Toward the latter part of this period the sentimental novel, with all of its froth and perverted ideals of life, appeals to the girl, and it is an open question which is more pernicious, "Deadwood Dick and the Indians" or "Love at Sight."
When it is remembered that during these years the desire for reading is so great that it will be satisfied, surreptitiously if not openly, that the heroes and heroines strengthen ideals of their own type in the soul of the child, that these are the years in which taste is being formed, not only in reading but in living, nurture again has a great task outlined. "What is the best way to keep a boy from eating green apples?" a prominent Sunday School worker often asks in a convention. The answer never varies: "Give him ripe ones to eat." The child who has plenty of well-selected, wholesome literature will have no appetite for the baneful. Biography of the heroic type, exploration, adventure and charming romances like the "Waverley Novels" will help to lay sane and pure foundations of character. The missionary boards are now putting out books as thrilling and stirring in their situations as any yellow-backed novel. These the children devour and the spiritual heroism makes its silent appeal along with the physical.
This delight in reading makes comparatively easy the formation of the habit of daily Bible reading. If the life is more than meat, then the time taken by the father or mother to select fascinating Bible biographies and stories, and tactfully to supervise the reading, is at least as wisely expended as that used in training a grape vine or sewing a lace edge on a ruffle. Is it not strange that there is such distorted perspective and false balance of values in regard to what is worth while? The cares of this world crowd out so many supreme things. Many a temptation in later life would have its antidote if the Holy Spirit could bring the needed Scripture to mind, but because some one substituted the lesser for the greater, solicitude for external appearance instead of inner furnishing, the Word is not there to be recalled.
HABIT FORMATION
The discussion of these marked characteristics of the life is given added import when we realize that these years are in the height of the habit forming period. All through Early Childhood and Childhood every act has left its faint tracing upon the plastic cells of the brain, and some of the markings are deep ere now. Just as water will follow its channel rather than cut a new course, so activity will expend itself in the well-traced pathways unless prevented from so doing, and the same thought or stimulus will always tend to go out in the same action. No thinking is necessary upon these habitual acts which constitute "nine tenths of life"—they have become mechanical. Not only in the body does life acquire fixed habits, but also in the soul, in thinking, feeling and choosing.
The seriousness as well as the value of a habit lies in its tenacity. No harder task ever confronts a life than to break up one habit and substitute another after the brain cells grow hard. The process requires not only that activity be directed away from the pathway that irresistibly draws it, but at the same time a new groove be traced upon the hard, unyielding cells. The task is difficult beyond expression. This is why reformed men always have a hidden fear of lapsing into the former life. It is the call of the old pathway, traced so deeply in the brain.
A mature woman, brought up to the strictest Sabbath observance, came to believe that "the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath," and therefore essayed to act on that day according to her reason and judgment. The attempt was soon abandoned. "There is no pleasure in it," she said. "I am constantly fighting the old habits of my girlhood life, and they will not cease their call to me." This is what the wise king meant when he said, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." The whole tendency is to "ask for the old paths," that there "may be rest to the soul." A part of the miracle of conversion in later life appears in God's power to trace new pathways when the brain is hardened, and to keep life in them, moment by moment, against the tug of the old.
Three statements will crystallize the discussion.
- First: The years up to twelve present two conditions for habit formation—plastic brain cells and action easily secured—as no succeeding years present them.
- Second: Habit formation, either right or wrong, is constantly going on, for every action leaves its impress and makes repetition easier.
- Third: Right habits may be formed as easily as wrong, if the task is definitely undertaken.
Since the importance of these years is clearly evident, the method of habit formation may be briefly stated. First, secure the desired action; second, secure its successive repetition without a lapse, as far as possible.