Third: The influence of public opinion, of tradition and customs—what everybody seems to think is all right and approves, on the one hand, and what is considered wrong and unworthy, on the other.
Fourth: Laws and regulations of constituted authorities.
Fifth: Sunday school and church—the religious influence with its standards of wickedness and goodness.
If we consider these in order, we are not impressed by any striking change in the school influence. In many respects, no doubt, schools are better planned and more intelligently managed than they ever were before. More attention is paid to ventilation, hygiene, recreation, on the one hand; and on the other the methods employed in imparting book knowledge are probably more enlightened.
As regards the question we are discussing—obedience, discipline, respect for authority—on the whole, there has probably been no great change. In the class-room and throughout the school régime, strict obedience is still maintained as an essential requisite, just as it has always been. The punishments and penalties for disobedience are perhaps a little less severe and drastic, but without any real difference in effect.
The only question worth raising in this connection is how far school-teachers and school-rules are taken to heart by the average boy or girl—how far they are made to apply to their notions and motives, when school is left behind. School-books, school-teachers and school-discipline are so apt to be bunched together and relegated to a special corner of the mind.
Our second group—the influence of example and imitation—has probably always been a more important factor in shaping conduct and character. What the older boys, just above you, do and believe, makes a lot of difference to you, if you are a boy.
It is no question here of old-fashioned precepts or theories, handed down by parents, grandmothers or school-teachers, to be taken with a grain of salt. It is something living and vital, which concerns you directly. You look up to the older boys: you want to be like them; and approved of by them. What they think and do may be at variance with the ideas of nurse, mother and school-master, but if it is good enough for them, it is good enough for you. It is a practical standard which you can't help being judged by. If you fail to live up to it, or refuse to accept it and try to act differently, there is a sure penalty. You will be sneered at, disliked, looked down upon, or laughed at.
If you are a girl, the same principle applies. There is nothing new about the principle. It is as old as the hills and universal.
Is the effect of it to-day on the forming character any different from what it has been, in the past? Undoubtedly. A moment's reflection will show why and how this must be so.