The more direct expressions of the develop ing sex impulses are found in bashfulness, coy ness, %showing off,° sudden and strong attrac tions or repulsions for individuals of the op posite sex, new interest in dress and adornment and numerous vague, though emotional, re sponses to sex stimuli of all sorts.
For the best physical and mental develop ment it is of the highest importance that these attitudes toward sex should be °normal° and wholesome. No one conversant with the facts doubts that boys and girls who are entering the period of adolescence ought to be sufficiently warned and protected as to keep them from vicious sex practices; it is perhaps less gener ally understood that there is danger of unwhole some mental attitudes toward sex and that there is corresponding need of guidance here. The forces liberated by the stimuli of sex can be diverted or %sublimated° in such a way as to provide a tremendous incentive toward sound mental development. The cardinal issue of moral training in adolescence is to divert the energies of youth into the best channels of effort, to replace crude and selfish by refined and unselfish interests; in short, to compass the shift from the natural egoism of childhood to the desired altruism of maturity.
Sex In this connection much de bate has arisen concerning the instruction of adolescents in sex hygiene. The problem is intricate and difficult. Perhaps the best opin ion of experts would be that information con cerning the elementary facts of sex ought by all means be given to children before the ad vent of puberty and preferably by their par ents; instruction in childhood is easy because self-consciousness has not developed so far; children are naturally curious about these matters; their parents are the natural sources from which to seek information; if unin formed by their parents they will almost in evitably pick up from their associates misin formation of an appalling character. In addi tion, adolescent boys and girls ought to know the main facts concerning the physical changes going on in them at puberty, and they ought probably a little later to be given the main facts concerning venereal diseases, though without overstressing the pathological aspects in a lurid way. Instruction in adoles cence, in any event, should not be restricted to the physiology and pathology of sex, but should include talks on the family, on divorce, on the larger social relations of the individual, all so couched as to appeal to the best emotions and stimulate the adolescent to a broad and wholesome attitude toward the participation which is about to be his in the life of his fel lowmen.
Special Statistics show that adolescence tends to arouse the so-called mi gratory instinct. Running away from home, yearning for adventure, the Wanderlust ap pears to be stronger about the years 17 to 19 than at any other period. In boys, especially, this instinct is often seen clearly at work; no other explanation is adequate for the appar ently motiveless way in which young boys suddenly strike out for themselves and leave perfectly comfortable homes. Closely akin to this is the "desire for activity" that figures so prominently in causes of withdrawal from school. Many writers feel that a serious at tempt should be made in secondary education to supply in connection with the work of the school opportunities for satisfying this im pulse to explore, to visit new places, to try new things, to be doing "something different." Social In adolescence all the tendencies that we term "social" are decidedly intensified. Wanting to be where others are, wanting to be liked by others, wanting to help others, entering seriously into the joys and sorrows of others; — these are all manifested in adolescence much more clearly and con sistently than in childhood. It is obvious that these tendencies, all of which are instinctive attitudes more or less closely correlated with the sex impulse, have in themselves possibili ties both of good or of evil. Parents and teachers must seek to direct these social ten dencies so that good associates are preferred, so that the youth seeks the approbation of the best, so that the relations formed between the youth and his fellows make for his moral de velopment and not his moral undoing. Nat urally, at this age the appeal to social appro bation is a powerful incentive; the adolescent boy and the adolescent girl will do what will secure the good opinion of their social group when they will be moved by no other motive.