Adolescence

by Stephen Paget

Whatever we say to the children we must never say that. But who will teach us what we ought to say? Perhaps we might make a rule that we will try not to play down to their childish notions. On the contrary, we will try to tell them that our grown-up notions are hardly less childish than theirs. We cannot worship their little graven image, but we can confess to them that our own image is a very poor thing. They will be glad to hear of the feebleness of our thoughts. We want to lead them out of their first position: we want to get them a little further on the interminable quest. We shall not do that by accepting and adopting their idea of God, using it as an argument or weapon against them. But we may perhaps be of use to them, if we explain to them that we, even we, are nothing better than babies, when it comes to attempting to think of what we really mean by the Divine Name. Let us inform them plainly, that the best that we can do for them is to conduct them out of the poverty of their minds into the poverty of ours. It is possible, also, that we might find it a good rule with children, to make less use of the word “God,” and more use of the word “the Spirit,” or “the Holy Spirit.” This word “Spirit” is not associated in their minds with any bodily shape; it may thus help them, as time goes on, to forsake their little graven image.

I do believe that these two ideas—the idea of sex, and the idea of God—are of the utmost importance to us in our dealings with children and with adolescents. If we are to think of constructing and reconstructing human lives as if they were houses, let us have the proper materials for it, and let us handle them wisely. These two ideas are good materials; they will take any amount of construction and of reconstruction, and, if we build as we ought, they will stand the very heavy strain which will be put on them. Please forgive me, that I am treating my subject on these old-fashioned lines; I did not choose it: the authorities chose it for me. They ought to have given it not to a mere grandpapa, but to somebody worthy of the unmusical name of an educationalist.

In adolescence, in early adult life, there comes a heavy strain on these two ideas, and unless we have built as we ought, some portion of the edifice will be in danger of falling. The point is, that we must somehow manage to build these two ideas together; we must adjust and fit them together, giving to each of them its due place in the house of life, not opposing but conjoining them to each other, as a builder conjoins bricks and mortar. It is a true saying, “The reasonable soul and flesh is one man.” Please observe that they not are, but is, one man; they are so closely united that they is one man. It follows, that what we call temptation addresses itself not to the flesh alone, but also to the reasonable soul. Consider the predicament of a young man who up to now has, as we call it, “kept straight.” All round him, day after day, newspapers and books and shop windows and theatres, and other men’s talk, and the look of the crowd in the streets, are alluding to it. His pride is wounded, and the more he tries not to think of it, the more it hurts. All young men covet and pursue the experiences of life; he is vexed and resentful that he should be thus incomplete. He has given up what a young man most hates to give up: he has given up something which would make him just like other young men. Not only his body, but his reasonable soul, is restless and impatient. That which impels him to the edge of temptation is not his animal nature but his whole human nature.

Other motives, alike in boys and in girls, are vanity, sentimentality, and intolerance, especially in these tremendous days, of the monotonous narrowness of their work and the fretful discipline of their homes. And there are some boys and girls—happily it is a small minority—who are so passionate and so wilful that they hardly stop to reckon what they are doing.

Of course, we have some antidotes against temptation. One of them is the right employment of mind and body; but the mind must not be employed at haphazard, and the body must not be over-fatigued. The employment of the mind must have a touch of refinement or fastidiousness: things which are lurid and vulgar must be recognised for what they are: the boys and girls must be fond of “good form”; they must be picksome over books and theatres and picture-palaces and friendships. The employment of the body must have a touch of discipline or training: outdoor exercise, athletics in moderation, fresh air, plain food, cold water. If I could be a little boy again, I would join the Boy Scouts; if I could be a young man again, I would get on without alcohol and cigarettes.

To these approved antidotes, let me, as a doctor, add a good tonic, to steady the nerves of adolescence. I prescribe a full dose of the natural sciences. Some people believe in what are called “hobbies” for boys and girls. I do not think much of hobbies, if it comes to nothing more than photographing or stamp-collecting or carpentering at odd moments; but I love to see boys and girls working hard at physics and chemistry. It is a grand thing for them: it really does tranquillise and strengthen them; I like to believe that it even tends, as it were, to reduce their high temperature and their rapid pulse. All other employments of the adolescent mind—as Mrs. Tulliver, in The Mill on the Floss, says of the crowns of bonnets—they are “so chancy: never two summers alike.” Books, art, politics, amusements, outward observances of religion—all of them are so chancy: all of them are open to the criticism of the young people. I remember, ages ago, a German professor dining at my father’s house; and in the course of the talk some reference was made to St. Paul. “Ah! Paulus,” said the Professor, “I have read his works; but I do not agree with Paulus.” Science is not like that: there is no chanciness in her: we inevitably agree with her. If a chemical test goes wrong, we know that we have done it wrong. This eternal certainty gives to physics and chemistry, somehow, authority over the vagrant minds of boys and girls; and this authority, surely, must help to keep them able to resist temptation.

These antidotes and this tonic are all very well; but the best thing of all would be, for all boys and girls, unfailing belief in what we call the Spirit of God, or the Presence of God, in their daily affairs. I feel sure that there are many of them who are more likely to be kept straight by that than by anything else.

And, of course, it is our business to prepare them, with all the wisdom and forethought that we can manage to find in ourselves, for these dangerous years of early adult life. But we must begin while they are children; we must begin with careful answers to their ridiculous questions about sex and about God. These two ideas are our building-materials: we must work them together, not keep them apart, nor oppose them to each other; we must go on, constructing and reconstructing them in the growing fabric of the mind, adapting and adjusting them to each other: so that the children, when they come to adolescence, shall come to it neither ignorant nor helpless.

So many of us hang about the child’s mind, in a timid sort of way, hesitating to go in. We look up at the windows, we peep through the letter-box, we try the back door, we ring the bell very gently—the left-hand bell, which is marked Servants; we dare not ring the visitors’ bell, nor ply the knocker. And the child, all the while, is expecting us. We wait for opportunities. It is probable, with some children, that we ought to make them, not wait for them. I do not altogether like the word “initiate”; yet I have in my imagination some special day set and appointed for a grave little home-ceremony; the whole thing well thought out, the exhortation written down beforehand, every word of it. The occasion of telling boys and girls the truth about their bodily nature would thus be made solemn and memorable, as an act of their lives. I have been reading again that scene in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, where the Squire gives his parting advice to Tom, on the way to Rugby. It is one of the hundred best things in one of the hundred best books. Only, all boys and girls are not alike: there is need, with some of them, of saying more than the Squire said. Perhaps a birthday would afford a good opportunity. And, of course, it ought to be done at home: it ought to be done by the child’s parents. Most of us here, when we were 14 or 15 years old, were confirmed, and received the Holy Communion. It was a little time of quiet self-judgment and good resolutions; it really did help us. If I could have my life back, I should like to be told about my bodily nature in that devout and premeditated way. It ought to be done at home, and my father ought to do it, probably on my birthday. Instead of that, it was done by another boy, at a preparatory school. I still remember the exact words that we used, and I could still find almost the very paving-stone on which I was standing.