Volume 1

Adolescence : its psychology and its relations to physiology, anthropology, sociology, sex, crime, religion and education / by G. Stanley Hall.

  • Hall, G. Stanley (Granville Stanley), 1844-1924.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Adolescence : its psychology and its relations to physiology, anthropology, sociology, sex, crime, religion and education / by G. Stanley Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    in fact each supplements and is an imperfect thing without the other. We try to impose not only our civilization, but our religion, upon lower races, even though they are thereby ex- terminated, and fail to study the nature and needs of even those we try to help. All this is hard on youth, which was better understood in ancient Greece and Rome than now, for it is profoundly re- sponsive to all these influences. Despite all this I am an optimist root and core, not merely because an evolutionist must hold that the best and not the worst will survive and prevail, but because in most, though not yet in all, of these fields I see clearly the beginnings of better things. Even in education and religion, the strongholds of conservatism, there are new and better ideals and efforts, and these are less exceptional and are growing in power and influence and are represented by more and better men. In vigor, enthusiasm, and courage we are still young, and our faults are those of youth. Be- cause they have been great our suffering has been also great, and pain is the world’s best teacher whose lessons are surest to be laid to heart. The very fact that we think we are young will make the faith in our future curative, and we shall one day not only attract the youth of the world by our unequaled liberty and opportunity, but develop a mental, moral, and emotional nurture that will be the best preparation for making the most and the best of them and for helping humanity on to a higher stage. As for years, an almost passionate lover of childhood and a teacher of youth, the adolescent stage of life has long seemed to me one of the most fascinating of all themes, more worthy, perhaps, than anything else in the world of reverence, most inviting study, and in most crying need of a service we do not yet understand how to render aright. Socrates knew that there was no such companionship or inspiration. In minis- tering to it the higher instincts of parenthood culminate and age renews its youth. This should make teaching the most humanistic, the noblest, and the most satisfying vocation of man, as well as the surest safeguard against pessimism. These years are the best decade of life. No age is so responsive to all the best and wisest adult endeavor. In no psychic soil, too, does seed, bad as well as good, strike such deep root, grow