134 THE NEXT GENERATION 



strong temptations during these years ; girls as well as boys 

 make or mar their future by the decisions made just now. 



Indeed, no transformation of chrysalis into butterfly is 

 ever more wonderful than this change of human beings from 

 childhood to manhood and womanhood. It is therefore es- 

 sential that those who pass through the transformation should 

 have no false notions about it. For some the change comes 

 earlier, for some later ; for some one kind of temptation is 

 strongest, for others another kind of temptation. But, whether 

 one experience comes or another, whether life turns this way 

 or that, the adolescent era and all that goes with it is part of 

 the universal life of humanity, and it is during this era that 

 decisions count for most. 



At the close of this chapter come two quoted conclusions : 



1. "The period of special instability of the moral life is 

 the adolescent period." 



2. " This is the period in which the moral surroundings of 

 the individual should be most carefully guarded. It is the 

 storm-and-stress period. It is the period during which life's 

 moral fiber is usually formed." 



For these reasons, then, those who find themselves within 

 the zone of the adolescent years are wise when they attend 

 to everything that strengthens body, mind, and will power. 1 

 Habits both good and bad, habits of health and of character, 

 or the reverse, formed now will, in all likelihood, hold until 

 death. Thus it is that the destiny of man's life does not de- 

 pend upon the Fates, as the ancients thought, but upon his 

 own choices during the adolescent years. 



He may send his future prospects upward or downward 

 according to the decisions of his unhindered will. And, more 



1 For facts about will power see " Control of Body and Mind," chaps, xxv 

 and xxvii. 



