To understand the changes which occur at puberty and the tendencies inherent in the young of both sexes at this period is of the utmost importance, though few practical subjects are so much neglected by parents, teachers and physicians as the deportment of children at the most impressionable epoch of their lives.
At puberty the child's imagination is certain to become active; and peculiar emotions and susceptibilities arise which tend to draw it toward evil. Lacking at this early age the balance wheel of reflection to control it, the child, unless carefully instructed, is in no little danger of falling a victim to the teachings of evil companions and many other deleterious influences.
So when a youth arrives at puberty, unless he have a powerful moral mentor in his conscience, his thoughts naturally tend to lead him to sensual vices, than which nothing is more degrading and brutalizing.
The older we grow the more we must realize how important it is to start out aright, and to be prudent when one is yet young; for when a person is matured, and perhaps acclimatized to a corrupting environment, it can hardly ever be expected that he shall materially alter either in his manner of life or ideas.
To preach wisdom to the old perhaps the prematurely old is almost a thankless task; it may convince them, but life-long habits are hard to change.
Therefore the great aim should be to educate the individual when he is yet young.
For children of these tender years to listen very keenly to the appeals of morality merely for morality's sake is exceptional, though an immense influence can be exercised by telling them that it is base and degrading to tamper with their private parts in any way whatsoever, and that the sin of disobeying this injunction will surely betray itself in their faces and manners, and prevent their full development into a splendid manhood.
At puberty a marked physiological thrill is imparted to the child; and no person, however prudish, can deny that sexuality is the factor which gives origin to feelings, emotions and imaginations which display themselves in characteristic fashion in persons of either sex, usually to a hyperbolic degree.
"This awakening into intense activity of such vast tracts of encephalic tissue [brain tissue], though provided for in the evolution of the organ, does not take place without much risk of disturbance to its [the child's] mental functions, especially where there is an inherited predisposition in that direction".
We must especially bear in mind that, as Clouston says, new areas of brain tissue " vast tracts" of it are called into activity at the time of puberty, and that vitiation in the genital zone necessarily results in physical and ethical defect in the cerebral structures and functions.
Every fibre in the body feels and shows the impulse of the change; and so great is the disturbance sometimes, when young people are attaining their sexual equipment, that a well marked "insanity of pubescence", or Hebephrenia, is recognized.
This disturbance of the functions of the brain is usually depressing in character, often assuming a suicidal tendency, or sometimes giving an erotic coloring to life.