Irving King

The High-school Age Irving King

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 Excerpt: ...and restrain the youth, and has not the whole history of civilization been but one long effort to substitute psychic impulsion for the driving force of blind appetite?" (3J We should not, then, conceive these new interests in a narrow sense. The central fact of sexual Secondary man-maturity is, it is true, at the first, testations the dominant and all-compelling one. For a time it holds the attention of the youth, in one way or another, in its more limited physical aspects. But if his surroundings are normal and hygienic; if his physical development is unretarded and his opportunities for self-expression in a good social environment are what they should be, these basic and, in themselves, animal instincts, broaden out into a host of allied interests. This broadening of the sex impulse has been spoken of as a process of irradiation, or of expansion. The whole tendency of the better phases of modern civilized society is to afford manifold opportunities for a diverse expression of the new life. As the basis of these secondary manifestations it becomes the key, the hidden motive to every conceivable enrichment in the life of later youth and of all the succeeding years of maturity. New appreciations of nature, of poetry, of history and of biography rapidly unfold. To many a boy, some field of modern science opens up a veritable fairy-land of wonder and opportunity. Others crave adventure and forget all else in its mad quest. The pulse of the explorer and of the buccaneer begins to throb in their veins. Friendship assumes a new meaning. The mind of the youth begins to open up to the characteristics of strength and of weakness in his more mature associates. He becomes a hero-worshiper; an ardent admirer of the man who can do things; who can lead his fellow me...