Youth and Sex | Page 3

not understood by the subject: vague
feelings of unrest, ill-comprehended desires, and an intense self-consciousness take the
place of the unconscious egoism of childhood.
The processes of Nature as witnessed in the season of spring have their counterpart in the
changes that occur during the early years of adolescence. The earth warmed by the more
direct rays of the sun and softened by recurring showers is transformed in a few weeks
from its bare and dry winter garb into the wonderful beauty of spring. This yearly miracle
fails to impress us as it should do because we have witnessed it every year of our lives,
and so, too, the great transformation from child to budding woman fails to make its
appeal to our understanding and sympathy because it is of so common occurrence. If it
were possible for adults to really remember their own feelings and aspirations in
adolescent years, or if it were possible for us with enlightened sympathy to gain access to
the enchanted garden of youth, we should be more adequate guides for the boys and girls
around us. As it is we entirely fail to appreciate the heights of their ambitions, hopes, and
joys, and we have no measure with which to plumb the depths of their fears, their
disappointments, and their doubts. The transition between radiant joy and confident hope
in the future to a miserable misinterpretation of sensations both physical and psychical
are rapid. It is the unknown that is terrible to us all, and to the child the changes in its
body, the changes in its soul and spirit, which we pass by as commonplace, are full of
suggestions of abnormality, of disaster, and of death. Young people suffer much from the
want of comprehension and intelligent sympathy of their elders, much also from their
own ignorance and too fervid imagination. The instability of the bodily tissues and the
variability of their functions find a counterpart in the instability of the mental and moral
natures and in the variability of their phenomena. Adolescents indeed "never continue in
one stay;" left to themselves they will begin many pursuits, but persevere with, and finish,
nothing.
Youth is the time for rapidly-succeeding friends, lovers, and heroes. The schoolfellow or
teacher who is adored to-day may become the object of indifference or even of dislike
to-morrow. Ideas as to the calling or profession to be adopted change rapidly, and
opinions upon religion, politics, &c., vary from day to day. It is little wonder that there is
a special type of adolescent insanity differing entirely from that of later years, one in
which, owing to the want of full development of mental faculties, there are no
systematised delusions, but a rapid change from depression and melancholy to exaltation
bordering on mania. Those parents and guardians who know something of the peculiar
physical and mental conditions of adolescence will be best prepared both to treat the
troubles wisely, and by sympathy to help the young people under their care to help
themselves.

One of the phenomena of adolescence is the dawn of the sexual instinct. This frequently
develops without the child knowing or understanding what it means. More especially is
this true of young girls whose home life has been completely sheltered, and who have not
had the advantage, or disadvantage, of that experience of life which comes early to those
who live in crowded tenements or amongst the outspoken people of the countryside. The
children of the poorer classes have, in a way, too little to learn: they are brought up from
babyhood in the midst of all domestic concerns, and the love affairs of their elders are
intimately known to them, therefore quite early in adolescence "ilka lassie has her
laddie," and although the attraction be short-lived and the affection very superficial, yet it
is sufficient to give an added interest to life, and generally leads to an increased care in
dress and an increased desire to make the most of whatever good looks the girl may
possess. The girl in richer homes is probably much more bewildered by her unwonted
sensations and by the attraction she begins to feel towards the society of the opposite sex.
Probably in these days, when there is more intermingling of the sexes, the girl's outlook is
franker, and, so far as this is concerned, healthier, than it was forty or fifty years ago. It is
very amusing to elders to hear a boy scarcely in his teens talking of "his best girl," or to
see the little lass wearing the colour or ornament that her chosen lad admires. It is true
that the "best girl" varies from week to week if not from day to day, but this special
regard for a member of the opposite sex announces the dawn of