CHAPTER I


PRE-ADOLESCENCE


Introduction: Characterization of the age from eight to twelve--The
era of recapitulating the stages of primitive human development--Life
close to nature--The age also for drill, habituation, memory, work and
regermination--Adolescence superposed upon this stage of life, but
very distinct from it.

The years from about eight to twelve constitute a unique period of
human life. The acute stage of teething is passing, the brain has
acquired nearly its adult size and weight, health is almost at its
best, activity is greater and more varied than it ever was before or
ever will be again, and there is peculiar endurance, vitality, and
resistance to fatigue. The child develops a life of its own outside
the home circle, and its natural interests are never so independent of
adult influence. Perception is very acute, and there is great immunity
to exposure, danger, accident, as well as to temptation. Reason, true
morality, religion, sympathy, love, and esthetic enjoyment are but
very slightly developed.

Everything, in short, suggests that this period may represent in the
individual what was once for a very protracted and relatively