1 Children's Ideals. Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1900, vol. 7, pp.
THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL IDEALS emphasizes the fact that the teacher or parent does not work in a world governed by caprice.
The compositions written by thousands of children in New York on what they wanted to do when they were grown np were collated by Dr. Thurber.^ The replies were serious, and showed that poor children looked forward willingly to severe labor and the in- creased earnestness of adolescent years, and the better answers to the question why were noteworthy. All anticipated giving up the elastic joyousness of child- hood and felt the need of patience. Up to ten, there was an increase in the number of those who had two or more desires. This number declined rapidly at eleven, rose as rapidly at twelve, and slowly fell later. Preferences for a teacher's life exceeded in girls up to nine, fell rapidly at eleven, increased slightly the next year, and declined thereafter. The ideal of becoming a dressmaker and milliner increased till ten, fell at eleven, rose rapidly to a maximum at thirteen, when it eclipsed teaching, and then fell permanently again. The professions of clerk and stenographer showed a marked rise from eleven and a half. The number of boys who chose the father's occupation attained its maximum at nine and its minimum at twelve, with a slight rise to fourteen, when the survey ended. The ideal of tradesman culminated at eight, with a second rise at thirteen. The reason " to earn money " reached its high maximum of fifty per cent at twelve, and fell very rapidly. The reason " because I like it " culmi- nated at ten and fell steadily thereafter. The motive that influenced the choice of a profession and which was altruistic toward parents or for their benefit culminated 1 Transactions of the Illinois Society for Child Study, vol. 2, No. 2, YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE at twelve and a half, and then declined. The desire for character increased somewhat throughout, but rapidly after twelve, and the impulse to do good to the world, which had risen slowly from nine, mounted sharply after thirteen. Thus, " at eleven all the ideas and tendencies are increasing toward a maximum. At twelve we find the altruistic desires for the welfare of parents, the reason ' to earn money '; at thirteen the desire on the part of the girls to be dressmakers, also to be clerks and stenographers. At fourteen culminates the desire for a business career in bank or office among the boys, the consciousness of life's uncertainties which appeared first at twelve, the desire for character, and the hope of doing the world good."
'' What would you like to be in an imaginary new city? " was a question answered by 1,234 written papers.^ One hundred and fourteen different occupa- tions were given; that of teacher led with the girls at every age except thirteen and fourteen, when dress- maker and milliner took precedence. The motive of making money led among the boys at every age except fourteen and sixteen, when occupations chosen because they were liked led. The greatest number of those who chose the parent's occupation was found at thirteen, but from that age it steadily declined and independent choice came into prominence. The maximum of girls who chose parental vocations w^as at fourteen. Motives of philanthropy reached nearly their highest point in girls and boys at thirteen.
Jegi ^ obtained letters addressed to real or imaginary 1 Children's Ambitions. By H. M. Willard. Barnes's Studies in Education, vol. 2, pp. 243-258. (Privately printed by Earl Barnes, 4401 Sansom Street, Philadelphia.)
2 Transactions of the Illinois Society for Child Study, October, 1898, THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL IDEALS friends from 3,000 German children in Milwaukee, asking what they desired to do when they grew up, and why, and tabulated returns from 200 boys and 200 girls for each age from eight to fourteen inclusive. He also found a steadily decreasing influence of relatives to thirteen; in early adolescence, the personal motive of choosing an occupation because it was liked increased, while from twelve in boys and thirteen in girls the con- sideration of finding easy vocations grew rapidly strong. L. W. Kline ^ studied by the census method returns from 2,594 children, who were asked what they wished to be and do. He found that in naming both ideals and occupations girls were more conservative than boys, but more likely to give a reason for their choice. In this respect country children resembled boys more than city children. Country boys were more prone to in- attention, were more independent and able to care for themselves, suggesting that the home life of the country child is more effective in shaping ideals and character than that of the city child. Industrial occupations are preferred by the younger children, the professional and technical pursuits increasing with age. Judgments of rights and justice wdth the young are more prone to issue from emotional rather than from intellectual proc- esses. Country children seem more altruistic than those in the city, and while girls are more sympathetic than boys, they are also more easily prejudiced. Many of these returns bear unmistakable marks that in some homes and schools moralization has been excessive arid has produced a sentimental type of morality and often a feverish desire to express ethical views instead of trusting to suggestion. Children are very prone to have 1 A Study in Juvenile Ethics. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1903, YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE one code of ideals for themselves and another for others. Boys, too, are more original than girls, and country children more than city children.
Friedrich ^ asked German school children what person they chose as their pattern. The result showed differ- ences of age, sex, and creed. First of all came characters in history, which seemed to show that this study for chil- dren of the sixth and seventh grades was essentially eth- ical or a training of mood and disposition {Gesinniingsun- terricht), and this writer suggests reform in this respect. He seems to think that the chief purpose of history for this age should be ethical. Next came the influence of the Bible, although it was plain that this was rather in spite of the catechism and the method of memoriter work. Here, too, the immediate environment at this age fur- nished few ideals (four and one-fifth per cent), for children seem to have keener eyes for the faults than for the virtues of those near them. Religion, therefore, should chiefly be directed to the emotions and not to the under- standing. This census also suggested more care that the reading of children should contain good examples in their environment, and also that the matter of instruction should be more fully adapted to the conditions of sex.
Friedrich found as his chief age result that children of the seventh or older class in the German schools laid distinctly greater stress upon characters distinguished by bravery and courage than did the children of the sixth grade, while the latter more frequently selected characters illustrating piety and holiness. The author divided his characters into thirty-five classes, illustrating qualities, and found that national activity led, with piety a close second; that then came in order those illustrating firmness 1 Die Ideale der Kinder. Zeitschrift fiir padagogische Psychologie, Pathologie und Hygiene. Jahrgang 3, Heft 1, pp. 38-64.
THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL IDEALS of faith, bravery, modesty, and chastity; then pity and sympathy, industry, goodness, patience, etc.
Taylor, Young, Hamilton, Chambers, and others, have also collected interesting data on what children and young people hope to be, do, whom they would like to be, or resemble, etc. Only a few at adolescence feel them- selves so good or happy that they are content to be them- selves. Most show more or less discontent at their lot. From six to eleven or twelve, the number who find their ideals among their acquaintances falls off rapidly, and historical characters rise to a maximum at or before the earliest teens. From eleven or twelve on into the middle teens contemporary ideals increase steadily. London children are more backward in this expansion of ideals than Americans, while girls choose more acquaintance ideals at all ages than do boys. The expansion, these authors also trace largely to the study of history. The George Washington ideal, which leads all the rest by far and is greatly overworked, in contrast with the many heroes of equal rank found in England, pales soon, as imperfections are seen, and those now making history loom up. This is the normal age to free from bondage to the immediate present, and this freedom is one meas- ure of education. Bible heroes are chosen as ideals by only a very small percentage, mostly girls, far more characters being from fiction and mythology; where Jesus is chosen, His human is preferred to His divine side. Again, it would seem that teachers would be ideals, especially as many girls intend to teach, but they are generally unpopular as choices. In an ideal system they would be the first step in expansion from home ideals. Military heroes and inventors play leading roles in the choices of pubescent boys.
Girls at all school ages and increasingly up the grades YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE prefer foreign ideals, to be tlie wife of a man of title, as aristocracies offer special opportunities for woman to shine, and life near the source of fashion is very attract- ive, at least up to sixteen. The saddest fact in these studies is that nearly half our American pubescent girls, or nearly three times as many as in England, choose male ideals, or would be men. Girls, too, have from six to fifteen times as many ideals as boys. In this significant fact we realize how modern woman has cut loose from all old moorings and is drifting with no destination and no anchor aboard. While her sex has multiplied in all lower and high school grades, its ideals are still too mas- culine. Text-books teach little about women. When a woman's Bible, history, course of study, etc., is proposed, her sex fears it may reduce her to the old servitude. While boys rarely, and then only when very young, choose female ideals, girls' preference for the life of the other sex sometimes reaches sixty and seventy per cent. The divorce between the life preferred and that de- manded by the interests of the race is often absolute. Saddest and most unnatural of all is the fact that this state of things increases most rapidly during just those years when ideals of womanhood should be developed and become most dominant, till it seems as if the female character was threatened with disintegration. While statistics are not yet sufficient to be reliable on the sub- ject, there is some indication that woman later slowly reverts toward ideals not only from her own sex but also from the circle of her own acquaintances.
The reasons for the choice of ideals are various and not yet well determined. Civic virtues certainly rise; material and utilitarian considerations do not seem to much, if at all, at adolescence, and in some data decline. Position, fame, honor, and general greatness increase THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL IDEALS rapidly, but moral qualities rise highest and also fastest just before and near puberty and continue to increase later yet. By these choices both sexes, but girls far most, show increasing admiration of ethical and social qualities. Artistic and intellectual traits also rise quite steadily from ten or eleven onward, but with no such rapidity, and reach no such height as military ability and achieve- ment for boys. Striking in these studies is the rapid in- crease, especially from eight to fourteen, of the sense of historic time for historic persons. These long since dead are no longer spoken of as now living. Most of these choices are direct expressions of real differences of taste and character.
Property, Kline and France ^ have defined as ' ' any- thing that the individual may acquire which sustains and prolongs life, favors survival, and gives an advantage over opposing forces." Many animals and even insects store up food both for themselves and for their young. Very early in life children evince signs of ownership. Letourneau ^ says that the notion of private property, which seems to us so natural, dawned late and slowly, and that common ownership was the rule among primitive people. Value is sometimes measured by use and some- times by the work required to produce it. Before pu- berty, there is great eagerness to possess things that are of immediate service; but after its dawn, the desire of possession takes another form, and money for its own sake, which is at first rather an abstraction, comes to be respected or regarded as an object of extreme de- sire, because it is seen to be the embodiment of all values.
1 The Psychology of Ownership. Pedagogical Seminary, December, 2 Property: Its Origin and Development. Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1892, YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE The money sense, as it is now often called, is very complex and has not yet been satisfactorily analyzed by psychology. Ribot and others trace its origin to prevision which they think animals that hoard food feel. Monroe^ has tabulated returns from 977 boys and 1,090 girls from six to sixteen in answer to the question as to what they would do with a small monthly allowance. The following table shows the marked increase at the dawn of adolescence of the number who would save it: Age.
Boys.
Girls.
Age.
B oys.
Girls.
7.
36 per cent per cent 64 per cent 8.
34 u a 78 9.
35 u i( 50 u " 58 a (I 82 This tendency to thrift is strongest in boys, and both sexes often show the tendency to moralize, that is so strong in the early teens. Much of our school work in arithmetic is dominated by the money sense; and school savings-banks, at first for the poor, are now extend- ing to children of all classes. This sense tends to prevent pauperism, prodigality, is an immense stimulus to the imagination and develops purpose to pursue a distant object for a long time. To see all things and values in terms of money has, of course, its pedagogic and ethical limitations; but there is a stage where it is a great educational advance, and it, too, is full of phylogenetic suggestions.
Social judgment, croyiies, solitude. — The two follow- ing observations afford a glimpse of the development of moral judgments. From 1,000 boys and 1,000 girls of each age from six to sixteen who answered the question as to what should be done to a girl with a new box of paints who beautified the parlor chairs with them with a wish to please her mother, the follow- ing conclusion was drawn." Most of the younger chil- 1 Money-Sense of Children. Will S. Monroe. Pedagogical Seminary, 2 A Study of Children's Rights, as Seen by Themselves. By M. E. Schallenberger. Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1894, vol. 3, pp.
THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL IDEALS dren would whip the girl, but from fourteen on the num- ber declines very rapidly. Few of the young children suggest explaining why it was wrong; while at twelve, 181, and at sixteen, 751 would explain. The motive of the younger children in punishment is revenge; with the older ones that of preventing a repetition of the act comes in; and higher and later comes the purpose of re- form. AVith age comes also a marked distinction between the act and its motive and a sense of the girl 's ignorance. Only the older children would suggest extracting a prom- ise not to offend again. Thus with puberty comes a change of view-point from judging actions by results to judging by motives, and onlj^ the older ones see that wrong can be done if there are no bad consequences. There is also with increased years a great development of the quality of mercy.
One hundred children of each sex and age between six and sixteen were asked what they would do with a burglar, the question stating that the penalty was five years in prison. ^ Of the younger children nearly nine-tenths ignored the law and fixed upon some other penalty, but from twelve years there is a steady advance in those who would inflict the legal penalty, while at sixteen, seventy-four per cent would have the criminal punished according to law. Thus "with the dawn of adolescence at the age of twelve or shortly after comes the recognition of a larger life, a life to be lived in common with others, and with this recognition the desire to sustain the social code made for the common welfare," and punishment is no longer regarded as an individual and arbitrary matter.
From another question answered by 1,914 children ^ it was found that with the development of the psychic faculties in youth, there was an increasing appreciation of punishment as preventive; an in- 1 Children's Attitude toward Law. By E. M. Darrah. Barnes's Studies in Education, vol. 1, pp. 213-216. (Stanford University, 1897.) G. E. Stechert and Co., New York.
2 Class Punishment. By Caroline Frear. Barnes's Studies in Edu- YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE creasing sense of the value of individuality and of the tendency to demand protection of personal rights; a change from a sense of justice based on feeling and on faith in authority to that based on reason and understanding. Children's attitude toward punishment for weak time sense, tested by 2,536 children from six to sixteen,^ showed also a m^arked pubescent increase in the sense of the need of the remedial function of punishment as distinct from the view of it as vindictive, or getting even, common in earlier years. There is also a marked increase in discriminating the kinds and degrees of offenses; in taking account of mitigating circumstances, the incon- venience caused others, the involuntary nature of the offense and the purpose of the culprit. All this continues to increase up to sixteen, where these studies leave the child.
An interesting effect of the social instinct appears in August Mayer's ^ elaborate study made upon fourteen boys in the fifth and sixth grade of a Wiirzburg school to determine whether they could work better together or alone. The tests were in dictation, mental and written arithmetic, memory, and Ebbinghaus's combination exercises, and all were given with every practicable precaution to make the other conditions uniform. The conclusions demonstrate the advantages of collective over individual instruction. Under the former condition, emulation is stronger and work more rapid and better in quality. From this it is inferred that pupils should not be grouped according to ability, for the dull are most stimulated by the presence of the bright, the bad by the good, etc. Thus work at home is prone to deteriorate, and experimental pedagogy shows that the social impulse is on the whole a stronger spur for boys of eleven or twelve than the absence of distraction which solitude brings.
From the answers of 1,068 boys and 1,268 girls from seven to six- teen on the kind of chum they liked best,^ it appears that with the teens children are more anxious for chums that can keep secrets and dress neatly, and there is an increased number who are liked for qualities that supplement rather than duplicate those of the chooser. "There is an apparent struggle between the real actual self and the ideal self; a pretty strong desire to have a chum that embodies the 1 Children's Attitude toward Punishment for Weak Time Sense. By D. S. Snedden. Barnes's Studies in Education, vol. 1, pp. 344-351.
2 Ueber Einzel- und Gesamtleistung des Schulkindes. Archiv fiir die gesamte Psychologie, 1 Band, 2 and 3 Heft, 1903, pp. 276-416.
3 Development of the Social Consciousness of Children. By Will S. Monroe. North-Western Monthly, September, 1898, vol. 9, pp. 31-36.
THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL IDEALS traits youth most desire but which they are conscious of lacking." The strong hke the weak; those full of fun the serious; the timid the bold; the small the large, etc. Only children^ illustrate differing effects of isolation, while "mashes" and "crushes" and ultra-crony- ism with "selfishness for two" show the results of abnormal restric- tion of the irradiation of the social instinct which should now occur.^ M. H. Small, ^ after pointing out that communal animals are more intelligent than those with solitary habits, and that even to name all the irradiations of the social instinct would be to write a history of the human race, studied nearly five hundred cases of eminent men who developed proclivities to solitude. It is interesting to observe in how many of these cases this was developed in adolescence when, with the horror of mediocrity, comes introspection, apathy, irresolu- tion, and subjectivism. The grounds of repulsion from society at this age may be disappointed hunger for praise, wounded vanity, the reaction from over-assertion, or the nursings of some high ideals, as it is slowly realized that in society the individual cannot be absolute. The motives to self-isolation may be because youth feels its lack of physical or moral force to compete with men, or they may be due to the failure of others to concede to the exactions of inordinate egotism and are directly proportional to the impulse to magnify self, or to the remoteness of common social interests from immediate personal desire or need, and inversely as the number and range of interests seen to be common and the clearness with which social relations are reahzed. While maturity of character needs some solitude, too much dwarfs it, and more or less of the same paralysis of associa- tion follows which is described in the nostalgia of arctic journeys, deserts, being lost in the jungle, solitary confinement, and in the interesting stories of feral men. ^ In some of these cases the mind is saved from entire stultification by pets, imaginary companions, tasks, etc. Normally "the tendency to solitude at adolescence indicates not fulness but want"; and a judicious balance between rest and 1 Bohannon: The Only Child in a Family. Pedagogical Seminary April, 1898, vol. 5, pp. 475-496. ' 2 J. Delitsch: Uber Schiilerfreundschaften in einer Volksschulklasse. Die Kinderfehler. Fiinfter Jahrgang, Mai, 1900, pp. 150-163.
3 On Some Psychical Relations of Society and Solitude. Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1900, vol. 7, pp. 13-69.
* A. Rauber: Homo Sapiens Ferus. J. Brehse, Leipzig, 1888. See also my Social Aspects of Education; Pedagogical Seminary, March, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 81-91. Also Kropotkin: Mutual Aid a Factor of Evolution. W. Heinemann, London, 1902.
YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE work, pursuit of favorite lines, genuine sympathy, and wise com- panionship will generally normalize the social relation.
First forms of spontaneous social organizations. — Gulick has studied the propensity of boys from thirteen on to consort in gangs, do " dawsies " and stumps, get into scrapes together, and fight and suffer for one another. The manners and customs of the gang are to build shanties or '' hunkies," hunt with sling shots, build fires before huts in the woods, cook their squirrels and other game, play Indian, build tree-platforms, where they smoke or troop about some leader, who may have an old revolver. They find or excavate caves, or perhaps roof them over; the barn is a blockhouse or a battle-ship. In the early teens boys begin to use frozen snowballs or put pebbles in them, or perhaps have stone-fights be- tween gangs than which no contiguous African tribes could be more hostile. They become toughs and tantalize policemen and peddlers; '' lick " every enemy or even stranger found alone on their grounds; often smash win- dows; begin to use sticks and brass knuckles in their fights; pelt each other with green apples; carry shillalahs, or perhaps air-rifles. The more plucky arrange fights beforehand; rifle unoccupied houses; set ambushes for gangs with which they are at feud; perhaps have secrets and initiations where new boys are triced up by the legs and butted against trees and rocks. When painted for their Indian fights, they may grow so excited as to per- haps rush into the water or into the school-room yelling; mimic the violence of strikes; kindle dangerous bonfires; pelt policemen, and shout vile nicknames.
The spontaneous tendency to develop social and politi- cal organizations among boys in pubescent years was well seen in a school near Baltimore in the midst of an eight- hundred-acre farm richly diversified with swamp and THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL IDEALS.