772 



PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 



Sleep is Nature's sweet restorer, and all children require plenty 

 of sleep, especially if they are doing brain work. It is agreed by 

 medical writers that the time usually allowed to the growing boy is 

 too short. Dr. Clouston says that even up to the age of twenty the 

 time for sleep should not be less than nine and a half to ten hours. 

 How many boys working for scholarships and the Sydney Junior get 

 that? 



At the age of puberty a new life begins. We all know that the- 

 subsequent period is the critical time of youth. We know the 

 unstableness of character, the uncertainty of direction in which it 

 will develop, the difficulty of treatment. We know something also of 

 its di'eams, its deep desires, its emotional ferment, and its opposing 

 tendencies. To quote Hall again : '" Adolescence is a new birth, for 

 the higher and more completely human traits are now bom. The 

 qualities "f body and soul that now emerge are far newer. Develop- 

 m.ent is less gradual and more saltatory. The annual rate of growth 

 in height, weight, and strength is increased, and often doubled, and 

 even more. Important fiftictions previously non-existent arise. The 

 range. of individual differences increases. Some linger long in the 

 childish stage, and advance late or slowly, while others push on with 

 a sudden outburst or impulsion to early maturity. Bones and muscles 

 lead all other tissues. Nature arms youth for conflict with all the 

 resources at her command — speed, power of shoulder, thorax, hips, 

 makes man aggressive and prepares woman's frame for matemitj'. 

 Some disorders of arrested, defective, and excessive development and 

 function are peculiar to this period, and every step of the upward 

 way is strewn with wreckage of body, mind, and morals. Modern life 

 is hard, and in many respects increasingly so on youth. For the com- 

 plete apprenticeship to life youth needs repose, leisure, art, legends, 

 romance, idealisation, and in a word humanism, if it is to enter the 

 kingdom of man well equipped for man's highest work in the world." 

 Hall pleads with us to cease to inject the youth with the fever of our 

 life. You have heard what Hall says he requires, and we give him — 

 examinations. 



In truth, we do not know precisely all that we should aim at. 

 Are we aiming to produce a Thiers, who at periods of his adminis- 

 tration could work all day, and keep his colleagues' bureaux almost 

 all night. He says : " At night my servants undressed me, took me 

 b}'' the feet and shoulders, and placed me in my bed, and I lay t-here 

 like a corpse till the morning." Work like that at times is necessary, 

 I admit, but only a sound physique can stand it. It, however, is not 

 an ideal ; its corollary is the brutal doctrine that a man is "done" at 

 forty. Do we hold with Browning when he says : — 



Grow old along witli me ! 



The best is jet to be 

 The last of life, for whioli the first was made : 



Our times are in His hands 



Who saith, " A whole I planned. 

 Yoiith shows but half; trust God ; see all nor be afra'd. 



Arnold said in his time : — 



Most men in a brazen prison lire 



Where in the sun's hot eye, 



With heads bent o'er their toil, thej languidly 



Their lives to some unmeaning task-work give. 



