Summary of “Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene”
This summary covers chapter XII of this paper entitled Moral and Religious Training. The bulk of the chapter can be narrowed down to this one sentence, “To be really effective and lasting, moral and religious training must begin in the cradle.” (Hall, 1907)
The focus of this section of the paper is the “will” of the child. Hall walks through his argument of how the will is shaped by education, parental guidance, and type of work, physiological factors, and religion in a very methodical format. He recognizes the Industrial Revolution of the turn of the century as a sort of catalyst for causing a decline in the will to do right because of machinery taking the place of physical labor. His analogy is drawn by equating the atrophy of large muscle groups, due to changes in how work is done, being connected to the mind also becoming weak.
Hall believes that will-training of children is the answer to decline in virtues that was taking place at the time. He references a decline of virtues in Germany and Greece when those societies transitioned from their concentration on athletic competition and began to direct their efforts to what Hall refers to as, “a golden age of letters.” (Hall, 1907) But by far most of the paper discusses the role of education in the implimentation of proper behavior. Hall recognizes the teaching of virtues as cleanliness, kindness, courage, truthfulness, respect of age, and good manners to be indespensable to an ordered will and therefore an ordered society.
Hall makes some good points that are worth remembering in this paper. First, his emphasis of the need to revive the virtue of thoroughness is very relevant to our society today. We need commitment to relationships that goes deeper than utilitarian need, we need to honor contracts, not only in the spirit, but also to the letter, and we need to take pride in what we produce on the job, not just marking time to earn a paycheck.
I do agree with Hall’s premise that childhood education is the proper place to begin teaching virtuous behavior. The writer of Proverbs has made this very clear,
Train a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6 (NASB)
The second point that stood out to me was the relation between a health body and a healthy mind. He focuses heavily on physical conditioning as being necessary to a healthy will. From a personal standpoint, I completely agree with him on this theory. My experience is on par with his ideas. For many years as a young man, I was very concerned about physical health, and during those years, I spent large amounts of time working out. I even became a trainer for the weightlifting program of the local junior college. After several years of marriage and no exercise, my sedentary lifestyle began to have negative on my physical body and mental attitude. I subsequently made the decision to become healthy again. I went back to school and embarked on a weight-loss program at the same time. The results have been great for my health (loss of 86 lbs), and I attribute my renewed vitality with the desire to make the effort to continue my education.
Hall, G. S. (1907). Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene. Retrieved 3 2, 2010, from The Gutenburg Project: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8yuth10.txt
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