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By this table it appears that fewer girls die between the eleventh and twelfth years than at any other period, and that boys between twelve and thirteen have a greater chance of living than at other times. They resist disease better. They resist all those elements in the environment that tend to produce death.

Putting all the facts that we have so far secured together, we get the following results:

During the teens, in both boys and girls, we seem to be on the summit of a wave of vitality, showing itself in a rapid increase in height, in weight, in the development of the heart and in increase in the blood pressure, and in the capacity to resist disease.

What bearings have these facts upon the character of education that should be given during these years? It appears that the ultimate size, shape, growth, and figure of the body are in great measure determined during the years covered by the high-school period. While there are exceptions to the rule, still it is true, that health during the whole of life will be largely related to babits formed during these years of adolescence. A great pulse of life is present. Shall this great pulse of life be allowed to give to each boy and girl that development of body, that vigor of tissue, that grace and carriage, and above all that power, which is basic to both effectiveness and morality? More important than any subject in the school curriculum is this gaining of power, of health, and of endurance. The first requirement of the secondary school curriculum is, that it shall put the individual into a condition of health and bodily development. We frequently hear the question asked, How is it possible in the secondary school to give adequate attention to matters of health? This question is not the actual one. The actual question is as follows: In view of the supreme value of health and wholesomeness, and of the great significance of adolescence with reference to these two things, what kind of conditions should be established in the school in order to give these qualities to the individual in the largest measure? After this question is answered, we may ask the question as to what is the best disposition of the rest of the time. We may get on passably well without any Greek history or geometry or Latin, but how shall we get on with. out health and without vigor? I venture to repeat, that the first condition the secondary schools should aim to bring about is that of health and vigor. The conditions that make for physical vigor are as well known as they are commonly violated. They are good ventilation; good carriage of the body while sitting, standing, and walking, as well as while in the gymnasium; ample time for daily bodily exercise, not only in the gymnasium, but out of doors. Absence of a sense of pressure and hurry-ample time for sleep and play and other elements related chiefly to the home, are not mentioned,

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although the school is not without both influence and responsibility even in these.

The first thought, then, in the construction of a high-school program should be the health of the pupil. It is frequently asked: In what way may attention to health be carried on in the high school without disturbing the program? To my mind this is an unfair question. I should put the inquiry in this way: To what extent may academic subjects be studied during the early teens without interfering with the health of the pupil? To that extent, and to that extent alone, should academic subjects be studied. The burden of proof does not rest upon those agencies that make for health. It rests rather upon those which are usually classed as higher; for all agree that health is a basal factor in morality, happiness, and usefulness, as well as a large factor in intellectual life. Let us, then, regard the first point as settled; let us assume that the high-school program shall be based upon the provision for each individual of a full measure of strength, health, and endurance.

Mental Characteristics.. It is not our purpose to discuss in detail the mental characteristics of adolescence, for this would carry us too deep into each separate topic. Boys' interests in the heroic, and girls' interests in the romantic deserve large consideration in the construction of a history course. The interests of boys and girls, alike in their material environment, in the daily occupations of their elders, and in the activities of the community, form a natural group of interests upon which to base a study of community life. The now rapidly growing interests of the children in dress, in things of beauty, in music and art, indicate that this is the critical period for the formation of taste. Hence any high-school course would be incomplete that did not give a somewhat prominent place to the cultivation of the aesthetic feelings. These, altho they do not appear to have a directly utilitarian effect, are large factors in determining our relationship to others, as well as the fullness and beauty of our own lives. The interests of boys and girls in construction, and the rapid growth in the use of the hand, are a definite plea for manual training.

Deeper, however, than specific interests, and, indeed, underlying nearly all of them, is a still larger factor that demands more thoro consideration. When we recall our own experiences during the teens, or when we observe the activities of the young people around us, we are struck by the impetuosity of youth and by the fact that children are so interested in what they are doing as to forget other, and what seem to us larger, things. The boy playing football, baseball, or shooting, bowling, swimming, rowing, camping, and hunting, takes hold with an intensity that is both puzzling and annoying to those who wish him to be doing other things. We desire the young to be faithful and persistent, whereas most of them are intense and spasmodic. The boy will collect stamps or shells, coins, or books, with the most absorbing interest for a few months, or for a lesser period, and then will frequently drop this activity altogether. A group of girls will be interested in reading certain books, and feel that their lives have been largely molded by the

influences brought to bear thru these books, but in the same hidden way their interest dies suddenly, and a new interest, as sudden and intense as the old, arises to take its place. If you analyze the plays of a group of children, boys and girls, for a year, we do not find that they are carried on with regularity, the children playing each every day, giving an hour a day to this and fifteen minutes to that. On the contrary, we find that the interests while they last are so dominant as to include nearly all of the child's free life. During football time, football is his one engaging topic, and other interests take a subordinate place. He plays football, practises football, talks football, reads about others' football scores.

This intensity differs vastly in degree from that which appeared during early childhood. The child of the earliest years, in its play, will each day do many things. It has but little capacity for consecutive attention, but touches now this and now that. At the first, a few seconds is as long as the child can give to any one thing, but the period continually lengthens. the power of consecutive attention is, in many respects, a measure of the strength of the mind itself. This growth goes on from year to year, but, with the advent of the teens, it is seen rapidly to approach adult form and to take on adult characteristics. The formative period for this capacity for intense work is during the years of spontaneous, deep interests. In education we seem to have largely ignored this capacity for intense work during the formative period, for we present as many topics to children in the high school as are presented to children in the kindergarten. The power of consecutive attention is not trained in this way, altho large groups of facts may be imparted by such means. The power of consecutive thought is trained. by going deep into subjects. This power of concentrated mental work is of greater significance during the early years than is any one of the results of the work itself. Yet high-school programs have thirteen, or even more, topics a week to be studied. This is not in accordance with child nature, nor with the best development of the mind. It is not the way in which we adults secure the best work from ourselves.

Children, during the adolescent period, are immature adults; they are far more adults than they are babies. When the adult wishes to master a group of topics, he may study each every day for a specified time, or he may take them up successively and familiarize himself with one topic at a time, until each is measurably mastered. Probably the best plan for the average person is to study one subject most, incidentally carrying the other subjects to a less extent, in order to give mental variety. In this way, by giving one subject prominence, an intellectual atmosphere is made in which the individual lives, so that growth is even more decided during the time when the individual is supposed to be resting than when he is working directly on the topic. This method of study, which is the method of most scholars, is the same method that is shown by the children's interests in plays and games. The interest in plays and games is significant no less than the method adopted by the scholar; for each shows the mind at work from within, adjusting itself to the problems without. The high schools having thirteen

topics per week violate this fundamental characteristic of the adolescent mind. Most of the time in each recitation must be spent in recalling the work previously done. I have talked to pupils who, for two years, have studied algebra during the two periods of twenty-five minutes each per week, and who, during this time, have secured almost no knowledge of the subject. The result is intellectual dissipation, the waste of power. Even the facts of the subjects are not secured. Intellectual grip is lost. Let the topics be few in number and intense in character. The elements of nearly all subjects are easy. Intellectual discipline does not come in connection with easy work. The statement is suggestive, that intellectual power comes to a person as the square of the distance into which he penetrates into a given topic. A few studies taken thoroly mean more to the individual than many taken superficially.

During the last few years we have heard much about the enrichment of the program. Is it not true that this enrichment of the program has been carried on to the impoverishment of the pupil? We need to think more about our subjects; we need to let them soak in; we need to absorb and to live in them; we normal human beings cannot live and grow in the atmosphere of thirteen different topics per week.

The question will at once be asked: What subjects may be omitted? I should refuse the question, as we refused that concerning health, and should ask this instead: In view of the admitted superior value of intellectual power and the capacity for clear, concentrated work, how many and what topics should be studied in the high school? These topics must be wisely chosen and must be taught in a suitable way; we must come back to the thought that the pupil is of more importance than the program. I think it would not be difficult to name some high schools of ten or even twenty years ago, whose pupils, in point of capacity for human life, surpass some of the high-school students of today, whose programs have been most "enriched."

While it is true that younger children reason somewhat, it is also true and is generally recognized, that in the teens there is a great accession to the capacity for, and delight in, reason. This fact is so generally recognized that it needs no particular discussion. The high-school program should be definitely related to the increasing capacity to reason. Facts should continually be put into relation with one another. This is the time for the laboratory method, which is well worked out in physics, chemistry, physiography. and, in certain respects, in biology. It needs to be, and can be, worked out in history, mathematics, and art. By the laboratory method I mean the method by which the pupil discovers his own facts, comes to his own conclusions in regard to them, and formulates for himself the laws that grow out of these facts. Frequently those persons who have a talent for explaining things to others regard themselves as having a call to teach. Our conception of the function of teachers is quite the reverse.

Those who have a capacity for getting others to find things out for themselves are those who have the calling to teach.

Social. The school whose program is to be founded upon the characteristics of children must need to think very definitely in regard to the dawning of the social instincts during adolescence. It is true that the individual has, in many

respects, been a social individual before, but he now comes into the social relationships in a new and altogether larger way. The careful analysis of the plays and games carried on by boys and girls during the years preceding the teens, shows clearly that there is but little development of these games that depend upon socalled "team work." The many forms in which games such as tag, tops, marbles, and ball are to be found, present individual endeavor as the form of activity. To win as an individual seems to be the characteristic of the period. There are occasionally discovered games in which one side is played against another side, but even in these cases we do not find team work nor a sacrifice of the individual for the sake of the team as a whole. It is every man for himself. Thus, even here, it remains true that the essential characteristics of individualism are basal to the games of the years preceding adolescence. With the event of the teens, however, there is a great development in interest in those games that depend upon "team work"-football, baseball, shinny, hockey, basket ball, polo, cricket, lacrosse. These games that characterize the activities of American boys are all dependent upon the quality of which I have already spoken, the capacity for “team work." The games that are individualistic also are carried on, but they do not attract anything like the same public attention, as is shown by their place in the public press, or the same individual attention, as is shown by the number of players.

Another line of approach to this topic, and one giving us similar results, is thru the boys' spontaneous organizations; that is, their gangs, cliques, clubs, their chums, and pals. The individual is no longer supreme. The consciousness of kind is gripping the boy and bringing him out unconsciously into a life of relationships; into loyalty to something that is larger than self, a group or gang or team loyalty. It is the development of these instincts or feelings that makes the co-operative endeavors of civilized life possible. This is the basis of love of city, of love of country. While it is true that this loyalty has been further developed in the man than in the woman from the side of consciousness of kind, it is true, on the other hand, that woman has been developed with reference to loyalty to husband, children, and home. This generation is seeing a greater development in the loyalty of women to one another, in capacity for co-operation, for doing "team work." The organization of woman's clubs, their co operation in various philanthropic movements, all indicate a rapid growth in that which has been hitherto a masculine quality. Thus, while there may be two ways to the development of loyalty to others, one taken chiefly by man, the other chiefly by woman, still it is true that this loyalty must come to both, and in general it must come during the highschool years. However anyone may think upon this question, we shall all agree, that, in order to get into wholesome, loyal, and faithful relations to our fellows, the developing of this team spirit is essential; for the team spirit is a large factor in bringing about a fitness in the individual to live in a civilized, social community. The burden of giving opportunity for these relational qualities to develop in the individual rests, largely, upon the school.

A third line of approach to the social question would be thru the analysis of the reading that boys and girls enjoy during these years. A somewhat extended and faithful study of reading enjoyed by boys has given the following results:

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