THE NATURAL HISTORY OF ADOLESCENCE. 461 



interest of metaphysicians. The explanation in philosophical terms of 

 thought and reality has usurped, in his opinion, the larger, more fruit- 

 ful as well as more hopeful interest in the functional manifestations of 

 the deeper, more universal and significant aspects of mind. 



An analagous emphasis must be placed upon action as opposed to 

 thought. The study of motor impulses becomes as fundamental in 

 psychology, and motor training as fundamental in education, as any 

 analysis of how we think, or any teachable wisdom in the guidance of 

 thought. The motor response is as vital to the psychological mode 

 of manifestation as the ability to defend policy by argument or to 

 analyze results into processes. In all these several aspects the position 

 of woman has remained closer and truer to nature than that of man. 

 And to this, the specific trait of feminine psychology, Dr. Hall traces 

 her peculiar distribution and emphasis of brain, heart and hand — a 

 distribution that represents an older, more typical as well as more 

 natural set of relations. The educational application of these several 

 principles lies close at hand. Indeed, to some readers the volumes, as 

 a whole, will appeal more strongly on their practical side as a guide to 

 education than on their analytic side as a guide to a perspective of im- 

 portance of the several contributory factors of modern psychology. 

 These educational applications are stated with considerable elabora- 

 tion, at times with distinct and exaggerated oratorical appeal, and 

 as frequently with suggestive and earnest reformatory programs. 

 No one of these practise-guiding principles is more convincingly dealt 

 with than that which leads to the appeal for the proper representation 

 in the educational scheme, of the training of the hand and the will. 

 The dignity and rights of motor education receive an unusually strong 

 and comprehensive recognition. And here as elsewhere, we are re- 

 minded in general and in detail that the order of control over muscles 

 and the apparatus of the will is indicated by its natural growth in the 

 child and in the race. The value of the discovery of the natural order 

 in this as in other series of evolutions is that the natural order is the 

 right order; that our efforts should go to encourage for the several 

 periods the conditions and stimuli that nature provides, to avoid at least 

 the most serious of the antagonisms to that sequence of growth, 

 which the needs of civilization (or our imperfect means of preparing 

 for them) seem to demand. 



The crowning application of these several precepts and practices is 

 to those special phases of growth which find their joint issue in adoles- 

 cence. Here more than anywhere else must the natural sequence of 

 evolution determine the variety of occupation that shall prepare for the 

 adult life ; and here too, according to Dr. Hall, have our transgressions 

 against the order of nature been most serious. We have imposed upon 

 the adolescent endowment the interests of mature individuals, have 

 invited them to share our adult consciousness, not even taking care 



