Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training - Mosiah Hall
We ought to have in every school five minutes, it would be better to have
ten minutes, between school exercises, when the girls can walk up and
down, chat with one another and get the blood out of the overloaded head
and down into the cold feet. Better still, turn them out in the open air
and let them run; that would be another blessing. Don't keep the girls
sitting too long at that period. Don't let them sit with wet feet or
skirts. That is just about as bad as getting smallpox. Teach them some of
the sense which you ought to have if you haven't.
I haven't said a word for the boy, for this good reason: you can't kill him
if you try, thank the Lord. You can't kill him if you try, not because he
is so very tough; boys are not as tough as girls, physically; but you can't
kill them; because they won't let you; but I am sorry to say, some few
women teachers are killing off the future women. Again and again I have
heard it said by the girls: "We can get along all right with Mr. So and So;
we can get on the blind side of him all the time; we can fool him, but when
we try to get around Miss So and So she puts it to us awfully, and in the
neatest way, to get the work done." Now, why the women can't have a little
mercy on the younger people is something I cannot understand at all.
And yet, while I haven't said a word for the boy, ought we not to regard
him a little? Now and then there is the ambitious boy, and then again there
is your studious boy; there is your bookish boy; there is your shy boy who
does not get into the games. He is the boy you should watch all the time.
There is the boy who has become delicate and finicky, because he has been
doddled at home. I hope you haven't got so many of them here as we have in
the East, but he is here and you must watch him, because his parents are
doing everything in the world to spoil him. You must stand on the Lord's
side of him if you can, for these boys need your help. If you give a little
excess of mercy, a little bit more physical vigor gained by this regime of
open-air exercise and exercise between the school periods, you simply will
be erring on the safe side and doing good to that girl and such boys,
because on these years of metamorphosis depend the life and the happiness
of the girl and the boy.
Perhaps you are getting ready for examinations. I want to tell you Nature
has her examinations just as well as you do. Does not she examine the baby
and see that baby can't go on, and many babies do not go on. Then the death
rate sinks; at eleven and twelve it is very low, very low, indeed, only
perhaps two or three in a thousand, in many countries. Nature is giving
them a chance to see whether they will get ready for the second
examination. Right after or during puberty the death rate rises. At
eighteen, nineteen and twenty, it has gone up. That is Nature's second
examination, to see whether that boy or girl is fit to send out into the
world to take part in the great drama of life, and if she is conditioned at
this time, then it means invalidism for two, three, four, five years, and
if she is badly conditioned, it may mean death. When you are preparing
those girls for the examination, do not forget your own examination,
because it is coming on very fast.
I have talked very plainly this morning and I hope you will forgive me. You
may say, "We don't need that talk now." I hope you don't. You will need it
in a generation or two; I don't care how strong that pioneer blood was
which has come down to your first generation here, we had just as good in
Massachusetts a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago, but we are
getting rid of it just as fast as we can, the Lord forgive us; and you will
do that here if you don't look out. If you have strong, red blood, hold on
to it; because that is the grandest gift of God to man; it is a treasure
which must be handed down unimpaired from generation to generation, that
our boys and girls may be strong and efficient for the work of life which
lies before them.
LESSON II
(General Subject: "Conservation of the Child," read carefully the foregoing
lecture by Dr. Tyler.)
_The Body as an Instrument of the Soul_
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What are the teachings of the Latter-day Saints regarding the relation
of the body to the soul?
2. In the light of these teachings, what is demanded of every Latter-day
Saint as to the treatment of his body? How are we living up to these
teachings?
3. What are the four essential things we must do to keep the body engine
described by Dr. Tyler, in perfect condition?
4. What would you think of an engineer who fed his engine dirt with his
coal, or let his draughts and flues clog with soot, or failed to remove the
clinkers, or let his engine get dusty and rusty? In what similar ways are
people neglecting their bodies?
5. Discuss this as a health maxim: Clean food, clean air, clean water,
clean thoughts, and clean consciences.
6. What was the Savior's constant command to the sick?
7. Give one practical suggestion as to training children to take proper
care of their God-given bodies--of keeping them clean, both inside and out.
LESSON III
_The Foundation of Health_
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
_Reference_: The foregoing lecture by Dr. Tyler.
1. Discuss Dr. Tyler's remark: "The stomach is the foundation of all
greatness."
2. Name three home habits which, in your opinion, are doing most to ruin
the stomachs, especially of children?
3. Discuss the "piecing habit," the "sweetmeat craze," irregularity of
meals, and the "hurrying habit," as applied to disorders of the stomach.
4. Someone said recently that people are paying more to-day to cure their
stomachs from ills brought on by bad habits in eating than they are to
build churches, schools and all other public improvements put together.
Discuss the assertion.
5. How can parents save money now being wasted on stomach troubles, and at
the same time lay the foundation for good health in their children and
themselves? Give at least one way.
LESSON IV
"_Nerve Leaks_"
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
_Reference_: The foregoing lecture by Dr. Tyler.
1. What are two good evidences of a perfectly healthy nervous system?
2. Physicians tell us that nerve diseases are increasing at an alarming
rate in our country. What is the greatest cause for this increase?
3. What home habits have you noticed that lead to nervousness? Discuss here
the effects of scolding, hurrying, talking, noise, lack of system, as
"nerve leaks."
4. What practical suggestion would you offer to parents to help them to
bring control, calm and harmony into their daily lives--to make their homes
more places of rest and peace?
5. What ways can we take to conserve and strengthen the nerves of our
children? Through what habits of life are we helping to wreck their nerves?
LESSON V
_Child Growth_
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Discuss the varying stages of child growth, their rapidity, the critical
periods, etc.
2. Growth means waste. By what means does the body get rid of the waste
that comes with growth and change?
3. What are some of the ill effects of keeping this waste in the system?
Give your experiences and observations with children.
4. When is the child's blood likely to be most loaded with the waste caused
by growth? How can we best help the boy or girl to clear the system of this
waste? What mistakes are we making in this vital matter?
5. What practical suggestions would you give to our parents, teachers, and
communities to help them safeguard their children during dangerous periods,
and keep their pioneer blood clean and pure?
THE ADOLESCENT BOY AND GIRL
GROWTH DURING THE HIGH SCHOOL AGE
_Dr. John M. Tyler_
The boy and the girl during adolescence have now attained their full height
and practically their full weight, although the boy has a little to gain
still; they are pretty well grown by this time. If I had to choose between
two questions, the first might be, "Have you a good appetite?" but the
second question I would ask is, "What is your lung capacity?" The lungs
have increased very rapidly at fourteen to sixteen in the boy; in the girl
the increase has been smaller and quite irregular. It ought to be more
regular than it is, I am convinced. The heart has gained greatly in
capacity. The arteries have expanded much less than the heart, and the
result is that there is a much higher blood pressure than there has been at
any time before. The brain has attained practically full size and weight.
The addition now will be mainly in the very highest area, where the
addition of fibres might make all the difference between the possibility of
genius and the possibility of mediocrity. The sensory and the nervous areas
are fully matured. The higher mental area and the higher mental power are
now coming on to stay.
The boy, you will notice, at this stage begins to argue a great deal more
than he ever did before. He wants to argue nearly every question. He likes
the debating society. His idea of heaven, it seems to me, is a place where
debating is indulged in. A goodly amount of exercise for those
psychological and mental powers will do him no harm.
The mortality, or the death rate, is low, but the morbidity is increasing
at this time, in the boy at least. Vigorous physical exercise is now
needed. Ordinary play is not enough. Gymnastics also for the development
and training of the hand and the wrist, training in quickness and precision
of movement are all excellent exercise, all the finer muscles should be
trained now, and probably less training should be given to the heavy
fundamental muscles which are all important in childhood.
Athletics are exceedingly useful. They should be, however, for all, and not
merely for a few who join the teams, who need them the very least of all. I
think our modern college athletics will some day be looked upon as one of
the most ridiculous habits of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. That
twenty-two men should engage in mortal combat, with anywhere from one to
twenty thousand on the side lines,--if you can get anything more ridiculous
than that, I should like to know where you can find it. Athletics should
not be too severe, however, yet, the boy ought not to have century runs and
long halves of football, especially if the heart is still weak. The tissues
of the body have not yet gained the toughness that they will gain at a
later time. Every commander in the field dreads to have boys of eighteen,
nineteen, or twenty sent to him, because, as Napoleon said of his young
recruits, "they die off like flies." The hard bed, with light covering, the
cold room, the cold bath will now aid in toughening the boy, provided he is
healthy; but under no circumstances begin that until the pubertal period is
fully by.
The danger of over-pressure in the high school, especially after the first
year, is to my mind not very great. The boy and the girl now both stand a
good deal of work; but the greatest danger for the boy and the girl in the
high school is that they will take too much social enjoyment. An evening
theatre party, followed by a supper, a late dance, will take more strength
out of a boy and girl than three days of study. There is nothing that is
so wearing. If you can keep down the social over-pressure, I do not
believe the over-pressure from study will do any great harm in high
schools.
The larger bodies, the large heart and lungs, well oxygenated blood, and
fresh vitality of every artery and tissue, gives a buoyance, a strength
and a courage, a source of power and sense of it too, a longing for
complete freedom, a revolt against all control, which the boy will never
feel later; if he does not feel it now. I am describing, perhaps, rather
the college boy than the high school boy; but bear this in mind, that I am
describing what your boys in the high school will be a year or two later if
they are not that now, and it is for this stage you must prepare them,
even, if they have not already entered upon it.
A new, wide world, just as fresh as on the morning of creation, a new fire,
a life of boundless opportunity, which is endless in scope and time, are
opening out before the boy and the girl. They see the parents and the
teachers drag around, understanding, as they think, neither them nor life
itself; and they are right to a certain extent. There is no doubt about
that; we do not hold on to the vision of glory of this world and of this
life which we had in youth as we ought to and as it is our duty to do. The
boy and the girl criticize us fairly, when they think that we don't
appreciate this magnificent world in which we live.
When a man gets to be my age, while I suppose he probably has more
humility, he comes to know and he comes to have a very cheerful, optimistic
view of the world. He has made up his mind that the Lord does not intend
to change the world a great deal anyhow, and, on the whole, he is very much
content to leave it the way it is. That is not so with young people at all.
The boy and the girl must learn and know all about it. That is one thing
they are determined to do at the outset. The boy girds up his loins and he
goes whither he will. He must taste of every experience for himself. He
will meet joy and sorrow with the same frolicking, welcoming spirit. He has
never been saddened by experience nor disillusioned by disappointment and
failure. He will try all the knowledge of good and evil if it costs him
Paradise.
Nature is loosening every leading string now and is getting him free to
complete his own individual development and to forge his own character. We
cannot stop him if we would. It is very lucky that we cannot. It is better
that we should not stop him even if we could; nevertheless, he has very
little self-knowledge and still less self-control. Impulses well up from
changes going on within him or from stimuli which come to him from without.
He does not understand them. He does not know where they come from. He does
not know what they mean. He is ill-prepared to face them, and now he goes
one way and now the other. He has just about as clear a conception of the
value of time as a child has. He has not outgrown childhood in that
respect. He cannot possibly play a waiting game. That is the last thing
that he can do. If the sun shines to-day it is always going to be bright
weather. If the maiden of his adoration frowns to-day, the sun will never
shine again. He is either on the Delectable Mountain or in the Valley of
Humiliation, and he is far more frequently in the latter than we think. He
is rarely between the two, and he is not going to tell us when he is in the
Valley of Humiliation, nor when he is on the top of the Delectable
Mountain.
There is a reticence about him at this time which we should learn to
respect and to reverence. I told you at the first meeting that Nature put
the shell around the egg so we would keep our fingers out of it, and Nature
puts that shell of reticence around the boy and the girl at that time so we
will keep our blundering fingers out and leave them to solve their problems
with their help and that of the good Lord who is watching over them.
Authority has little hold over him at this time, traditions none at all.
The influence of early training which have rooted themselves in his very
life are very powerful and they will hold him, and the Lord have mercy on
the boy whose early traditions do not hold him at that time. Remember it
is not his fault; that is a sad thought for us parents. We must take the
responsibility for these defects in the early training of our children.
The boy is led by class and group feeling at this time. You take him at
eight or ten and he is an admirable little fellow in many respects. He
wants to play fair, and if the other fellow does not play fair he will
smite him, just as Samson smote the Philistines, if he can, and that is the
occasion of much friction. After a time there is danger that he will not
play as fair as he did when he was younger, for a time at least, because he
is swallowed up in the team, or the society, or the group, or the gang,
whatever it may be, to which he belongs, and he will give himself body and
soul to help that team to win. This has its bad side, a very bad side, I
grant you. If you would understand the boy, every now and then you must
study the psychology of the mob. But there is a very good side also,
because he is generous to a fault. Now is the time in his life when he will
go down with the team, and in order for the team to win he will make a play
when you and I would hesitate to make it. We had better respect the boy. He
is loyal to his leader and to his friends. It is the epoch of the heart,
and out of the heart, remember, are the issues of life. He has a great deal
more heart than he has head knowledge at this time, and I confess I rather
like him for it.
You remember what Paul says to those knowledge-worshiping Corinthians as to
knowledge: "It will vanish away; for we know in part." Those of us who have
lived more than half a century have seen nine-tenths of our knowledge
vanish away in just that fashion because we knew in part. But, says Paul,
there are some things that abide, and one of them is faith. That is never
done away with; another is hope, and the third and sure abiding thing is
love, which is three-thirds in the heart, and out of the heart are the
issues of life; the heart is often wiser than the head. Do not under-value
and never despise the value of the greatness of heart in the boy; for Great
Heart is the only champion who ever killed Giant Despair.
The boy at this age is seeking for a king. He is very likely to be like old
St. Christopher, he will serve the strongest if he can find him. Tides of
religious feeling are sweeping in on him now; but if you want to convert
him you must hold up before him no mediaeval example, but the great,
magnificent, athletic life of that Divine Master who has been so often
misrepresented to us.
He is a very lovable being, that boy is, at times. Oh, you are reverencing
him to-day; well, then bear in mind that probably about the same time
tomorrow morning you will be gripping for the scruff of his neck, and when
you grip him, grip him hard, it is no time for half-way measures. Never hit
a boy at that age with a switch. If you do you are lost. Either don't hit
at all or hit hard.
A great deal of the child still remains in him, his instability, for
instance. He might well say of himself, "my name is legion." In the
remainder of his young life everything that is trifling and worthless all
comes to the surface, just as it does in the fermenting liquor, the strong
and sweet are all hidden below the froth. You cannot see it. You can very
easily do him injustice. You must sympathize with him. Remember your own
foolish youth when you were his age; remember your own blunders and then
you will have a great patience with him and great admiration for him,
because these blunders are not a great deal worse than they are. If you
can't do this, then leave him to Nature, for you cannot help him.
We found, during the years of puberty, a physical metamorphosis, when the
body was all made over, and now, during those years of adolescence we have
a mental metamorphosis that is just as complete as the physical
metamorphosis. All things are becoming new. They have not become new yet,
but they are becoming new; hence it must be a time of instability, of
self-education, of the strange mixture of the very new and the very old,
the bad and the good, of that which is passing away and which has passed
away long ago, and that which has not yet come. Look a little deeper into
him; you will find he has a pretty good primitive system of morality; it is
a very primitive one, consisting mainly of loyalty to his friends. Treat
him "square," as he says, and fairly, and then you may purr and curb him
just as you will.
Remember that tides of religious power and influence have been sweeping
through him. The first one came probably at twelve, if we may trust our
statistics; the second stronger, at fourteen, and then the third--perhaps a
good many don't feel the first one or second--the third perhaps at sixteen.
The one which comes over him at sixteen will affect heart and intellect and
will, and everything, and he will stay converted probably. If you convert
him at twelve, he probably will fall from grace before he is fifteen. It is
rather interesting to notice that those periods when his experiences are
likely to be very deep and very strong, are the years when his chest girth
is expanding the most rapidly. A very good bit of physiology or psychology
or of anything else you choose to call it, to learn is this:
If you want to convert a man to religion, get plenty of good, fresh air
into his body; you never can do it in an ill-ventilated room.
It is a period of seeing visions and of dreaming dreams; you know that, if
you remember your boyhood and girlhood. Those dreams and visions are the
most substantial things there are in his life or in yours or mine; for
"where there is no vision the people perish." Wendell Phillips used to say
that "the power which overthrew slavery and hurled it to the ground was
young men and young women dreaming dreams by patriots' graves." There is a
good deal more than rhetoric in that statement. Endless possibilities are
in these dreams and visions. It is a period of promise, of magnificent
promise, which you and I as teachers are privileged to see afar off before
they are even glimpsed by his parents and many of his friends.
The great question now is, Will the promise and the vision ever be
realized, or will they fade out and disappear and leave him a Philistine?
And lucky if he is not a brute, for the only brute in this world, my
friends, is a degenerate man. When you hear a man say that he has cut his
eye-teeth, and he has got rid of his dreams and his visions, then may the
Lord have mercy on the soul of that man, because he is dead. The
all-important question now is, Can you get that dream and that vision so
burned into his memory, so blazing before his eyes, that he will never
forget it and never lose sight of it, and win it if it costs him his life?
Then you have educated him.
These visions are far more important than all of the science, even the
biology, that a man can learn in college. It is the business of the parent
and teacher at this time to bring to birth and to sturdy growth high aims,
purposes, ideals, the whole spiritual life. Your business in early
childhood is with the physical, because that is the important thing at that
time, if you can build a very healthy little animal, you have done well;
but during the high school age you must build the spiritual. If you don't
feel this, I cannot explain it to you; and if you don't feel this within
you, if it is all meaningless and mere noise, don't you dare teach a high
school, for you are not big enough nor deep enough to do that.
The great question, after all, is not how much learning have you been able
to put into him, but how much of the finer ambitions, how much power, how
deeply and strongly they hunger for the very best. An ounce of inspiration
at this time is worth more than a pound or a ton of learning; I am no foe
of learning, either. The high school is and will remain the people's
college. It is the only college that a great part of the people ever will
know. Do not neglect that great fraction who are never going to get
anything higher and beyond in order to put your time on those who are going
on to colleges and universities. You must be the people's support, and you
may well thank fortune that it doesn't seem to be nine-tenths of your
business out here in the West to fit boys and girls for a college
examination. If that ever threatens to become your business, then you
withstand it and face it to the death, for there is nothing will ruin
education faster than that; I know sorrowfully whereof I speak.
You remember in "Pilgrim's Progress" that when Christian had left the
Interpreter's House, he strayed away and went down into the Valley of
Humiliation, where he walked between the snares and was in danger of
falling into many a pitfall; there he wandered through darkness; there he
could not see the Delectable Mountains any more, and there he fought with
Giant Apollyon for his life; but when Christian passed that way he did not
find it half so bad by any means. He had a companion by the name of Great
Heart, remember, and Great Heart said to him, "Do you know that the soil of
this valley is probably the most fertile that the crow flies over?"
The Valley of Humiliation, my friends, stretches sharp and clear athwart
the life of every man and woman between the Interpreter's House of his
early education and of his dreams and visions, and the Delectable
Mountains, and we all have to depart to it whether we will or no, and it is
the most fertile soil that the crow flies over, for in that Valley of
Humiliation men's muscles and nerves become steel, and man becomes the
shadow of the great rock in the Weary Land, and through heartaches the man
and the woman are made the soldiers and the choice heroes of Jehovah
Himself. It is into that Valley of Humiliation that the boy and the girl
are going to go from school after they leave you, and you must fit them for
it; many of you know well enough what it is and know what help they need.