CHAPTER II

AN APPROACH TO BOYHOOD[1]

If the minister is to do intelligent work with boys he must have some knowledge of the ground plan of boyhood and he must believe that the boy both demands and merits actual study. Specific acquaintance with each one severally, alert recognition of individuality, variety, and even sport, and an ample allowance for exceptions to every rule will greatly aid in giving fitness to one's endeavor; but beneath all of these architectural peculiarities lies the common biological foundation. To know the human organism genetically, to have some knowledge of the processes by which it reaches its normal organization, to appreciate the crude and elemental struggle that has left its history in man's bodily structure, to think in large biological terms that include, besides "the physics and chemistry of living matter," considerations ethnological, hereditary, and psychological, is to make fundamental preparation for the understanding of boyhood.

For the family to which the boy belongs is the human family. His parents alone and their characteristics do not explain him, nor does contemporary environment, important as that is. His ancestry is the human race, his history is their history, his impulses and his bodily equipment from which they spring are the result of eons of strife, survival, and habit. Four generations back he has not two but sixteen parents. Thus he comes to us out of the great physical democracy of mankind and doubtless with a tendency to re-live its ancient and deep-seated experiences.

This theory of race recapitulation as applied to the succeeding stages of boyhood may be somewhat more poetic than scientific. Genetically he does those things for which at the time he has the requisite muscular and nervous equipment, but the growth of this equipment gives him a series of interests and expressions that run in striking parallel to primitive life. If the enveloping society is highly civilized and artificial, much of his primitive desire may be cruelly smothered or too hastily refined or forced into a criminal course. But memory, experience, observation, and experiment force one to note that the parallel does exist and that it is vigorously and copiously attested by the boy's likes and deeds. At the same time the theory is to be used suggestively rather than dogmatically, and the leader of boys will not imagine that to reproduce the primitive life is the goal of his endeavor. It is by the recognition of primitive traits and by connecting with them as they emerge that the guide of boyhood may secure an intelligent and well-supported advance.

Such an approach favors a sympathetic understanding of the boy. To behold in him a rough summary of the past, and to be able to capitalize for good the successive instincts as they appear, is to accomplish a fine piece of missionary work without leaving home. Africa and Borneo and Alaska come to you. The fire-worshiper of ancient times, the fierce tribesman, the savage hunter and fisher, the religion-making nomad, the daring pirate, the bedecked barbarian, the elemental fighter with nature and fellow and rival of every kind, the master of the world in making--comes before you in dramatic and often pathetic array in the unfolding life of the ordinary boy.

Our topmost civilization, although sustained and repleted by this original stuff, takes all too little account of these elemental traits. In the growing boy the ascending races are piled one on top of another. In him you get a longitudinal section of human nature since its beginning. He is an abridged volume on ethnology; and because he is on the way up and elected to rule, it is more of a mistake to neglect him than it is to neglect any of those races that have suffered a long-continued arrest at some point along the way. Of course anyone expecting to note by day and hour the initial emergence of this or that particular trait of primitive man will be disappointed. The thing for the friend of the boy to know is that in him the deep-set habits which made the human body the instrument it is, the old propensities of savage life are voices of the past, muffled, perhaps, but very deep and insistent, calling him to do the things which for ages were done and to make full trial of the physique which modern civilization threatens with disuse or perversion.

Let a number of the common traits of boyhood testify. There is the gang instinct which is noticeably dominant during the years from twelve to fifteen. Probably 80 per cent of all boys of this age belong to some group answering dimly to ancient tribal association and forming the first social circle outside the home. A canvass of the conditions of boy life in the Hyde Park district of Chicago revealed the existence of such gangs on an average of one to every two blocks, and the situation is not materially different in other parts of the city or in the smaller towns. The gang is thus the initial civic experiment for better or for worse, the outreach after government, co-operative power, and the larger self which can be found only in association. During this age and within his group the boy does not act as one possessing clear and independent moral responsibility. He acts as part of the gang, subject to its ideals, and practically helpless against its codes of conduct and its standards of loyalty.

One hot afternoon I ran across a group "in swimming" at a forbidden spot on the shore of Lake Michigan. As we talked and tended the fire, which their sun-blistered bodies did not need, one of the lads suddenly fired at me point-blank the all-important question, "What do you belong to?" Being unable to give an answer immediately favorable to our growing friendship, I countered with "What do _you_ belong to?" "Oh," said he, "I belong to de gang." "What gang?" "De gang on de corner of Fitty Fit and Cottage Grove." "And what do you do?" "Ah, in de ev'nin' we go out and ketch guys and tie 'em up." Allowing for nickel-show and Wild-West suggestions, there remains a touch of a somewhat primitive exploit.

Another interesting gang was found occupying a cave in the saloon district of Lake Avenue. The cave takes precedence over the shack as a rendezvous because it demands no building material and affords more secrecy. Beneath the cave was a carefully concealed seven-foot sub-cellar which they had also excavated. This served as a guardhouse for unruly members and as a hiding-place for loot. When in conclave, each boy occupied his space on a bench built against the sides of the cave, his place being indicated by his particular number on the mud wall. This gang had forty-eight members and was led by a dissolute fellow somewhat older than the others, one of those dangerous boys beyond the age of compulsory education and unfitted for regular work. They played cards, "rushed the can," and all hands smoked cigarettes. _Facilis descensus Averno._ The love of adventure and hunting was illustrated in the case of two other boys of this neighborhood who were but ten and eleven years of age. Having stolen eleven dollars and a useless revolver, they ran away to Milwaukee. When taken in hand by the police of that city they solemnly declared that they had "come to Wisconsin to shoot Injuns."

Much could be said of the love of fire which has not yet surrendered all of its charm for even the most unromantic adult. The mystic thrill that went through the unspoiled nerves of pre-historic man and filled his mind with awe is with us still. The boy above all others yields to its spell. Further, by means of a fire he becomes, almost without effort, a wonderworking cause, a manipulator of nature, a miracle worker. Hence the vacant lots are often lighted up; barrels, boxes, and fences disappear; and one almost believes that part of the charm of smoking is in the very making of the smoke and seeing it unwind into greater mystery as did incense from thousands of altars in the long-ago.

This elemental desire to be a cause and to advertise by visible, audible, and often painful proofs the fact of one's presence in the world is also basal. It is the compliment which noisy childhood and industrious boyhood insistently demand from the world about. Even the infant revels in this testimony, preferring crude and noisy playthings of proportion to the innocent nerve-sparing devices which the adult tries to foist upon him. The coal scuttle is made to proclaim causal relation between the self in effort and the not-self in response more satisfactorily than the rag doll; and the manifest glee over the contortions of the playful father whose hand is slapped is not innate cruelty but the delight of successful experiment in causation.

So of the noise and bluster, the building and destruction, the teasing and torture so often perpetrated by the boy. He is saying that he is here and must be reckoned with, and he wishes to make his presence as significant as possible. If home, school, and community conditions are such as to give healthful direction to both his constructive and destructive experimentation, all is well, but if society cannot so provide he will still exploit his causal relation although it must be in violation of law and order. The result is delinquency, but even in this he glories. It often gives a more pungent and romantic testimony than could otherwise be secured. It is the flaring yellow advertisement of misdirected effectiveness. Probably there mingles with this impulse the love of adventure as developed in the chase. "Flipping cars," tantalizing policemen, pilfering from fruit stands are frequently the degenerate, urban forms of the old quest of, and encounter with, the game of forest and jungle.

Then there is the lure of the water, which explains more than half his school truancy during the open season. It is a fine spring or summer day. The _Wanderlust_ of his ancestry is upon the boy. The periodic migration for game or with the herds, the free range of wood and stream, or the excitement of the chase pulsates in his blood. Voices of the far past call to something native in him. The shimmer of the water just as they of old saw it, the joyous chance of taking game from its unseen depths, or of getting the full flush of bodily sensation by plunging into it, the unbridled pursuit of one's own sweet will under the free air of heaven--these are the attractions over against which we place the school with its books, its restraint, and its feminine control; and the church with its hush and its Sunday-school lesson: and, too often, we offer nothing else. It is like giving a hungry woodchopper a doily, a Nabisco wafer, and a finger-bowl.

If we could but appreciate the great crude past whose conflicts still persist in the boy's gruesome and tragic dreams, filling him with a fear of the dark, which fear in time past was the wholesome and necessary monitor of self-preservation; if we could only realize how strenuous must be those experiences which guarantee a strong body, a firm will, and an appetite for objective facts, we would not make our education so insipidly nice, so intellectual, so bookish, and so much under the roof. A school and a school building are not synonymous, a church and a church building are not synonymous; schooling is not identical with education, nor church attendance with religion. It is unfortunate if the boy beholds in these two essential institutions merely an emasculated police.

If either the church or the school is to reach the boy it will have to recognize and perform its task very largely beyond the traditional limits of the institution as such, and with a heartiness and masculinity which are now often absent. In this field the indirect and extra-ecclesiastical work of the minister will be his best work, and the time that the teacher spends with his pupils outside the schoolhouse may have more educational value than that spent within. In due time society will be ready to appreciate and support the educator who is bigger than any building; and outdoor schools are bound to grow in favor.

Consider also the boy's love of paraphernalia and all the tokens of achievement or of oneness with his group. The pre-adolescent boy glorying in full Indian regalia, the early-adolescent proud in the suit of his team or in his accouterments as a Scout, and a little later, with quieter taste, the persistent fraternity pin--all of these tell the same story of the love of insignia and the power of the emblem in the social control and development of youth. Think also of the collecting mania, which among primitives was less strong than is ordinarily supposed, but which in early boyhood reaches forth its hands, industriously, if not always wisely, after concrete, tactual knowledge and proprietorship. So also with the impulse to tussle and to revel in the excitement of a contest; inhibited, it explodes; neglected, it degenerates; but directed it goes far toward the making of a man. Evidence of this intensity, zest, and pressure of young life is never wanting. Disorder "rough-house," and even serious accidents, testify to the reckless abandon which tries to compensate in brief space for a thousand hours of repression. Such occurrences are unfortunate but worse things may happen if the discharge of energy becomes anti-social, immoral, and vicious. "The evils of lust and drink are the evils that devour playless and inhibited youth."

Right conceptions of religion and education must therefore attach an added sanctity to the growth of the body, since in and through it alone is the soul, so far as we know it, achieved. To accept the biological order as of God and to turn to their right use all of life's unfolding powers constitutes a religious program. For even those primitive instincts which pass and perish often stir into consciousness and operation other more noble functions or are transmuted into recognized virtues. Popularly speaking, the tadpole's tail becomes his legs. Success in suppressing the precivilized qualities of the boy results in a "zestless automaton" that is something less than a man. Everything that characterizes the boy, however bothersome and unpromising it may seem, is to be considered with reference to a developing organism which holds the story of the past and the prophecy of the future. To the apostle of the largest vision and the greatest hope, these native propensities will be the call of the man of Macedonia, saying, "Come over and help us."

The most striking biological change that comes to the boy on his way to manhood is that of puberty. The church and the state have attested the vast importance of this experience for political and religious ends by their ceremonials of induction into the responsibilities of citizenship and the obligations of formal religion. Among the least civilized peoples these ceremonies were often cruel, superstitious, and long drawn out in their exaction of self-control, sacrifice, and subordination to the tribal will. The sagacity of the elders of the tribe in preserving their own control and in perpetuating totemic lore must compel the unfeigned admiration of the modern ethnologist.

The Athenians with their magnificent civilization exalted citizenship and the service of the state far beyond any modern attainment. The way of the youth today is tame, empty, and selfish as compared with the Spartan road to manhood and the Roman ceremonies attendant upon the assumption of the _toga virilis_. As a rule modern churches have too lightly regarded the profound significance of ancient confirmation services--Jewish, Greek, and Catholic. Knowledge of what transpires in the body and mind of adolescence proves the wisdom of the ancients and at the same time attracts both the educator and the evangelist to study and use the crises of this fertile and plastic period.

The process of transformation from childhood into manhood begins in the twelfth or thirteenth year, passes its most acute stage at about fifteen, and may not complete itself until the twenty-fifth year. It is preceded by a period of mobilization of vitality as if nature were preparing for this wonderful re-birth whereby the individualistic boy becomes the socialized progenitor of his kind.

The normal physiological changes, quite apart from their psychological accompaniments, are such as to elicit the sympathy of intelligent adults. Early in pubescent growth the heart increases by leaps and bounds, often doubling its size in the course of two years or even one year. There is a rise of about one degree in the temperature of the blood and the blood pressure is increased in all parts of the body. The entire body is unduly sensitized, and the boy is besieged by an army of new and vivid sense impressions that overstimulate, confuse, and baffle him. He is under stress and like all persons under tension he reacts extremely and hence inconsistently in different directions. He cannot correlate and organize his experiences. They are too vivid, varied, and rapid for that. This over-intensity begets in turn excessive languor and he cannot hold himself in _via media_.

His physical condition explains his marked moods: his sudden changes of front, his ascent of rare heights of impulsive idealism, and his equally sudden descent into the bogs of materialism; his unsurpassed though temporary altruism and his intermittent abandon to gross selfishness. He has range. He is a little more than himself in every direction. The wine of life is in his blood and brain. It is no wonder that somewhere about the middle of the adolescent period both conversions and misdemeanors are at their maximum.

To make matters worse these vivid and unorganized experiences, simply because they lie along the shore of the infinite and have no single clue, no governing philosophy of life, are overswept by the dense and chilling fogs of unreality that roll in from the great deep. Life is swallowed up in awful mystery. External facts are less real than dreams. One stamps the very ground beneath his feet to know if it exists. The ego which must gauge itself by external bearings is temporarily adrift and lost. Suicidal thoughts are easily evoked; and at such times the luxury of being odd and hopelessly misunderstood constitutes a chameleon-like morbidity that, with a slight change of light and color, becomes an obsession of conceit. The odd one, the mystery to self and others, is he not the great one that shall occupy the center of the stage in some stupendous drama? A man now prominent in educational circles testifies how that on a drizzly night on the streets of old London the lad, then but sixteen years of age, came to a full stop, set his foot down with dramatic pose, and exclaimed with soul-wracking seriousness:

The time is out of joint;--O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!

So is it ever with the adolescent soul unless society curses the desire for significance and makes it criminal.

These bare cliffs of primal personality have not yet undergone the abrasion of the glacial drift nor of the frost and the heat, the wind and the rain of long years. They are angular, bold, defiant, and unsuited to the pastoral and agricultural scenes of middle life. The grind of life with its slow accomplishment and failure has not as yet imparted caution and discretion. Shrewd calculation and niggardliness too are normally absent. Generous estimates prevail. Idealism is passionate and turns its eye to summits that a life-time of devotion cannot scale. Honor is held in high regard and select friendships may have the intensity of religion. Judgments are without qualification. Valor, laughter and fun, excess and the love of victory mingle in hot profusion. Except in the case of the precocious boy of the street, the cold vices of cynicism, misanthropy, and avarice--the reptilians of society--are found almost exclusively among adults. The _younger_ brother is the prodigal. Experience has not taught him how to value property and the main chance.

The failure of self-knowledge and self-control to keep pace with the rapid changes of bodily structure, sense-impressions, and mental organization is nowhere more marked and significant than in sex development; and the common experience of adolescent boys is to the effect that no other temptations equal in persistence and intensity those that attend and follow this awakening. It is highly important, then, that, as preparation for dealing with the individual, the minister shall both see the generic boy upon the background of the past and that he shall also understand in some measure the physical basis and psychological ferment of the boy's inevitable re-birth, not for the purpose of cheaply exploiting adolescence but in order that he may bring every life to its best in terms of personal character and of worth to the world.