4. The Period of Boyhood and Girlhood

This stage, from nine to twelve, is possibly the most impressionable period of life. It is not a time of marked internal changes, but one in which the external, social, and regulative influences are very prominent. Life is unique. The boy and girl are unlike the children that were, or the youth and maiden that will be. The transition from childhood to boyhood and girlhood comes very imperceptibly. But the average child enters it when he begins to read easily and naturally; and this ability may well mark the change. When a boy or girl has this new power to understand and enjoy books, life acquires a new range. The whole wide world of literature lies open. Life begins to be full of meaning. These plastic years are the habit-forming period. As the twig is bent the tree will be inclined. A pebble may turn the stream of life. It is the great memory period. It is the golden age to mold character after the Pattern in the Gospels, if the work is done naturally. Give the boy and girl realistic stories—those from the Old Testament, and the Gospels, and Acts; those from the history of all nations, and from our own national life. Give the choicest idealistic stories—those legends, strong fables, romances, tales of chivalry, and poetic interpretations of ethical truth, such as “Favorites,” in Chapter IV of this volume; Ruskin’s “King of the Golden River”; Hawthorne’s “Great Stone Face”; and “The Story of Midas,” which so strongly appeal to this age. In this pre-adolescent, this habit-forming and golden-memory period, imagination, curiosity, action, impressionableness, trust, loyalty, and many other instincts of child-nature are all present ready to combine with every efficient element of environment, education, example, and experience to build up the foundation-stones of a wholesome character and useful life. Feed the minds of these growing boys and girls on the great Bible stories, the great classic, realistic, and idealistic stories of the world, such as are found in this volume, or suggested by them, and your young men and women will not care for trashy stories as they cross the bridge of the teens.