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