Later Adolescence a Period of Specialization
The early part of the adolescent period which has been under consideration in the foregoing paragraphs is followed by a period which can be described as the beginning of specialization. The fact that individual differences here assert themselves and that individual outlooks determine the training demanded is clearly recognized in the adoption of the elective system by the high school. Special education has an adequate foundation in the work of the earlier years, and now the student must build his individual career on this foundation. He comes to a new period of individualism. He is not individualistic in the sense in which the fourth-grade boy is when he breaks away from imitating social examples. The boy of fifteen to eighteen has passed through the first period of individualism and through the socializing training of early adolescence; he now comes to a new type of individualistic effort which will fit him for his place in the social system.
The upper limit of this period, as set down in the foregoing discussions, coincides with the age at which a normal student is now supposed to finish high school. There can be very little doubt that with the readjustments going on in the seventh and eighth grades there will be far-reaching changes in the upper high school also. It is not too much to expect that with improved methods of teaching and with a better curriculum it will be possible for the normal student to complete at eighteen years of age the first two years of the college curriculum. The complete reorganization of the higher institutions is thus likely to follow the changes which are now under way in the high school.
The freshman and sophomore years of American colleges are at present filled with subjects which are essentially secondary in character. The reorganization suggested is therefore altogether legitimate.