CHAPTER IV

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTORS

Why "Adolescence" Has Been Used as a Masculine Noun. A few years ago, when educators began to realize that the boy or girl entering the teens was different from a child, and that the boy or girl in the late teens was different from a mature adult, the word "adolescence" became popular. Now, the individuals of this transition age who commonly thrust themselves most prominently into notice are boys; and those who studied and wrote and spoke most about this stage of growth were men, and their "inside information" came from their memories of the boyish point of view. Hence it happened that some time since, in a Southern Sunday school convention, the father of a large family, listening to many discussions of "the adolescent," finally said, dryly: "I don't know much about this 'adolescence,' and I don't know whether gals is supposed to catch it too; but I do know that the gals is just as ornery as the boys, or a leetle more so."

Anyone who has not the patience of complete understanding is indeed apt to find the "ornery"-ness of a girl almost intolerable for a year or so. But if her selfassertiveness, obstinacy, unreasonableness, and varying moods are hard on those who live with her, what about her own hardships in living with herself?

Wide Variability of Adolescent Girls. Another reason why boys were earlier studied is that "boy nature"

seems to be more calculable. Society has permitted boys to escape the barriers of conventionality in following their gregarious instincts, so their groupings are better developed and more democratic. Custom has encouraged, perhaps created, greater individualism in girls, for their socializing has been confined to smaller and less varied groups. The girl has had less necessity to modify her personal peculiarities, and usually fewer forces have acted upon her. But these forces, because they are fewer, have been the more intense in their effect. The result has so accentuated differences in temperament that a prominent educator of girls has said, "Any sentence that begins 'All girls' is a lie."

There is just one exception to this statement. "All girls," by the very fact of time, pass, whether slowly or rapidly, through certain physiological changes which, because they fundamentally affect the development of mind and character, must be given first consideration. These changes may be roughly divided into the "gross bodily" changes (of bones, muscles, glands, organs), and the "cerebral" (or those conditioning mental development).

The Child-Personality Relatively Stable. During the last few years of childhood, a girl's growth is relatively slow. She has mastered practically all the coordinations of which her muscles are capable; at least those she does use are well accustomed. When she learned to walk and talk, or to wipe dishes, or sew, the movements focused all her attention. She was acutely conscious of how the muscles felt when they worked, and of just where on her body the contact with objects occurred. Learning was choosing the feelings of the movements that brought the right results. Many

adjustments and contacts brought bumps, or pricks, or broken dishes, or punishments. Success and praise, or accident and blame, or ignorance and disappointment brought the instinctive tears or laughter, temper or fears, which at first were new sensations. But now the learning of these familiar movements is forgotten, and they are hardly "sensed" at all. Emotions are associated with appropriate causes. Her world is thoroughly explored, and yields her hardly any new sensations. If normal, healthy, well-disciplined, and surrounded by well-poised adults, she has few occasions for violent emotions. The slow growth of these later years, and the slow passing of time to a child, make her seem to herself and to us a very definite personality, whose relations to her world are constant.

The Beginning of Adolescence. But surely, and some times suddenly, all this is changed. "Early adolescence" is the name given to the period of growth and ferment culminating in puberty. Usually there occurs about the beginning of this period the most rapid growth of the whole body since babyhood. If muscles and bones kept pace with each other, it might not be so disconcerting; but nature's way is to concentrate growth energy first in one spot and then in another, and as bones stretch muscles too short for them, or muscles press against each other till bones and skin regain their proportion, the nerves report the tensions and pressure in sharp "growing pains." A new mechanics must be learned for getting the familiar

1 "Puberty" is here applied to the relatively short period of growth of the gen erative organs culminating in girls in the establishment of the menstrual period. In the United States the average age of girls at first menstruation is thirteen and onehalf to fourteen and one-half years, which makes the period of "early adolescence" extend from about twelve to fourteen or fifteen. With individuals the age at which the changes begin, and their duration, vary widely.

tasks done. Dishes drop because the arm overreaches. The girl stumbles because, as she complains, "my feet disappoint me so!" During this process of growth the sensations from the body force themselves acutely into consciousness.

Besides, the body as a whole is in strange relationship to the familiar environment. A sudden difference of from two to six inches in the level of the plane of vision makes one literally "see life from a new angle." To draw the chair the customary distance from the table and upset the physical and social gravity of the entire circle by unexpected knee-impact is an experience far more certain than "fear of the supernatural” to produce what William James called a "vertiginous baffling of the expectation." The girl is homesick to sit in her now impossible pet rocker. She is painfully conscious that everything is different, including herself-and she is exhorted not to be self-conscious!

Changes Due to "Somatic" Growth. This business of manufacturing new bone and muscle tissue is expensive of energy, but, curiously enough, it has to be carried on by heart and stomach and lungs that enlarge but slowly in proportion. These organs can be made adequate to furnish needed foodstuff for building and to care for the increased waste only by much exercise to help the circulation, much water to help eliminate waste, and frequent rather than too hearty meals. The growing muscles are often loath to do their part, and their best encouragement is plenty of sleep, during which the stretched cells can rest, and the nerves grow to keep pace with them. If these helps are neglected, the hollow chest, muddy skin, and the weakness of the undernourished body bring discouraging failure to

meet her own æsthetic or moral ambitions. To be lazy, and homely, and know it; to care dreadfully and yet not be able to help it, is tragedy indeed!

These changes are enough to cause tension, fatigue, and emotion, even though they differ from those of childhood only in rapidity and extent. But a far more fundamental change is taking place.

Changes Due to Growth of "Reproductive" Cells. We have seen in a preceding chapter that the first step in the development of the embryo which grew into the girl child was the division of the germ cell with all its possibilities into "somatic" or body cells, and "germ plasm" or "reproductive cells," and that in the first years of life the individual is developed almost entirely from the "somatic" half. The rapid growth just described as taking place in this period is still that of the body, of the same "somatic" origin. The "reproductive" part of the original germ also subdivides in the embryo, and the girl baby has the complete number of ova that will ripen throughout her life as a woman. These undergo comparatively little development through childhood, but are preserved like hid treasure in the rudimentary reproductive organs until the body of the individual shall have become adapted for selfsupport in its physical environment. The seemingly erratic growth of these last few years is preparing the body for its new inner developments.

The contrast between the reproductive and the body cells is interesting. Of the latter the nerve cells develop most rapidly of all. Probably before birth most of the nerve cells that will ever be used by the adult are already formed, but they grow in size and in number of connections until long after the bone and