d of
transition, when old habits are being scrutinized, when standards are
being formulated and personal responsibility is being realized, when
ideals are made vital and controlling. It may be a period of storm and
stress when the youth is in emotional unrest; when conduct is erratic
and not to be depended on; when there is reaction against authority of
all kinds. These characteristics are unfortunate and are usually the
result of unwise treatment during the first period. If, on the other
hand, the period of transition is prepared for during the preadolescent
years by giving knowledge, opportunities for self-direction and choice,
the change should come normally and quietly. The transition period
should be characterized by emphasis upon personal responsibility for
conduct, by the development of social ideals, and by the cementing of
theory and practice. This period is an ever recurring one.

The transition period is followed by the period of true morality during
which the conduct chosen becomes habit. The habits characteristic of
this final period are different from the habits of the non-moral period,
in that they have their source in reason, whereas those of the early
period grew out of instincts. This is the period of most value, the
period of steady living in accordance with standards and ideals which
have been tested by reason and found to be right. The transition period
is wasteful and uncertain. True morality is the opposite. But so long as
growth in moral matters goes on there is a continuous change from
transition period to truly moral conduct and back again to a fresh
transition period and again a change to morality of a still higher
order. Each rationalized habit but paves the way for one still higher.
Morality, then, should be a continual evolution from level to level.
Only so is progress in the individual life maintained.

Morality, then, requires the inhibition of some instincts and the
perpetuation of others, the formation of habits and ideals, the
development of the power to think and judge, the power to react to
certain abstractions such as ought, right, duty, and so on, the power to
carry into execution values accepted. The general laws of instinct, of
habit, the response by piecemeal association, the laws of attention and
appreciation, are active in securing these responses that we call moral,
just as they are operative in securing other responses that do not come
under this category. It is only as the