en adolescence and religious manifestations.
He finds (Chap. III) that in females there are two tidal waves of
religious awakening, one at about 13, the other at 16, with a less
significant period at 18; for males, after a wavelet at 12, the great
tidal wave is at 16, followed by another at 18 or 19. Ruediger's results
are fairly concordant ("The Period of Mental Reconstruction," _American
Journal of Psychology_, July, 1907); he finds that in women the average
age of conversion is 14, in men it is at 13 or 14, and again at 18.

[174] G. Stanley Hall, "The Moral and Religious Training of Children and
Adolescents," _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1891, p. 207. From the more
narrowly religious side the undesirability of attempting to teach
religion to children is well set forth by Florence Hayllar (_Independent
Review_, Oct., 1906). She considers that thirteen is quite early enough
to begin teaching children the lessons of the Gospels, for a child who
acted in accordance with the Gospels would be "aggravating," and would
generally be regarded as "an insufferable prig." Moreover, she points
out, it is dangerous to teach young children the Christian virtues of
charity, humility, and self-denial. It is far better that they should
first be taught the virtues of justice and courage and self-mastery, and
the more Christian virtues later. She also believes that in the case of
the clergy who are brought in contact with children a preliminary course
of child-study, with the necessary physiology and psychology, should be
compulsory.

[175] The varying opinions on this point have been fairly and clearly
presented by Cheetham in his Hulsean lectures on the _Mysteries Pagan
and Christian_.

[176] Thus at the first Congress of Italian Women held at Rome in 1908--a
very representative Congress, by no means made up of "feminists" or
anti-clericals, and marked by great moderation and good sense--a
resolution was passed against religious teaching in primary schools,
though a subsequent resolution declared by a very large majority in
favour of teaching the history of religions in secondary schools. These
resolutions caused much surprise at the time to those persons who still
cherish the superstition that in matters of religion women are blindly
prejudiced and unable to think for themselves.

[177] See e.g. an article by Halley Stewart, President of the Secular
Education League, on "The Policy of Secular Education," _Nineteenth
Century_, Ap