imply a widening of the youth's horizon and include a "consciousness of
kind" that has heretofore been lacking.

Now, the youth or maiden truly falls in love; up to this time, regard for
the opposite sex has been merely a light fancy, barely skin deep; but now
it takes hold of the heart strings and plays upon them with an agony that
is truly heart rending. Who is there with red blood in his veins that does
not look back upon his first heart conflict with almost pathetic reverence?
Parents should be more concerned than they usually are over the conquest of
the heart of youth. Such affairs may carry with them consequences which are
more serious than could be anticipated.

At this time the youth or maiden is exceedingly resentful of arbitrary
restraint or punishment. There is a super-sensitiveness and a keen
self-consciousness which cannot brook harshness and coercion. Sympathy and
reasonableness must take the place of censure and punishment. Years ago I
remember seeing a father start to whip his boy who was just emerging into
the adolescent stage, a heavy stick was raised to strike, but the boy
looked his father in the eye without flinching and quietly remarked: "You
may whip one devil out, Father, but I promise you that you'll whip seven
devils in." The stick dropped from the astonished parent's hand; the boy
was never again punished by whipping.

The runaway curve for boys reaches its highest point at this time, and the
girl is likely to be insolent and unmanageable probably for the first and
only time in her life. The greatest crises of life arise at this time
because of the almost criminal ignorance of parents respecting these
revolutionary changes and also because children who may never before have
caused the parents the least trouble or heartache are now as unruly and
unmanageable as a volcano in eruption. This is the time when the youth is