seem prescriptive and traditional rights, they assert themselves with a force that few faculties can successfully cope with, as witness the efforts at Purdue and elsewhere to exterminate secret societies. The right to celebrate important events in very irregular ways is an im- memorial tradition perhaps even more difficult to suppress than hazing.
Most American colleges, despite the growing freedom of life and efforts at self-government, still insist upon a state of pupilage, es- pecially in matters of study, which favors the tendency to regard teach- ers as natural enemies. Resident tutors and night-watchmen about dormitories, attempts to control hours of study and retiring now gen- erally abandoned, the time of being in, of rising, attending chapel and recitation, punctuality, etc., devolve a mass of disciplinary details upon college and university faculty which ought to be outgrown. One of these institutions had lately eighty-three punishable offenses specified in its rules, and the parental theory requires great discretion in its administration. The New England professor of the old type feels that there is almost no folly of which a class is not capable.
Professorial inadequacy to know the nature and meet the real needs of youth is not only one theme but one cause of the spirit of parody, caricature, and satire which is so essential a trait of academic youth. Mock heroics and serio-comedies have this advantage, if high themes are essayed, that they afford a ready shelter for the disappointed sus- ceptibilities of ambition. Efforts of this class are effervescences of good-natured cleverness, but they are often directed against objects, ideals, or sentiments which are not deeply felt by their authors, and this instinct is a beneficent agent in destroying the old clothes of cul- ture, and doing its May-day house-cleaning. There is always much in every age and community that greatly needs to be executed and buried and yet is so entrenched that only the shafts of ridicule can reach it. While this often goes too deep and attacks that which is intrinsically and always good, true, and beautiful, on the whole its benefits probably outweigh its harm. We live in an old age of civilization that has ac- cumulated vast cultural impedimenta that ought to be given to some wholesome scavenger agency of oblivion. The second best ought now to pall on the palate. This instinct, too, performs the gadfly function which Socrates praised in spurring on arid professors to keep ttteir powers mobilized, to grind out ever new and better grists, and to touch the deeper powers of appreciation and affirmation.
Recent efforts at self-government by students are essentially an American experiment and have taken many different forms. One is that of a student court like that of the junior and senior classes at Trinity; another is the selection of student representatives to confer with the faculty on matters within fields carefully defined; in still an- other form the faculty selects an advisory board and invests it with power to determine and control certain matters along with members of the student body. Disciplinary committees with power over certain offenses, even vigilance committees to patrol the halls, censors, as in the University of Virginia with its unique honor system, in vogue since SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND INSTITUTIONS 4*5 1865, a student Senate and House like that of Amherst with power to enact laws, illustrate the various types and degrees of student auton- omy. Other interesting forms are on trial at Stanford, Maine, South Carolina, Indiana, and elsewhere. Nearly one-half of the smaller American colleges have adopted some form of self-government, which in some is carried to an extreme. There is great diversity of need and capacity in this respect between different institutions and different sec- tions of the country. Many irregularities of student life, especially outbreaks of lawlessness and sometimes dishonesty in examinations, have been materially checked. Students can best detect and best judge students. The success of all these schemes depends very largely upon the tact and discretion of the president and faculty. In some institu- tions students on entering are requested to sign a form of contract; in others they pledge adherence to carefully drawn rules. The indefinite and volatilized freedom, which is advocated for the period of student life in continental Europe, it is often said, is less needed in a land where the liberty of subsequent life is so unrestricted as in a republic. One of the last sentiments, to be developed in human nature is the sense of responsibility, which is one of the highest and most complex psychic qualities and in the development of which our carefully nurtured and protected youth of student age, although perhaps more matured in this respect than in any other land, have had little training. Necessary as is the discipline of this experience, the college is less fitted to give it than the outside world. The learner is necessarily receptive, under authority, in a state of pupilage, and premature independence is always dangerous and tempts to excesses.
Morals and religion have had a very diverse history illus- trating all extremes; at several periods almost every form of dissipation has existed. Drunkenness has sometimes prevailed in its most repulsive form, where at stated bouts students drank out of their boots or the shoes of dissolute women, under their arms, or lay upon the floor while their mates poured beer into their mouths through a funnel to enable them to win a drink- ing wager. Gambling has been a passion, burglaries have abounded in open day. During a good part of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the habits of German students were particularly bad, and when Vienna undertook to expel harlots from town for.the benefit of students, it was unsafe for women to go on the streets unprotected. All the more elegant dissi- pations of club life have promptly found their way into aca- demic circles, and conviviality and gourmandism have run riot. Special forms of sexual vice have at several times and places wrought their devastations, and cock fights, falcon hunt- 416 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE ing, the chase with dogs and birds, bowling, poaching, and many other practises which fashion sanctioned, but which sometimes a too strict morality condemned, have found a con- genial home in the universities.
The opposite extremes have been no less accentuated. The ecclesiastical character of early university life insisted upon almost every monastic rigor, was marked by fast days, early matins, and later, college prayers before daylight, hard beds, no fire, the severest parietal regulations, and enforced the rule of poverty, chastity, and obededence. In the Scotch universi- ties most students were poor, sometimes walked to the college barefoot to save their shoes, carried all their possessions, worked hard, and had no time for play. The old Lycurgus society at Yale advocated a plain Quaker-like dress and life, but the costume was so unbecoming that the custom died out. Amherst had a vigorous anti-venerean society, and benevolent organizations in great numbers flourished.
Religious reactions have been extreme. After the French Revolution a wave of skepticism swept over nearly every Eu- ropean and American institution of learning. Freethinking was the fashion, while the very small minority who strove to be religious were ridiculed, dubbed religiosi, or lap-ears, and held prayer-meetings, if at all, in secret. In 1813 Prince- ton had grown very lax till four young men met covertly for prayer and started a religious movement. In 1802 a society was founded at Harvard to arrest the decay of religion. In 1850 the Wingolf societies of theological stu- dents only were established in Germany for the cultivation of religious sentiments. The data are not at hand to trace all these fluctuations. In general, in Anglo-Saxon lands religious sentiments have dominated at nearly all times and in nearly all seats of learning, while on the Continent, especially in Ger- many, universities have been seats of free thought. Perhaps the greatest laxity in early times was that which Puritanism at its rise strove so hard to correct. We have. elsewhere seen the effects of revivalism on th£ American colleges since the days of Whitefield.
Thus the history of student life shows clubs, sodalities, associations of almost every conceivable sort and for all pur- poses, clubs for eating, drinking, hunting, hawking, for every SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND INSTITUTIONS 41?
kind of indoor and outdoor sport, for the most diverse political ends, for all social reforms, clubs representing nearly all of the great philosophical systems — stoics, cynics, skeptics, platonists, scholastics, idealists, and all the rest — clubs for banterers, for drinking young hyson and stronger beverages, gambling, shooting, fishing, acting, playing practical jokes, nonsense clubs, wine clubs, essay clubs, associations for dietary reforms, for fighting, for wearing plain or eccentric clothing, elaborate organizations for those who stand lowest in class, clubs of liars, of petty pilferers, associations for charity, for the propaganda of religion and even atheism, for traveling, for every special branch of intellectual culture, and interest both in the sciences and the humanities, and besides these, hundreds of pure funk organizations with nothing about them but high-sounding names and officers, who never had a meeting and were never elected — all these bear witness to the intense pleasure at this age of life of simply being together or even imagining social bonds. It is a pathetic fact that ethical teaching which should so largely consist in developing the social instincts aright has not treated and but slightly influenced this side of academic life, which for the average student perhaps outweighs all other college influences, but still hovers about abstract theories of morality.
XII. Associations for youth devised or guided by adults. Here we enter a very different realm. Forbush * undertakes an analysis of many such clubs which he divides according to their purpose into nine chief classes: physical training, handi- craft, literary, social, civic and patriotic, science-study, hero- love, ethical, religious. These he classifies as to age of the boys, his purview generally ending at seventeen, discusses and 1 The Social Pedagogy of Boyhood; Fed. Sem., October, 1900, vol. vii, pp. 307-346. See also his The Boy Problem, with an introduction by G. Stanley Hall, Boston, 1901, p. 194. Also Buck (Boys' Self-governing Clubs, New York, I9°3)' who thinks ten million dollars could be used in training club advisers who should have the use of schools and grounds after hours and evenings, conduct ex- cursions, organize games, etc., but avoid all direct teaching and book work gener- ally. This writer thinks such an institution would soon result in a marked increase of public morality and an augmented demand for technical instruction, and that for the advisers themselves the work would be the best training for high positions in politics and reform. Clubs of boys from eight to sixteen or eighteen must not admit age disparities of more than two years.
41 8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE tabulates the most favorable number, the instincts chiefly utilized, the kinds of education gained in each and its percent- age of interest, and the qualities developed. He commends Riis's mode of pulling the safety-valve of a rather dangerous boy-gang by becoming an adult honorary member, and inter- preting the impulsions of this age in the direction of adventure instead of in that of mischief. He reminds us that nearly one- third of the inhabitants of America are adolescents, that three millions are boys between twelve and sixteen, " that the so- called heathen people are, whatever their age, all in the adoles- cent stage of life."
A few American societies of this class we may briefly char- acterize as follows: (a) Typical of a large class of local juvenile clubs is the " Cap- tains of Ten," originally for boys of from eight to fourteen, and with a later graduate squad of those over fifteen. The "Ten" are the fingers; and whittling,, scrap-book making, mat-weaving, etc., are taught. The motto is, " The hand of the diligent shall bear rule "; its watchword is "Loyalty"; and the prime objects are "to promote a spirit of loyalty to Christ among the boys of the club," and to learn about and work for Christ's kingdom. The members wear a silver badge; have an annual photograph; elect their leaders; vote their money to missions (on which topic they hold meetings); act Bible stories in costume; hear stories and see scientific experiments; enact a Chinese school; write articles for the children's department of re- ligious journals; develop comradeship, and "have a good time."
(b) The Agassiz Association, founded in 1875 "to encourage personal work in natural science," now numbers some 25,000 mem- ,bers, with chapters distributed all over the country, and was said by the late Professor Hyatt to include "the largest number of persons ever bound together for the purpose of mutual help in the study of nature." It furnishes practical courses of study in the sciences; has local chapters in thousands of towns and cities in this and other countries; publishes a monthly organ, The Swiss Cross, to facilitate cor- respondence and exchange of specimens; has a small endowment, a badge, is incorporated, and is animated by a spirit akin to that of University Extension; and, although not exclusively for young people, is chiefly sustained by them.
(c) The Catholic Total Abstinence Union is a strong, well- organized, and widely extended society,, mostly composed of young men whose pledge required of all members explains its object. " I promise, with the Divine assistance and in honor of the Sacred Thirst and the Agony of our Saviour, to abstain from all intoxicating drinks and to prevent as much as possible by advice and example the sin SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND INSTITUTIONS of intemperance in others and to discountenance the drinking customs of society." A general convention of the Union has been held an- nually since 1877.
(d) The Princely Knights of Character Castle is an organiza- tion founded in 1895 f°r boys from twelve to eighteen to " inculcate, disseminate, and practise the principles of heroism — endurance — love, purity, and patriotism." The central incorporated castle grants charters to local castles, directs the ritual and secret work. Its offi- cers are supreme prince, patriarch, scribe, treasurer, director, with captain of the guard, watchman, porter, keeper of the dungeon, musician, herald, and favorite son. The degrees of the secret work are shepherd lad, captive, viceroy, brother, son, prince, knight, and royal knight. There are jewels, regalia, paraphernalia, and initia- tions. The pledge for the first degree is, " I hereby promise and pledge that I will abstain from the use of intoxicating liquor in any form as a beverage; that I will not use profane or improper language; that I will discourage the use of tobacco in any form; that I will strive to live pure in bedy and mind; that I will obey all rules and reg- ulations of the order, and not reveal any of the secrets in any way." There are benefits, reliefs, passwords, a list of offenses and penalties.
(e) Some 35,000 Bands of Mercy are now organized under the direction of the American Humane Education Society. The object of the organization is to cultivate kindness to animals and sympathy with the poor and oppressed. The prevention of cruelty in driving, cattle transportation, humane methods of killing, care for the sick and aban- doned or overworked animals, are the themes of most of its voluminous literature. It has badges, hymn-books, cards, and certificates of mem- bership, and a motto, " Kindness, Justice, and Mercy to All." Its pledge is, " I will try to be kind to all harmless living creatures, and try to pro- tect them from cruel usage," and is intended to include human as well as dumb creatures. The founder and secretary, with great and com- mendable energy, has instituted prize contests for speaking on humane subjects in schools, and has printed and circulated prize stories; since the incorporation of the society in 1868, he has been indefatigable in collecting funds, speaking before schools and colleges, and prints fifty to sixty thousand copies of the monthly organ. In addition to its mission of sentiment, and Lo make it more effective, this organiza- tion clearly needs to make more provision for the intellectual element by well-selected or constructed courses, or at least references on the life, history, habits, and instincts of animals, and it also needs more recognition that modern charity is a science as well as a virtue.
(/) The Coming Men of America, although organized only in 1894, now claims to be the greatest chartered secret society for boys and young men in the country. It began two years earlier in a lodge started by a nineteen-year-old boy in Chicago in imitation of such ideas of Masons, Odd-Fellows, etc., as its founder could get from his older brother, and its meetings were first held in a base- ment. On this basis older heads aided in its development, so that 420 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE it is a good example of the boy-imitative helped out by parents. The organization is now represented in every State and Territory, and boys travel on its badge. There is an official organ, The Star, a badge, sign, and a secret sign language called bestography. Its secret ritual work is highly praised. Its membership is limited to white boys under twenty-one.
(g) The first Harry Wadsworth Club was established in 1871 as a result of E. E. Hale's Ten Times One, published the year before. Its motto is, " Look up, and not down; look forward, and not back; look out, and not in; lend a hand," or " Faith, Hope, and Charity." Its organ is the Ten Times One Record; its badge is a silver Maltese cross. Each club may organize as it will, and choose its own name, provided it accepts the above motto. Its watchword is, " In His Name." It distributes charities, conducts a Noonday Rest, outings in the coun- try, and devotes itself to doing good.1 Within the last third of a century the Christian Church has awakened to the fact that its duty to the young is not complete when they are confirmed or even converted, but that they need organizations of a kind very different from those of adults, and these have now been developed in every great religious body. They are not only initiated but largely sustained by older peo- ple, but unfortunately, like the Sunday-school, almost always by those who have little knowledge of adolescent nature or needs. Most of them make later adaptations to fit academic students, but these are still inadequate. The spirit of these societies is warm-hearted, positive, optimistic, enthusiastic, and loyal to the great Head of the Church. This is their glory. Most of them have progressively recognized the need of amusement, recreation, and athletics to counteract the tempta- tions of city life, and a more youthful buoyancy and a broader charity have thus been given to the Church. Classes, lectures, evening homes have been opened; special directors and trainers are increasingly competent and give expert training, and per- haps this is the most important advance of the Church in the last generation. Far more than teachers in high school or college, or pastors, these leaders are ready to profit, as far as their still too limited training permits, by every aid that recent ephebic studies can offer. When the stage of external or- ganization is less absorbing and more effort can be given to i See Young People's Societies, by L. W. Bacon; New York, 1900, p. 265 Also, F. G. Cressey; The Church and Young Men; New York, 1903, p. 233.
SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND INSTITUTIONS 4" improving the quality of real inner work, these recent organ- izations will perhaps sometime lead all others in ministering to the deepest needs of youth. Their attractiveness to people older than those primarily in view shows how in maturity men love to hark back to this best age of life, both to make up what they missed at its true season and to conserve into age the freshness of earlier years. Even the affected fervor and effusiveness of hearts that have begun to show the chill of age and the sometimes gushy and shallow enthusiasms that persist well on into the great fatigue that slowly supervenes with advancing senescence, are an often pathetic testimony to the fact that in our age and land youth rules, and all love to pay an almost passionate tribute wherever it holds sway. I can here specify, and that very briefly, only a few of the most characteristic of these new societies.
(h) The Young Men's Christian Association1 was founded in 1844, in London, to meet the needs of clerks and other young men who had been drawn from the country by the fascinations of the city, and many of whom had few opportunities for forming fit acquaint- ances, had no home but a bedroom, and so no place to go to, and were exposed to the fiercest temptation. In 1851 it was established in this country and has now spread to every civilized land. In 1800 one in twenty-five of our population lived in cities of 8,000 or over, and in 1880 one in four. The attraction of cities, those great hives of industry and trade, where great stakes are lost and won, where life is so hot and fast, where the nerves are tense and tingle, and compe- tition and vice both stimulate and enervate, is shown by the fact that from eighteen to twenty per cent of our great urban population is made up of males between fifteen and thirty-six, while in the coun- try this class constitutes only about fourteen per cent. The American associations now own property valued at nearly thirty million dol- lars, and hold musical and other public entertainments, sociables, meet- ings, Bible classes, evening schools, and occasionally conduct hospitals, issue traveling certificates, act as employment bureaus, and organize local and departmental centers for railroad men, students, etc. There are now (1903) 28,000 active student members out of 62,000 evan- 1 Fifty Years' Work among Young Men in all Lands. Published in June, 1894, on the occasion of the semi-centennial of the founding of the Y. M. C. A.; London, 1894, pp. 326. Year-Book of the Y. M. C. A. of North America, 1903. History of the Y. M. C. A., by L. L. Doggett, Ph.D., 1896, vol. i, p. 191. Continued in some sense in his Life of R. R. McBurney, 1902. See also, for principles and method, Religious Work for Men, with Bibliography, New York, 422 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE gelical church members in nearly 450 colleges of this country where these associations exist, or about one-fourth of the entire collegiate body. That there are no more members, despite all the efforts put forth, shows that the needs of academic youth are not yet met. This organization flourishes best in the State universities where religion can not be officially taught. Four or five thousand young men are pledged to the work of foreign missions and engaged in their study, a far greater number than can be employed. The ideals of militant Christianity are in a measure here revived. Their intercollegiate meetings, summer conferences, receptions to freshmen, their wisdom in abstaining from class politics, their hospitable buildings, have in- troduced a new spirit of confraternity. Very often Sunday-school and reform work is undertaken of an aggressive kind, and headed by the Prospect Union at Harvard, valuable extension work is done among laboring men, women, and clerks. In August, 1895, Just forty years after the World's Alliance of the Y. M. C. A. was formed, there was organized at a congress of delegates in Sweden a World's Student Christian Federation representing 33,000 members,1 which has since steadily increased.
In Germany these organizations were established chiefly to meet the strong wave of reaction against religion that pervaded that coun- try, a movement that was so aggressive, especially in 1848, as to threaten social and political as well as religious institutions and beliefs. In Japan, India, and Catholic lands they have had to resist the influences of preexisting faiths, in industrial centers, the grow- ing indifference or hostility of working men to religion, and toward the western frontier where men exceed women, lawlessness and vice are entrenched and have to be met. The interdenominational char- acter of this organization opened a new field of fellowship with an inspiration both strong and new. A new force of lay-activity, which inherited all the best traditions of revivalism of the Puritans and the original Protestant and early Catholic propaganda movements, was harnessed and put to work; honor, conscience, and Christianity were advocated in the methods of business, that monster that so dominates the modern world, whose organizations, motives, laws are as yet, despite all our studies, so little known, fruitful affiliation effected with the Bible, Tract, Sunday-school, and other societies, and by these and other co-ordinate efforts the dwindling percentage of male mem-