UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA CHAPTER I PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS "Oh! The joy of the measured strength! To run with the fleet, and leap with the supple, To struggle with friendly foes, and to know at length, Where you stand as a man among men. To reach with body and soul For the wreath of bays, and then This description of the physical expression of boyhood quoted from Justin Stern's "The Song of the Boy" is a real experience of every normal boy. Where is the boy who does not feel a new thrill of living as he competes in the sports and the games? Plato, the Greek philosopher, said, "Of all beasts, boys are the most unmanageable." To a certain extent this is true, for when he starts out to be a boy, he is more like a little beast, and many things that make the difference between a man and a beast make no difference with him. He is, though, a man in the making. We are indebted to medical science and psychology for a better understanding as to how we may help this animal, as his awakening conscience gets hold of the task of controlling him. "The manifold physical hungers and thirsts of the animal are all in his senses and they keep all the sources of supply at work, day and night. Through the wonderful nervous system, the nexus between him and his body, by which he expresses himself and initiates his enterprises, his body is so tied up with the mental and moral that its health and purity require the same care as do the finest elements and essences. His psychical elements are, of course, the same, in number, as in grown people. Some of them are in action, some dormant, some quiescent; some subordinate, while others are in control-such as love and hatred, hope and fear, sense of justice, appreciation of the beautiful, the sublime and the true, and all the powers of thought and will. But even his most active powers are immature and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish one from another. His power of observation is awake before that of decision, his feelings control earlier than his reason, his reason before his will, and his will before his conscience."1 "When the clock strikes his twelfth year, instead of the blind impulses that have been 1 Kirtley, "That Boy of Yours," p. 2. controlling him, his will power awakens and assumes the control of his career.' According to the findings of Professor Tyler, a boy's growth in weight between ten and twelve declines to a minimum, the thirteenth year begins a marked acceleration and lasts about four years, or from the thirteenth to the seventeenth year. The same holds good in height and chest development. Acceleration begins with the pubertal period. He now has an awakening. He is sometimes shocked by what he discovers, sometimes awed, sometimes stricken with fear. If there is any one time in his life when he needs a guide, a counselor, and a real friend, it is now. Up to this time he has been too busy being a boy. From three to thirteen he is an interrogation mark, a sort of combination of dirt, noise and questions, mumps and measles, bumps and broken bones. It is claimed that "between eight and twelve, he is fighting for and adopting his constitution. The rest of the time till he is twenty-five, he is evidently working out his by-laws." In the olden days, twelve years of age was considered the "age of accountability," when a boy was no longer considered a child, but as one who had seriously begun his march manward. It was at this age that the boy Jesus was taken to Jerusalem by his parents. With |