ion,
on the strength of having no need for them. And therefore, the faults of
boyhood and youth are more owing, to my mind, to the want of change in
the other points of the childish character, than to the too great change
in this. The besetting faults of youth appear to me to arise mainly from
its retaining too often the ignorance, selfishness, and thoughtlessness
of a child, and having arrived at the same time at a degree of bodily
vigour and power, equal, or only a very little inferior, to those
of manhood.

And in this state of things, the questions become of exceeding interest,
whether the change from childhood to manhood can be hastened. That it
ought to be hastened, appears to me to be clear; hastened, I mean, from
what it is actually, because in this respect, we do not grow in general
fast enough; and the danger of over-growth is, therefore, small.
Besides, where change of one sort is going on very rapidly; where the
limbs are growing and the bones knitting more firmly, where the strength
of bodily endurance, as well as of bodily activity, is daily becoming
greater; it is self-evident that, if the inward changes which ought to
accompany these outward ones are making no progress, there cannot but be
derangement and deformity in the system. And, therefore, when I look
around, I cannot but wish generally that the change from childhood to
manhood in the three great points of wisdom, of unselfishness, and of
thoughtfulness, might be hastened from its actual rate of progress in
most instances.

But then comes the other great question, "Can it be hastened, and if it
can, how is it to be done?" "Can it be hastened" means, of course, can
it be hastened healthfully and beneficially, consistently with the due
development of our nature in its after stages, from life temporal to
life eternal? For as the child should grow up into the man, so also
there is a term of years given in which, according to God's will, the
natural man should grow up into the spiritual man; and we must not so
press the first change as to make it interfere with the wholesome
working of the second. The question then is, really, can the change
from childhood to manhood be hastened in the case of boys and young men
in general from its actual rate of progress in ordinary cases, without
injury to the future excellence and full development of the man? that
is, without exhausting prematurely the faculties either of body or mind.

And this is a very grave qu