Right conceptions of religion and education must therefore attach an added sanctity to the growth of the body, since in and through it alone is the soul, so far as we know it, achieved.  To accept the biological order as of God and to turn to their right use all of life’s unfolding powers constitutes a religious program.  For even those primitive instincts which pass and perish often stir into consciousness and operation other more noble functions or are transmuted into recognized virtues.  Popularly speaking, the tadpole’s tail becomes his legs.  Success in suppressing the precivilized qualities of the boy results in a “zestless automaton” that is something less than a man.  Everything that characterizes the boy, however bothersome and unpromising it may seem, is to be considered with reference to a developing organism which holds the story of the past and the prophecy of the future.  To the apostle of the largest vision and the greatest hope, these native propensities will be the call of the man of Macedonia, saying, “Come over and help us.”

The most striking biological change that comes to the boy on his way to manhood is that of puberty.  The church and the state have attested the vast importance of this experience for political and religious ends by their ceremonials of induction into the responsibilities of citizenship and the obligations of formal religion.  Among the least civilized peoples these ceremonies were often cruel, superstitious, and long drawn out in their exaction of self-control, sacrifice, and subordination to the tribal will.  The sagacity of the elders of the tribe in preserving their own control and in perpetuating totemic lore must compel the unfeigned admiration of the modern ethnologist.

The Athenians with their magnificent civilization exalted citizenship and the service of the state far beyond any modern attainment.  The way of the youth today is tame, empty, and selfish as compared with the Spartan road to manhood and the Roman ceremonies attendant upon the assumption of the toga virilis.  As a rule modern churches have too lightly regarded the profound significance of ancient confirmation services—­Jewish, Greek, and Catholic.  Knowledge of what transpires in the body and mind of adolescence proves the wisdom of the ancients and at the same time attracts both the educator and the evangelist to study and use the crises of this fertile and plastic period.

The process of transformation from childhood into manhood begins in the twelfth or thirteenth year, passes its most acute stage at about fifteen, and may not complete itself until the twenty-fifth year.  It is preceded by a period of mobilization of vitality as if nature were preparing for this wonderful re-birth whereby the individualistic boy becomes the socialized progenitor of his kind.