. Adolescence : its psychology and its relations to physiology, anthropology, sociology, sex, crime, religion and education. that of the child,that it may be easily handled, many animals being too small,others too big for them; its nocturnal habits in sleeping day-times; its power to climb, almost as impressive as that of thedog to swim; the progressive recognition of sex in namingcats; the fact that here, too, there is not one expression of in-terest in feline anatomy, which many school courses make soprominent; the pubescent lapse back at first to earlier interests,as if here again adolescen
. Adolescence : its psychology and its relations to physiology, anthropology, sociology, sex, crime, religion and education. that of the child,that it may be easily handled, many animals being too small,others too big for them; its nocturnal habits in sleeping day-times; its power to climb, almost as impressive as that of thedog to swim; the progressive recognition of sex in namingcats; the fact that here, too, there is not one expression of in-terest in feline anatomy, which many school courses make soprominent; the pubescent lapse back at first to earlier interests,as if here again adolescence were not so old or mature as child-hood—in all this we see restored in childhood the psychic stageof taming animals and how important a factor in the educationof a child is experience with pets like this. As no carnivorawere so well fitted to their wild environment as the cat family,54 226 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE SO that its feral traits are still almost intact, it appeals most togirls, relatively useless as it is, in part because the old instinctwhich made her the domesticator of wild animals survives best. Age? 8 10 . Boys interest in cats. Girls ., .4 •> -Boys ,( ,, dogs . Girls . 11 13 13 H 15 16 xbo-o-o. Boys Interest in horses XJtxxxx Girls \ rabbitsCanaries in her. It is preeminently the plaything animal, with a placein several score of plays and games, is highly anthropo-morphized and so is an important revealer of childhood. It issometimes loved in old age chiefly as a memento of childhood,with which often no animal is so closely connected. ADOLESCENT FEELINGS TOWARD NATURE 227 Mr. Biicke ^ has made tentative but suggestive statisticalcurves showing pubescent changes of zest for some of the com-mon forms of animal life, as illustrated on opposite page. From the census on which these curves were constructed,it appears that boys love of and interest in dogs at all agesexceeds that of girls, but rises rapidly from seven to fourteen,where it appears to culm
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