full maturity of a knowledge fully f acultized — a question paramount, even in a republic, to the general education of the many.
The illusion is that beginnings are hard. They are easy. Almost any mind can advance a little way into almost any subject. The feeblest youth can push on briskly in the beginning of a new subject, but he forgets, and so does the examiner who marks him, that difficul- ties increase not in arithmetical but in almost geometrical ratio as he advances. The fact, too, that all topics are taught by all teachers and that we have no specialized MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING teaching in elementary branches, and that examina- tions are placed in the most debilitating part of our peculiarly debilitating spring, these help us to solve the problem which China has solved so well, viz., how to in- struct and not to educate. A pass mark, say of fifty, should be given not for mastery of the first half of the book, or for knowledge of half the matter in it, but for that of three-fourths or more. Suppose one choose the easier method of tattooing his mind by attaining the easy early stages of proficiency in many subjects, as is possible and even encouraged in too many of our school and col- lege curricula, he weakens the will-quality of his mind. Smattering is dissipation of energy. Only great, con- centrated and prolonged efforts in one direction really train the mind, because only they train the will beneath it. Many little, heterogeneous efforts of different sorts leave the mind in a muddle of heterogeneous impressions, and the will like a rubber band is stretched to flaccidity around one after another bundle of objects too large for it to clasp into unity. Here again, in der Beschrdnkung zeigt sich der Meister ^; all-sidedness through one-sided- ness; by stalking the horse or cow out in the spring time, till he gnaws his small allotted circle of grass to the ground, and not by roving and cropping at will, can he be taught that the sweetest joint is nearest the root, are convenient symbols of will-culture in the intellectual field. Even a long cram, if only on one subject, which brings out the relations of the parts, or a " one-study college," as is already devised in the West, or the combination of several subjects even in primary school grades into a " concentration series," as devised by Ziller and Rein, the university purpose as defined by Ziller of so combin- 1 The master shows himself in self-hm^itation.
YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE ing studies that each shall stand in the course next to that with which it is inherently closest connected by matter and method, or the requirements of one central and two collateral branches for the doctorate examina- tion— all these devices no doubt tend to give a sense of efficiency, which is one of the deepest and proudest joys of life, in the place of a sense of possession so often attended by the exquisite misery of conscious weakness. The unity of almost any even ideal purpose is better than none, if it tend to check the superficial one of learn- ing to repeat again or of boxing the whole compass of sciences and liberal arts, as so many of our high schools or colleges attempt.
Finally, in the sphere of mental productivity and originality, a just preponderance of the will-element makes men distrust new insights, quick methods, and short cuts, and trust chiefly to the genius of honest and sustained work, in power of which perhaps lies the great- est intellectual difference between men. When ideas are ripe for promulgation they have been condensed and concentrated, thought traverses them quickly and easily — in a word, they have become practical, and the will that waits over a new idea patiently and silently, without anxiety, even though with a deepening sense of respon- sibility, till all sides have been seen, all authorities con- sulted, all its latent mental reserves heard from, is the man who '' talks with the rifle and not with the water-hose," or, in a rough farmer's phrase, " boils his words till he can give his hearers sugar and not sap.'^ Several of the more important discoveries of the present generation, which cost many weary months of toil, have been enumerated in a score or two of lines, so that every experimenter could set up his apparatus and get the results in a few minutes. Let us not forget that, in most MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING departments of mental work, the more we revise and re- construct our thought, the longer we inhibit its final ex- pression, while the oftener we return to it refreshed from other interests, the clearer and more permeable for other minds it becomes, because the more it tends to express it- self in terms of willed action, which is ' ' the language of complete men. ' ' So closely bound together are moral and religious training that a discussion of one without the other would be incomplete. In a word, religion is the most generic kind of culture as opposed to all systems or departments which are one-sided. All education culminates in it be- cause it is chief among human interests, and because it gives inner unity to the mind, heart, and will. How now should this common element of union be taught?
To be really effective and lasting, moral and re^ ligious training must begin in the cradle. It was a profound remark of Froebel that the unconscious7iess of a child is rest in God. This need not be understood in any pantheistic sense. From this rest in God the child- ish soul should not be abruptly or prematurely aroused. Even the primeval stages of psychic growth are rarely so all-sided, so purely unsolicited, spontaneous, and un- precocious, as not to be in a sense a fall from Froebel's unconsciousness or rest in God. The sense of touch, the mother of all the other senses, is the only one which the child brings into the world already experienced; but by the pats, caresses, hugs, etc., so instinctive with young mothers, varied feelings and sentiments are communi- cated to the child long before it recognizes its own body as distinct from things about it. The mother's face and voice are the first conscious objects as the infant soul unfolds, and she soon comes to stand in the very place of God to her child. All the religion of which the child YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE is capable during this by no means brief stage of its development consists of those sentiments — gratitude, trust, dependence, love, etc., now felt only for her — which are later directed toward God. The less these are now cultivated toward the mother, who is now their only fitting if not their only possible object, the more feebly they will later be felt toward God. This, too, adds greatly to the sacredness and the responsibilities of motherhood. Froebel perhaps is right that thus fundamental religious sentiments can be cultivated in the earliest months of infancy. It is of course impossi- ble not to seem, perhaps even not to be, sentimental upon this theme, for the infant soul has no other content than sentiments, and because upon these rests the whole superstructure of religion in child or adult. The moth- er's emotions, and physical and mental states, indeed, are imparted and reproduced in the infant so immedi- ately, unconsciously, and through so many avenues, that it is no wonder that these relations seem mystic. Whether the mother is habitually under the influence of calm and tranquil emotions, or her temper is fluc- tuating or violent, or her movements are habitually energetic or soft and caressing, or she be regular or irregular in her ministrations to the infant in her arms, all these characteristics and habits are registered in the primeval language of touch upon the nervous system of the child. From this point of view, poise and calmness, the absence of all intense stimuli and of sensations or transitions which are abrupt or sudden, and an atmos- phere of quieting influences, like everything which re- tards by broadening, is in the general line of religious culture. The soul of an infant is well compared to a seed planted in a garden. It is not pressed or moved by the breezes which rustle the leaves overhead. The MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING sunlight does not fall upon it, and even dew and even- ing coolness scarcely reach it; but yet there is not a breath of air, nor a ray of sunshine, nor a drop of moisture to which it is unresponsive, and which does not stir all its germinant forces. The child is a plant, must live out of doors in proper season, and there must be no forcing. Religion, then, at this important stage, at least, is naturalism pure and simple, and religious training is the supreme art of standing out of nature's way. So implicit is the unity of soul and body at this formative age that care of the body is the most effective ethico-religious culture.
Next to be considered are the sentiments which un- fold under the influence of that fresh and naive curiosity which attends the first impressions of natural objects from which both religion and science spring as from one common root. The awe and sublimity of a thunder- storm, the sights and sounds of a spring morning, objects which lead the child's thoughts to what is remote in time and space, old trees, ruins, the rocks, and, above all, the heavenly bodies — the utilization of these lessons is the most important task of the religious teacher during the kindergarten stage of childhood. Still more than the undevout astronomer, the undevout child under such influences is abnormal. In these directions the mind of the child is as open and plastic as that of the ancient prophet to the promptings of the inspiring Spirit. The child can recognize no essential difference between nature and the supernatural, and the products of mythopoeic fancy which have been spun about natural objects, and which have lain so long and so warm about the hearts of generations and races of men, are now the best of all nutriments for the soul. To teach scientific rudiments only about nature, on the shallow principle that nothing YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE should be taught which must be unlearned, or to en- courage the child to assume the critical attitude of mind, is dwarfing the heart and prematurely forcing the head. It has been said that country life is religion for chil- dren at this stage. However this may be, it is clear thfft natural religion is rooted in such experiences, and pre- cedes revealed religion in the order of growth and educa- tion, whatever its logical order in systems of thought may be. A little later, habits of truthfulness ^ are best cultivated by the use of the senses in exact observation. To see a simple phenomenon in nature and report it fully and correctly is no easy matter, but the habit of trying to do so teaches what truthfulness is, and leaves the impress of truth upon the whole life and character. I do not hesitate to say, therefore, that elements of science should be taught to children for the moral effects of its influences. At the same time all truth is not sensuous, and this training alone at this age tends to make the mind pragmatic, dry, and insensitive or un- responsive to that other kind of truth the value of which is not measured by its certainty so much as by its effect upon us. We must learn to interpret the heart and our native instincts as truthfully as we do external nature, for our happiness in life depends quite as largely upon bringing our beliefs into harmony with the deeper feelings of our nature as it does upon the ability to adapt ourselves to our physical environment. Thus not only all religious beliefs and moral acts will strengthen if they truly express the character instead of cultivat- ing affectation and insincerity in opinion, word, and deed, as with mistaken pedagogic methods they may * For most recent and elaborate study of children's lies see Zeitschrif t fiir padagogische Psychologie, Pathologie und Hygiene, Juli, 1905. Jahr- MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING do. This latter can be avoided only by leaving all to naturalism and spontaneity at first, and feeding the soul only according to its appetites and stage of growth. No religious truth must be taught as fundamental — especially as fundamental to morality — which can be seriously doubted or even misunderstood. Yet it must be expected that convictions will be transformed and worked over and over again, and only late, if at all, will an equilibrium between the heart and the truth it clings to as finally satisfying be attained. Hence most positive religious instruction, or public piety, if taught at all, •should be taught briefly as most serious but too high for the child yet, or as rewards to stimulate curiosity for them later, but sacred things should not become too familiar or be conventionalized before they can be felt or understood.
The child's conception of God should not be personal or too familiar at first, but He should appear distant and vague, inspiring awe and reverence far more than love; in a word, as the God of nature rather than as devoted to serviceable ministrations to the child's individual wants. The latter should be taught to be a faithful servant rather than a favorite of God. The inestimable peda- gogic value of the God-idea consists in that it widens the child's glimpse of the whole, and gives the first present- iment of the universality of laws, such as are observed in its experiences and that of others, so that all things seem comprehended under one stable system or gov- ernment. The slow realization that God's laws are not like those of parents and teachers, evadible, suspensible, but changeless, and their penalties sure as the laws of nature, is a most important factor of moral training. First the law, the schoolmaster, then the Gospel; first nature, then grace, is the order of growth.
The pains or pleasures which follow many acts are YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE immediate, while the results that follow others are so remote or so serious that the child must utilize the ex- perience of others. Artificial rewards and punishments must be cunningly devised so as to simulate and typify- as closely as possible the real natural penalty, and they must be administered uniformly and impartially like laws of nature. As commands are just, and as they are gradually perceived to spring from superior wisdom, respect arises, which Kant called the bottom motive of duty, and defined as the immediate determination of the will by law, thwarting self-love. Here the child rev- erences what is not understood as authority, and to the childish " Why? " which always implies imperfect re- spect for the authority, however displeasing its behest, the teacher or parent should always reply, ' ' You cannot understand why yet, ' ' unless quite sure that a convincing and controlling insight can be given, such as shall make all future exercise of outward authority in this particu- lar unnecessary. From this standpoint the great im- portance of the character and native dignity of the teacher is best seen. Daily contact with some teachers is itself all-sided ethical education for the child without a spoken precept. Here, too, the real advantage of male over female teachers, especially for boys, is seen in their superior physical strength, which often, if highly esti- mated, gives real dignity and commands real respect, and especially in the unquestionably greater uniformity of their moods and their discipline.
During the first years of school life, a point of prime importance in ethico-religious training is the education of conscience. This latter is the most complex and per- haps the most educable of all our so-called " faculties.'* A system of carefully arranged talks, with copious illus- trations from history and literature, about such topics as MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING fair play, slang, cronies, dress, teasing, getting mad, prompting in class, white lies, affectation, cleanliness, order, honor, taste, self-respect, treatment of animals, reading, vacation pursuits, etc., can be brought quite within the range of boy-and-girl interests by a sym- pathetic and tactful teacher, and be made immediately and obviously practical. All this is nothing more or less than conscience-building. The old superstition that children have innate faculties of such a finished sort that they flash up and grasp the principle of things by a rapid sort of first '' intellection," an error that made all departments of education so trivial, assumptive and dogmatic for centuries before Comenius, Basedow and Pestalozzi, has been banished everywhere save from moral and religious training, where it still persists in full force. The senses develop first, and all the higher intuitions called by the collective name of conscience gradually and later in life. They first take the form of sentiments without much insight, and are hence liable to be unconscious affectation, and are caught insensibly from the environment with the aid of inherited pre- disposition, and only made more definite by such talks as the above. But parents are prone to forget that healthful and correct sentiments concerning matters of conduct are, at first, very feeble, and that the sense of obligation needs the long and careful guardianship of external authority. Just as a young medical student with a rudimentary notion of physiology and hygiene is sometimes disposed to undertake a more or less com- plete reform of his diet, regimen, etc., to make it '' scientific " in a way that an older and a more learned physician would shrink from, so the half-insights of boys into matters of moral regimen are far too apt, in the American temperament, to expend, in precocious YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE emancipation and crude attempts at practical realization, the force which is needed to bring their insights to maturity. Authority should be relaxed gradually, ex- plicitly, and provisionally over one definite department of conduct at a time. To distinguish right and wrong in their own nature is the highest and most complex of intellectual processes. Most men and all children are guided only by associations of greater or less subtlety. Perhaps the whole round of human duties might be best taught by gathering illustrations of selfishness and trac- ing it in its countless disguises and ramifications through every stage of life. Selfishness is opposed to a sense of the infinite and is inversely as real religion, and the study of it is not, like systematic ethics, apt to be con- fused and made unpractical by conflicting theories.
The Bible, the great instrument in the education of conscience, is far less juvenile than it is now the fashion to suppose. At the very least, it expresses the result of the ripest human experience, the noblest traditions of humanity. Old Testament history, even more than most very ancient history, is distilled to an almost purely ethical content. For centuries Scripture was withheld from the masses for the same reason that Plato refused at first to put his thoughts into writing, because it would be sure to be misunderstood by very many and lead to that worst of errors and fanaticism caused by half-truths. Children should not approach it too lightly.
The Old Testament, perhaps before or more than the New, is the Bible for childhood. A good, protracted course of the law pedagogically prepares the way for the apprehension of the Gospel. Then the study of the Old Testament should begin with selected tales, told, as in the German schools, impressively, in the teacher's lan- guage, but objectively, and without exegetical or horta- MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING tory comment. The appeal is directly to the under- standing only at first, but the moral lesson is brought clearly and surely Avithin the child's reach, but not personally applied after the manner common with us.
Probably the most important changes for the educator to study are those which begin between the ages of twelve and sixteen and are completed only some years later, when the young adolescent receives from nature a new capital of energy and altruistic feeling. It is a physiological second birth, and success in life depends upon the care and wisdom with which this new and final invoice of energy is husbanded. These changes constitute a natural predisposition to a change of heart, and may perhaps be called, in Kantian phrase, its schema. Even from the psychophj^sic standpoint it is a correct .instinct which has slowly led churches to center so much of their cultus upon regeneration. In this I, of course, only assert here the neurophysical side, which is every- where present, even if everywhere subordinate to the spiritual side. As everywhere, so here, too, the phj^sical may be called in a sense regulative rather than con- stitutive. It is therefore not surprising that statistics show that far more conversions, proportionately, take place during the adolescent period, which does not nor- mally end before the age of twenty-four or five, than dur- ing any other period of equal length. At this age most churches confirm.
Before this age the child lives in the present, is nor- mally selfish, deficient in sympathy, but frank and con- fidential, obedient to authority, and without affecta- tion save the supreme affectation of childhood, viz., assuming the words, manners, habits, etc., of those older than itself. But now stature suddenly increases, and the power of physical and mental endurance and effort YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN. AND HYGIENE diminishes for a time; larynx, nose, chin change, and normal and morbid ancestral traits and features appear. Far greater and more protracted, though unseen, are the changes which take place in the nervous system, both in the development of the cortex and expansion of the convolutions and the growth of association-fibers by which the elements shoot together and relation of things are seen, which hitherto seemed independent, to which it seems as if for a few years the energies of growth were chiefly directed. Hence this period is so critical and changes in character are so rapid. No matter hoAV confi- dential the relations with the parent may have been, an important domain of the soul now declares its independ- ence. Confidences are shared with those of equal age and withheld from parents, especially by boys, to an extent probably little suspected by most parents. Education must be addressed to freedom, which recognizes only self- made law, and spontaneity of opinion and conduct is manifested, often in extravagant and grotesque forms. There is now a longing for that kind of close sympathy and friendship which makes cronies and intimates; there is a craving for strong emotions which gives pleasure in exaggerations; and there are nameless longings for what is far, remote, strange, which emphasizes the self-es- trangement which Hegel so well describes, and which marks the normal rise of the presentiment of something higher than self. Instincts of rivalry and competition now grow strong in boys, and girls grow more conscien- tious and inward, and begin to feel their music, reading, religion, painting, etc., and to realize the bearing of these upon their future adult life. There is often a strong instinct of devotion and self-sacrifice toward some, perhaps almost any, object, or in almost any cause which circumstances may present. Moodiness and perhaps a MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING love of solitude are developed. " Growing fits " make hard and severe labor of body and mind impossible with- out dwarfing or arresting the development, by robbing of its nutrition some part of the organism — stomach, lungs, chest, heart, back, brain, etc. — which is peculiarly liable to disease later. It is never so hard to tell the truth plainly and objectively and without any subjective twist. The life of the mere individual ceases and that of person, or better, of the race, begins. It is a period of realization, and hence often of introspection. In healthy natures it is the golden age of life, in which enthusiasm, sympathy, generosity, and curiosity are at their strongest and best, and when growth is so rapid that, e. g., each college class is conscious of a vast interval of development which separates it from the class below; but it is also a period subject to Wertherian crises, such as Hume, Richter, J. S. Mill, and others passed through, and all depends on the direction given to these new forces.
The dangers of this period are great and manifest. The chief of these, far greater even than the dangers of intemperance, is that the sexual elements of soul and body will be developed prematurely and disproportion- ately. Indeed, early maturity in this respect is itself bad. If it occurs before other compensating and controlling powers are unfolded, this element is hypertrophied and absorbs and dwarfs their energy and it is then more likely to be uninstructed and to suck up all that is vile in the environment. Far more than we realize, the thoughts and feelings of youth center about this factor of his nature. Quite apart, therefore, from its intrinsic value, education should serve the purpose of preoccupa- tion, and should divert attention from an element of our nature the premature or excessive development of which dwarfs every part of soul and body. Intellectual in- YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE terests, athleticism, social and esthetic tastes, should be cultivated. There should be some change in external life. Previous routine and drill-work must be broken through and new occupations resorted to, that the mind may not be left idle while the hands are mechanically employed. Attractive home-life, friendships well chosen and on a high plane, and regular habits, should of course be cultivated. Now, too, though the intellect is not frequently judged insane, so that pubescent insanity is comparatively rare, the feelings, which are yet more fundamental to mental sanity, are most often perverted, and lack of emotional steadiness, violent and dangerous impulses, unreasonable conduct, lack of enthusiasm and sympathy, are very commonly caused by abnormalities here. Neurotic disturbances, such as hysteria, chorea, and, in the opinion of some physicians, sick-headache and early dementia are peculiarly liable to appear and be- come seated during this period. In short, the previous selfhood is broken up like the regulation copy hand- writing of early school years, and a new individual is in process of crystallization. All is solvent, plastic, pe- culiarly susceptible to external influences.