rapid changes of bodily structure, sense-impressions, and mental
organization is nowhere more marked and significant than in sex
development; and the common experience of adolescent boys is to the
effect that no other temptations equal in persistence and intensity
those that attend and follow this awakening. It is highly important,
then, that, as preparation for dealing with the individual, the minister
shall both see the generic boy upon the background of the past and that
he shall also understand in some measure the physical basis and
psychological ferment of the boy's inevitable re-birth, not for the
purpose of cheaply exploiting adolescence but in order that he may bring
every life to its best in terms of personal character and of worth to
the world.





CHAPTER III

THE BOY IN VILLAGE AND COUNTRY[2]


From the consideration of bodily health the village boy is better off
than his city cousin. He also enjoys to a far greater degree the
protective and educative attention of real neighborhood life. The
opinions and customs which help to mold him are more personal. He
probably holds himself more accountable, for he can more readily trace
the results of any course of action in terms of the welfare and
good-will of well-known persons. His relation to nature is also more
nearly ideal. Artificial restrictions, territorial and otherwise, are