Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/243

 PUBERAL HYGIENE 2 29

We must, therefore, seek to arrange that the work of young people be done in conditions which avoid the pains of fatigue, and further the elimination of the waste which work creates in the tissues.

Every sthenic emotion seems to enjoy the immediate reward of such virtue: music, song, praise, emulation, self-love, sense of independence, and sexual emotion itself. The little song with which seamen accompany the weighing of the anchor helps to give to their efforts simultaneity as well as intensity of action

Alexander the Macedonian felt himself greatly excited with courage when Timotheus played the lute. I knew a lady who after a walk a few hours long was taken by a paraplegia which could be cured only after many months of care. Under a double emotion, the sexual and the musical, it happened that the same lady recovered ; and we see young damsels and boys dancing during many nights without feeling any degree of fatigue. Lycurgus let the maids play before young men in order to stimulate them in their exercises. Jesuits in Paraguay let music accompany the Indians in their daily work in order to render it tolerable and agreeable (D'Azara). Emulation works so strongly upon young men that it is sometimes necessary to restrain them, rather than to push them to obey its impulsion. I have seen young men coming to insanity from the strain of mental work done in order to surpass their school-fellows.

Very strong in youth is the love of independence. Battell, who lived many years among the Giagas of Benguela, relates that they put a collar on the boys of twelve or thirteen years, as an emblem of servitude, which they must wear till they could show the head of an enemy killed by them. The young men defy every danger with the utmost courage in order to be delivered from such a mark and in order to receive the honor of being declared members of society.

An immediate reward is the best means of training children of irregular conduct in reformative houses to regular work. So we see in Italy Martini's and Garaventa's institutions.

The great attraction of games and sports issues from the immediate recompense that one expects from them. To these,