The vicious propensities which manifest themselves in children and "young persons" may be divided into two main classes, _apparent_ and _actual_.[25] Of the former class the chief cause is, in a word, _immaturity_.

Of the latter, _environment_.
Analogies drawn from plant life may help us to understand how these causes operate.
_Immaturity._ If an Englishman who had never before tasted an apple were to eat one in July, he would probably come to the conclusion that it was a hard, sour, indigestible fruit, "conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity," and fit only to be consigned to perdition (on a dustheap, or elsewhere).

But if the same man were to wait till October and then eat an apple from the same tree, he would form a wholly different conception of its value.

He would find that the sourness had ripened into wholesome and refreshing acidity; the hardness into that firmness of fibre which, besides being pleasant to the palate, makes the apple "keep" better than any other fruit; the indigestibility into certain valuable dietetic qualities; and so on.
It is the same with the growing child.

_Most of his vices are virtues in the making_.