This will certainly add strength to their organization, and they will settle their own quarrels with peace and dignity.  Sometimes the break between the boys will be so bitter as to cause the formation of intensely hostile factions, and then the best thing the Teacher can do is not to try any new patching or drawing together of the opposing forces.  There is no use trying to make boys who are bitterly antagonistic agreeable to each other.  Let them make new alignments if necessary and in combinations of their own choosing, even if the result should be the formation of new classes.

Sixth, the boys should make their own rules for their own government, and they should also deal as a group with the infringement of their rules.  This will solve the discipline problem of the Teacher.  Responsibility should be the keynote of government, and the awakening of such a feeling in the boys should be the goal.

=The Adolescent Change=

Until about the age of twelve the boy is distinctly individualistic and selfish.  At about twelve years of age his whole nature begins to change because of the change in his bodily functions.  This change occurs anywhere from the twelfth to the sixteenth year and is really determined by his physical development rather than by his chronological age.  The change of bodily functions gives him a new outlook upon life.  He begins to see and understand that he is a part of the community in which he is living and begins to understand that the community life is made possible by a disposition on the part of his neighbors to help each other.  He also begins to understand the institutional life about him and the family and sex tie on which it is based.  He sees also the need of the school, the church and other public institutions.  He also begins to appreciate the wider range of things.  Nature has greater appeal to him now than ever.  The woods and streams and outdoor life get a new significance, and the question of livelihood, whether rural and agricultural, or in the line of the various industries, takes a firm hold upon his imagination, and gives him a life-compelling purpose.  He begins to feel the mating call and at its first impression is attracted to the other sex, with the result that by and by he also becomes a husband and father and a full-fledged citizen among his fellows.  Up to the age of adolescence, however, none of these emotions stir the boy.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ADOLESCENT AGE

The interests of the adolescent boy are general and not specialized between the twelfth and eighteenth years.  The boy gets his impressions of the community objectively, in addition to increasing his knowledge of the external world through his acquaintanceship with its phenomena.  The Universe and the Community are extensive and many sided.  The step also between twelve and eighteen years is short.  The boy’s contact with these, then, must be rapid and general.