is to be said in favor of letting every girl and boy do as near to
everything he or she wants to do as possible. Expertness can come
later when a choice of a specialty has been made. Now is the time
for touching life at as many points as possible, for acquiring
breadth of outlook and range of sympathy and interest. Now
especially is the time for trying out the individual's capacities--
which may lie quite beyond the range of the conventional pursuits of
the family or the neighborhood. It is the time for self-discovery,
and to this end every bit of help that can come from the home and
from the church, from the school and from the community, from direct
experience and from literature, should be utilized.

The danger of early specialization is shown to us when we
contemplate men and women who have no interests beyond their rather
narrow routine occupations, who have no sympathies beyond their
rather narrow set of intimates, who have no appreciation of human
character and human service beyond the small circle into which they
settled in their teens, and from which they can by no possibility be
drawn. It is because the formation of new habits becomes
increasingly difficult after the sixteenth or seventeenth year that
narrow prejudices and biased opinions should be avoided by
participation in the broadest variety of activities and
associations. Before the conflicting moods and tendencies are
finally welded into a consistent whole the girl or boy should make a
part of his personality as many sources of enthusiasm, as many kinds
of interest, as many lines of sympathy as possible. In a few years
the character begins to "set," and the _size_ of the character
will be in large part determined by the number and variety of
emotional, intellectual, sensory, and muscular elements that have
been developed during this adolescent period.