prehended
desires, and an intense self-consciousness take the place of the
unconscious egoism of childhood.

The processes of Nature as witnessed in the season of spring have
their counterpart in the changes that occur during the early years of
adolescence. The earth warmed by the more direct rays of the sun and
softened by recurring showers is transformed in a few weeks from its
bare and dry winter garb into the wonderful beauty of spring. This
yearly miracle fails to impress us as it should do because we have
witnessed it every year of our lives, and so, too, the great
transformation from child to budding woman fails to make its appeal to
our understanding and sympathy because it is of so common occurrence.
If it were possible for adults to really remember their own feelings
and aspirations in adolescent years, or if it were possible for us
with enlightened sympathy to gain access to the enchanted garden of
youth, we should be more adequate guides for the boys and girls around
us. As it is we entirely fail to appreciate the heights of their
ambitions, hopes, and joys, and we have no measure with which to plumb
the depths of their fears, their disappointments, and their doubts.
The transition between radiant joy and confident hope in the future to
a miserable misinterpretation of sensations both physical and
psychical are rapid. It is the unknown that is terrible to us all, and
to the child the changes in its body, the changes in its soul and
spirit, which we pass by as commonplace, are full of suggestions of
abnormality, of disaster, and of death. Young people suffer much from
the want of comprehension and intelligent sympathy of their elders,
much also from their own ignorance and too fervid imagination. The
instability of the bodily tissues and the variability of their
functions find a counterpart in the instability of the mental and
moral natures and in the variability of their phenomena. Adolescents
indeed "never continue in one stay;" left to themselves they will
begin many pursuits, but persevere with, and finish, nothing.

Youth is the time for rapidly-succeeding friends, lovers, and heroes.
The schoolfellow or teacher who is adored to-day may become the object
of indifference or even of dislike to-morrow. Ideas as to the calling
or profession to be adopted change rapidly, and opinions upon
religion, politics, &c., vary from day to day. It is little wonder
that there is a special type of adolescent insanity d