Heart and Soul | Page 6

a special corner of the mind.
Our second group--the influence of example and imitation--has probably always been a more important factor in shaping conduct and character. What the older boys, just above you, do and believe, makes a lot of difference to you, if you are a boy.
It is no question here of old-fashioned precepts or theories, handed down by parents, grandmothers or school-teachers, to be taken with a grain of salt. It is something living and vital, which concerns you directly. You look up to the older boys: you want to be like them; and approved of by them. What they think and do may be at variance with the ideas of nurse, mother and school-master, but if it is good enough for them, it is good enough for you. It is a practical standard which you can't help being judged by. If you fail to live up to it, or refuse to accept it and try to act differently, there is a sure penalty. You will be sneered at, disliked, looked down upon, or laughed at.
If you are a girl, the same principle applies. There is nothing new about the principle. It is as old as the hills and universal.
Is the effect of it to-day on the forming character any different from what it has been, in the past? Undoubtedly. A moment's reflection will show why and how this must be so.
Whatever the nature and influence of the family bringing-up may have been, in any particular case, the general tendency toward lack of discipline and disregard for authority can hardly fail to be reflected in the prevailing standards of the boys and girls to be found at any school. They have no connection with school regulations or school penalties. It is the fundamental question of instincts, desires, and notions--the attitude toward themselves and toward life outside the school-room which they are going to take with them where-ever they go.
The tendency begun at home finds reinforcement and further development in the boy or girl by example and contact with others, who are headed the same way.
Next comes the third group: The influence of public opinion--of tradition and customs.
There is no mistaking the fact that in the present generation there have been many striking changes in the prevailing customs, as they apply to the behavior and conduct of individuals. The growing boys and girls see these changes taking place on every hand.
When mother and father were young, Sunday was a day set aside for church-going and dull and decorous behavior. Games and fun of all kinds were laid away, everybody put on their best clothes and sat around and talked, or took quiet walks with an overhanging air of seemly propriety. To-day there are tennis and golf and baseball games and dinner-parties and gambling at the bridge-table, in which mother and father participate along with the rest.
It used to be considered improper for a girl of good family to go out at night to any kind of party without being accompanied by a chaperon. Nowadays, the girl who is obliged to take a chaperon with her wherever she goes, is liable to be laughed at by her up-to-date friends.
It was not so long ago that in any respectable community, a woman who painted her face, smoked cigarettes, drank cocktails and gambled with the men, would have been considered a shocking spectacle of depravity that no self-respecting wife, or mother, could accept or tolerate.
Nowadays, the growing boy and girl have only to open their eyes to see women doing such things everywhere--as likely as not their aunts and cousins, or their own mothers.
Examples of this nature could be given in great variety, but enough has been suggested to show the trend. In another connection it will be interesting to discuss these manifestations in greater detail and reflect on their cause and meaning.
For the present, it is sufficient to indicate that the social customs have changed and are changing very materially. Under such conditions, it would not be natural for young people to be unduly impressed by them. Such standards are so unstable and they differ so much to-day from what they were yesterday, and they differ so much in different circles and even in different families, that their force and importance are not very compelling. The authority of past customs has undergone a process of confusion and weakening, much the same as parental authority. There is less respect for it on the part of the new generation.
The same thing is true of traditions and public opinion. Traditions have been modified and lost sight of in the new movement, and public opinion on many questions is to-day so confused and indefinite as hardly to exist.
Some people still think that divorce and re-marriage is shocking. Other people thoroughly approve of divorce, and believe that