Youth is divided into three parts. Thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years are early youth; sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, the middle part of youth; nineteen, twenty and twenty-one, complete youth.

There is a tendency on the part of guardians to encourage the development of a youth in whatever direction he chooses to take. But to encourage a youth in any direction is like urging on a very energetic horse which is already running fast. What a youth needs most is not encouragement; what he needs most is balance. The tendency of a youth, both in the right direction and the wrong direction, may prove satisfactory in the end if his action is not evenly balanced.

There are two important things to be considered by guardians in the development of the youth. One is that very often guardians think this is the same child who used to be a baby and a little child running about, and they go on treating the youth in the same way as they have done before. They underestimate his comprehension, his maturity of mind, the development of his spirit; and in this way very often they delude themselves. And then there are others who take the opposite course. When the youth begins to say things that show a greater intelligence, they believe that they can tell him anything and everything, without waiting for the appropriate time to mention a certain thing, a certain idea. And therefore mistakes may be made both by considering a youth to be an experienced person, and also by considering him to be still a child that does not know anything.

It is mostly the education of the home, if it is not given properly, that spoils a youth. The time of youth is a time of nervousness, of restlessness, and of agitation. If the education given at home antagonizes the youth, he is spoiled for ever. If the good opinion that he had before of his guardians is changed, then youth is the time when guardian and child become estranged; youth builds a wall between the guardian and the growing child. The growing child finds consolation with friends, with neighbors, with acquaintances, who sometimes take advantage by saying, "Yes, you are right. Your people at home do not understand you. It is a great pity, it is a shame," and that great opportunity of making the link with the youth more strong is lost by the guardians who do not understand this situation properly. A child who shows friendship, response, and the feeling of comradeship with the guardian during his youth, will be a great friend all his life.

It is like training a horse. There is a certain time when a horse learns to obey, but if at that time the trainer makes a mistake, that mistake remains for ever in the horse. And if at the time of maturity of its mind, when the horse is beginning to respond to the trainer, it is given a right direction, then all through life that horse works rightly.

Some guardians show their helplessness in not being able to control a youth, and criticize the youth who is not under their control and does not listen to them; they think it is hopeless, that the youth is spoiled, and that he is gone out of their hands. They help the child very little, because they are only conscious of his bad points; and by showing their dissatisfaction they do not help the youth, they spoil him. The guardians need not be severe with the youth, they need not be too firm, nor too pessimistic in regard to his advancement. The more they trust him and the more they have confidence in themselves, the more they are able to help the child. Nothing helps more than trusting in the good points of the youth, appreciating them, and encouraging him in that direction.

There are, however, others who out of their love and sympathy spoil the youth. They pour out so much love and sympathy that it blinds them in what they are doing. Also the child is not meant to be for ever with the guardians. What will happen when the guardian is not there and the child has to face the world? Everybody will not spoil him, everybody will not give sympathy; and then the life of the child in the world will become wretched. Often children who happen to be the only child of their parents or in the family, and who are much cared for and receive much sympathy and love, become so spoiled that the very sympathy and love that has been given them proves to be a bitter pill. They never receive it again in life, and all through life they suffer for it.

It is wiser for the guardians to make a point of decreasing the strong hold that they had on a child as it grows to become a youth. But how can they decrease it? Just as a rider makes the rein looser and looser, but gradually. Those who do not understand this have kept it firm in childhood, and then in youth have let it go. But it must be loosened gradually, and it must be loosened on the lines of the child's development. At every step forward in development of personality, of humanity, one must trust the youth and give that much more freedom of thought and action, yet holding the rein and keeping it firm, being conscious of the responsibility of the guardians to help the youth through that most critical period.

The best way of helping the youth is to give him desirable impressions of conditions, of situations, of personalities, and in this way, by giving him impressions, to let the child learn by himself without being taught in words.

There is a story of a father who saw that his young son had a tendency to certain vices. He told him often to keep away from them but the boy would not listen. He did everything in his power; in the end, when he was dying, he called his son and said, "Now I will never tell you any more not to do things that you have always liked to do. But will you remember the last words of your father, that whenever you want to gamble you must gamble with the greatest gamblers, and whenever you feel like drinking you must drink with great drunkards."

The son thought these last words more desirable than anything he had heard from his father before. And when he went to gamble he began to ask people, "Who are the great gamblers in the city?" They said, "Great gamblers are not to be found in gambling houses. You must go and look for them outside the city." So when he had heard their names he went there. He found that they were playing with pebbles, because they had lost all the money they had. And he said, "I have heard a great deal about you people, and here you are playing with pebbles. I thought you would be playing for millions of pounds!" They said, "No, we played for millions, and now we are playing for pebbles. Come along, if you wish to play with us. We have nothing more left."

He got a lesson from this and he said, "Nothing doing in this direction. Now I must go somewhere else to find great drunkards." And the people in the city gave him two or three names of well-known drunkards and he went there. He did not find any bottles, any drink, nor anything. And he said to them, "I have heard your names. Everybody talks about you; you are great drunkards. But there are no bottles; what are you drinking?" They said, "All the money we had was spent in drinking. No money is left. We have now some snakes. When we want to drink we let the snakes bite us; that gives us a kind of intoxication. If you like we will bring a snake for you." And he ran away and never came near them again. That gave him another lesson.

The education of youth depends mostly upon impressions. Sometimes you may make a youth read books and that will not help; and sometimes you may tell the youth fifty times or a hundred times, "This is right", "This is not right", "This is not good", and he will never listen. But once you show him the phenomena, the example of what you are saying, and let the youth see with his own eyes what are the effects of different causes, then the teaching is given in an objective way; and in this manner wise guardians educate a youth.