feeling for art and poetry, the craving for religious conceptions and emotions—­all these things awake spontaneously in the unspoiled boy or girl at puberty.  I say “unspoiled,” for if these things have been thrust on the child before puberty when they have yet no meaning for him—­as is unfortunately far too often done, more especially as regards religious notions—­then it is but too likely that he will fail to react properly at that moment of his development when he would otherwise naturally respond to them.  Under natural conditions this is the period for spiritual initiation.  Now, and not before, is the time for the religious or ethical teacher as the case may be—­for all religions and ethical systems may equally adapt themselves to this task—­to take the boy or girl in hand, not with any special and obtrusive reference to the sexual impulses but for the purpose of assisting the development and manifestation of this psychic puberty, of indirectly aiding the young soul to escape from sexual dangers by harnessing his chariot to a star that may help to save it from sticking fast in any miry ruts of the flesh.

Such an initiation, it is important to remark, is more than an introduction to the sphere of religious sentiment.  It is an initiation into manhood, it must involve a recognition of the masculine even more than of the feminine virtues.  This has been well understood by the finest primitive races.  They constantly give their boys and girls an initiation at puberty; it is an initiation that involves not merely education in the ordinary sense, but a stern discipline of the character, feats of endurance, the trial of character, the testing of the muscles of the soul as much as of the body.

Ceremonies of initiation into manhood at puberty—­involving physical and mental discipline, as well as instruction, lasting for weeks or months, and never identical for both sexes—­are common among savages in all parts of the world.  They nearly always involve the endurance of a certain amount of pain and hardship, a wise measure of training which the softness of civilization has too foolishly allowed to drop, for the ability to endure hardness is an essential condition of all real manhood.  It is as a corrective to this tendency to flabbiness in modern education that the teaching of Nietzsche is so invaluable.

The initiation of boys among the natives of Torres Straits has been elaborately described by A.C.  Haddon (Reports Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, Chs.  VII and XII).  It lasts a month, involves much severe training and power of endurance, and includes admirable moral instruction.  Haddon remarks that it formed “a very good discipline,” and adds, “it is not easy to conceive of a more effectual means for a rapid training.”

Among the aborigines of Victoria, Australia, the initiatory ceremonies, as described by R.H.  Mathews ("Some Initiation Ceremonies,” Zeitschrift