Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/849

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his paradise and must enter upon a long viaticum of ascent, must conquer a higher kingdom of man for himself, break out a new sphere, and evolve a

more modern story to his psychophysical nature It is the most critical

stage of life, because failure to mount almost always means retrogression, degeneracy, or fall. One may be in all respects better or worse, but can never be the same.

On this account youth is often called the age of folly.

Youth tends to do everything physically possible with its body .... to explore every possibility of action and innervation, and to give the soul a newer and higher control. It is plastic to every suggestion ; tends to do everything that comes into the head, to instantly carry out every impulse; loves nothing more than abandon and hates nothing so much as restraint. It is the age that can withstand no dare or stump; loves adventure and escapade; tends to let every faculty go to its uttermost; and seems to have a special tendency .... to every psychic disease. There is overinnervation and tonicity, which may issue in any fulminating and furibund manifestation, and which responds to all new and intensified impulsions from within and

suggestions from without The popular idea, that youth must have its

fling, implies the need of greatly and sometimes suddenly widened liberty, which nevertheless needs careful supervision and wise direction, from afar and by indirect methods.

It is the time when guidance by command should give way to guidance by ideals.

A greatly intensified social self-consciousness which may be expressed in bashfulness, showing-off, or affectation, according to temperament, environ- ment, etc., to win good-will or avoid ill-will, is now one of the strongest motives. Fame, glory, renown, leadership, may now become ruling passions. Praise is never so inebriating, and flattery is never so liable to cause conceit and a dualized hypocritical life, while censure, derision, or failures that sug- gest inferiority are never so depressive or so liable to leave a permanent mark.

There is often a morbid self-criticism, alternating with an over- assertion of individuality. " Conscience becomes so oversensitive that ' anxiety about doing right exhausts the energy that should go to action, trifles are augmented to mountains, or debate with oneself as to what is right is carried so far as to paralyze decision.' " Adolescent bravado is often a cloak for real self -distrust.

The psychological center of gravity of the individual is now shifting over to the social side. This is seen in the social character of the plays and games of adolescence, the spontaneous social organizations, secret societies, bands, clubs, etc. It is the time when normally the youth tends to leave the parental roof and set up for himself. Henceforth the race, not the individual self, though at