early immoralities, the normal or abnormal manifestations of these instincts in the early adolescent prove how irrepressible they are.

But in those primitive times in which the appearance of puberty was not too early for the immediate acceptance of its functions, the social group regulated the consequent relations. The girl's new powers were recognized by religious rites and social ceremonies, and she entered at once upon her new duties. In many

tribes, as we have seen, all duties of women were entirely "taboo" to men. It is not impossible, if we go back in thought to the conditions of their life, to see how this "taboo," like many other ideas, grew and enlarged through successive generations. Many ideas and practices have been preserved by the weight of custom long after the reason for them has ceased to exist, and even after their origin has been forgotten. Even in our day many of the beliefs of the early times still survive and have great power, in spite of their ludicrous unreasonableness. Wearing a horse-chestnut to prevent rheumatism, and terror at breaking a mirror, are instances of such survivals. Akin to these superstitions is the present "taboo" of the recognition of dawning womanhood, and the shame-faced silence or vulgar jest at its manifestations in the innocent social relations of boys and girls, as well as toward the sacred intimacies which belong to married life.

SUMMARY

The key to the girl's life in this yeasty period is her interest in persons. Affection and interest have heretofore been centered in the family. The new physio

logical and psychological developments cause the differentiation of instinctive interest into three new and absorbing channels-the Boy, the Chum, and the Adorée. The first is normally general rather than specific-boys rather than a particular boy-unless interfered with by social attitudes reflecting primitive customs. The other two personal relationships are intensely concrete and individualistic. A great lack in the customary opportunities of the girl at this period is her development by wider social cooperation for distinctly active and objective ends, such as the boy has worked out in the "gang."

Helpful Books for Further Reading. Bibliography, Numbers 1, 4, 15, (17), (18), 30, 32, 52, 55, 101, 111.

CHAPTER VII

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS AND

METHODS

"I am going to have pink, and two ruffles." "Edithe, where is my hair ribbon? Indeed, I won't wear that old crinkled thing to school!"

"Gee whiz! John Jones, if you aren't the limit! Cut that out!"

"Mother, you ought to hold the top crust of the bread toward you if you want to cut it thin. Mrs. Smith showed me how she gets it so beautifully even."

Mother may be wise enough not to say: "Yes, dear, I taught Mrs. Smith how to cut bread, and I've been trying for two years to get you to do it that way. I'm glad it has permeated." She may reprove or merely sigh over the slang and the selfishness. But every one in the house with a girl in her earliest teens is acutely and continuously conscious of her presence. Her personality is pervasive; not subtly and elusively like mignonette, but penetratingly and unmistakably, like onions. Every one who comes in contact with her is conscious of problems in connection with her, problems that cannot be ignored or forgotten.

The Fundamental Problems and Fundamental Means of Solution. The problems which early adolescence brings may be summed up under two heads: the new self and the new world of the self's relations. The new self is assertive, energetic, variable, critical and cruel,

revolutionary, skeptical, emotional, daringly experi mental, and reckless of consequences. The new world is a wider social whole, a realm of romance and imagination, of unexplored places and unachieved exploits, and of humdrum and inefficient commonplaces of church and family, which need only her direction and control, she is sure, to be made much more satisfactory. Its chief interests, as we have seen, are the perfect understander, the Chum; the perfect incarnation of ideal womanhood, the Adorée; and the "perfect nuisance," and slave, and delight-the Boy.

The means by which those who have the girl's confidence and respect may help her are persons, ideals, and activities. Persons, within and without her family, affect her only because they are Ideals Incarnate, or the opposite thereof. It is fatherhood, motherhood, manhood, womanhood, that the girl is measuring in her father and mother, the pastor and school principal, the teacher in grade and Sunday school class, the Camp Fire guardian, big Cousin Tom, and chum's college sister. Ideals of self and of service come from concrete persons, in life or in books. They become effective through her own activities, many and varied. And without these activities, the Ideals will stay in the dream world, instead of being wrought into her own character.

Holding in mind the racial and social significance of each of these factors as outlined in previous chapters, we may now take up a few illustrative combinations of problems and methods.

The New Self and the Family. An altered self-consciousness, and consequently a new attitude toward the family, takes place in every adolescent (boy or

girl), and usually early in adolescence. It may be gradual or sudden, remembered or unremembered, but it is a factor to be counted on. A girl may face an issue which forces a square recognition that she can put herself, bodily or in sympathies, outside the family circle by the way she chooses. Yet even if she chooses selfishly in some smaller things, in practically every case where the issue is big enough, or clear enough to be recognized as an issue, she does choose with the family. She may put it off, and let the family consider her still a little girl and choose for her, but that is a recognition of their mutual rights as one family. This fact is a help in solving the moral problems which develop from modern complications of family life.

One of these is the changed attitude of the parent toward the child, which has removed the safeguard of authority at this critical time without providing an adequate substitute. The experiences shared with her parents during the (to her) so long period of childhood put her in her own estimation on a par with them. The superior school training of the average young girl over that of her parents gives to her new sense of selfimportance a weapon against which, in a clash of wills, many parents feel helpless. The new awakening is one in which personal relations are supreme. Guidance can come only from the adult person who has her respect and affection, and who shows understanding sympathy. Such a person can help both girl and parents to a more normal relation, by an appreciation of the relative worth of different kinds of knowledge.

Another such problem is encountered by the girl whose home life differs in its ideals from those of the