“His figure, attitude, and countenance speak assurance and contentment; his face is the picture of health; his firm step gives him an air of strength and vigor; his complexion, delicate without being pale and wan, has nothing in it of effeminate softness, the sun and the wind having already given to his skin the honorable tint of his sex; his features, though still plump, begin to show some distinguishing marks of physiognomy; his eyes, as yet unanimated by the glow of sentiment, have all their natural serenity; they are not grown dull and heavy from care and sorrow, nor have incessant tears made furrows in his cheeks. On the contrary, you may see, in his alert but steady motions, the vivacity of his age, the firmness of his independence, and the experience he has gained from the many and various exercises to which he has been accustomed. He has an open and liberal mien, without the least air of insolence or vanity; as he has not been kept poring over his books, his looks are not directed downward, nor is there any occasion to bid him hold up his head, neither fear nor shame ever made him hang it down” (17: i, p. 249). As to his intellect: “His ideas, it is true, are confined, but clear; if he knows nothing by rote, he knows a great deal by experience. If he has read less than other children in printed volumes, he has read much more in the volume of nature. His understanding does not lie on his tongue, but in his brain; he has less memory than judgment; he can speak only one language, but then he understands what he says, and though he may not talk of things so well as others, he will do them much better” (17: i, p. 250). He is not a shadowy reflection of printed words and external authorities, but a whole-hearted expression of life and soul. “Whether he is at work or at play, he knows no difference; both are alike to him; his diversions are his business. In everything he does, he is gayly interested, and pleasingly at liberty; displaying at once the turn of his genius and the compass of his knowledge” (17: i, p. 253). Till the age of puberty, the whole course of child life was “one continuous series of imbecility” (17: i, p. 256). His strength was deficient to meet all the wants and necessities arising from his inner impulse. It was, on the whole, the period of accumulation of energy. Now follows that of its superabundance and overflowing. The abilities he possesses exceed his wants. “Considered as a man, he is very weak, but as a child, he is abundantly strong.” This period of early adolescence “contains the most precious moments of his life--moments never to return, few and transitory, hence the more precious” (16: i, p. 258).