Note 15 — PHYSICAL EDUCATION,

“The great mental revolution which occurs at puberty may go beyond its physiological limits in some instances, and become pathological. The vague feelings, blind longings, and obscure impulses which then arise in the mind, attest the awakening of an impulse which knows not its aim; a kind of vague and yearning melancholy is engendered, which leads to an abandonment to poetry of a gloomy, Byronic kind, or to indulgence in indefinite religious feelings and aspirations. There is a want of some object to fill the void in the feelings, to satisfy the undefined yearning—a need of something to adore; consequently, when there is no visible object of worship, the Invisible is adored. The time of this mental revolution is, at best, a trying period for youth; and when there is an inherited infirmity of nervous organization, the natural disturbance of the mental balance may easily pass into actual destruction of it. * * * * * What such patients need to learn is, not the indulgence but a forgetfulness of their feelings, not the observation but the renunciation of self, not introspection but useful action.” (The italics are ours.)—Maudsley, Body and Mind, 2d Edition, pp. 83, 84.