Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1892 — The Period of Bodily Growth. [ARTICLE]

The Period of Bodily Growth.

There , are some reasons to suppose that a period of bodily growth in Americans at least continues longer than is commonly supposed- The statistics gathered by the United States Sanitary commission and discussed by Dr. B. A. Gould, concerning the height and other proportions of nearly a quarter of a million soldiers appears to indicate that young men are not on the average physically adult until they attain about the age of 28 years. It seems to me clear from my observations of young men in Harvard College that they do not on the average 'attain the full measure of their mental powers until they are at least 25 years old. My observations have inclined me to believe that the reasoning capacities, or at least those involved in carrying on difficult trains of thought, are not at their strength until this age. This fact, if such it be, serves to show how futile it is to expect in Immature youths a full measure of comprehension in difficult tasks which are before them in our schools and colleges. The of bodily growth affords at least a presumption that’ the mental development demands a greater number of years than we assign to it, and makes the wide divergencies in the rate of intellectual growth more comprehensible.—N. S. Shaler, iu Phil. Press.