It is, I believe, high time that ephebic literature should be recognized as a class by itself, and have a place of its own in the history of letters and in criticism. Much of it should be individually prescribed for the reading of the young, for whom it has a singular zest and is a true stimulus and corrective. This stage of life now has what might almost be called a school of its own. Here the young appeal to and listen to each other as they do not to adults, and in a way the latter have failed to appreciate. Again, no biography, and especially no autobiography, should henceforth be complete if it does not describe this period of transformation so all-determining for future life to which it alone can often give the key. Rightly to draw the lessons of this age not only saves us from waste ineffable of this rich but crude area of experience, but makes maturity saner and more complete. Lastly, many if not most young people should be encouraged to enough of the confessional private journalism to teach them self-knowledge, for the art of self-expression usually begins now if ever, when it has a wealth of subjective material and needs forms of expression peculiar to itself.
For additional references on the subject of this chapter, see:
Alcafarado, Marianna, Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun. Translated by R. H., New York, 1887. Richardson, Abby Sage, Abelard and Héloise, and Letters of Héloise, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston. Smith, Theodote L., Types of Adolescent Affection. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1904, vol. II, pp. 178-203.
[Footnote 1: Pedagogical Seminary, June 1901, vol. 8, pp. 163-205]
[Footnote 6: The Spoilt Child, by Peary Chandmitter. Translated by G. D. Oswell. Thacker, Spink and Co., Calcutta, 1893.]
[Footnote 9: The One I Knew the Best of All.]
[Footnote 10: The Study of the Boyhood of Great Men. Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1894, vol. 3, pp. 134-156.]
[Footnote 11: The Vanishing Character of Adolescent Experiences. Northwestern Monthly, June, 1898, vol. 8, p. 644.]
[Footnote 12: The Count of Boyville, by William Allen White. New York, 1899, p. 358.]
[Footnote 13: The Study of Adolescence. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1891, vol. 1, pp. 174-195.]
[Footnote 14: Lancaster: The Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence. Pedagogical Seminary, July, 1897, vol. 5, p. 106.]