Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/228

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214 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

being much more pleasing and considerably more tolerated. In the dance the savage has two aims : to show off before his women and his tribe in a way to waken admiration, with satis- faction of his own vanity ; and to make an impression, by means of his contortions, of the demonstration of his agility, vigor, and skill, on the enemy so as to frighten them. A savage alone, who did not see himself admired or observed by anyone, would soon lose his admiration for the dance, just as without the fol- lowing of the prey he would not care for the running to which he gives himself up in order to hunt.

In man at the age of puberty the sexual emotion awakes powerfully, while active social life opens before the young man, with all its exigencies. The development of the character required to satisfy the new conditions ; the compenetrationof the two sentiments, that of self-preservation and that of reproduc- tion ; the fusion of complex physical, intellectual, and moral qualities, of needs with sentiments, cannot take place except with real labor. From the conditions in which this takes place at the age of puberty will arise the most powerful influences on the future life of the young.

The most powerful among the emotions, namely the sexual, which in this epoch is supreme, must be made to serve to keep awake the activity of man and direct it within the bounds which the social welfare requires. The attempts to suppress this emo- tion pregnant with dangers can serve only to corrupt the nature of man ; they vitiate his mind with fancies harmful to the devel- opment of a solid character, when they do not open the way to vicious, anti-natural vices. Seguin criticised the separation of the sexes in the earlier years. The harmfulness of such a sepa- ration is still greater in that age in which, as the character of the person is forming, it is necessary that it should not miss the advantage of one of its powerful factors.

The daily separation of the two sexes in special boarding schools or in special factories is exceedingly favorable to the growth of tendencies contrary to nature and is harmful to the regular development of the youths of both sexes. (It is in Athens where the women lived separated from the young men