 whom they often really love themselves, will 
 be sorry. The affront may be very trifling, as 
 a reproof or a request denied, and the deed may 
 be done suddenly and without premeditation.
 
 132 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 Such motives sometimes prevail to a later age 
 and are more common in girls than in boys. 
 
 About the time of leaving school, particu- 
 larly where education has been over-ambitious, 
 disappointed expectations, a feeling of or 
 proved unfitness to fill some high position 
 aimed at, a disinclination to settle down to 
 ordinary wage-earning occupations and the 
 drudgery and sameness of a working life, so 
 different from academic dreams, become, in 
 the weak, powerful inducements to end the 
 struggle. This disillusion and uncertainty is 
 very general with adolescents in schools and 
 colleges, but, fortunately, the attendant de- 
 pression is soon overcome in the active and 
 healthy. The morbid minority alone reaching 
 the depths of melancholia and final suicide. 
 
 Later, and far less frequent motives, are mor- 
 tification for rejected love and jealousy. Such 
 feelings are often intense as the sexes approach 
 adult age, but threats to end life in consequence, 
 though frequently made are rarely executed. 
 
 Imitation is another inducement which is 
 often active, so much so that prohibition of the 
 publication of the details of suicides has been 
 advocated in order to avoid the risk of sugges- 
 
 ,«
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE 1 33 
 
 tion, and it is well never to discuss this subject 
 in the hearing of children. 
 
 Of predisposing causes, mental disorders are 
 prominent, and while often unrecognized — for 
 they are difficult to detect in children — certainly 
 increase susceptibility to the influence of the 
 different motives. For the toiling class a city 
 life with its too rapid and unnatural devel- 
 opment, poverty, hard treatment, scarcity of 
 food, unhealthy and depressing surroundings 
 and child labor are favoring factors; just as 
 in the foolish rich are too great ease and lux- 
 ury, and too much indulgence in exciting pas- 
 times which overshadow and destroy pleasure 
 in simple things and produce selfishness and 
 premature weariness of living. In the men- 
 tally morbid, school life with its intellectual 
 forcing, monotony, fear and uncertainty as to 
 the results of examinations and dread of pun- 
 ishment in case of failure may sometimes be 
 predisposing conditions. 
 
 Children often do not realize the true 
 meaning of death and have beautiful fancies 
 in connection with a future life. They fre- 
 quently think of how they would feel or appear 
 when dead and may plan suicide or go so far
 
 134 THE ADOLESCENT PEEIOD 
 
 as to test hanging or some other lethal method 
 to experience the sensations of approaching 
 death. These thoughts are most intense 
 shortly after puberty and disappear later, 
 anjd, although general enough to be almost 
 normal, may in the morbid or mentally 
 disordered end in self-destruction. They also 
 accentuate the importance of avoiding pre- 
 cocity. A child should lead a normal, childish 
 life and not assume the cares, vanities or pleas- 
 ures of adults and so tax undeveloped powers. 
 Parents can do much to minimize predis- 
 positions and to remove the incentives to 
 suicide by watchful care and study of their 
 children, and by making sure that their lives 
 are normal mentally and physically. In every 
 home there should be the "Children's Hour." 
 Not the stiff tea time with strangers present, 
 when children are taught to make their cour- 
 tesies and recite verses, but a relaxed free hour 
 giving them an opportunity of confiding to a 
 sympathetic parent any trouble or experi- 
 ence. Too many children, left alone with 
 nurses whose nerves frequently become over- 
 wrought, are deprived of this hour because of 
 the mother's social and the father's business
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE 135 
 
 engagements, and are thoughtlessly sent with 
 pent-up longings or unanswered questions to 
 their darkened rooms to bed. 
 
 The school, too, should protect the young 
 from worries, mortifications and excessive am- 
 bition, otherwise it may do much harm. 
 
 Improvidence. — After the fifteenth or six- 
 teenth year boys are apt to show irresponsi- 
 bility to parents and evince a great longing for 
 an independent life, and with few exceptions 
 are very improvident. If a wage earner, he 
 disregards or never thinks that a less prosper- 
 ous time may be in store for him and spends all 
 his pay in dress, amusements or dissipation, 
 at a time when he should be thrifty and lay 
 the foundation for future ease and comfort. 
 With well-to-do boys, both at home and at 
 school, money comes so easily for necessities 
 and pleasures that they rarely learn its value, 
 become progressively wasteful, demand more 
 and more and still run into debt, and never 
 realize that a day of scarcity may come. Of 
 course parents are responsible for this state of 
 affairs, partly through carelessness and partly 
 by their natural inclination to gratify the often 
 very innocent desires of their children, only to
 
 136 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 feel later regret for their indulgence. A boy 
 should be provided with all essentials and, 
 when the parents can afford it, given a mod- 
 erate allowance to cover the costs of athletics 
 and amusements. If he find this insufficient 
 to procure everything he wishes, he must never 
 be allowed to run a charge account but should 
 deny himself in some ways and keep his money 
 to pay cash for the things he most wants. 
 Beyond the regular allowance nothing should 
 be given except as a reward for a task well 
 done or for especially good conduct. 
 
 Boarding-schools dealing with boys from 
 twelve or thirteen upward have an unusual 
 opportunity for rudimentary financial training, 
 which they generally seem to neglect. To 
 suggest a plan: First, each boy should have 
 deposited with the school a sufficient sum of 
 money to cover, for the term or year, his ath- 
 letic requirements, balls, racquets, sweaters 
 and so on. Secondly, cash payments must be 
 the fixed rule. When he buys, the boy, having 
 been provided with a book of checks and stubs, 
 draws a regular check against his deposit for 
 the price of the selected article, enters the 
 amount on the stub and subtracts from the
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE I37 
 
 deposit sum, presents his check in payment 
 for his purchase and receives a receipt. When 
 the totals of the amounts drawn are equal to 
 the original deposit he must stop buying unless, 
 of course, his account be replenished from the 
 home source. A small monthly allowance of 
 pocket money for current use should be given 
 in addition to and separate from this checking 
 fund. Such a method would teach the mean- 
 ing of a bank account, the nature of a check 
 and how to write one, and the necessity of a 
 receipt. It would also be a training in cash 
 payment — a matter of very great importance — 
 and in economy, for should he purchase for the 
 pleasure of spending there is soon no money 
 left and he must do without. Again, next to 
 actual payment in coin, it would give an idea 
 of the value of money and, conversely of mate- 
 rials as measured by dollars and cents and 
 teach care for things which now come so easily 
 that their heedless and extravagant loss causes 
 only a little inconvenience but no real regret. 
 This arrangement might necessitate an addi- 
 tion to the school staff, and the consequent 
 expense and trouble are the excuses given for 
 not adopting it, but the increased outlay would
 
 138 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 be a trifle in comparison with the good results 
 that might be confidently expected. As it is 
 now, boys leave school and college with the 
 vaguest notions of business, sometimes even 
 unable to properly write a check, leaving be- 
 hind a mass of bills, almost believing that to 
 "charge" a thing is to pay for it, and woefully 
 extravagant and careless in money matters 
 and unable to account for the expenditure of 
 a worse than wasted allowance. 
 
 While on this subject there is another school 
 fault, already intimated, which is in great need 
 of reformation as it is both hard on the pupils 
 and a direct destroyer of thrift; namely, the 
 encouragement of borrowing — without insist- 
 ing upon returning — clothing and other per- 
 sonal belongings. This habit once formed is 
 very difficult to break, and may be so continu- 
 ous that the boy when he reaches manhood has 
 no conception of property rights and becomes 
 a nuisance to his friends who grow tired of lend- 
 ing and losing. It is very well to encourage 
 generosity, but in this instance the quality 
 belongs rather to the parents who supply, than 
 to the boys who lend what they value little, it 
 being so easy to ask at home and obtain more.
 
 THE FAULTS OF ADOLESCENCE I39 
 
 Parents and teachers are in a marked degree 
 responsible for the faults of children. To cor- 
 rect them the child's conscience must be roused 
 to action by judicious scolding, when required, 
 and with such punishments as the withholding 
 of something urgently longed for. At the same 
 time good conduct must be recognized and 
 rewarded. A sense of justice should be culti- 
 vated, even in play, to the exclusion of selfish 
 desires and interests; together with benevo- 
 lence, a wish to do good and give pleasure to 
 others and, more than all, truthfulness. The 
 recognition of property rights and of the value 
 of money has been already referred to, but it 
 may be added that the evils of "charging to 
 the home account" cannot be too early taught 
 and the rule estabUshed of never purchasing 
 unless there be money in hand to pay. Teach- 
 ers can do much by insisting on systematic 
 work, while they see that tasks are neither 
 excessive nor monotonous. They must under- 
 stand that one immoral pupil will surely and 
 quickly lower the general standard of a school 
 and they must be watchful — and see to it — 
 that any such contaminating influence is 
 promptly removed.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 MENSTRUATION 
 
 The menstrual flow is the result of a period- 
 ical preparation of the cavity of the womb for 
 the reception and retention of an impregnated 
 ovum. In it both the uterus and ovaries take 
 part, the former — especially its lining mem- 
 brane — being subject to marked congestion 
 which, in the absence of impregnation, culmi- 
 nates in an outflow of blood from the vessels 
 into the uterine cavity from whence it finds 
 its way to the exterior. Normally the process 
 is repeated every twenty-eight days. Of this 
 period there are four days of congestion of the 
 uterine mucosa, four days of menstrual flow, 
 seven days of reconstruction of the lining mem- 
 brane, and twelve days of rest. A great part 
 of every woman's reproductive life is, therefore, 
 occupied in menstruating. All her acts, opin- 
 ions and even criminal tendencies must be 
 estimated by their time association with it, and, 
 
 so long as the function continues, it is often 
 
 140
 
 MENSTRUATION 14I 
 
 difficult for her to successfully fulfill duties and 
 obligations requiring constant application. 
 
 Just before the flow begins the body tem- 
 perature rises slightly, the frequency of the 
 pulse and arterial pressure increase, and all 
 diminish after it is over. Coincidently the 
 thyroid gland enlarges; the mammary glands 
 become swollen and tender; the lower eye-lids 
 and the nipple areolae darken; a pungent per- 
 sonal odor is developed; the voice changes in 
 quality and grows less resonant; the nervous 
 system is more impressionable; there is greater 
 tendency to jealousy and ill- temper; marked 
 lassitude and mental inertia; depressed spirits 
 and discontent. There may also be fugitive 
 pains; impaired appetite and disturbed sleep; 
 nausea; sick-headache; palpitation of the heart; 
 over-sensitive skin areas, and local chills and 
 flushings. These manifestations disappear as 
 the flow subsides, and when it is ended the 
 woman feels as if re-created, is full of the dehght 
 of living, energetic with a feehng of endless 
 capability, and at the very apex of her capacity 
 and attractiveness. All of these features are 
 not present in every case, and some few indi- 
 viduals show only minor indications that they
 
 142 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 are passing through the catamenia and would 
 be unconscious of it themselves were it not 
 for the bloody discharge. 
 
 Menstrual periods are similar to the blossom- 
 ing and ripening of fruit in the vegetable king- 
 dom and to certain generative processes in 
 animals, each of which is looked upon with 
 complacency. But from the remote past to 
 the present this analogy has been disregarded 
 and, following the ancient views that women 
 are unclean at this time and that the monthly 
 discharges serve the purpose of periodically 
 clearing the body of some contaminating sub- 
 stance, the menses have come to be matters 
 of shame, concealment and repulsion to the 
 opposite sex. Woman's acceptance of this 
 general verdict inclines them to hide their 
 condition, sometimes by methods that are 
 detrimental to sexual health. Such conceal- 
 ment, in the nature of things so often repeated, 
 has, in addition to its hygienic side, an influence 
 in lessening honesty and openness of disposi- 
 tion and in producing a habit of dissimulation. 
 Nevertheless, the prejudice is not altogether 
 unfortunate, as it suggests retirement and se- 
 clusion which give an opportunity for the rest
 
 MENSTRUATION 1 43 
 
 that is needed and should be taken during the 
 monthly sickness. 
 
 The menstrual flow makes its first appear- 
 ance either as a mere feature of general develop- 
 ment, gradually and without special symptoms 
 and at once becoming regular in its periodicity 
 or, on the contrary, is preceded by nervous 
 manifestations, feverishness, pain and leukor- 
 rheal discharge, and is repeated at irregular 
 intervals of two, three or more months to 
 slowly become thoroughly and normally es- 
 tablished after a year or longer. In the United 
 States girls begin to menstruate at about the 
 age of thirteen or fourteen, being a year or more 
 in advance of European races from whom they 
 descend. The climate of the different parts of 
 this country, parentage and social position 
 seem to exert little influence and there is no 
 very great individual variation, although blond, 
 large and physically lax girls mature before 
 brunettes and those who may be strong. This 
 precocity in Americans seems to be independ- 
 ent of external conditions, and is probably due 
 to more general and broader mental cultiva- 
 tion and greater nervous strain. 
 
 The first menstruation frequently comes to
 
 144 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 the uninstructed girl as a shock. In her ignor- 
 ance she is surprised and frightened by the 
 hemorrhage, thinks that she has been injured 
 in some way and may try to staunch the bleed- 
 ing by cold applications. After it, her whole 
 disposition changes. She gives up childish 
 plays; becomes more modest and quiet; in- 
 clined to solitude and meditation; grows more 
 imaginative; has alternating high and low 
 spirits; pays greater attention to dress and 
 personal appearance; begins to be attracted by 
 men but is shy and reserved in their presence; 
 is more sensitive, and is concerned and thought- 
 ful about the important systemic changes that 
 are taking place. Often, too, there are ill- 
 defined symptoms hinting at mental or physical 
 diseases, though these usually disappear, and 
 a healthy balance is established when exercise 
 and rest are duly proportioned to meet the 
 associated general weakness. 
 
 The effect of the initial menstruation upon 
 the nervous system is much more marked than 
 later ones, after the function is regularly es- 
 tablished, although each succeeding period has 
 its influence. With the former the disturb- 
 ances are often violent, even to hysteria or
 
 MENSTRUATION 145 
 
 mental unbalance, and this continues when the 
 periods, as they are apt to do in the beginning, 
 occur so irregularly as once in several months 
 to a year or more. In these instances, after 
 the first flow such premonitory symptoms as 
 headache, weeping, lassitude and malaise are 
 prone to return with the passing of each month 
 irrespective of any discharge. 
 
 Should the girl be constitutionally nervous, 
 the precedent features are intensified. At the 
 beginning of the first flow any decided impres- 
 sion may bring about an attack of hysteria, 
 and if from any cause the process be arrested 
 all the ordinary attendant symptoms are ex- 
 aggerated. The girl becomes terror stricken, 
 fancies she has some dangerous disease, and has 
 such hysterical manifestations as prolonged 
 causeless crying or laughing and globus hys- 
 tericus. She may have "fainting fits," epi- 
 leptiform in character, in which she falls with 
 a cry, has slight muscular spasms, set eyes and 
 a quick pulse. These seizures last only a short 
 time, are not followed by sleep and after them 
 the health may be as usual until the next 
 period. Again, on account of intimate sym- 
 pathy between the brain and the sex organs, 
 
 lO
 
 146 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 disturbances of the mind, sexual excitement, 
 melancholia, delusions and impulses to violence 
 may result from menstrual arrest or excess, 
 and, like bleeding from the nose or stomach, 
 may appear vicariously, or in the place of and 
 at the time the flow should occur. 
 
 Naturally with the entirely unprepared the 
 nervous phenomena are most marked, and this 
 is the case also when organic diseases — cardiac, 
 pulmonary or other — are present. Conversely, 
 the appearance of the function may be fol- 
 lowed by improvement in certain pre-existing 
 nerve conditions — chorea and some forms of 
 mental morbidity, for instance. 
 
 When one considers that the menstrual 
 process involves all the organs of generation, 
 uterus, ovaries and Fallopian tubes being 
 greatly congested, the thyroid gland and 
 breasts swollen, and a quantity of liquid or 
 clotted venous blood discharged, it is no wonder 
 that the first experience is a severe shock to an 
 unexpectant girl and that it may start a train 
 of nervous symptoms, to be repeated at each 
 succeeding period. Consequently, it is im- 
 perative that every girl approaching puberty 
 should be prepared for what she must expect
 
 MENSTRUATION 1 47 
 
 and be assured of the absolute normality of 
 the occurrence. Further, if possible, she should 
 be supported through the initial trial by her 
 mother or some judicious and sympathetic 
 older friend. 
 
 Even knowing what is to happen, the girl 
 still needs guidance after the event. For four 
 or more days of each month during her sexual 
 life she will be subject to the hemorrhage with 
 its attendant depression, lassitude and sus- 
 ceptibility to bodily and mental strain, and 
 she must adopt a proper regimen, part of 
 which she can be taught but much she must 
 learn for herself. 
 
 First of all, any sense of shame connected 
 with the function must be overcome. Rather 
 should it be regarded as something to be re- 
 vered and important, warranting a few days' 
 seclusion every four weeks, at least until regu- 
 larity is established. During her first period 
 the girl must rest in bed until the hemorrhage is 
 completely over. Subsequently, at least three 
 days should be passed in bed, and two to four 
 more idling about her room, dressed but most 
 of the time flat on a lounge. Her food should 
 be simple, non-stimulating, vegetables freely,
 
 148 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 little meat and plenty of cool water. Regular 
 action of the bowels must be maintained and 
 for this purpose mild salines may be used if 
 necessary. If there be pelvic pain, it may be 
 relieved by hot applications externally, but 
 never by the administration of anodynes with- 
 out professional sanction. With the bodily, 
 there must be mental rest with freedom from 
 anxiety and worry, and while mildly interesting 
 reading, fancy work or other unfatiguing oc- 
 cupation may be allowed, the mind must not 
 be taxed by exciting novels or intricate hand 
 work. Should the occurrence of the period 
 interfere with an excursion, dance or other 
 ^active amusement, no amount of persuasion 
 on the girl's part should abridge the days of 
 complete rest and, above all, nothing should 
 ever be done to unduly arrest the course of the 
 discharge. 
 
 Between the periods, throughout the first 
 year or two, the diet should be substantial and 
 plain, with restrictions as to tea, coffee, stimu- 
 lants, pastry and sweets. The bowels must be 
 carefully watched to secure regularity of action. 
 Exercise must be moderate but systematic and 
 taken as much as possible in the open air.
 
 MENSTRUATION 1 49 
 
 Sleep should be regular and long and in a well- 
 ventilated, separate apartment. Tight cor- 
 sets and long, heavy skirts and boots with 
 high heels must be avoided, and the clothing 
 must be light, warm and comfortable. A ban, 
 too, should be placed on late entertainments 
 and over-study — as to which, as a rule, teachers 
 are poor judges — exciting plays or reading, and 
 the more violent of the sports that belong 
 essentially to boys. 
 
 Later in life, when the periods are regularly 
 established, the young woman, if thoughtful, 
 learns by experience the importance of the 
 function to her health, as well as many details 
 of regimen applicable to her own case, and can 
 be trusted to reasonably look after her own 
 welfare. 
 
 Finally, all who have the care of girls must 
 remember that menstruation must be regularly 
 and in every way normally performed to insure 
 perfect health of body and mind.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 
 
 Almost every author who has undertaken 
 this subject begins with an apology for plain 
 writing. This should become less and less 
 necessary with the growing recognition that 
 sexual matters are not inherently unclean and 
 only become so through false modesty or mis- 
 treatment by the vulgar. Nevertheless, the 
 subject is difficult to speak of, and still more to 
 write about, in such a manner that the facts 
 may be stated boldly enough to be of value 
 and yet to impart no shock. There should be 
 no more embarrassment experienced than when 
 one describes the symptoms of many diseases 
 or the physiology of digestion, and there will 
 not be, when knowledge becomes more general 
 and when those who are trying to help can be 
 sure that the spirit of their work is understood. 
 
 Whether, during the period of pubertal de- 
 velopment, children should be given instruc- 
 tion in matters relating to the sex functions 
 
 ISO
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 151 
 
 and procreation, or, in other words, sexual 
 hygiene, is a question that can have but one 
 answer. The subject is so important to their 
 future physical and mental health, as well as 
 to their influence upon home and companions, 
 that it is quite undesirable to trust to instinct, 
 or to a chance informant or to answering am- 
 biguously childish questions as they arise. On 
 the contrary, deliberate and sufficiently full 
 instruction should be given to fit children at 
 varying ages to deal, properly, for themselves 
 and for their associates, with the sexual events 
 that naturally come to all. 
 
 Regarding the matter to be taught, it must 
 be understood that sexual life has an objective 
 and a subjective side. The objective includes 
 the normal processes involved in reproduction, 
 the explanation of which necessarily involves 
 description of the origin, the development and 
 birth of the offspring, and its subsequent nour- 
 ishment at the mother's breast. The sub- 
 jective matters are the relations between the 
 sex acts and the individual; effects, good and 
 bad, of the sexual impulse and the dangers of 
 bad sexual habits and excesses. Preparatory 
 teaching should be concerned only with the
 
 152 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 objective aspects and the subjective taken up 
 later. 
 
 There are various reasons why sexual en- 
 lightenment is advisable. As a matter of use- 
 ful general information a child should not be 
 allowed to grow up in ignorance of the ob- 
 jective points. At school something is learned 
 from lessons in Botany and Biology of the re- 
 productive processes as they occur in plants 
 and animals, but class-room instruction rela- 
 tive to the human organs should be given only 
 to advanced pupils, as it is much safer for the 
 young to receive information about these indi- 
 vidually and at home. 
 
 A knowledge of the subjective phases is 
 even more important. On the score of health, 
 unexaggerated warnings must be given of the 
 dangers of certain sexual habits. In the case 
 of a boy especially, a plain statement should be 
 made of the ill-effects, both upon himself and his 
 future wife and children, of the diseases com- 
 monly resulting from illegitimate sex relations. 
 Concerning menstruation and involuntary sex- 
 ual orgasms, occurrences which — though per- 
 fectly normal at puberty — are prone to arouse 
 curiosity and cause great anxiety, every matur-
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 53 
 
 ing child should be informed. Failure to do 
 this is not alone cruel but may lead to serious 
 nervous conditions. It is easy to picture the 
 mental disturbance of a totally unprepared 
 girl when she is surprised by the monthly 
 hemorrhage, or of a boy, under similar cir- 
 cumstances, when he has his first nocturnal 
 emission. 
 
 For truth's sake, the frequent questions of 
 children as to the origin of babies must not be 
 too long answered by the stork fable or other 
 ambiguity, lest the child, learning the facts 
 from accidental sources and often in coarse 
 and morally dangerous language, should come 
 to distrust its parents, having been patently 
 and purposely deceived. It is quite as easy 
 and much more truthful to say that a baby 
 grows within its mother just as an apple grows 
 upon a tree, and to call attention to the beauty 
 of the thought that she has the care of it from 
 the beginning. Later the process of repro- 
 duction may be more fully explained — for 
 illustration — by the statement that as the 
 pollen of a male blossom is wafted by the 
 wind or carried by a bee to unite with the 
 female element in another bloom and originate
 
 154 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 the fruit, so, though more directly, the germinal 
 cells of man and woman meet to create a new 
 human life which, in a provided nest within 
 the mother, slowly develops into a baby and 
 comes into the world after an appointed period. 
 This outline, of course, is merely suggestive, 
 and as the child becomes older further and 
 more accurate details are demanded and short 
 selected readings in anatomy and physiology 
 can be often safely recommended. 
 
 Finally no argument need be made for the 
 prudence of informing girls of the ostracism that 
 may be uniformly expected to follow illegiti- 
 mate sexual intercourse and impregnation out 
 of wedlock. Proper instruction will unques- 
 tionably often go a long way in defending 
 chastity, but the teaching must not consist 
 merely in giving advice, it must be general 
 and so communicated that the facts become, 
 as it were, an intimate part of the girl's being. 
 Somewhat analogous, too, is the information 
 that should be imparted equally to young men 
 and women in relation to proper sexual behav- 
 ior and what is to be expected after marriage. 
 
 The time for enlightenment is by no means 
 fixed. The process of pubertal development
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 155 
 
 commences early in life and is very prolonged, 
 and indications of its beginning often appear 
 long before the ordinarily accepted evidences 
 of nubility. These indications are, in the 
 main, psychosexual in character and may arise 
 as early as the fifth year, though they are more 
 usual at the age of eight or ten. They are dis- 
 played in the ardent love which the little boy 
 or girl shows for some one of the same or op- 
 posite sex, either of about equal age or, more 
 frequently, somewhat older. Sometimes one 
 may observe marked alteration in mood, from 
 joyousness and vivacity to sadness and de- 
 pression, depending upon the presence or 
 absence of the object of affection, and now, 
 also, the attraction of beauty and charm begin 
 to be reciprocal. Manifestations of this nature 
 may be entirely unconnected with excitation 
 of the peripheral sexual organs and their sig- 
 nificance is unrecognized on the part of the 
 child, though they, nevertheless, show the 
 earliest stirrings of the sexual impulse and 
 indicate the necessity of beginning sexual 
 education. 
 
 Once started, the activity of this impulse 
 becomes more and more apparent as age
 
 156 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 advances, the increase being sometimes uni- 
 form and gradual but often irregular and with 
 varying accentuation of two factors, each sup- 
 plying features sufficiently marked to estab- 
 lish the need of additional instruction from 
 time to time. There are first — those already 
 mentioned as of early occurrence — the psych- 
 ical evidences of the subtle attraction of the 
 female for the male and the reverse, with a 
 desire for intimate bodily and mental approxi- 
 mation to the beloved. Secondly, and usually 
 of later development, physical processes con- 
 nected with the peripheral sexual organs, tend- 
 ing to the reduction of active congestive condi- 
 tions. However, during the period of gradual 
 progression toward puberty it is essential to 
 guard against magnifying trifling manifesta- 
 tions and attributing every developmental 
 change to sexuality. There can be little wotse 
 in parents than a sexual obsession, which classes 
 every exhibition of natural affection, every 
 fancy or innocent kiss to passion and make of 
 these a source of injurious nagging and of 
 active suggestion to their child. 
 
 The age, therefore, for commencing enlight- 
 enment must be established by intelligent and
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 157 
 
 reserved observations of each child to deter- 
 mine the beginning of sexual feelings and 
 thoughts. Sometimes it may be inaugurated 
 almost with the first puerile question on the 
 subject. But, to give some guide, the biology 
 and physiology of reproduction may be out- 
 lined early, at from seven to eight years for 
 instance. Preparation for the occurrence of 
 menstruation and spontaneous emissions, with 
 cautions against pervert habits should be given 
 at about thirteen or fourteen, and a description 
 of the dangers of venereal diseases and of 
 seduction and prostitution at the age of eight- 
 een. Generally girls require instruction at a 
 somewhat earlier age than boys, and, naturally, 
 irrespective of years more details may be given 
 to some children than to others, though the 
 question of how much to tell and the way of 
 telling must always be decided by the tact and 
 judgment of the instructor. The adherence to 
 any set formula is often worse than no teaching 
 whatever. 
 
 The source of enlightenment may next be 
 considered, and here it must be realized that 
 the one object is to anticipate by clean and 
 serious instruction — either at school or in the
 
 158 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 home — the casual knowledge that children 
 acquire in a manner which is generally super- 
 ficial and coarse if not actually obscene. A 
 school-master may appropriately originate sex- 
 ual education by explaining to a class of pupils 
 of seven or eight years old and of the same sex, 
 the biological processes of plants and the lower 
 animals with the aid of illustrations and as a 
 part of a natural science course. Further, a 
 school physician, may, with advantage sepa- 
 rately warn boys and girls of sixteen or eight- 
 een, when they are about to leave school, of the 
 dangers of illegitimate sexual relations. On 
 the other hand, explanatory lectures upon the 
 subjective processes of sexual life for younger 
 children — twelve or thirteen — should not be 
 undertaken at school because the teachings 
 then require close study of the individual 
 and the gaining of his or her absolute con- 
 fidence; two obligations that cannot be met 
 in school on account of the numbers involved 
 and the time devoted to other subjects. Teach- 
 ers, too, must always labor under the disad- 
 vantage of having to create occasions, whereas 
 one who thoroughly knows a child and is its 
 confidant, finds the easiest and best oppor-
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 59 
 
 tunities for instruction in answering questions 
 or explaining occurrences as they naturally 
 arise. 
 
 Those who undertake this branch of educa- 
 tion should have, in addition to intelligence 
 and a knowledge of sex matters, the ability to 
 elucidate these matters at the right moment 
 and in the right way. They should know to 
 what extent a particular child's rather broadly 
 extended and ill-defined affections have special- 
 ized — that is, how far its amatory thoughts 
 and feelings are aroused by some one person — 
 and also to what degree its special organs have 
 undergone characteristic development. 
 
 The psychosexual features and growth con- 
 ditions are best appreciated and explained by 
 the mother, provided she take her position 
 seriously, and next by the father, especially 
 for boys advancing in age, and then by an 
 older near relation, confidential friend or 
 physician. In other w^ords, most of sexual edu- 
 cation should be done at home. The chosen 
 one of these mentors must already have, or 
 must win, the entire trust of the child to secure 
 its fearless frankness, to do away with false 
 shame and to insure its receiving, as true, the
 
 l6o THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 statements that may be made, instead of think- 
 ing that it is being put off by evasive phrases 
 which, by the way, even young children 
 readily analyze and accept at their real value. 
 In this connection, too, a child's word should 
 be taken so far as possible, since any unwar- 
 ranted disbelief or an accusation of lying are 
 sure bars to further trust and confidences. 
 
 Advice as to the language to be used cannot 
 be given as each case requires separate study 
 and management, but the right and simple 
 words will come to one who has a delicate dis- 
 crimination, who loves children, and has a real 
 interest in their welfare. Given a good op- 
 portunity, care, tact, consideration of the 
 capacity for understanding and a method that 
 appeals to the intelligence, there can be no 
 doubt that a sufficiently full description of all 
 natural processes can be accomplished without 
 harming morals, rousing a sense of shame, or 
 giving the idea that sexual subjects are in any 
 way unclean. When the proper person cannot 
 be found, ejfforts at enlightenment do more 
 harm than good and it is better to let the child 
 pick up the usual gross knowledge of the 
 school or streets.
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT l6l 
 
 After this general consideration the facts to 
 be made clear may be taken up in more detail, 
 as follows: 
 
 Protoplasm the biological element that — 
 under proper conditions — develops into organic 
 life is strikingly represented in the reproductive 
 germs of the human male and female, while 
 in the sexual organs producing them, vitality 
 exhibits its greatest activity and carries out 
 its fundamental purpose, which is the continu- 
 ance of the race. The sex organs insure the 
 necessary conjunction of the male and female 
 germs with much more certainty than occurs, 
 for example, with the pollen of fruit-blossoms 
 or flowers. 
 
 The peripheral sexual organs vary consider- 
 ably, though perfectly normally, as to size and 
 proportion, and this diversity is particularly 
 marked in boys, and in them is often the cause 
 of much anxiety and dread of deformity or 
 future impotence. When the organs are so far 
 developed that they are able to perform their 
 functions, the boy or girl has reached the age 
 of puberty. This stage in development is 
 usually attained about the fourteenth year in 
 
 the former and the thirteenth in the latter, 
 II
 
 1 62 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 though exceptionally it may be earlier or much 
 later, and as already stated, is preceded by a 
 long period of preparatory changes. 
 
 The establishment of puberty is commonly, 
 and may be for convenience, dated from the 
 cracking of the voice and the first seminal 
 emission in boys; the enlargement of the 
 breasts and the initial menstrual flow in girls. 
 But it is important for the educator to under- 
 stand that the capacity for reproduction — true 
 puberty — is not necessarily acquired coinci- 
 dently with these events. On the contrary, 
 spermatozoids, the essential fecund elements 
 in the male may not be secreted for some 
 time after the primary involuntary discharge, 
 and menstruation may occur months before 
 the commencement of ovulation. Further, 
 while these manifestations do not always 
 mark the completion of pubertal develop- 
 ment, neither do they indicate the beginning 
 of sexual life, for, as mentioned above, 
 characteristic features, mainly psychosexual, 
 are apparent as early as the seventh or eighth 
 years of age. 
 
 At puberty the external virile organ rapidly 
 increases in size and sensibility, and the con-
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 63 
 
 trolling nerve centres, in the pelvic sympathetic 
 plexus, become more irritable. The testicles 
 grow markedly and reach the lowest point in 
 their descent from the abdominal cavity into 
 the scrotum or containing sac. Their degree 
 of pendency, though, depends upon the tonicity 
 of the scrotal muscle wall, which in turn, is 
 closely connected with the condition of the 
 nervous system, general debility and over- 
 fatigue causing relaxation. The fibres of this 
 muscle tissue readily contract under the in- 
 fluence of external stimulation, and at puberty 
 the area of surface over which this "scrotal 
 reflex " can be excited is much widened. Now, 
 also, certain involuntary motor waves take 
 place in the wall, which, like intestinal peris- 
 talsis, propel the testicular secretions toward 
 provided reservoirs. The importance of recog- 
 nizing the normality of the last three features 
 will be seen later in discussing certain anxiety 
 conditions in adolescent boys, and the same 
 may be said of the abnormal but transitory 
 swelling of the scrotal veins — varicocele — that 
 is quite common when the testicles have at- 
 tained their growth, and is due to the upright
 
 164 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 position and the drag of the glands causing 
 venous stasus and distension. 
 
 All these structural changes are of secondary 
 moment to the one essential quality of nubility, 
 that is, production of spermatozoids by the 
 testes and their ejaculation with the semen 
 which is a composite liquid made up of the 
 secretions not only of the testicles but of the 
 prostate and other accessory glands. As this 
 fluid begins to be secreted and to accumulate 
 in the receiving pouches there comes a time, 
 usually during sleep, when it is naturally ex- 
 pelled by the ejaculating muscles. Though 
 perfectly normal, this first involuntary sexual 
 orgasm is always a new and strange experience, 
 and with its associated psychical and physical 
 phenomena is quite sufficient to alarm any 
 sensitive youth who has not been prepared for 
 the event. Subsequently emissions recur, with 
 varying frequency in different individuals, 
 though generally at intervals of about two 
 weeks. Their usual time of occurrence is in 
 the deep sleep of early morning when, perhaps, 
 the warmth of the bed or a distended bladder 
 stimulates the nerve centres. Normally they 
 take place spontaneously and are attended by
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 65 
 
 dreams that rehearse the psychosexual tenden- 
 cies of daily life and continue until wakefulness 
 comes with ejaculation and its acute sensations. 
 After them, in health, there is a feeling of 
 relaxation and relief, and later, up to the time 
 of the next crisis, a sense of increasing vigor 
 and vitality. Conversely, in the case of sick- 
 ness, over-work or loss of sleep they are fol- 
 lowed by temporary fatigue and occur at longer 
 intervals. 
 
 In the female the genitalia are mostly within 
 the pelvic cavity. At puberty they rapidly 
 increase in bulk, their blood supply augments 
 and the controlling nerve centres grow more 
 susceptible to stimulation. At the same time 
 the breasts which are in close sympathy with 
 them, and which up to the seventh year are 
 little different from the same glands in boys, 
 begin to enlarge. These features, however, 
 are of little value in establishing the full de- 
 velopment of puberty without the appearance 
 of the menstrual flow. This may be generally 
 accepted as marking the beginning of ovulation, 
 a periodical spontaneous process involving the 
 emergence of the ovum — or female reproduc- 
 tive cell — from the ovary, and its passage
 
 1 66 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 through the Fallopian canal to the cavity of 
 the uterus, where if impregnated it is retained, 
 but otherwise is expelled with the monthly dis- 
 charges. (See Chapter V.) 
 
 Certain parts of the genital organs of the 
 female like those of the opposite sex are subject 
 to erectile congestion and many mature girls 
 experience involuntary sexual orgasms. These 
 with their attending ejaculations have no direct 
 connection with ovulation and the liquid dis- 
 charged is an indifferent glandular secretion 
 containing no vitalizing elements. Otherwise 
 they are very like the orgasms of males. 
 
 Besides the above features both sexes in 
 youth show quite distinctive secondary sex 
 characters that are the beginnings of the 
 marked differentiations between adult man and 
 woman. These are supposed to depend upon 
 special internal secretions produced in the 
 testicles and ovaries which are entirely inde- 
 pendent of the vivifying cells, and unlike them 
 are not excreted but are absorbed directly into 
 the blood and play a part in sexual develop- 
 ment. Secondary qualities appear earlier in 
 girls than in boys, though during the first 
 seven years of life, outside of the genital organs
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 67 
 
 themselves, there is little difference in the make- 
 up of the two sexes. After this, in girls, the 
 lower half of the body, receiving an increased 
 deposition of fat, commences to assume the typ- 
 ical rounded form of womanhood, and soon the 
 pelvis and hips grow broader. Next, the neck 
 becomes fuller with lines running smoothly 
 into that of the lower jaw; the hair grows 
 longer and finer and usually in limited areas 
 on the body, and the act of breathing is 
 superior costal, or performed more by move- 
 ments of the chest wall than of the dia- 
 phragm and abdominal muscles. 
 
 Psychical secondary characters are shown by 
 a girl's fondness for plays that imitate the pur- 
 suits which will occupy her future life. She 
 mothers her doll and plays at housekeeping; 
 cooks at a toy stove; is interested in clothes and 
 articles of adornment, and is careful about the 
 neatness of her person. Of purely mental 
 processes her ideas of form — squares or tri- 
 angles — are better than of objects — plants or 
 animals; her memory is good from ten to four- 
 teen but poor before and after; her knowledge 
 and recognition of colors is uniformly better 
 than that in boys; she is not so good an ob-
 
 1 68 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 server, is apt to be inaccurate in describing oc- 
 currences, and swayed by selfish interests is 
 more given to exaggeration and falsehood. 
 
 Boys, perhaps, retain childish characteristics 
 longer, yet some years before puberty the 
 shoulders become broader; the muscles larger 
 and stronger and, on account of scanty fat 
 accumulation, the figure is angular with narrow 
 hips; thin neck; prominent larynx and appar- 
 ently over-large joints. Later the voice breaks 
 and the beard begins to appear. The respira- 
 tory movements are abdominal in type. Psy- 
 chical characters are seen in the preference for 
 rough games and outdoor sports calling for 
 muscular activity and strength; in a tendency 
 to untidiness; carelessness in dress, and in love 
 of adventure and physical contest. Some 
 mental distinctions have been already men- 
 tioned and in addition boys learn less quickly 
 but more surely than girls; are less shy and 
 vindictive though more actively teasing and 
 cruel in their dealings with each other; have a 
 greater sense of honor and are more truthful. 
 
 Results of the removal of the testicles and 
 ovaries tend to uphold the internal secretion 
 theory of the production of secondary sexual
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 69 
 
 characters. Castration besides causing im- 
 potence, markedly changes the male character 
 making it either resentful and suspicious, or, 
 as in animals, more docile. Physically it in- 
 fluences development, narrowing the pelvis 
 and chest and making the bones of the extremi- 
 ties long, slender and structurally weak; checks 
 the growth of hair on the face and body; in- 
 creases the subcutaneous fat accumulation, and 
 prevents the usual break in the voice, keeping 
 it a permanent soprano. Removal of the 
 ovaries stops menstruation and causes atrophy 
 of the breasts; an angular, spare form; a growth 
 of beard; a low-pitched masculine voice and a 
 character showing many virile traits. Both 
 operations, therefore, interfere with the ap- 
 pearance of the secondary characters, causing 
 the male to be more like the female or the re- 
 verse and the effects are proportionate to the 
 date of removal; being most marked if per- 
 formed early in life before the production of 
 spermatozoids or ova, to which these characters 
 were formerly attributed; less if done later, 
 and little or none at all if postponed until after 
 the reproductive cells begin to be formed. 
 The impulse to the sexual act implanted in
 
 170 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 all from the commencement of life, appears in 
 childhood and becomes more urgent as puberty 
 approaches and though designed for the im- 
 portant purpose of race continuation — and to 
 be conserved for this end — is nevertheless too 
 frequently misused with the formation of 
 habits morally degrading and dangerous to 
 health. The most prevalent of these is self- 
 abuse, which when indulged in continuously 
 becomes one of the most selfish and repulsive 
 of vices. Consequently it should receive the 
 careful attention of all who are responsible for 
 the management and sexual education of the 
 young. These should handle the subject dis- 
 cretely, avoiding, on the one hand, false-mod- 
 est reticence and assumed ignorance of the con- 
 duct of children in this respect, and on the other 
 the creating of undue anxiety and nervousness 
 by exaggerating consequences. 
 
 The act of self- abuse, masturbation or auto- 
 erotism is accomplished in various ways and 
 much ingenuity may be exercised to intensify 
 sensation and to avoid detection. The prac- 
 tice has always been very universal, so much 
 so that in boys the question is not of the number 
 who have yielded to temptation with greater
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 171 
 
 or less frequency, but of how many have never 
 succumbed. Among girls it is much less 
 genera], though, after forming the habit, they 
 are very disposed to frequent repetitions and 
 excesses. 
 
 Just as a child a few months old will be at- 
 tracted by and scratch an itching spot, so very 
 early in life the first act of auto-erotism may re- 
 sult simply from an impulse to relieve indefinite 
 sensations and without any sexual consciousness 
 or any aim at obtaining voluptuous feelings. 
 The latter motive comes afterward when the boy 
 or girl has learned by accident or seduction 
 how these may be produced. It is well known, 
 too, that such irritants as a full bladder; the 
 presence of parasites in the rectum; a narrowed 
 urinary orifice; local inflammatory conditions 
 and skin eruptions, often determine a flow of 
 blood to the male organ even during early 
 infancy and produce these indefinite sensations. 
 With girl children similar sensations are ex- 
 perienced and the same results follow. It is 
 also a sad fact that the act has been known to 
 be directly taught either to keep a child quiet 
 or to gratify the attendants perverted longings. 
 
 In older children, auto-erotism is generally
 
 172 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 originated by seduction, though it may begin 
 spontaneously through some innocent move- 
 ment causing friction of the parts. Sometimes, 
 in the very sanguine, puberty begins with such 
 pruriency that the least accidental excitation 
 produces a crisis and the practice starts before 
 the still undeveloped will power is sufficiently 
 strong for resistance. As the time of maturity 
 approaches, the process ceases to be so purely 
 mechanical, and originates in, or becomes 
 associated with, mental images of sexual 
 character. 
 
 After learning the act, its practice is so 
 seductive that there is great danger of repeti- 
 tion at increasingly short intervals until a 
 habit is formed. This, though, is not always 
 the case for there are many who, after a brief 
 and occasional indulgence, lack the impulse to 
 continue or have enough strength of will to 
 resist further temptation. The habit may be 
 established in infancy, when it is more common 
 in girls than in boys, but the danger of its 
 formation increases as childhood advances, 
 and is greatest during early puberty. Once 
 acquired it is difficult to overcome and may be 
 carried to great excess particularly in those
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 73 
 
 who are full-blooded or have a nervous 
 temperament. 
 
 Without further consideration of the causa- 
 tion of habitual auto-erotism in infancy, the 
 practice as it occurs in older children merits 
 careful attention. The conditions producing 
 the initial act have been mentioned, but there 
 are numerous and various additional factors 
 underlying its continuance. The predisposing 
 influences are of two classes : First, those that 
 favor congestion and stimulation of the genital 
 organs, as local itching eruptions on the skin; 
 hemorrhoids; rectal parasites; chronic constipa- 
 tion; the onset of the menstrual flow; phy- 
 sical indolence; confinement to bed or chair in 
 any protracted convalescence, and over-study 
 and forcing at school with the necessarily 
 lessened muscular activity, insufficiency of 
 open-air recreations and long sittings over 
 books or desk. Secondly, those that encour- 
 age weakness and irritability of the nervous 
 system and interfere with the development of 
 control power, as relaxing over-indulgence; 
 want of interest in normal activities and games 
 and sports; idleness and solitude. Heredity 
 and inherent feebleness of will also play a
 
 174 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 part, and the habit is often associated with 
 hysteria, epilepsy and tuberculosis, the last 
 appearing to hasten maturity and the function- 
 al activity of the reproductive organs. 
 
 Indirect exciting conditions are season, espe- 
 cially Spring; local uncleanliness; deferred ris- 
 ing from bed after the night's rest is finished; 
 undue fondling , and the wearing of corsets 
 sufficiently tight to cause congestion of the 
 pelvic region. Direct excitants of the act are 
 a crossed-leg position while sitting; the use of 
 rocking chairs or a hobby horse; punishment 
 by spanking; sleeping in feather beds; locally 
 close-fitting clothing, and trousers with side 
 pockets, often over-filled and much too con- 
 venient for the hands, and horse-back or bicycle 
 riding on improperly constructed saddles. 
 Still more active causes are reading of improper 
 books and the sight of lewd pictures, and, most 
 dangerous of all, the conversation and exhi- 
 bitions of bad companions. 
 
 While certainly many of these factors are 
 not effective in the healthy and well environed, 
 the feeble and nervous may respond to any or 
 all of them. Still, notwithstanding the sus- 
 ceptibility and the known prevalence of the
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 175 
 
 practice, it is a great mistake to assume lightly 
 the existence of the habit. Detection is 
 merely a matter of observation in infants, 
 and is quite simple in children up to about 
 the eighth year as they imperfectly conceal 
 their impulses. The act itself is attended 
 by stimulating manipulations or move- 
 ments of special character and rhythm; 
 breathing is disturbed; the eyes become bright 
 and moist; the face flushes, may be beaded 
 with perspiration and has a characteristic 
 expression. At its end there is quiet and 
 relaxation. The observation of these mani- 
 festations, of course, leaves no doubt as to what 
 has occurred, but without them and in older 
 children, who accomplish the act as secretly as 
 possible and in whom there is not yet an ejacu- 
 lation to stain the under-clothing and bed 
 linen, the detection is much more difficult. 
 Such signs as dark lines under the eyes, pallor, 
 congestion of the whites of the eyes, reddening 
 of the parts in girls, and many other popularly 
 held indications are quite as valueless in prov- 
 ing impurity as diligence and apparently cor- 
 rect conduct in school and at church are in 
 accurately indicating purity. To avoid un-
 
 176 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 fortunate consequences in the way of strained 
 relations and broken trust, (absolutely no ac- 
 cusation should be made until the child has 
 been caught in the act, or until a confession 
 is secured by the mother or some older con- 
 fidant. The latter is a strong argument for 
 instruction, for when children are uneducated 
 sexually and never hear sex matters properly 
 discussed, or are led to look upon them as 
 obscene, they soon learn personal reserve and 
 are wanting in the frankness that is encouraged 
 by confidence in some friendly adviser. Con- 
 sequently they rarely make confessions on this 
 subject, though they should do so as easily 
 and naturally as on any other. 
 
 Auto-erotism is very generally and justly 
 considered to be an essentially selfish and 
 immoral habit, being inimical to race perpetua- 
 tion and the home-making interdependence 
 of the sexes. Undoubtedly, too, the very ease 
 of the act, its tendency to frequent repetition 
 and the necessity for constantly increasing 
 the intensity of the mental and peripheral 
 excitants make the vice dangerous to the 
 health of boys particularly and, in a less de- 
 gree, of girls. When practised before seminal
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 77 
 
 secretion is established, if long continued and 
 unrestricted, if the crisis be artificially post- 
 poned and if there be an inherited predisposi- 
 tion to nervous disorders, the physical effects 
 are general depression and languor; the mental, 
 diminished power of attention, poor memory 
 and dulness. When begun and carried to 
 excess after puberty the consequences are 
 general neurasthenia, sexual perversions and 
 gradually increasing inability to respond to 
 normal sexual stimuli, ending sometimes in 
 impotence. In addition to being often estab- 
 lished early in life before nerve poise is ac- 
 quired and its exercise being possible without 
 limitation, the habit further taxes the system, 
 because the orgasm is unnaturally concen- 
 trated in both duration and parts involved and 
 the crisis is spasmodic and nerve exhausting. 
 Its abnormality implies great excitation, which 
 in the main is innate and lacking in the usual 
 slow approach of normal intercourse. In the 
 latter, the special senses — sight, touch, hearing 
 — and various physical and psychical accessory 
 attributes take part. The confirmed auto- 
 erotist, on the contrary, mentally creates some 
 erotic picture and makes imagination assume 
 
 12
 
 178 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 the functions of the higher faculties, until fancy 
 becomes more potent than reality, a condition 
 illustrated by mental masturbators, a not un- 
 common class of perverts. 
 
 The results, however, are neither so direct 
 nor serious as formerly believed, and so greatly 
 exaggerated in a certain class of publications 
 advertising wonderful nostrums and made 
 accessible to the young for commercial pur- 
 poses. There is no actual slow deterioration of 
 the intelligence, insanity and idiocy are not 
 usual effects, and there are no characteristic 
 changes of facial expression nor of bodily 
 posture branding the habitual indulger. But 
 general belief in and dread of such results pro- 
 duce the timidity, diffidence and seclusiveness 
 so frequently shown by the victims of the habit 
 and cause many of the nervous symptoms they 
 present. Consciousness, also, of a degrading 
 and universally censured weakness leads to 
 loss of self-respect and arouses a sense of 
 pollution, and for very shame thepractice must 
 be hidden. So they grow secretive, morbidly 
 self-conscious, take little pleasure in life and, be- 
 coming mentally depressed, may gradually drift 
 into melancholia. Moreover, a desire to be
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 79 
 
 chaste and efforts at purity are met by strong 
 carnal temptations, and the struggle is very 
 disturbing and wasteful of the nerve energy 
 that should be utilized in study, healthy play 
 and general development. Most of the injury 
 to health, then, is due not to the habit itself 
 but to the anxiety and fear that comes with the 
 knowledge of its assumed direct results, and 
 it is this dread that the responsible educator 
 must anticipate and allay. 
 
 Excluding this element and its effects, it is 
 difficult to detect any deviations from health 
 in those who practise auto-erotism occasionally, 
 even if they continue it a long time, neither 
 does this degree of indulgence impair future 
 marital potency. On the other hand, in those 
 who abandon themselves to temptation various 
 abnormal features do appear, some of which 
 are direct, being due to the influence of the 
 habit in restraining physical and mental de- 
 velopment; others indirect, depending upon the 
 taxing fear, and these combined furnish a 
 fairly distinct group of symptoms, some of 
 which have just been mentioned. 
 
 The act itself is accompanied by a rise of a 
 degree or more in body temperature which is
 
 l8o THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 sustained for about half an hour. With its 
 fall a sense of weariness and depression is 
 experienced and the skin grows cool and moist. 
 If indulgence be habitual and unrestrained the 
 general symptoms show both physical and 
 mental depreciation, such as loss of muscle 
 tone; a feeble, slow-acting heart and sluggish 
 circulation; cool, moist hands and facial pallor; 
 disturbed digestion; headache; over-sensitive- 
 ness to light; poor memory and decreased power 
 of attention; morbid agitation and hypo- 
 chondriasis, and stomach and other neuroses. 
 Coincidently the personal character is subject 
 to change, becoming sensitive, untruthful and 
 timid, and there may be increasing self- 
 conceit with want of S3^mpathy for others 
 and lack of ambition, of perseverance and of 
 self-control. Compared with the intense excite- 
 ment of each orgasm, normal companionship, 
 simple amusements and ordinary occupations 
 seem unattractively colorless, and the healthy 
 pleasure that should be taken in them gives 
 way to inaction and indifference, always a 
 suspicious state in adolescents. Senile in- 
 firmities with impotence and sterility come 
 over-early in exceptionally grave cases, and
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT l8l 
 
 any child generated before these changes occur 
 is prone to exhibit the consequences of parental 
 sin by infantalism or prematurity. Fortu- 
 nately such fathers and mothers beget few 
 children, and the latter are rarely able to ac- 
 complish maternal feeding to prolong the life 
 of a degenerate offspring. 
 
 Epilepsy and insanity, formerly attributed 
 to the habit, do not result from it unless there 
 be an inherited predisposition, and even so, the 
 causal factor is probably the morbid unrest and 
 terror produced by misleading information, 
 rather than to the practice itself, however 
 unbridled. 
 
 Some consideration has been given already 
 to the fact that irregularities in the form, size 
 and functions of the sexual organs, the occur- 
 rence of transient varicocele and the scrotal 
 waves may cause boys to imagine that they 
 are abnormal and, in consequence, to become 
 very apprehensive. This tendency is greatest 
 in auto-erotists, since they are already depressed 
 in mind and very sensitive and have their at- 
 tention more than ordinarily concentrated upon 
 these parts. Any change or variation from a 
 supposed standard is considered either a de-
 
 l82 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 formity or, in their distressed consciences, a 
 direct result of indulgence, and they grow hypo- 
 chondriacal and regard their condition as 
 hopeless. Yet more alarming are the spon- 
 taneous seminal emissions; these are made 
 more frequent by the habit and suggest loss 
 of virihty. As to the practice itself they feel 
 that voluntary abandonment is always possible, 
 but the nocturnal losses are beyond control, 
 and between dread of a recurrence and despair 
 when it happens the nervous system is greatly 
 disturbed and life may be so embittered that 
 release is sought in suicide. 
 
 This state perhaps more than any other in 
 adolescence demands tactful management, and 
 a guardian must forestall the trouble as well 
 as give counsel when questioned. Most boys 
 are so modest about these matters and so 
 ashamed of the habit that they hide their fears 
 and symptoms from those able to give good 
 advice and consult equally ignorant com- 
 panions of their own age or read the purposely 
 alarming literature on the subject that is too 
 often put in their way. They crave special 
 instruction to remedy their ills and to remove 
 anxiety as quickly as possible, and they are
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 83 
 
 very tractable here, though they may be quite 
 the reverse generally. They need education 
 in sex details, in the laws of reproduction and 
 the proper course to follow to insure sexual 
 health. 
 
 They should be told that spontaneous expul- 
 sions of seminal fluid, while not uniform as 
 to frequency, are absolutely normal; that 
 if absent there would be real cause for con- 
 cern and that anxiety about and close attention 
 to the special organs make them more fre- 
 quent. In addition, an expert's examination 
 helps greatly by proving tne non-existence of 
 imagined abnormalities. The thoughts should 
 be diverted from self to active outside inter- 
 ests, and the will braced to resist the beset- 
 ting temptation by explaining the importance 
 of chastity to health and happiness. In all 
 talks with boys it is well to remember that, 
 ordinarily, they are much less influenced by 
 the moral aspect of this question than by ap- 
 peals to manly pride with descriptions of the 
 indecency and degrading selfishness of the 
 habit. 
 
 Further, the educator must use nice dis- 
 crimination to strike the safe mean between
 
 1 84 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 minimizing and exaggerating the dangers of 
 auto-erotism and constantly keep in mind 
 that, as already indicated, it is not so much 
 the habit as the auto-suggestive fears of its 
 effects that underlie any consequent disturb- 
 ance. When, as often happens, each indul- 
 gence is attended by a marked sense of having 
 sinned, or intense remorse for self-inflicted per- 
 manent injury, strict moralizing and the de- 
 tailing of possible sequels, even without over- 
 statement, have very disastrous psychic effects. 
 The right way is to draw the mind out of its 
 morbid condition by diversion and avoid any 
 subject that will further depress. 
 
 It is in just these cases that the widely dis- 
 tributed pamphlets exploiting patent medicines 
 do so much harm. These distort natural con- 
 ditions and unimportant variations into fea- 
 tures of disease, loss of power or vital decay. 
 In them the timorous find all their own symp- 
 toms and many others never thought of, but 
 are promised a rapid cure from some pre- 
 scription or from the use of some expensive 
 apparatus. Sometimes the treatment is harm- 
 less and, occasionally, it may do good by 
 suggestion, though usually, if not actually in-
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 8$ 
 
 jurious, it has no beneficial action whatever 
 and the deluded victim grows more and more 
 discouraged and may have a serious nervous 
 breakdown unless rescued by a wise and 
 timely adviser. 
 
 The regular medical treatment, except in the 
 use of tonics to maintain strength and the 
 bromides to relieve irritability, is unsatisfac- 
 tory. Surgically, circumcision is advisable in 
 selected cases. The operation being followed 
 by induration of the exposed part greatly re- 
 duces local excitability. It also facilitates 
 cleanliness; diminishes the liability to reflex 
 disturbances, and consequently steadies the 
 sexual function and lessens the inclination to 
 any form of excess. 
 
 Much more can be accomplished by hygienic 
 measures which, it may be stated, are quite 
 similar to those called for as aids in general 
 sexual education, irrespective of the habit of 
 auto-erotism, and to a great extent are con- 
 cerned with the removal of the exciting causes 
 of the act. 
 
 Living and sleeping rooms should be well 
 ventilated and never over-heated. Each child 
 should have his or her own bed and, if possible,
 
 1 86 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 a separate bed-room not far removed from 
 the watchful eyes of the mother or other really 
 responsible person. The mattress should be 
 firm and the bed coverings as light as consistent 
 with warmth, and while deep and long sleep is 
 desirable, prompt rising at a reasonable time 
 in the morning is to be insisted upon. If 
 wakefulness comes before the appointed time 
 the warm bed must be abandoned at once. At 
 this hour, also, the caretaker must be particu- 
 larly attentive to the child's hand and body 
 movements. Some children like to have a few 
 favorite toys placed by their bed-sides at night, 
 and it is well to grant this desire, as it is much 
 better for them to have these to play with, when 
 their sleep is done and if they cannot be bathed 
 and dressed at once, than to lie awake with 
 nothing to do. Confinement to bed as a 
 punishment and the general boarding-school 
 rule requiring each pupil to rise in the morning 
 at a fixed hour when a bell rings are very 
 dangerous. For the latter the time usually 
 set is about seven o'clock, and those who may 
 be thoroughly awake before readily fall into 
 bad practices. 
 The general clothing must only be thick
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 87 
 
 enough to protect, without keeping the body- 
 too hot. Knickerbockers and trousers must 
 fit loosely about the lower part of the trunk and 
 be held up by a belt rather than drawn up 
 tight in the crotch by braces; the drawers in 
 girls as well as boys should have the same 
 easy fit. Trousers pockets, if allowed at all, 
 must be placed well to the sides and stitched 
 backward. 
 
 Daily bathing in cool water is advisable. 
 The bath should be conducted in private and 
 be short, though always including proper at- 
 tention to the cleansing of the special organs. 
 Swimming, with its added exercise and amuse- 
 ment is especially useful, and the application 
 of cold water to the surface by hip baths and 
 local spongings with no after-drying is of 
 material aid in the relief of some of the sequels 
 of the habit. 
 
 The diet should be plain. Of the three meals 
 the last must be the lightest and any desire to 
 eat between times ought to be discouraged. 
 Though meat, asparagus and celery need not 
 be forbidden, as they are not excitants of the 
 sexual impulse as popularly supposed, a ban 
 is to be placed on tea, coffee, alcoholic liquids,
 
 1 88 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 cigarettes, highly seasoned dishes and too free 
 indulgence in sweets. 
 
 Exhausting physical and mental work is to 
 be avoided, though exercise up to the point 
 of healthy fatigue is a safeguard and the same 
 may be said of any interesting occupation that 
 encourages companionship and employs the 
 mind in idle moments to the exclusion of 
 solitary and purposeless dreaming. The best 
 exercises for the body are out-of-door games 
 and sports that involve a spirit of contest and 
 the discipline of " team " play. The best occu- 
 pations for the mind, those that not only give 
 employment but educate the senses, involve 
 some earnestness of effort, and are directed to 
 the accomplishment of a satisfactory end. For 
 horse-back and bicycle riding a saddle with a 
 flat peak should be provided; in the gymnasium 
 pole and rope climbing — where the hands and 
 legs are used conjointly — ^had better be dis- 
 pensed with and there are objections to the 
 rocking-horse and rocking-chair in the nursery. 
 
 All local causes of irritation, as skin erup- 
 tions, accumulation of secretions, or a long fore- 
 skin with a contracted opening require atten- 
 tion, and care must be taken to clear the rectum
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT 1 89 
 
 of seat- worms and to be sure that it does not 
 become impacted with masses of hardened 
 feces. 
 
 Before leaving this subject there is one 
 method of breaking the habit which merits 
 mention. It is chiefly applicable to the very 
 young or to those who accomplish the act dur- 
 ing sleep, and consists in careful watching of 
 the child throughout the night by a trained 
 nurse who must take the hands from beneath 
 the bed coverings whenever they are ap- 
 proached to the parts and check any sus- 
 picious movements of the legs or body. This 
 observation is usually necessary for several 
 weeks and must not be relaxed until some time 
 after all suspicious actions have ceased. It 
 has proved very successful in my own ex- 
 perience.^ 
 
 There are a few more educational points to 
 be considered in connection with the avoidance 
 or the lessening of certain dangerous influences 
 that arise during the development of sexual 
 life. Some of these are inherent and hereditary 
 
 iDr. Albert Moll, "The Sexual Life of the ChUd," 1913, 
 states that this plan "appears to be almost entirely unknown," 
 but it has been employed quite generally in this country for a 
 number of years.
 
 1 90 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 and will remain beyond control until eugenics 
 is established as a practical science. Others 
 depend upon environment and may be modi- 
 fied, though they are far from being quite 
 under restraint. The sexual impulse, for in- 
 stance, is excited by many and constantly oper- 
 ating conditions, such as association of the two 
 sexes, or even of many of the same sex together; 
 direct example; improper books and pictures — 
 not to mention the daily newspaper — and the 
 sight of sexual acts between animals. Such 
 excitants cannot be entirely precluded, but 
 they can be modified in force and frequency 
 by insisting upon modesty and good example 
 in the home; good companions; the occupation 
 of separate bed-rooms and other reasonable 
 safeguards. 
 
 Shame and disgust are important sentiments 
 to cultivate as assistants in sexual education. 
 These feelings arise from the breaking of a cus- 
 tom or a breach of morality and are closely 
 related to one another. Thus an action may 
 be disgusting to an observer and a source of 
 shame to the actor should he be conscious of 
 observation. In cultivating these sentiments 
 the educator must beware of giving custom and
 
 SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT IQI 
 
 morality a mistaken application, lest shame and 
 disgust become exaggerated and either inhibit 
 improperly or lose their restraining value. A 
 child should be taught that to expose the genital 
 organs is both uncustomary and immoral, yet 
 at this same time, let it be taken for granted 
 that there is nothing wrong in nakedness it- 
 self, and that sexuality under certain condi- 
 tions, as in the marital act that gives origin 
 to a new life, is customary and moral while 
 illegitimate intercourse, auto-erotism and de- 
 praved practices and thoughts are grossly 
 unclean and proper objects of shame and 
 disgust. 
 
 The more marked the sexual impulse the 
 greater the care indicated to divert attention 
 from it by encouraging participation in athletic 
 sports; employing the mind with entertain- 
 ing reading and refined theatrical plays. At 
 the same time developing the will power 
 to increase restraint and resistance to temp- 
 tation. Here, also, help can be expected from 
 religious instruction, though it must be in true 
 and heartfelt piety, not in empty formalities 
 and dogmas. 
 
 In conclusion, too much must not be expected
 
 192 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 of sexual enlightenment. It has its most 
 noticeable effects in the prevention of disease, 
 but it cannot rapidly secure purity for the 
 young and check the prevalence of bad habits. 
 If, however, only a few children be saved 
 a good beginning will have been made and 
 steadily progressive results can be reasonably 
 looked or with the education of successive 
 generations.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abnormal psychic conditions, prevention of, 102 
 Abnormalities of speech, 81 
 Accessory muscles, 9 
 
 and mental states, 10 
 age for developing, 1 1 
 bearing of athletics on, 46 
 dangers of over-strain of, 1 1 
 proper development of, 1 1 
 Adenoids, effects of on physical condition, 43 
 Adolescence, disorders of, 67 
 
 mortality during, 74 
 Adolescents, criminal tendencies of, 113 
 faults of, 113 
 
 mental and moral training of, 106 
 Age for developing accessory muscles, 1 1 
 of beginning menstruation, 143 
 of completion of growth, 2 
 of girls, relation to health, 73 
 of greatest increase in chest growth, 38 
 of greatest liability to epilepsy, 85 
 
 to hysteria, 88 
 of most rapid gain in vital capacity, 37 
 
 growth, I 
 of moral responsibility, 116 
 of puberty, meaning of, 161 
 in boys, 161 
 in girls, 161 
 of school boys, relation to health, 72 
 of tendency to truancy, 117 
 
 193
 
 194 INDEX 
 
 Age of tissues and organs, 5 
 
 relation to conduct, 113 
 to mortality, 74 
 of nature of offences, 114 
 of spinal curvature, 80 
 
 to begin sexual enlightenment, 156 
 Albuminuria, transient, 40 
 Alcohol, effects of, 129 
 Anger, 122 
 
 causes of, 122 
 
 management of, 124 
 Anomalies of sleep, 83 
 Anxiety, neurosis, 97 
 Appetite, absent or perverted, 75 
 Athletic director, qualifications of, 33 
 
 sports, dangers if uncontrolled, 29 
 
 team association, 29 
 
 requirements for best results, 29 
 
 training in boys, 32 
 Athletics, academic, need of guidance, 32 
 danger age of, 33 
 
 contest of school and college management, 33 
 
 estimation of results of, 44 
 
 general good results of, 45 
 
 in girls, close oversight of, 65 
 
 period of most efficiency, 45 
 
 preliminary training of effeminate boys for, 43 
 
 psychic results of, 45 
 
 relation to accessory muscles, 46 
 
 segregation of boys by age in, 44 
 
 special physical results of, 45 
 Auto-erotism, 170 
 
 and sexual education, 176 
 
 habit of, 1 72 
 
 habitual, bathing in, 187 
 bed rules for, 186 
 clothing in, 186
 
 INDEX 195 
 
 Auto-erotism, habitual, detection of, 175 
 
 diet in, 187 
 
 existing causes of, 174 
 
 exercise in, 188 
 
 health deterioration from, 180 
 
 hygiene of, 185 
 
 in infants, method of overcoming, 189 
 
 living and sleeping rooms in, 185 
 
 medical treatment of, 185 
 
 mental eflfects of, 177 
 
 most dangerous factor of, 179 
 
 physical effects of, 177 
 
 predisposing causes of, 173 
 
 relations to health, 178 
 
 removal of local irritation in, 188 
 
 symptoms produced by, 179 
 methods of inauguration, 171 
 phobias of, 181 
 prevalence of, 170 
 Automatisms, 12 
 
 conditions favoring, 12 
 control of, 14 
 developmental need of, 13 
 normality of, 13 
 what indicated by, 13 
 
 B 
 
 Ball games, advantages of as exercises, 49 
 
 Baseball, 48 
 
 Bathing for schoolboys, 58 
 
 in habitual auto-erotism, 187 
 Body, carriage, affects of, 36 
 Bones, development of, 35 
 Borrowing habit, the, in boys, 138 
 Boxing, 27 
 Boys, age of puberty in, 161
 
 196 INDEX 
 
 Boys, anxiety in, from involuntary orgasms, 181 
 athletic training in, 32 
 best games for, 48 
 
 sports for, 52 ' 
 
 essential condition for true puberty in, 162 
 features of establishment of puberty in, 162 
 improvidence in, 135 
 involuntary sexual orgasms in, 164 
 money allowance of, 137 
 need of learning money value, 135 
 pampered, preparation of for athletics, 43 
 phobias of the genitalia in, 181 
 play in, 25 
 
 period of the best results of athletics in, 45 
 prevalence of auto-erotism in, 170 
 recognition of property rights by, 139 
 secondary sex qualities in, 168 
 segregation by ages in athletics, 44 
 the borrowing habit in, 138 
 
 Brain, growth of, 39 
 
 Cardiac disturbances, 76 
 
 rhythm, alterations in, 78 
 Castration, effects of, 168 
 Cereals in the training diet of boys, 55 
 Chest, age of greatest enlargement, 38 
 
 growth of, 37 
 Child-labor and motor efificiency, 15 
 Children, capacity for reformation in, 116 
 
 neurotic, management of, 103 
 
 propriety of sexual education in, 151 
 
 want of self-control in, 115 
 "Children's hour," the, 134 
 Chlorosis, 83 
 Clothing, in habitual auto-erotism, 186
 
 INDEX 197 
 
 Coasting, 52 
 
 Cocoa and chocolate, use of in schoolboys, 56 
 
 Conduct, relation of age to, 113 
 
 relation to weather, 117 
 Conformed invalidism, 98 
 Contest interest of sports, 48 
 Crime, juvenile, causes of, 1 13 
 
 organization for, 126 
 
 relation of age to, 113 
 Criminal tendencies of adolescents, 113 
 
 D 
 
 Dancing, 26 
 
 Dementia prascox, in 
 
 Depression, 99 
 
 Development of accessory muscles, 1 1 
 
 of fundamental muscles, 1 1 
 Developmental changes during school years, 41 
 Diet in athletic training of boys, 53 
 
 in habitual auto-erotism, 187 
 Digestion, disturbances of, 74 
 Disorders, chronic, of girls, 73 
 of schoolboys, 72 
 
 due to unequal development, 69 
 
 mental, 84 
 
 nature of, during pubescence, 67 
 
 nervous, 84 
 
 of adolescence, 67 
 Disturbed mentality, 108 
 
 features of, 108 
 Dormitories for schoolboys, 57 
 Dreams, 84 
 Drink habit, formation in adolescents, 129 
 
 E 
 
 Education, physical, 32 
 
 sexual, reasons for, 152
 
 198 INDEX 
 
 Education, sexual, time for, 154 
 Educational incapacity, 98 
 Envy, 124 
 Epilepsy, 85 
 
 age of greatest liability to, 85 
 
 causes of, 85 
 
 effect of, on mentality, 87 
 
 outlook for case of, 88 
 
 variable gravity of, 86 
 Epileptic fit, causes of, 85 
 
 features of, 86 
 Exercise, advantages of swimming as an, 30 
 
 effects on respiration, 38 
 
 in habitual auto-erotism, 188 
 
 relation to growth periods, 39 ,. 
 
 systematic, good effects of, 23 
 
 why play best, 23 
 Exercises for bodily defects, 44 
 
 for conditioning purposes, 44 
 
 Swedish, 20 
 
 P 
 
 / 
 
 Faults, methods of correcting, 139 
 
 of adolescents, 113 
 Fencing, 28 
 
 Financial training, plan for in boarding schools, 136 
 Food in athletic training of boys, 53 
 Football, 48 
 
 method of eliminating dangers of, 49 
 Fundamental muscles, 9 
 
 proper development of, 1 1 
 
 Games, 23 
 
 best for boys, 48
 
 INDEX 199 
 
 Games for girls, 64 
 
 Genitalia, anxiety in boys from normal variations in, 181 
 Girls and boys, dissimilarity of athletic management of^ (> a-. 
 "~ ' points of physical contrast, 61 
 
 similarity of general physical management of, 60 
 advantage of playing games to, 65 
 age of puberty in, 161 
 American, age of menstruating, 143 
 athletics, need of close oversight of, 65 
 best games for, 64 
 
 sports for, 64 
 chronic disorders of, 73 
 difficulties of, in learning games, 65 
 essential condition of true puberty in, 162 
 features of establishment of puberty in, 162 
 gymnasium for, 63 
 health, management of, 73 
 involuntary sexual orgasms in, 166 
 importance of physical director for, 65 
 
 of strength of body in, 59 
 liability of, to mental disorders, 112 
 
 to neurasthenia, 100 
 management of, in menstrual intervals, 148 
 menstruation in, 61 
 menstrual interruptions of exercise, 62 
 modification of sports for, 61 
 muscle culture in, 59 
 need of guidance at monthly periods, 147 
 
 of occupation for, 60 
 
 of rest during pubescence, 62 
 nervous, effects of menstruation in, 145 
 palpitation in, 77 
 physical education of, relation to menstruation, 61 
 
 management of, 62 
 play in, 26 
 
 preparation of, for first menstruation, 140 
 prevalence of auto-erotism in, 171
 
 200 INDEX 
 
 Girls and boys, pubescent, exercise in, 62 
 
 precautions against prostitution in, 130 
 relation of age to health, 73 
 
 of growth to health, 73 
 secondary sex qualities in, 167 
 tendency to mental unbalance in, 108 
 uninstructed, shock of first menstruation on, 144 
 walking as exercise for, 64 
 "Going state," indications of, 48 
 Golf, 50, 64 
 
 Good cooking, necessity of, 53 
 Growth, I 
 
 acceleration at puberty, i 
 age of completion, 2 
 
 of greatest rapidity, i 
 conditions for increase, 4 
 evidences of normal, 2 
 effects of school-work on, 4 
 in height, i 
 in weight, i 
 
 irregularity of, in organs, 5 
 of bones, 35 
 of brain, 39 
 of chest, 37 
 
 of girls, relation to health, 73 
 of heart, 36 
 of kidneys, 40 
 of lungs, 37 
 of motor power, 38 
 of muscle power, 8, 38 
 of muscles, 7 
 of parts and organs, 5 
 of school boys, relation to health, 73 
 relation to mortality, 74 
 retarding conditions, 4 
 Growth-force at adult age, 5 
 Gymnasium for boys, 46
 
 INDEX 20I 
 
 Gymnasium for girls, 63 
 
 Gymnastics, as substitute for out-door sports, 46 
 
 defects of, 22 
 
 for boys, 46 
 
 for girls, 63 
 
 for physical defects, 47 
 
 for symmetry and proportion, 22 
 
 individual adaptation of, 47 
 
 John's method, 19 
 
 Long's method, 21 
 
 objects of, 19 
 
 to develop motor possibilities, 19 
 
 to economize force, 21 
 
 to increase will control, 20 
 
 H 
 
 Health, general, during pubescence, 67 
 influence of season on, 71 
 of girls, relation to age, 73 
 
 to growth, 73 
 of school boys, relation of growth to, 73 
 
 to age, 72 
 relations to habitual auto-erotism, 178 
 Heart, disturbances of, 76 
 
 enlargement at puberty, 36 
 growth of, 36 
 hypertrophy of, 77 
 phobias, 78 
 
 strain from race rowing, 51 
 from race running, 50 
 Height and weight, proportion of increase, 2 
 table of standard proportion, 3 
 time relation of increase, 2 
 Height, growth in, i 
 
 relation to pulse rate, 37 
 Hockey, 52
 
 202 INDEX 
 
 Hygiene of habitual auto-erotism, 185 
 Hysteria, 88 
 
 age of occurrence, 88 
 
 causes of, 89 
 
 curative measures in, 93 
 
 general features of, 92 
 
 joint symptoms of, 90 
 
 motor features of, 91 
 
 preventive measures in, 92 
 
 psychic features of, 90 
 
 sensory features of, 90 
 Hystero-epilepsy, 92 
 
 Improvidence, 135 ^ 
 
 parent's responsibility for, 135 
 school's responsibility for, 136 
 Incendiarism, 128 
 Industrial education, 16 
 age for, 18 
 best, 17 
 
 essentials of, 17 
 worst, 17 
 Infants, cure of habitual auto-erotism in, 189 
 
 neurotic, management of, 103 
 Insanity, causes of, 112 
 Instinct of organization, direction of, 126 
 Intemperance, 129 
 
 age of beginning, 129 
 Involuntary sexual orgasms, anxiety about, in boys, 182 
 in boys, 164 
 in girls, 164 
 
 J 
 
 Jealousy, 124 
 
 Joint symptoms of hysteria, 90
 
 INDEX 203 
 
 Juvenile oflFenders, punishment of, 116 
 reformation of, 116 
 paresis, 112 
 
 K 
 
 Kidneys, growth of, 40 
 
 Liars, habitual, 121 
 Lie, the chivalrous, 120 
 Lies, selfish, 120 
 
 varying gravity of, 119 
 Lungs, growth of, 37 
 Lying, 118 
 
 M 
 
 Manual training, 17 
 
 essentials for usefulness, 18 
 faults of, 18 
 
 objects and results of, 18 
 Marching, 26 
 Masturbation, 170 
 Meals for schoolboys, 56 
 MelanchoUa, 99 
 
 Menstrual flow, absolute rest during, 63 
 establishment of, 143 
 initial, onset of, 143 
 proper way of regarding, 147 
 interruptive of exercise, 63 
 intervals, management of, 148 
 periods, management of, 147 
 need of rest during, 147 
 Menstruation, 61, 140 
 
 age of in United States, 143
 
 204 INDEX 
 
 Menstruation as mark of puberty, 165 
 attendant symptoms of, 141 
 effects of in nervous girls, 145 
 false popular idea of, 142 
 first, changes in disposition after, 144 
 effects in nervous system, 144 
 shock of, to uninstructed girls, 144 
 general conditions following, 141 
 mental preparation for, 63 
 normal, necessity of, 149 
 
 periodicity of, 140 
 organs involved in, 140, 146 
 precedent symptoms of, 141 
 relation to physical and mental education, 61 
 Mental bias, special forms of, 109 
 disorders during pubescence, 68 
 disturbances, 84 
 
 processes, normal at puberty, 95 
 unbalance, management of, iii 
 Mentality, disburbed, 108 
 
 effects of epilepsy in, 87 
 Military training, 28 
 Milk, food value of, 56 
 Moral responsibility, age of, 116 
 Morning rising of schoolboys, 57 
 Mortality of the young, 74 
 relation to age, 74 
 to growth, 74 
 Motor efficiency and child-labor, 15 
 
 indications of imperfect, 15 
 Motor power, development of, 38 
 
 symptoms of hysteria, 91 
 Muscle culture, benefits of, 32 
 in girls, 59 
 reasons for, 16 
 efiSciency, effects of modern conditions on, 14 
 elements of, 14
 
 INDEX 20: 
 
 Muscle power, age of most rapid growth, 8 
 
 course of growth, 8 
 Muscles, accessory, 9 
 
 age, of differentiation in sexes, 7 
 
 as instruments of expression, 7 
 
 development at puberty, 7 
 
 fundamental, 9 
 
 growth of, 7, 38 
 
 importance of, 6 
 
 rhythmic movements of, 26 
 
 special growth features of, 8 
 
 unsymmetrical growth of, 7 
 
 N 
 Neurasthenia, 100 
 
 causes of, 100 
 
 features of, 100 
 
 management of, 107 
 Neuroses, 93 
 
 anxiety, 97 
 
 dependence on sex development, 93 
 
 psycho-analytic treatment of, 94 
 Nervous disturbances, 84 
 
 O 
 
 Occular disorders, 82 
 Organization for law-breaking, 126 
 Organs, course of growth of, 5 
 Over conscientiousness, 95 
 "Over-training," indications of, 48 
 Out-door sports, advantages of, 32, 48 
 Ovulation as mark of puberty, 165 
 
 P 
 
 Palpitation in girls, 77 
 
 Parents, danger of sexual obsessions in, 156 
 
 Petit mal, features of, 87
 
 206 INDEX 
 
 Petty pilfering, 127 
 Phobias, 102 
 
 of body, 102 
 
 of ideas, 102 
 
 of objects, 102 
 
 of sex organs, extent of instruction in, 182 
 instructional method of relief, 183 
 need of enlightenment in, 183 
 
 of situations, 102 
 
 of the urine, 40 
 Physical condition and adenoids, 43 
 and large tonsils, 43 
 
 director for girls, qualifications of, 65 
 
 education, 32 
 
 relation to menstruation, 61 
 
 examination of schoolboys, 41 
 Physician's, the, relation to athletics, 34 
 
 to sexual enlightenment, 158 
 Play, 23 
 
 and racial traits, 24 
 
 in boys, 25 
 
 in girls, 26 
 
 interest, 31, 48 
 of sports, 48 
 
 relation to body and mind, 23 
 to study and work, 31 
 
 variations with age and sex, 25 
 
 why best exercise, 23 
 Prostitution, 130 
 Psychasthenia, 100 
 Psychasthenic state, feature of, loi 
 Psychic features of hysteria, 90 
 Psycho-analytic treatment of neurosis, 94 
 Psycho-sexual marks of beginning sexual life, 102 
 Pubertal development, early indications of, 155 
 Puberty, acceleration of growth at, i 
 
 and blood-vessel area, 36
 
 INDEX 207 
 
 Puberty and pulse rate, 37 
 
 changes in female sex organs at, 165 
 in male sex organs at, 162 
 
 demands on heart at, 36 
 
 eflfect of school work on, 4 
 
 effects on circulation, 36 
 
 features of establishment in boys, 162 
 in girls, 162 
 
 growth of muscle power at, 8 
 
 tendency to truancy, at, 117 
 
 true, essential condition of, in boys, 162 
 in girls, 162 
 Pubescence, general health during, 67 
 
 in girls, exercise during, 62 
 rest during, 62 
 
 mental disorders during, 68 
 
 nature of disorders during, 67 
 Pubescent years, management in the nervous, 106 
 Pugnacity, normal, 27 
 Pulse rate, relation to height growth, 37 
 
 R 
 
 Race and game running, distinction between, 50 
 Racial traits and play, 24 
 Respiration and exercise, 38 
 Respiratory movements, number of, 38 
 Rowing, 51 
 
 and heart strain, 51 
 
 race, length of, for schoolboys, 51 
 Running and heart strain, 50 
 
 races, 50 
 
 criticism of, 50 
 
 short distance in ball games, 49 
 
 School boat-racing, length of course, 51 
 boys, bathing of, 58
 
 208 INDEX 
 
 School boys, best sports for, 48 
 cereals in diet of, 55 
 chronic disorders of, 72 
 cocoa and chocolate in, 56 
 diet in athletic training of, 53 
 dormitories for, 57 
 meal hours for, 56 
 milk as food for, 56 
 need of good cooking for, 53 
 varied food for, 53 
 prompt morning rising in, 57 
 poor sleep in, 57 
 physical examination of, 41 
 race running in, 50 
 relation of age to illness, 72 
 
 of growth to health, 73 
 rowing in, 51 
 sleep hours for, 57 
 sleep in, 57 
 sports best for, 48 
 
 relation of physical health to participation in, 42 
 study hours for, 58 
 swimming for, 52 
 track and field sports for, 50 
 tea and coffee in, 55 
 training of, 52 
 vegetables in diet of, 54 
 winter sports of, 52 
 masters' disadvantages in sex education, 158 
 -work, effects on growth, 4 
 Schools, boarding, plan for financial training in, 136 
 School's responsibility for ailments of youth, 70 
 Season, influence of, on health, 71 
 Secondary sex qualities, 166 
 in boys, 168 
 in girls, 167 
 origin of, 166
 
 INDEX 209 
 
 Self-abuse, 170 
 
 Self-control, lack of, in children, 115 
 
 necessity of, 115 
 Self-observation, undue, 96 
 Sensory features of hysteria, 90 
 Sex organs, female, pubertic changes in, 165 
 male, pubertic changes in, 162 
 peripheral, variations in, 161 
 purpose of, 161 
 Sexual act, purpose of impulse to, 170 
 education, value of religion in, 191 
 
 value of shame and disgust in, 191 
 educator, knowledge required by, 1 59 
 
 need of child's confidence in, 159 
 enlightenment, 150 
 age for beginning, 1 56 
 best opportunities for, 159 
 facts to be explained, 161 
 home part in, 159 
 language used in, 160 
 parents' part in, 159 
 physicians' part in, 158 
 reasons for, 152 
 relation to auto-erotism, 176 
 school masters' part in, 158 
 source of, 157 
 time for, 154 
 impulse, excitants of, 190 
 
 lessening excitants of, 190 
 life, age of beginning, 162 
 dangerous influences in, 189 
 objective side, 151 
 
 psycho-sexual marks of dawn of, 162 
 subjective side, 151 
 orgasms, involuntary, in boys, 164 
 in girls, 166 
 Shame and disgust, value of in sexual education, 191
 
 210 INDEX 
 
 Skating, 52 
 
 Sleep, anomalies of, 83 
 
 as a health preserver, 70 
 
 hours for schoolboys, 57 
 
 poor, in schoolboys, 57 
 
 proper amount of, 71 
 Sleeplessness, 71 
 Sleep-walking, 84 
 Speech, anomalies of, 81 
 Spermatozoids, relation to nubility, 164 
 Spinal curvature, 35, 79 
 causative of, 80 
 features of, 81 
 mechanical support in, 81 
 relation to age, 80 
 Sports, 23 
 
 best for boys, 48 
 for girls, 64 
 
 need of modification for girls, 61 
 
 out-door, advantages of, 48 
 
 track and field, 50 
 Stammering, 82 
 
 Strength of body, importance for girls, 59 
 Study hours for schoolboys, 58 
 Stuttering, 81 
 
 Sugar, presence of in virine, 40 
 Suicide, 131 
 
 age of danger of, 131 
 
 motives for, 131 
 
 prevention of, 134 
 
 relation to sex, 131 
 Swimming, 30, 52 
 
 relation to rowing, 52 
 Swedish exercises, 20
 
 INDEX 211 
 
 Tea and coffee in schoolboys, 55 
 
 Teasing, 125 
 
 Tennis, 48 
 
 Theft, 127 
 
 for adventure or to tease, 127 
 habit, difficulty of eradicating, 128 
 
 Tonsils, large, effects on physical condition, 43 
 
 Track and field sports, 50 
 
 "Training" in schoolboys, 52 
 
 Truancy, 117 
 
 Truant, the, characteristics of, 118 
 
 Truthfulness, establishment of, 121 
 
 U 
 
 Urine, albumin in, 40 
 phobias of, 40 
 sugar in, 40 
 
 Vegetables in the diet of schoolboys, 54 
 Vital capacity, 37 
 
 age of greatest increase, 37 
 index, 38 
 
 W 
 
 Weather, relations to conduct, 117 
 Walking, importance of proper, 65 
 Weight, increase in, i 
 Wine, management of using, 130 
 Winter sports for schoolboys, 52 
 Wrestling, 28
 
 tB742 5 
 
 ■'«
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 JULIOS2 
 
 A\ 
 
 i^^ 
 
 30 
 
 N-i* 
 
 / 
 
 AUG 2 1941 
 JV31 2 4 15*"^ 
 
 j^j^ 2 8 i^il 
 ppR 1 1 l9Sil 
 
 "URD 
 
 
 
 
 API 
 
 ^AY 2 8 1952 
 MAY 2 P ' 
 
 01985 
 
 MAir 
 
 ^932^''"""! 5 1985 
 
 L03 Ai.uv^Liiiia i 
 LIBRAKY 
 
 ^
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 3 1158 01039 993? 
 
 AA 000 391 807 5 
 
 ^