The reader should bear in mind that the word feeling is not here used in the restricted sense of referring to physical feelings only, but to all the feelings which surge through the being from whatever source. We should not lose sight of the fact, however, that, because of the important part that is played in the organism during the teens by the impulses from a given nerve center, all feelings will be colored more or less by the outfloodings of that nerve center. As we have suggested, the child till well advanced in years is largely a creature of feeling, and what mind it has is what may be called a picture mind, or a mind for seeing things. How easy it will be for all the feelings of the being to become inoculated with impurity and place before this picture mind of the child such distorted views of life as will vitiate the entire organism! How important it is that a higher intelligence, that is the father and mother, create pure, noble and beautiful pictures and place them before this picture, or seeing mind, of the child.
A Child’s Life Expressed in Figures
Expressing the life of a child in figures, what do we find? As you will see, the baby has three inches of physical, three inches of feeling and but one-fourth of an inch of intellect. This makes six inches of physical and feeling pitted against one-fourth of an inch of intellect. The child of six years has six inches of physical and feeling and one-half an inch of intellect. The child of fourteen has six inches of physical and feeling and but one inch of intellect. Even at eighteen the proportion is six inches of physical and feeling and but two inches of intellect. How striking these proportions are when we put them in inches.
I would not, however, have you think you can literally measure a child in yards and inches or that they will all measure the same, for no two children develope alike, but in a general way this scale holds good. While you will find some children developing the intellect much more rapidly than others, and more rapidly than is suggested here, still you will find on the whole that this scale of relative proportions is not far out of the way for the average child.
I would have you stop for a moment and get this diagram and relative proportions well fixed in your minds.
Think what these proportions mean and to what constant danger this child is exposed in developing sex abnormality if not disease. If an abnormal sex condition obtains it will surely sooner or later lead to disease. We may therefore conclude that our study is worth while and of priceless value to all young life.
The thoughtful study of this diagram convinces us beyond a peradventure that there is vast danger of harmful and perhaps dangerous sex conditions obtaining without careful and intelligent guiding in the early life of the child.