Reformatory After First Crime.
Here in this first offense of magnitude sufficient to call for the intervention of the law the parents have their opportunity, if only they would see. The place for such a youth at this period is a reformatory in which are sufficient educational facilities and the strictest discipline, which in justice visits the full penalty of community transgressions upon the head of the offender. In this reformatory environment the offending one finds none of the intercessions that may have been made for him in his home. In sterner fashion than he ever dreamed before he discovers that as he transgresses the community laws he receives a full penalty for the offense. Young enough, he may be led to discover that his transgressions are not worth while. Too old for these teachings, he becomes the persistent lawbreaker, or, on the other hand, degenerates to the asylum for the insane.
How intimately some of the fundamentals of training are associated with everyday lives in the home, and yet not recognized, is shown in the college life of the country. "Sophomore" is a class term in schools which needs interpreting. As a word, it is from the Greek, meaning "wise fool." Its application in the higher education is to the second-year "men"—to those students who are in that period of mental and physical stress after the age of fifteen is reached. In school parlance the word associates itself with the flamboyant youth who prates, and preaches, and struts, and lays down the law of all things as he sees it. Until twenty-five years old, indeed, the "Sophomoric" period is not fully passed.
Broadly stated for all men, it may be reiterated that in the parents' failure to enforce the subjection of the selfish first nature in the child lies the seed of his destruction. Encouraging the infant to wail again when nothing ails it is already catering to this criminal ego. Later, when a parent humors its every whim, he is stunting its growth toward good citizenship. And later still, in that crisis in physical life, between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five years, such a parent may awaken suddenly to a realization of the criminal which he has made.
Ego in the child mind prompts it to take instantly anything which it desires and which it can take. Unchecked by training, this primary ego grows with that upon which it feeds. At two years old the child should have had its lessons in the rights of others administered in any way in which it can be reached, but always in all justice. Justice in this lesson should be the first consideration. At six years of age these lessons are of special significance. It is an age in the development of the child when they may be taught with especial emphasis, with lasting results.