The New Zealand tablet WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1925. EARLY TRAINING

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 3, 21 January 1925, Page 33

The New Zealand tablet WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1925. EARLY TRAINING

Extents tell us , that the human brain attains its maximum 'weight about the ago of fifteen, and in the case of girls a little earlier. It is conceded that among the more favored . classes the growth may go on up to y‘-' the age of twenty, or perhaps even a year or two more; but on the whole, the period of nerve plasticity is not extended beyond youth. As year’s go on the weight of the brain decreases, although in the case of eminent men it has been known to remain fairly constant into old age. But eminent men are exceptions, and the general rule is that the decrease sets in about the age of thirty- From this fact it is argued that the most important period for the training of youth are the years between the ages of seven and fifteen, and that it is a great mistake to say, as some people do, that it is well to defer education until the child can reason out for himself the why and wherefore of things. Much more depends on memory, habit, and association than is commonly thought, and the best season for developing these is the most plastic period of brain growth. The great psychologist, Wundt, said: “The old metaphysical prejudice that man always thinks has not yet entirely disappeared. I myself am inclined to hold that man really 'thinks very little and very seldom. Many an action which looks like a manifestation of intelligence most surely originates in association.” Professor.Menge says:- “We find that ... at about fifteen the average boy, and from , ten to thirteen, i, the average girl has a brain as large as he / '''or she ever will have; that at thirty-three [' all the ii at reminds me part of the brain • | has finished growing, that is, that the association fibres have assumed the form and ; ; . position they are going to assume for life.”

The deduction made from these premises by Professor Halleck is that if we do not get our foundations for training before, we are not going to get them after, we are fully, grown. This means that the principles must be instilled early or never, for if they have not taken hold during the plastic period of the brain, in after life life itself will be regulated only from the outside. Hence, it is of maximum importance that the young should acquire their guiding principles even before they are fifteen years of age, and there is real danger that if they fail to do so they will never acquire them. Hence again the need of drilling into the minds of the young the fundamental things which will determine the lines of their moral and intellectual growth in after years. The next question is what sort of principles are to be instilled At present there are turn diverging systems, two ways of teaching boys and girls that they ought to be moral. There is the penal system which holds up to the young imagination the horrors of vice and the terrible consequences of an evil life; the system referred to by Mr. Chesterton when dealing with the assertion that the exhibition of a diunkards liver would be a. more efficacious way of teaching temperance than prayer or praise. The other system is that based on religion, the system which teaches us to be moral because it is the Law of God, which teaches us to respect our bodies because they were made to be temples of God’s Holy Spirit, which makes us see a brother in our neighbor, and makes the, love for the neighbor the test of the love of God. This system is based on principles, on ideals. It points out to the young girl the beautiful example of the most chaste Mother of God, whereas the other points to the lower motive of social ostracisation or physical degradation. The Christian system produces’ pure and moral men and women ; the other only promises hygienic animals — and seldom fulfils. Only a debased and perverted mind can have the least hesitation -about deciding offhand which system is the best and noblest. Unfortunately, the fact that the “hygienic animal” system is the one in vogue in our Present day secular schools is ample proof of the debasement and perversion of society as a whole. * The conclusion of all this is that teachers must aim at making the most of the child during the plastic period of the brain. And if it is their duty to prepare the young people to become good citiezns in after life, it is clearly their duty to drill into them sound guiding principles which will mould their characters on. "right lines. The hygienic appeal is frankly nonsense: it never did and never will make moral, men and women, for morality must have q, deeper and greater foundation than fear or human respect. The one thing, the one thing alone, that can make for good-character formation is an early training on the old-fashioned Christian lines, a - training that will teach children to aim at being good and to shun vice because to do so is God’s will in their regard, and because in no other way can they work out their end in being, here and hereafter, God wants the man or the woman who can conscientiously say, “I have tried to live up to

the Ten Commandments, I have obeyed the voice of conscience, I have practised virtue.” But we cannot imagine anyone wanting the man or woman who can only say, “I am an immoral being but I am quite hygienic.” Experience teaches us that they who try to be merely hygienic are seldom even that. As a rule it is a case of being either moral or immoral. It needs no deep study of modern society to realise that much. —: —