Parent and Child Volume III., Child Study and Training

by Mosiah Hall

Athletics are exceedingly useful. They should be, however, for all, and not merely for a few who join the teams, who need them the very least of all. I think our modern college athletics will some day be looked upon as one of the most ridiculous habits of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. That twenty-two men should engage in mortal combat, with anywhere from one to twenty thousand on the side lines,—if you can get anything more ridiculous than that, I should like to know where you can find it. Athletics should not be too severe, however, yet, the boy ought not to have century runs and long halves of football, especially if the heart is still weak. The tissues of the body have not yet gained the toughness that they will gain at a later time. Every commander in the field dreads to have boys of eighteen, nineteen, or twenty sent to him, because, as Napoleon said of his young recruits, "they die off like flies." The hard bed, with light covering, the cold room, the cold bath will now aid in toughening the boy, provided he is healthy; but under no circumstances begin that until the pubertal period is fully by.

The danger of over-pressure in the high school, especially after the first year, is to my mind not very great. The boy and the girl now both stand a good deal of work; but the greatest danger for the boy and the girl in the high school is that they will take too much social enjoyment. An evening theatre party, followed by a supper, a late dance, will take more strength out of a boy and girl than three days of study. There is nothing that is so wearing. If you can keep down the social over-pressure, I do not believe the over-pressure from study will do any great harm in high schools.

The larger bodies, the large heart and lungs, well oxygenated blood, and fresh vitality of every artery and tissue, gives a buoyance, a strength and a courage, a source of power and sense of it too, a longing for complete freedom, a revolt against all control, which the boy will never feel later; if he does not feel it now. I am describing, perhaps, rather the college boy than the high school boy; but bear this in mind, that I am describing what your boys in the high school will be a year or two later if they are not that now, and it is for this stage you must prepare them, even, if they have not already entered upon it.

A new, wide world, just as fresh as on the morning of creation, a new fire, a life of boundless opportunity, which is endless in scope and time, are opening out before the boy and the girl. They see the parents and the teachers drag around, understanding, as they think, neither them nor life itself; and they are right to a certain extent. There is no doubt about that; we do not hold on to the vision of glory of this world and of this life which we had in youth as we ought to and as it is our duty to do. The boy and the girl criticize us fairly, when they think that we don't appreciate this magnificent world in which we live.

When a man gets to be my age, while I suppose he probably has more humility, he comes to know and he comes to have a very cheerful, optimistic view of the world. He has made up his mind that the Lord does not intend to change the world a great deal anyhow, and, on the whole, he is very much content to leave it the way it is. That is not so with young people at all. The boy and the girl must learn and know all about it. That is one thing they are determined to do at the outset. The boy girds up his loins and he goes whither he will. He must taste of every experience for himself. He will meet joy and sorrow with the same frolicking, welcoming spirit. He has never been saddened by experience nor disillusioned by disappointment and failure. He will try all the knowledge of good and evil if it costs him Paradise.

Nature is loosening every leading string now and is getting him free to complete his own individual development and to forge his own character. We cannot stop him if we would. It is very lucky that we cannot. It is better that we should not stop him even if we could; nevertheless, he has very little self-knowledge and still less self-control. Impulses well up from changes going on within him or from stimuli which come to him from without. He does not understand them. He does not know where they come from. He does not know what they mean. He is ill-prepared to face them, and now he goes one way and now the other. He has just about as clear a conception of the value of time as a child has. He has not outgrown childhood in that respect. He cannot possibly play a waiting game. That is the last thing that he can do. If the sun shines to-day it is always going to be bright weather. If the maiden of his adoration frowns to-day, the sun will never shine again. He is either on the Delectable Mountain or in the Valley of Humiliation, and he is far more frequently in the latter than we think. He is rarely between the two, and he is not going to tell us when he is in the Valley of Humiliation, nor when he is on the top of the Delectable Mountain.

There is a reticence about him at this time which we should learn to respect and to reverence. I told you at the first meeting that Nature put the shell around the egg so we would keep our fingers out of it, and Nature puts that shell of reticence around the boy and the girl at that time so we will keep our blundering fingers out and leave them to solve their problems with their help and that of the good Lord who is watching over them.

Authority has little hold over him at this time, traditions none at all. The influence of early training which have rooted themselves in his very life are very powerful and they will hold him, and the Lord have mercy on the boy whose early traditions do not hold him at that time. Remember it is not his fault; that is a sad thought for us parents. We must take the responsibility for these defects in the early training of our children.

The boy is led by class and group feeling at this time. You take him at eight or ten and he is an admirable little fellow in many respects. He wants to play fair, and if the other fellow does not play fair he will smite him, just as Samson smote the Philistines, if he can, and that is the occasion of much friction. After a time there is danger that he will not play as fair as he did when he was younger, for a time at least, because he is swallowed up in the team, or the society, or the group, or the gang, whatever it may be, to which he belongs, and he will give himself body and soul to help that team to win. This has its bad side, a very bad side, I grant you. If you would understand the boy, every now and then you must study the psychology of the mob. But there is a very good side also, because he is generous to a fault. Now is the time in his life when he will go down with the team, and in order for the team to win he will make a play when you and I would hesitate to make it. We had better respect the boy. He is loyal to his leader and to his friends. It is the epoch of the heart, and out of the heart, remember, are the issues of life. He has a great deal more heart than he has head knowledge at this time, and I confess I rather like him for it.

You remember what Paul says to those knowledge-worshiping Corinthians as to knowledge: "It will vanish away; for we know in part." Those of us who have lived more than half a century have seen nine-tenths of our knowledge vanish away in just that fashion because we knew in part. But, says Paul, there are some things that abide, and one of them is faith. That is never done away with; another is hope, and the third and sure abiding thing is love, which is three-thirds in the heart, and out of the heart are the issues of life; the heart is often wiser than the head. Do not under-value and never despise the value of the greatness of heart in the boy; for Great Heart is the only champion who ever killed Giant Despair.