Junior Age—Nine to Twelve
17. General Characteristics.—A broad survey of this period reveals the fact that in a peculiar way God is preparing life for entrance upon the larger opportunities and responsibilities of maturity. There is new physical strength, new intellectual vigor, greater power of absorption and assimilation, a wider diffusion of interest. The curiosity of earlier years becomes a real spirit of investigation along lines of interest, and questioning, not alone to find out facts, but also foundations of belief begins to appear. The individuality of each child stands out more distinctly and emphasizes itself in two marked ways—first, the desire for prominence, and, second, an independence of spirit and action. Yet, with all this independence, the boys and girls are easily dealt with if authority is administered by one whose personality has commanded respect and love.
18. Specific Characteristics.
(1) Energy,—physical and mental. Though this has already been referred to in a general way, it must have special mention as one of the most marked and important features of the Junior period. Physical vigor is apparent in the force of bodily movements so trying to sensitive nerves—God's provision for the excess of nervous activity. It also appears in the type of games belonging to this period and the intensity with which they are played. The new mental power is evident in the ability to perform more difficult and complex mental tasks, to reason more clearly, and to attend more closely.
(2) Development of the social instinct. These years mark the rapid development of insistent and insatiable desire for close companionship with others. There are no standards of attainment nor social distinctions according to which friends are chosen. The "gang" or the club is based entirely on kinship of spirit among those of the same age and sex. Often geographical lines enter in, and the boys of a certain street or district will band together, and not uncommonly be the sworn enemies of other gangs for no more valid reason than love of contest, growing out of the instinct of rivalry. But this martial aspect of gang life is not a characteristic of all the social tendency of the period. There is a drawing of child to child for peaceable purposes, the joy of common sympathies and interests and the fun of expeditions and good times together. This social awakening is God's plan for leading the life into larger relationships preparatory to taking its place in the world. What the companionship is in its influence upon character and ideals is the serious question for the home and the Sunday-school teacher.
(3) Hero-worship. This is pre-eminently the hero-worshiping period, with all that means in incentive to effort, in patterns of life, in imitation, in character-building. In mature years, the ideal of life is either a composite from many lives or, if it be one individual, a dissected individual, certain qualities picked out for admiration and emulation,—and over the rest, a mantle of charity. This analysis of character and discrimination is possible only to an intelligent and developed life. The child accepts his hero in his entirety. Whatever he does is right and is the goal of effort in imitation.
The physical element enters largely into the ideal of this period because of the prominence of the physical in the child's life, and, unhappily, physical and moral strength are not always balanced. Too much of the literature written to supply the ravenous desire of this age for reading portrays physical strength in criminal and in daredevil molds, and the moral side of the ideal is not only unfed, but perverted. The Sunday-school teacher must help the home at this point to supply the boys and girls, through books and living personality, with all the elements of worthy and imitable ideals, since the task of finally shaping these ideals lies in the years just beyond.
(4) Memory in the height of its power. The broader the responsibilities to be assumed, the greater the demand upon the soul's resources to meet them. Just at the threshold of a larger life, the mind comes into its greatest power of retention. During the years from about nine to fifteen, conditions never to return so favorably make possible the fullest, broadest, and more accurate storing of the mind. The exact wording of a passage of Scripture is as easy to secure as the general sense of its meaning. Whole chapters do not tax the pupil beyond his mental ability. The mechanical, literal side of instruction, which deals with maps and names and facts about the Word, written and incarnate, should now be given. Held tenaciously and exactly in memory, they will reveal the spiritual treasure they contain to the larger spiritual vision of the next period. The careful selection and explanation of that which is to be memorized, so necessary in the preceding period, is not as necessary during these years. The enlarged experience of the child will make some meaning inhere in everything which is brought to him, so that it is not the dead weight it would have been earlier. Yet an abundant supply of food, intellectual and spiritual, for the present needs of an active, investigating, and tempted life must not be overlooked in eagerness to store for the future.
(5) Habit formation. The two physical conditions necessary for habit formation, easily impressed brain cells, and activity making these impressions, are at their best during this period. Every time an act is performed, a nervous force passes through the brain, stimulating nerves and muscles to action, and leaving the trace of its passage. Each repetition of the action deepens the tracing, until little pathways are established, and the nervous force follows these naturally and involuntarily. Sooner than is realized the pathway is so deep that only by effort can a given thought or nervous stimulus express itself in any other way than by passing through the accustomed channels out into the old action,—and this is habit.
The early stages are easy, usually unconscious, but any change when the path is deep and the cells hardened means greatest effort, and often unavailing struggle with self. The drunkard who in his sober moments implores the saloon-keeper to refuse him liquor, no matter how he may plead for it later, reveals the fact that habit or the tendency to follow the old brain paths may become stronger than desire and will and all outer human influence and incentives combined. Therefore the habit-forming period, when pathways may be traced in any direction, becomes one of the most responsible and wonderful of the life.