10....58 " 50 " | 15....83 " 78 "
11....71 " 58 " | 16....85 " 82 "
This tendency to thrift is strongest in boys, and both sexes often show the
tendency to moralize, that is so strong in the early teens. Much of our school
work in arithmetic is dominated by the money sense; and school savings-banks,
at first for the poor, are now extending to children of all classes. This sense tends
to prevent pauperism, prodigality, is an immense stimulus to the imagination and
develops purpose to pursue a distant object for a long time. To see all things and
values in terms of money has, of course, its pedagogic and ethical limitations;
but there is a stage when it is a great educational advance, and it, too, is full of
phylogenetic suggestions.
Social judgement, cronies, solitude—The two following observations afford a
glimpse of the development of moral judgments. From 1,000 boys and 1,000
girls of each age from six to sixteen who answered the question as to what
should be done to a girl with a new box of paints who beautified the parlor chairs
with them with a wish to please her mother, the following conclusion was
drawn.[17] Most of the younger children would whip the girl, but from fourteen
on the number declines very rapidly. Few of the young children suggest
explaining why it was wrong; while at twelve, 181, and at sixteen, 751 would
explain. The motive of the younger children in punishment is revenge; with the
older ones that of preventing a repetition of the act comes in; and higher and
later comes the purpose of reform. With age comes also a marked distinction
between the act and its motive and a sense of the girl's ignorance. Only the older
children would suggest extracting a promise not to offend again. Thus with
puberty comes a change of view-point from judging actions by results to judging
by motives, and only the older ones see that wrong can be done if there are no
bad consequences. There is also with increased years a great development of the
quality of mercy.
One hundred children of each sex and age between six and sixteen asked what
they would do with a burglar, the question stating that the penalty was five years
in prison.[18] Of the younger children nearly nine-tenths ignored the law and
fixed upon some other penalty, but from twelve years there is a steady advance
in those who would inflict the legal penalty, while at sixteen, seventy-four per