v-w 
 
 HV 
 877 
 
 T-.'P>TTI 11 - 
 
 \V inn ing the boy. 
 
 Southern Branch 
 of the 
 
 University of California 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Form L 1 
 
 HV 
 
 877 
 
 K55
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 SEP 8 1924 
 
 NOV 1 2 1924 
 
 i 6 J93 
 10 
 
 Form L-9-5m-12,'23
 
 WINNING THE BOY
 
 Winning The Boy 
 
 By LILBURN MERRILL, M. D. 
 
 With an Introduction by 
 
 JUDGE BEN B. LINDSEY 
 
 President of the International Juvenile Court Society 
 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 LONDON AND EDINBURGH
 
 Copyright, 1908, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPAN * 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 123 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
 
 YW 
 
 nr 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 HERE is unquestionably a crying 
 need for books on the boy problem. 
 It is hardly necessary any longer to 
 emphasize its importance. There is a real 
 demand for practical, helpful advice in deal- 
 ing with the sacred subject of childhood. 
 
 Reformation nas been attempted through 
 outward influences, frequently embracing 
 force and violence. The criminal court, the 
 jail, the prison, are all institutions designed 
 originally to bring about reformation. They 
 did nothing of the kind. They perhaps 
 protected society and, as believed by some, 
 furnished an example to the individual that 
 acted as a deterrent to crime. But every 
 worker for childhood, whether the father in 
 the home, the teacher in the school, the pro- 
 bation officer or the judge of the juvenile court 
 all are agreed that formation is the thing 
 that we most need in dealing with the human 
 character, and formation comes from within 
 5
 
 6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 through the human heart and not from with- 
 out through iron bars or any other methods 
 of force and violence, whether nagging and 
 faultfinding in the home or detention behind 
 stone walls. Mankind must be redeemed 
 through love, and love works through the 
 human heart, and the ennobling emotions of 
 the human heart are aroused through the 
 personal touch, contact, and influence of in- 
 dividuals whose hearts beat true to the higher 
 things of life. 
 
 Back of the scheme of formation, or, if you 
 would have it, reformation, known as the 
 juvenile court, is one continual struggle to 
 put a little love into the law. Some one has 
 said that " Love without justice may be senti- 
 ment and weakness," but there can be no real 
 justice without love. 
 
 There is no created thing more marvellous 
 than the budding child. Love and hate, 
 peace and fear, pleasure and pain, despair 
 and hope all these wonderful emotions of 
 the human soul are there, and how we have 
 gone ahead in our blind, brutal way, of deal- 
 ing with the " thing" an act by the individual
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 and not with the divine creature made 
 up of all these wonderful pulsations of the 
 human heart, is one of the most brutal, bar- 
 barous things in the history of jurisprudence. 
 
 When you seek to win a boy, go after his 
 heart. But you can't get his heart by send- 
 ing him to jail ; and you can't win him by an 
 act which is puerile or weak. Learn to sym- 
 pathize. Sympathy is the divinest quality 
 of the human heart. It was the secret of the 
 winnings of our Master when He trod the 
 earth ; but no one ever accused Him of de- 
 fending or justifying sin. 
 
 I believe I know that erring youth as a rule 
 cannot be brought to truth and light through 
 the ways of force and violence, of hate and 
 despair, and, on general principles, every 
 method which is backed by these hideous 
 monsters is false and bad. It may furnish a 
 short cut but it is a dangerous path. Its effect 
 is temporary, not lasting, and it has no per- 
 manent winnings, for, like the disease dosed 
 with bad medicine, if it disappears we know it 
 did not disappear because of the dosing but 
 in spite of it. The real cure is a change some-
 
 8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 where in the human heart. But if the real 
 change comes it comes through the spark of 
 love from somewhere because of a conviction 
 from within that evil is bad and must be cast out. 
 The boys who are really reformed are 
 those who want to do right and not those 
 who have to do right. Society may be pro- 
 tected as long as they have to do right ; but 
 you have not a really safe citizen until there 
 comes into the boy's heart the desire to do 
 right because it is right. I have visited the 
 jail in nearly every large city in this country, 
 and have talked to the boys in those jails. I 
 find they are the victims largely of fear, and 
 fear comes from an undeveloped heart. 
 I ask the boy why he will not steal again and 
 he invariably replies, " Because I will get in 
 jail." He is afraid of a jail ; he is not afraid 
 to do wrong. A boy can be taught to do 
 right because it is right ; but that kind of 
 teaching deals with the heart rather than the 
 head. If he has been taught rightly and 
 effectively, he will not answer as a boy did 
 last week when I asked him why he did not 
 tell his father the truth. He said, " Because
 
 INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 I would get a licking." The man or boy 
 whose heart is right will suffer pain, will be 
 burned at the stake or nailed to the cross in 
 standing for the right ; and these things have 
 for him no terror. We shall never get strong 
 boys until we get those who have a con- 
 science. Conscience comes through training 
 of the heart rather than the head. Con- 
 science is the moral director ; without it char- 
 acter is impossible, and character is the great- 
 est need, for it means that the pure in heart 
 shall see and know and act the truth, as 
 surely as they shall see God. 
 
 I first met Dr. Merrill as a young man 
 conducting a boys' club in one of those dis- 
 tricts in Denver, to be found in all cities 
 where poor people congregate, and being 
 poor they have many children. I found that 
 the boys understood Merrill and Merrill under- 
 stood them, and, after all, as Dr. William 
 Byron Forbush has well said, "The surest 
 way of knowing a boy is to understand him." 
 But you cannot understand him unless you 
 know something of the human heart. I dis- 
 covered in visiting that club and observing
 
 10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 those boys and the young man who was add- 
 ing so much helpfulness to their lives, that 
 he knew something about the heart of a boy, 
 or he could not have had the loyalty, love 
 and obedience that was shown in the acts as 
 well as the faces of those boys. Later dur- 
 ing the three years that Doctor Merrill was 
 associated with me I found that I had made 
 no mistake in selecting him for that impor- 
 tant work. By his broad experience and emi- 
 nent success in enterprises for boys, in the 
 Juvenile Court of Denver and in the Halsted 
 Institutional Church in Chicago, aided by 
 his study and experience as a physician, no 
 man is better equipped and, in my judg- 
 ment, more capable of speaking and writing 
 entertainingly, helpfully and wisely upon this 
 subject than Doctor Merrill. 
 
 In the following pages he has brought to- 
 gether, in an entertaining and instructive 
 manner, some stories and essays on boy- 
 life that every parent, teacher, and other in- 
 dividual interested in children should read. 
 
 BEN B, LINDSEY. 
 Denver, Col.
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 ORDINARILY the boy is all right. I 
 cannot say as much for big" folk. 
 If I could, there would be no boy 
 problem. The trouble is with the adult, 
 Boys are as good as the homes they come 
 from, which is not saying that all boys are 
 as good as their mothers. Sometimes fathers 
 are not a credit to their sons. 
 
 We and others who preceded him have 
 made the boy. He owes little to himself. 
 Whether coming or going he is mostly con- 
 cerned about getting what he can. And thus 
 it shall be until he is an individual big 
 enough to do something for the other fellow. 
 Perhaps it has never occurred to you that 
 you and I are responsible for the boy's form- 
 ing. We are. And we ought to be as effi- 
 cient at the job, as faithful, conscientious 
 effort can make us. 
 
 In these pages I have tried to encourage 
 ii
 
 12 FOREWORD 
 
 an interest in the boy. Determine to win 
 him. Be an ardent lover. Be chummy. 
 Then be a searcher. You will find his heart 
 in the out-of-doors. Or maybe you may find 
 it in the quiet glow of the hearth when he is 
 tired from the game and is sitting with his 
 arm around your neck asking you to tell him 
 a. story. 
 
 LILBURN MERRILL. 
 Changli, China.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE KID'S HONOUR 15 
 
 THE HEART OP A BOY . .... 33 
 
 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS ... 49 
 A BOY, Two FLIGHTS OF STAIRS, AND A FRIEND . 65 
 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD .... 79 
 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY . . 95 
 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS . . . .113 
 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS . .127 
 A CLUB FOR BOYS 145
 
 The Kid's Honour 
 
 He had neither shirt, shoes nor stockings. Small sharp eyes, 
 restless and bright as a rat's gleamed out of the careworn 
 features of an old man which surmounted the spare, stunted 
 frame of a child of ten. It was the child, not so much of the 
 slum, which is the foetid lair of the savage of civilization, as of 
 the street the desert of the City Arab. Stead.
 
 THE KID'S HONOUR 
 
 I CAN no longer address my lads as 
 " kids." That fact dawned upon me 
 one winter night a few years ago. My 
 friend, Judge Ben B. Lindsey, and I had just 
 come into Chicago and within the hour were 
 facing a turbulent, good-natured audience 
 of boys. They were their own individual, 
 polyglot selves. Some one thoughtfully sug- 
 gested that, and I later consented to let the 
 statement stand as a fact. They looked 
 ordinary enough, except that the twelve lads 
 who were pointed out to us on the front row 
 as representing half a dozen nationalities, 
 gave us a hint of the cosmopolitanism of the 
 place. 
 
 Now up to this time there was, as we 
 thought, a port of entry to the good nature 
 of every boy in the Union. And on this 
 occasion we looked over the roomful of hope- 
 fuls and, being introduced, we, as usual, made 
 17
 
 18 THE KID'S HONOUR 
 
 a chummy salutation to " de kids." The kid 
 spirit vanished with the salutation and the 
 atmosphere became chilly. Then a black- 
 headed Bohemian boy who was at least three 
 years prematurely ensheathed in a pair of 
 long trousers that reached from his armpits 
 and left five inches of excess turned up at the 
 bottom, spoke for the assembly : 
 
 " Gowan, what youse givin' us ? You tink 
 we is bleatin' nannies wid whiskers? We 
 ain't kids, we's guys!" 
 
 Ordinarily I shall sympathetically abide 
 by the objection of my lads. But on this 
 occasion I am determined to disregard their 
 feelings and speak of the honour found among 
 the common kids. 
 
 In most communities they are a class by 
 themselves, usually distrusted and carelessly 
 pushed out of the way with indifference and 
 a suspicious glance. Some of us find our- 
 selves reasonably ruffled in our spirits in the 
 presence of this contemptible, unchristian at- 
 titude that regards every little, dirty, neg- 
 lected lad of the street as an untrustworthy 
 brat. And in such a moment of irritation I
 
 THE KID'S HONOUR 19 
 
 am consoled by remembering that even the 
 cleanest of the little angels who help to dis- 
 pose of the luxuries of our homes are some- 
 times in an atmosphere where faith and con- 
 fidence are at the minimum. Perceval was 
 one of these distrusted chaps. 
 
 " Say, mamma," he said to his mother one 
 day, " do you trust me ? " 
 
 " Why, Percy dear, of course I do. Why 
 should you ask me such a question ?" replied 
 the fond mother who had failed to make 
 either the pantry or her words conform with 
 her heart. 
 
 " Well," continued the lad, " I was just 
 wondering if you trust me, why you keep the 
 jam so high up in the pantry." 
 
 I would like to know that the common 
 suspicion shown towards the kids of the 
 street is a thoughtless indifference rather 
 than a willful distrust. But it isn't always 
 the case by any means. If the adult would 
 wait for a willful violation of the law to create 
 his distrust we should have less cause to 
 criticise any feelings of suspicion and indif- 
 ference that he might manifest. But even
 
 20 THE KID'S HONOUR 
 
 this disposition towards the boy is so grossly 
 uncharitable that not many even moderately 
 sympathetic folks would claim it as an excuse 
 for distrusting the honour of a kid. On the 
 whole our hearts are enlarging. A century 
 ago a lad legally charged with swiping a two- 
 pence would have had no cause to question 
 what the penalty would be. His grandchil- 
 dren would learn that he was a thief. 
 
 The Juvenile Court reform movement has 
 properly swung many of its advocates far over 
 to the sympathetic side. And some of us who 
 by nature haven't much severity in our con- 
 stitutions when in the presence of a child en- 
 tered into the new order with enthusiasm. 
 
 I remember the first case that was as- 
 signed to me in the children's court of 
 Denver some years ago. He was said to be 
 a ten-year-old boy who, for reasons of his own, 
 had made it a rule of his life to keep away 
 from the schoolroom and live an independent 
 life in the open, a safe distance from every 
 officer of the law who might interfere with 
 his liberty. The school attendance officer 
 had on numerous occasions caught sight of
 
 THE KID'S HONOUR 21 
 
 the youngster afar, but after long soul-weary- 
 ing chases, he concluded that the "sight " 
 was the only thing he could catch. Then the 
 complaint came to the probation department 
 of the court and I went down through the 
 alleys and across the tracks to the ten-by- 
 twelve frame shack where Elwood was sup- 
 posed to live with his mother. I rapped on 
 the door in a sort of an indifferent way, as 
 though there was nothing particular I wanted. 
 It must have sounded that way on the inside, 
 for the boy who happened to be in, yelled, 
 "What d'you want?" 
 
 " Oh," said I, " I'm not so very particular. 
 Suppose we start in with a piece of friendly 
 conversation." 
 
 " Naw you don't," returned the lad, " I 
 ain't got no time. I'm busy. Who are 
 you?" 
 
 "Well," I replied, "I might be Santa 
 Claus, only I'm not. Say, Elwood," I con- 
 tinued, " if a kid can run a mile in twelve 
 minutes how long would it take a fly-cop to 
 catch him if the cop could run five miles an 
 hour?"
 
 22 THE KID'S HONOUR 
 
 " Aw, go pull your freight ! " retorted the 
 boy in the house. " Are you a cop ? " 
 
 "Well if I am," said I, still standing on the 
 outside talking through the keyhole of the 
 locked door, " I'm the slowest moving cop 
 that ever tried to get through a pine door. 
 But if you will give me a show on the home 
 stretch of a five-mile trot, I'll show you I can 
 go a few. Come on and open the door so I 
 can be sociable ; 'cause if you don't I'm 
 liable to turn you down some day when you 
 are standing at the inside of a door begging 
 me to let you out." 
 
 Either this speech or his curiosity brought 
 him to the door. I heard him turn the lock 
 cautiously ; then the door opened and I 
 faced a slender, scowling, dirt-covered boy of 
 average growth. He viewed me as a 
 stranger and consequently an enemy. I 
 stepped inside and after inspecting a bird- 
 trap he had been making I asked him to get 
 his hat. Then he knew he had been caught. 
 
 But Elwood was not the kind of a chap 
 who would howl when confronted with 
 trouble. He yielded willingly and went with
 
 THE KID'S HONOUR 23 
 
 me the fifty feet to the railroad track. I am 
 not sure what I did as we stepped on to the 
 track. But whatever it was Elwood saw in 
 it his opportunity, and before I could look 
 around to see where he had gone he had put 
 twenty feet of track back of him and then I 
 began to warm up my feet. I was later told 
 by a fellow who watched the race that on 
 the final heat my ankles were smoking. 
 Without giving further details of the run it 
 will be sufficient to remark that I caught 
 him. 
 
 I think that was the first thing that gave 
 the boy any confidence in me. We rode in 
 a street car a couple of miles to the office, 
 and by the time we got to my desk we were 
 feeling a bit chummy. It was then nearly 
 six o'clock in the evening and we were in 
 the room alone. I told the boy I wanted to 
 write a letter and handed him a boys' mag- 
 azine to look at. He knew I was going to 
 take him to the Detention School as soon 
 as I was through, and furthermore that he 
 would have to remain there until his case 
 was heard in the court. When the letter
 
 24 THE KID'S HONOUR 
 
 was written I asked him if he would run 
 down the main business street of the city 
 and mail the letter for me at a corner two 
 squares from the court-house, and that if he 
 would wait at the corner I would join him in 
 a few minutes. He took the letter and left 
 the office. In five minutes I locked my desk 
 and went down the street, and the dirty, 
 police-chased lad who had done enough bad 
 things to send him to the State School sev- 
 eral times was waiting for me at the corner. 
 Now I was sure about the "honour of a kid. 
 A little while later I had another case. This 
 time a bright, decent-looking boy of thirteen 
 years " blew in," as he said, from Cripple 
 Creek, where his stepfather had run away 
 and left him alone. His mother lived in 
 Idaho. We found a job for the boy which 
 he kept for a number of weeks and then he 
 ^wanted to go home to his mother. He paid 
 for a second-hand wheel during his employ- 
 ment and when I supplied eighteen dollars 
 for his railroad ticket he kindly suggested 
 that I could hold the bicycle for security until 
 he could send me the money from his home.
 
 THE KID'S HONOUR 25 
 
 Then I patted the lad on the head and said 
 good-bye. But I didn't know how much I 
 was saying good-bye to. A few days later I 
 dropped into the bicycle store to ask about 
 the wheel and was informed that the boy had 
 twelve dollars borrowed on it. I instantly 
 paid the debt with the wheel and concluded 
 to wait for my eighteen. I am still expect- 
 ing to wait a while. 
 
 This little pocket-touching experience 
 really has no place in these remarks, except 
 for the reason that I have concluded that 
 contrasts are beneficial. I now love Elwood 
 more. But maybe Elwood had no particular 
 affinity for letters, and furthermore it had 
 been said, and truthfully, that they fed well 
 at the Detention School. Then in justice to 
 the Idaho traveller, it may be suspected that 
 eighteen was his unlucky number as well 
 as mine. But pro and con, whichever way 
 the evidence goes, I shall think well of both 
 boys. 
 
 True, I am short, eighteen, but I have 
 been thinking about the source of the dis- 
 honour. It was bad no matter how I looked
 
 26 THE KID'S HONOUR 
 
 at it. Bad mother, bad home, bad mining- 
 camp in Idaho, and a bad stepfather thrown 
 in. And I invested eighteen dollars in the 
 product of all that. 
 
 Some one will say, the bad product of all 
 that. But I shall not. I still have faith in 
 the honour of the kid from Idaho. I do not 
 know how anxious he was to see his mother. 
 And I don't know what happened after he 
 left. And finally I don't know what may 
 happen to-morrow. I have been surprised 
 several times with the final outcome of 
 things. Only yesterday a boy pushed ww 
 way through a crowd and greeted me with 
 affection, while I recalled the fact that the last 
 time I had seen him was several years ago 
 when I was obliged to wash out his foul 
 mouth with soap and water as a prophylactic 
 measure for the protection of morais. Since 
 that time I had never expected to get a 
 
 pleasant smile from him. 
 
 
 
 Speaking of the bad influences back jo 
 the dishonour of the kid, reminds me of a case 1 
 which illustrates the way the Colorado law is 
 applied to contributory influences.
 
 THE KID'S HONOUR 27 
 
 An investigation was occasioned by com- 
 plaints from a railway company against some 
 boys who habitually loitered about the tracks 
 gathering coal. The case was assigned to 
 two officers who went down to the yards and 
 there found the fellows actively engaged in 
 throwing coal from the cars and loading it on 
 their carts. The lads were taken to the Deten- 
 tion School and the parents notified of the 
 calamity that had befallen the thieves. 
 Within an hour after the boys were placed in 
 the school the exasperated parents began to 
 assemble at the office and seek the release of 
 their " wicked kids." Fortunately, we 
 learned to what degree the kids were 
 " wicked " and the only official recognition 
 we gave to them was to enter them as 
 witnesses, and in our record notation we 
 classed them as the unfortunate offspring of 
 " wicked parents." 
 
 The boys were released and the fathers 
 brought into court, charged with contribu- 
 tory delinquency. Then the trouble began. 
 Surely this was a new order of things. One 
 of the fathers an Orthodox Jew had been
 
 28 THE KID'S HONOUR 
 
 unceasingly solicitous concerning what the 
 judge would do with him. 
 
 The case was heard and Judge Lindsey 
 informed the defendants that he had found 
 them guilty and would, therefore, sentence 
 them to five days in jail and would suspend 
 the sentence upon the payment of one-half of 
 the costs. 
 
 The Jewish father listened eagerly to the 
 court's decision, then raised his head from 
 his coat into which his chin had settled dur- 
 ing the hearing and quickly counted the 
 number of guilty fathers. His countenance 
 betokened a sense of satisfaction and with his 
 palms elevated ceilingward he addressed the 
 court. 
 
 " You tink, den, it would be about von dol- 
 lar apiece ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, Mr. Sackovinsky," replied the 
 judge. " It will amount to at least $6.00 for 
 each defendant 1 " 
 
 Mr. Sackovinsky's heart collapsed. His 
 hopeful anticipation was gone and in utter 
 despair he turned to his boy and exclaimed : 
 " Mein Gott ! Jakie, Jakie, see vot a lot of
 
 THE KID'S HONOUR 29 
 
 damage you done your father in fifteen little 
 minutes 1 " 
 
 I was later reliably informed that Mr. 
 Sackovinsky thereafter ordered his coal from 
 the local dealer and Jakie was saved from 
 being unjustly branded as a thief. 
 
 This is more than I expected to say about 
 the dishonour of a kid. My personal opinion 
 is that back of whatever dishonour there may 
 be in the actions of a boy, there is a contrib- 
 utory influence. But that leads to another 
 subject. 
 
 While standing on a sidewalk one evening 
 in the midst of a crowd of boys, I recovered 
 my watch, just as a fourteen-year-old boy 
 had lifted it out [of my pocket. During the 
 following six months several hundred of the 
 boys of that community, which borders what 
 has been spoken of in the press as the 
 " wickedest police district in the world," had 
 free access to my room and were in and out 
 at all hours of the day and late every night. 
 During these months small amounts of 
 money were constantly lying about my desk 
 in small coins, together with a large number
 
 30 THE KID'S HONOUR 
 
 of trifling articles of interest to any boy. So 
 far as I know not a cent of money or any 
 article was taken until in the spring when an 
 eight-year-old, weak-minded boy and his 
 nine-year-old brother took fifteen or twenty 
 cents and a few small trinkets. I am not 
 disposed to make invidious comparisons, but 
 I cannot refrain from adding that I have 
 been in some other communities where one 
 would expect more of the boys, and be dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 I believe in the kid. I believe in the 
 strength of the moral fibre of his life. This 
 is sure : he hasn't very much to help him. 
 When I hear a man curse the kid I am curi- 
 ous to know how much the man has ever 
 done to help the kid, or even get acquainted 
 with him. Unless you are interested in the 
 lads it is not likely you would be giving time 
 to my words. You are sympathetic. You 
 give the kids a place on the sidewalk. But 
 tell me, my friend, can you put your finger on 
 one of these boys you smile at and call him 
 by name, and hear your name spoken in re- 
 turn? Have you ever been so well ac-
 
 THE KID'S HONOUR 31 
 
 quainted with a single little ragamuffin that 
 he would take time to hunt you up or stop 
 you on the street and tell you something? 
 Maybe what he might tell you would amount 
 to nothing to you ; but to him it might be 
 the secret of a heartache, or the anticipation 
 of a great pleasure. 
 
 Friend, the kingdom of heaven is not 
 far from the common kid. He doesn't know 
 it, and if he did it wouldn't influence him 
 very much. I mention the fact because 
 the Master said something about it. You 
 doubtless recall the thought. It is to the 
 childlike that the kingdom of heaven be- 
 longs. I am sure Christ had His arms around 
 more children than are mentioned in the 
 Gospels. If some one should paint a picture 
 of the Master sitting in the midst of a bunch 
 of dirty-faced lads who were off with their 
 fishing tackle and bait along the shore of 
 Galilee, I would declare the vision was an 
 inspiration from God. 
 
 Get acquainted with the fellow to whom no 
 one has ever given any attention, more than 
 to carelessly dub him a common kid. If he
 
 32 THE KID'S HONOUR 
 
 is suspicious and diffident, don't turn him 
 down as unsociable. Remember that he 
 has not met many of your stamp. Spend 
 all the time and energy necessary to rub 
 through the shell, and then you'll find not 
 the common kid but the boy, with the possi- 
 bilities of the brightest, largest and most 
 useful manhood. And incidentally, any- 
 thing you do for the boy will do more for 
 yourself. 
 
 As I have watched the many acts of 
 genuine honour and fidelity, and caught 
 glimpses of the love, faith, generosity, 
 honesty, and sincere devotion to a friend, 
 that spring forth from the common boys of 
 the street, I have thanked God for the privi- 
 lege of touching my hat in recognition of 
 their friendly greeting. And as I have re- 
 ceived their love and esteem I have been 
 more honoured - than if I had received the 
 favour of a king.
 
 The Heart of a Boy 
 
 In dealing with my child, my Latin and my Greek, my ac- 
 complishments and my money stead me nothing, but as much 
 soul as I have avails. Emerson.
 
 THE HEART OF A BOY 
 
 THERE was once a lecturer whose 
 face was not in keeping with her 
 wearing apparel. She had made a 
 heroic effort to conform her garments to the 
 feelings of her soul, and people suspected 
 that it would have been easy for her to curse 
 the limitations of the sex. She was as with- 
 ered as an unshelled hickory-nut in March. 
 Her cheeks were furrowed by a soul out of 
 sorts because of the mistake that had been 
 made in creating her a woman. In the spring 
 time of her life love had been buried in her 
 heart and now she had become senile. This 
 woman had been analyzing the " child con- 
 sciousness," and she stated that after extended 
 observation and personal contact with chil- 
 dren, she had concluded that boys do not like 
 to be loved. Furthermore she had observed 
 that they resented any exhibition of affection 
 towards them. We who heard the lecture did 
 35
 
 36 , THE HEART OF A BOY 
 
 not blame them. They were quite justified 
 in shying off into their own love-realm at her 
 approach. 
 
 Perhaps I am not up on her psychology 
 of the subject, but I believe the boy of it is 
 quite a different story. I do not believe in 
 the theory of the woman lecturer. I believe 
 in the boy. If we are not frightened by ex- 
 plosive energy, we will find somewhere in 
 every rollicking, hilarious, tamed or untamed 
 boy, a big, tender, loving heart. The heart 
 of a boy God made it and made it like Him- 
 self, and when we locate it, we shall find, I 
 think, that it is the largest part of the boy. 
 
 Frankly, I like boys. Their laughing eyes 
 and generous indifference as to whether 
 school keeps or not is so akin to the be- 
 witching loveliness of little misses who send 
 sparkling glances at you through their tresses, 
 and blush like a sun-kissed posy and giggle, 
 that on my word I cannot but love them. 
 God made them for that. I can never forget 
 God in the presence of a child, for the child 
 is the latest revelation from God. A boy has 
 only a certain capacity, which is to say that
 
 THE HEART OF A BOY 37 
 
 his calibre is limited, and God could gener- 
 ously bless him with only one of His attri- 
 butes ; therefore He chose love as best befit- 
 ting the little heart for its journey through 
 earth's meadowland. Since then, love has 
 been indigenous to the heart of a boy. And 
 the purveyor of love who does not measure 
 his affection, but lets it radiate like the 
 warmth of an autumn sun, will be soon re- 
 warded, for love will find its way to the boy's 
 heart and the lad will be reached across lots, 
 like a youngster going swimming. 
 
 As I think about it, I believe I knew that 
 fact some years ago when I was a boy. As 
 is frequently the case, when I became a man 
 I forgot it. Then I came back to the fact. 
 
 We had, for some time, been trying to 
 control the conduct of a little fellow who 
 lives over in a lower section of the city. He 
 was an Ishmaelite. And being a Westerner, 
 with disregard for law, he was an outlaw kid. 
 For months he held his record of living at 
 liberty in the clear, a hundred yards from 
 every officer of the probation department 
 who had suffered with hot feet in efforts to
 
 38 
 
 round him up. Naturally, this acquaintance, 
 formed at a distance and generally on the 
 run, made his capture an event. So when 
 he was brought in one evening I almost un- 
 consciously turned from the desk to arrange 
 for his prompt removal to the Detention 
 School. Happily, the second thought came 
 that moment and I sat down. The boy was 
 at a window with his cap crushed carelessly 
 between his hands and a pair of well-worn 
 knee trousers. A heavy growth of brown 
 hair had been carelessly brushed away from 
 his forehead and as I looked at him, all evi- 
 dence of the outlaw and runaway disap- 
 peared and I was confronted by a sad, neg- 
 lected, twelve-year-old boy. Nobody had 
 found his heart. That was the thought that 
 held me. Just why I was blessed with so 
 good a thought at that moment, I do not 
 know. I believe, however, that I went back 
 a dozen years and remembered that a heart 
 was common to the constitution of a boy. 
 
 If you had been with the boy that moment, 
 and were as I am, I am sure you would have 
 gone over and placed your arm about his
 
 THE HEART OF A BOY 39 
 
 shoulder and told him to sit down with you 
 in the big chair and talk it over. That is 
 what I did. And all the reply the boy made 
 was to choke up and make a hard effort to 
 keep back the tears. But the grit of the out- 
 law was gone. The tears welled up in his 
 eyes and he laid his head against me and 
 began to sob. I learned that hour that the 
 boy did not need the Detention School or 
 the court. He needed a friend. He needed 
 some one who could reach his heart. 
 
 During his few years he had been sheltered 
 at such times as he was not " out," by his 
 parents who had long ago forgotten that 
 there was anything in him but original sin. 
 I met the father and listened to his troubles. 
 It was apparent that the only troublesome 
 factor in their home was the twelve-year-old 
 boy. Later I was told that the father was in 
 the habit of doing more praying for the boy 
 than the lad will want to hear, I predict, during 
 the first ten years of his married life. Some 
 one reported that a single, jolly smile had, 
 at one time, crept through this father's heavy, 
 black whiskers. By a sad misfortune the boy
 
 40 THE HEART OF A BOY 
 
 hove in sight just at that happy moment, and 
 the man's falling facial barometer gave posi- 
 tive assurance that the boy had been bad. 
 Well, after the father was through with him 
 the delinquent twelve-year-old confessed that 
 he wanted to go to the ball game mighty bad, 
 so he went. The boy did right. If the man 
 had been on the trail to his boy's heart, he 
 would have found it on the front seat among 
 the bleachers. And if the father had made a 
 record that day at rooting with the outlaw, 
 family prayers that night would have been 
 more interesting, and the father and mother 
 might have fallen asleep with happy hearts. 
 Love will win its way to the heart of a boy, 
 if the lover does more chumming than pray- 
 ing. 
 
 I have lived in several places and met 
 some bad boys. And I have learned that 
 the average home exerts a positive influence 
 for morality. This does not necessarily mean 
 very much. Some persons who are trying 
 to help juvenile delinquents have found a 
 surprisingly large number of child offenders 
 coming from homes of apparently high ideals
 
 THE HEART O.F A BOY 41 
 
 and strict moral discipline. There can be but 
 one conclusion, which is, that a boy needs 
 more than an atmosphere of morality and re- 
 spectable conduct. I am sure that he needs 
 even more than spiritual discipline. These 
 he should have, but without the warm, mu- 
 tual love and comradeship between a boy 
 and his parents, 1 shall expect the lad to be 
 in as great danger of rendering obedience to 
 sin as another child who is reared in a nega- 
 tive moral atmosphere. Half of the children 
 in our cities have no special love for their 
 parents. Association, food and clothing are 
 the only bonds existing between more boys 
 and fathers than I like to contemplate. 
 This is one of the deplorable facts about the 
 American home and it is somewhere back of 
 nearly every boy gone wrong. But so long 
 as a father takes no pains to become ac- 
 quainted with his boy, he must be willing for 
 the child to appreciate him only for the food 
 and clothing which he provides. 
 
 We frequently fail with boys because we 
 present them to conditions which do not har- 
 monize with the masculinity of their nature.
 
 42 THE HEART OF A BOY 
 
 We devote much time trying to effeminize 
 boy-nature. In so doing we at once strike a 
 decisive blow at the object of our effort. 
 Many enterprises for boys suffer an irrepara- 
 ble loss through the lethargy of the men. 
 There is a known weakness in much of our 
 effort to get at the boys. It is the selfish in- 
 difference of the man who has an opportunity 
 to reach down his hand to the boy at his side 
 and say, "My little man, let's be friends." 
 What will the boy do ? If you ever were a 
 boy, you know what the lad will do. The 
 man would lift the lad to his own level. Our 
 first concern shall be about the man. Things 
 to do should be thought of later. And re- 
 member that the man is more important than 
 the methods. 
 
 It is not a mistake to dote on the gregari- 
 ous nature of the boy, if you have a " quan- 
 titative" interest in youngsters. The gang 
 is, unquestionably, an opportunity of which 
 we should avail ourselves. If won for right- 
 eousness we shall, naturally, have a potential 
 of vast importance. And if the gang be well 
 in hand it will be easier for a boy to maintain
 
 THE HEART OF A BOY 43 
 
 his standard of righteousness, for he will be 
 encouraged by the unity of sentiment. But 
 I do not believe that boys are redeemed in 
 the aggregate. If the gang is won for good 
 citizenship and Christian character, they shall 
 have to be reached one by one through the 
 magnetic personality of the individual who 
 is gifted with the power to win the love and 
 confidence of the individual boy. 
 
 Getting at the boys need not be the almost 
 impossible task we have thought it to be. 
 The boy is loving, responsive and easily won. 
 If you would win him, love him. See to it, 
 however, that your affection does not become 
 obnoxious by the development of too much 
 sentiment and you will, in due time, touch 
 hearts with him, and mutual love will establish 
 a kinship. If you get to the heart of a boy 
 there will be nothing much left to trouble you. 
 
 There are always enough discouragements 
 in work with boys to suggest a resignation. 
 You may consider your situation unusual if 
 it isn't so. There is danger of a worker try- 
 ing to handle too many boys. Then the 
 resignation is in place. Pick out a few fel-
 
 44 THE HEART OF A BOY 
 
 lows with whom your soul strikes an affinity. 
 Don't throw up the job. You dare not do it 
 if you are a man. The boy is your younger 
 brother, though he is not always the lad who 
 sits with you at the home table. Sometimes 
 he is and you tolerate him. But more often 
 he is the untamed youngster who moves 
 about here and there for you down at the 
 shop or office. Or he may venture to sidle 
 up to you around town with a perceptible 
 emulation of your coveted size, which turns 
 to you a larger compliment than you deserve. 
 Wherever you meet him, my fellow, he is the 
 same admiring, willing, noisy, untamed, lova- 
 ble youngster, and your younger brother. 
 
 Most of us do not know him. He has 
 jostled against us occasionally and we have 
 concluded that he is the mongrel creation of 
 some unknown, foreign force. This is our 
 notion until we are jarred loose from our 
 isolated life by the discovery that he is what 
 we were or might have been, except for the 
 good fortune of a home or the fellowship of a 
 friend. You and I are a part of some boy's 
 troubles. Back of his character is the in-
 
 THE HEART OF A BOY 45 
 
 fluence that has emanated from your life and 
 mine. There is considerable significance in 
 the fact that only the exceptional few, out of 
 thousands of delinquent boys, are character- 
 ized by a morphological difference from the 
 average type of youngsters. The juvenile 
 courts of America are working overtime, try- 
 ing to solve the problems produced by these 
 boys who are not one whit worse than some 
 of us were a few years back. It is the dis- 
 covery of this fact that gives inspiration and 
 faith to many officials in the children's courts 
 of the country. 
 
 One morning, a few years ago, I found a 
 mother waiting at my desk with her fourteen- 
 year-old boy, whom she declared was incor- 
 rigible and so far beyond the control of his 
 parents that she felt his future welfare de- 
 manded that the State should take him in 
 hand. He was an average, vigorous boy, 
 with abundant independence and a kind heart. 
 The mother sat in silence for a few minutes 
 until she could control her emotion. Then 
 she told her story. 
 
 It was back in August, some months be-
 
 46 THE HEART OF A BOY 
 
 fore, when George began to show a careless 
 indifference to her advice. September came 
 and with it the opening of school. The boy 
 had manifested a moody antipathy to any 
 mention of his school interests and when the 
 opening day arrived, he defiantly refused to 
 give any further obedience to his mother and 
 started from home to have his way. She was 
 left at the door, with a burden such as only a 
 mother can know, when her boy has willfully 
 refused her counsel and placed himself at 
 enmity with her desire. Then followed 
 weeks of vacillating conduct which made 
 heavy inroads upon his character ; and now 
 in her desperation she had brought him to 
 the children's court, praying that something 
 might be done to save him from a useless life. 
 As she told me of her sorrow, the story 
 carried my thought back to a day, eleven 
 years before, when I saw myself an unsteady, 
 independent, though not unkind boy, stand- 
 ing at the front gate of our home, resisting 
 the appeal of my mother. On the first day 
 of the term I had refused to return to the 
 very school George had forsaken 1 It was
 
 THE HEART CF A BOY 47 
 
 the crucial moment and I had my way. 
 Since then eleven years had passed. For- 
 tunately I came to myself, fought my battle 
 and won. And now there sat at my side 
 in the probation department of the court a 
 boy threatened with commitment to a cor- 
 rectional institution, who was a perfect em- 
 bodiment of all that I had been. 
 
 During the years that have passed since 
 then, I have not ceased to remember the 
 fellowship of that hour, for in his presence I 
 got a new and broader idea of solidarity. 
 Social brotherhood expanded at that meeting 
 and I learned that the bad boy is what I am 
 except for a friend and the grace of God. 
 
 There is latent in the bad boy every essen- 
 tial for the making of ruined manhood. 
 Whether he shall evolve into a social prob- 
 lem or not, is the query that you and I must 
 answer. Perhaps you did not agree when I 
 said you and I are a part of some boy's 
 troubles. I mean just that. And there is no 
 one who can wield the same control over the 
 affections and activity of a boy as can a 
 man. There is your opportunity and mine,
 
 48 THE HEART OF A BOY 
 
 But, my brother, if you are going to win out 
 with the youngsters, you must have an in- 
 terest in them. If you would discharge your 
 duty to society, you will not forget that the 
 bad boy is your younger brother. He needs 
 the love and generous fellowship of a man. 
 If you doubt the efficiency of your influence, 
 try it with that lad who wants to be your 
 friend. He will reciprocate your fellowship, 
 and my only concern shall be whether you 
 are honest, strong and of a pure heart. 
 
 There are many discouragements. Some- 
 times we wonder if with all our striving for 
 ways and means of reaching a boy, we are 
 really winning. At times we are not sure. 
 The periphery of a boy may baffle a score 
 of adults. Then some one will smile at all 
 this and say with a twinkle, that the easiest 
 way to the heart of a boy is through his 
 stomach. The heart on that route is of 
 another sort. We are talking about the 
 heart of a boy, out of which are the issues of 
 life. It is bigger and harder to control than 
 any gastric capacity, which, I admit, is say- 
 ing much.
 
 Jimmy's Heritage of Weakness 
 
 Parents control the bodies and minds, the hearts and souls 
 of their children, not so much by what their ancestors were as 
 by what they themselves do and think. Oppenheim.
 
 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 
 
 THERE is a lad I know who reminds 
 me of the question, " Who did sin, 
 this man or his father ? " I have 
 heard the question objected to. Unfor- 
 tunately the objector hasn't modified the 
 evidence which suggested the query and 
 when I met Jimmy I asked it again. 
 
 A voluminous literature of the last decade 
 has quite completely relegated hereditary 
 influence into an oblivion of insignificance, 
 and champions of child-saving agencies have 
 discoursed liberally upon the all-importance 
 of environment in the making of character. 
 But after all, the child who passes through 
 adolescence and emerges in manhood an 
 embodiment of the transforming power of 
 environment, is unquestionably rare, as com- 
 pared with the vast majority who retain their 
 original natures in the presence of our 
 formidable organization of social agencies. 
 5*
 
 52 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 
 
 Every person who has won the friendship 
 of a boy stands in the presence of a great 
 opportunity. Perhaps mere association may 
 deflect a child's career and be responsible 
 for the making of a great character. There 
 is an immeasurable potency in human as- 
 sociation, but even with a full appreciation 
 of the value of social pedagogy in work for 
 the moral development of boys, I am per- 
 suaded that the efficiency of such work is 
 much less than it would be if the Divine 
 element were recognized and a systematic 
 effort were made to develop the spiritual 
 nature of the boy. Of course, I am now 
 speaking of the permanent efficiency of our 
 efforts. The conduct of a troublesome boy 
 may be perfectly controlled by association 
 with an individual who has established his 
 kinship, but unless the influence has gone 
 beyond the restricting effect of friendly as- 
 sociation, the evidence of moral reformation 
 will disappear with the friend whose mere 
 personality has held the boy in check. In 
 the presence of our many failures to secure 
 permanent transformation of character in the
 
 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 53 
 
 pubescent boy, we often remark that if we 
 were able to control the conduct of the child 
 during his early years, there would be little 
 doubt about the moral status of the man. 
 But I am not so sure about it. And now I 
 want to tell you a story. 
 
 Jimmy had just turned thirteen. He spent 
 the day with the kids and early in the even- 
 ing called at the home of his friend for in- 
 spection. Taken from the rear he was 
 always an uncertain quantity. He wore an 
 old slouch hat, heavy and well soaked with 
 an accumulation of several years, set low 
 over his head, with its brim pulled well down 
 over his eyes and ears. His coat might have 
 been sufficient for the remainder of the 
 minimum attire stipulated by the customs of 
 the community. And indeed if you had 
 seen him from this posterior standpoint, on 
 some previous occasion, there would have 
 been no visible evidence of trousers, for below 
 the knee extremity of the coat usually ap- 
 peared a pair of dirty, brown legs which 
 were the only indication that the hat and 
 coat were the raiment of a real, live boy.
 
 54 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 
 
 To-day Jimmy had passed out of the " knee- 
 pants " class and he ran eagerly across the 
 lawn to his friend, with joy sparkling out of 
 two of the biggest and most luring brown 
 eyes that ever lent charm to an otherwise 
 attractive little face. 
 
 " Hello, Doc ! " began the youngster, 
 " guess you don't think I ain't something to- 
 day; ain't I?" 
 
 " Well I should say you are, old man. 
 Bless your heart, I am glad to see you," re- 
 sponded his friend, taking a handful of slack 
 out of the lad's collar as he pulled him to his 
 side. " My what a dandy, big fellow you are 
 to-day. Where have you been ? " By this 
 time Jimmy had placed himself over the 
 corner of a veranda seat with his right foot 
 held rigidly over his left knee. 
 
 " Aw, I been down celebratin' de extension 
 of me pants and I thought I'd come over and 
 let you see 'em." 
 
 A glimpse at the boy was always sufficient 
 to awaken the memory, and with this warm 
 greeting and the hour of friendly chat that 
 followed, the thoughts of his friend were sent
 
 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 55 
 
 back over the past to review the story of 
 Jimmy's heritage which had long before 
 made him an unanswerable argument in 
 favour of " original sin." 
 
 It was back in the early spring time, I be- . 
 lieve, three years ago, when Jimmy was 
 placed under arrest, accompanied by his con- 
 frere, a jolly, red-cheeked little chap of ten 
 years. The two boys had rented a livery 
 rig, ostensibly for an hour's ride about the 
 neighbourhood. The hour passed with no 
 return of the youngsters, and with the even- 
 ing shadows came a suspicion that the livery- 
 man's horse and buggy was the loot of 
 designing little thieves. An officer was 
 placed on the case and the following day 
 Jimmy and his pard were interrupted while 
 making camp along the roadside in a moun- 
 tain canon, forty miles from home. 
 
 The harshness of the law in its application 
 to Jimmy and his fellow had been tempered 
 with the Christ spirit of devotion to the inter- 
 ests of the child, rather than to the mercenary 
 consideration of the horse flesh and vehicle. 
 And so in harmony with this parens patrus
 
 56 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 
 
 spirit of the law, Jimmy met his friend. The 
 tears flooded out of the big, brown eyes, and 
 the kindly judge tenderly forgave him for his 
 mistake and requested the new friend to help 
 him out of his trouble. 
 
 During the hearing of the case a heart- 
 broken mother sat at one side of the room, 
 endeavouring with her own weeping and 
 burdened spirit to console the sobbing of the 
 sweet little five- and seven-year-old sisters, 
 one clinging about her neck while the other 
 cried convulsively with a curly head buried 
 in her mother's lap. The friend turned the 
 boy over to his mother and made an appoint- 
 ment to visit them at their home during the 
 week. Thus came Jimmy before the State, 
 silently pleading his case, and thus was he 
 heard as an unfortunate child needing en- 
 couragement and assistance. 
 
 We are, most of us, abundantly charitable 
 in indicting the past. The present stands 
 heroically for its own weakness. But from 
 the knotted, tangled products which drop 
 here and there from the loom of life, emanates 
 a powerful conviction that the environment
 
 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 57 
 
 which we have doted upon as a supreme 
 factor in the making of character, is not of the 
 high potency we have believed it to be. The 
 virtues of our fathers abide in our memories 
 as cherished legacies, while their sins have 
 silently impregnated our lives. We stifle the 
 sudden emotion which would curse the past 
 and bow with reverence before the silence of 
 those who have given us the heritage of 
 weakness ; and throughout our days we 
 strive manfully to overcome the handicap and 
 make our victory supreme. Jimmy had not 
 learned to strive manfully. 
 
 The friend made his way, a few evenings 
 later, to Jimmy's home, a well-worn, four- 
 room cottage, that set far back from a 
 sparsely populated street. From the inter- 
 mittent condition of the picket fence and 
 board walk around the house to the back 
 door that hung unsteadily on a leather hinge, 
 it was apparent that the place had served 
 these many years with no care given the dis- 
 integration of a once attractive little home. 
 
 The mother received the visitor at the back 
 door and tendered him a chair while she
 
 58 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 
 
 pulled together the two edges of a torn apron 
 and sat down on a soap box next to the door 
 leading to an adjoining room. The little 
 sisters God bless their sweet, innocent lives 1 
 climbed over her lap and finally were 
 quietly adjusted with all arms about the 
 mother's neck. Jimmy was out. 
 
 " It is a pleasure to have you come, sir," 
 began the mother. " I trust you will pardon 
 the necessity of receiving you in the kitchen. 
 We have no other fire." Her tender brown 
 eyes became moist and a tear trickled out 
 and splashed on the cheek of her baby girl. 
 For an instant, her thoughts were off some- 
 where in other days. She lowered her head 
 and gave each of the little ones a kiss. 
 "Pardon the necessity." The words hung 
 in the visitor's thoughts and for some mo- 
 ments he forgot to speak and sat absorbing 
 from the silence the suspicion of a sorrow 
 that had lived back of the necessity and that 
 now lived as a still heavier burden on the 
 mother's heart. She had pitied Jimmy dur- 
 ing the years and mother-love had looked 
 with faith beyond the many dishonest acts
 
 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 59 
 
 and the unreliable character of his variegated 
 little life, and somehow, through it all, she 
 expected him to grow away from his weak- 
 ness. 
 
 But Jimmy continued to go to the bad, 
 and faster than ever. This very evening, an 
 hour before the friend called, some boys of 
 the neighbourhood had told her that Jimmy, 
 during the afternoon, had started to bum to 
 a city one hundred and fifty miles distant. 
 "And this," sobbed the mother, "in the 
 presence of the fact that the law has laid a 
 kind hand upon him for a serious offense. 
 Sir," she continued, tenderly caressing the 
 little ones who still clung about her neck, " I 
 have tried hard and prayed that God might 
 cause my boy to outgrow the influence of the 
 past. And with all my burden, never an un- 
 kind word has the boy heard from me against 
 his father." 
 
 Her words stopped for a moment. She 
 glanced down at the girls who were now 
 seeing who could give her the most kisses. 
 When she looked up her eyes had lost their 
 tenderness. "I know it's the story of a
 
 60 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 
 
 family sorrow, and such as it is, you doubt- 
 less hear every hour when you seek to be a 
 friend to a child in trouble. But you must 
 know that my Jimmy is not deserving of all 
 the censure his bad conduct has placed upon 
 him. From the time he was four years of 
 age his unsteady life has been ever more and 
 more vacillating and controlled by some 
 hidden power that has made him dishonest 
 in the very hour that he has wept himself 
 sick at my breast, begging me to forgive 
 him for stealing the last dollar I had in the 
 house with which to buy our bread. No, sir, 
 I can't be too hard on the lad, when he comes 
 to me and through his tears tells me he 
 doesn't know why he is so bad. Somehow 
 I look down into his pleading eyes, and then 
 something chokes up in my throat, and all I 
 can do is lose my thoughts for a time and I 
 find myself tightly embraced by his loving 
 arms. And thus we sit for an hour weeping 
 together, he with the remorse, and I God 
 forgive me ! out of a pitying heart that 
 curses the man whose sinful life has made it 
 hard for our little boy to be good."
 
 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 6l 
 
 The friend sat in silence. He heard the 
 story and with a kind word to the mother 
 and some candy for the little ones, he went 
 out into the night with a prayer that he, too, 
 might be forgiven for his thoughts about the 
 man whose unrighteous life had caused his 
 boy to sin. 
 
 Jimmy returned from his trip in a few 
 days. He brought no excuse : only the 
 warmest and most innocent smile. He had 
 enjoyed himself. No one asked how he had 
 lived. His mother and the friend had no 
 doubts about the source of his supply. The 
 weeks passed and Jimmy maintained his 
 record of faithful attendance at school, a day 
 and a half in a week and a half, except at 
 such times, as, in all justice, he found it 
 tasteful to take an extra half day off to at- 
 tend a ball game, or some other attraction of 
 equal merit. Frequently he prevailed upon 
 his solicitous friends to permit him to go to 
 work. He no sooner had the consent, than 
 a job was found and accepted. When he 
 met his friend the next month, he was either 
 working in another part of town or had just
 
 62 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 
 
 returned from a trip across the state on "de 
 bumpers," or if luck had moved in his direc- 
 tion, it was more than probable that he had 
 " rode de cushions." Thus did the months 
 pass, and to-day Jimmy is thirteen. 
 
 This is the end of my story. And I sus- 
 pect you are about to remark that it doesn't 
 end right, to satisfy your curiosity about 
 what came afterwards. That is true, but it 
 ends with the boy. And it ends precisely 
 where many fellows are at this moment, for 
 my friend Jimmy is one of a class of chaps 
 who are inherently weak in their moral fibre. 
 Their trouble is in the foundation of their 
 character. When you think about and plan 
 for these fellows, don't rely upon the erro- 
 neous idea that the nature of the child is of 
 the same consistency as potter's clay. I 
 have too often seen the " transformed " cul- 
 prit revert back to himself, when he no 
 longer cherished the generosity of solicitous 
 friends. 
 
 Jimmy's presence is a challenge to the 
 Church. He needs the Source of power. 
 Society calls him a bad boy, which he is not.
 
 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 63 
 
 He is a weak boy. Social agencies have 
 done their best and their influence has been 
 transient. Human effort is only a palliative. 
 That's all. Jimmy is not being cured. And 
 now I would like to suggest a question : 
 Can God do anything for the lad ? Friend, 
 think about that. I want your answer. Only 
 you must think quick, for I will not let the 
 question stand long unanswered. Can God 
 fix up the lad ? Ah, yes, indeed He can. The 
 lad will be safe in His hands. You agree 
 with that. The boy's relation to the Cure is 
 worth more to the Church than we have 
 thought. Jimmy is in the transition and will 
 evolve into a man, and of still greater signifi- 
 cance is the fact that he will evolve into an 
 undesirable citizen. The Church will then 
 exert herself heroically in an effort to redeem 
 him for the kingdom. I would not in any 
 degree minimize the importance of saving 
 the man at the worst end of his life ; only 
 that gives such small returns compared with 
 the limitless balance of power that is con- 
 served when we catch the citizen early. 
 The lad's heritage of weakness ought to
 
 64 JIMMY'S HERITAGE OF WEAKNESS 
 
 urge upon us the supreme importance of 
 God's influence in the development of his 
 character. There is a cure for Jimmy's 
 weakness. The boy needs Jesus Christ
 
 A Boy, Two Flights of Stairs, and a 
 Friend 
 
 You can do more through love than you can through hate. 
 Bulldozing and angry threats may sometimes seem to win, but 
 love is the only true balm for a wounded soul, especially of a 
 boy, even if it sometimes seems to fail. Lindsey.
 
 A BOY, TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS, 
 AND A FRIEND 
 
 JOHN WARRASKLOWSKI is a special 
 friend of mine. He came in to see me 
 this afternoon, as he does every day, 
 and brought with him his big, happy smile 
 that is always with him, and which makes 
 me feel so good every time I see it that I 
 wish I could have a frame put around it and 
 hang it on the wall where I might look at it 
 when I get the dumps. I suppose I ought 
 to be ashamed of myself for even thinking 
 of being dumpy when my friend John is such 
 a chunk of happiness. And I am ashamed 
 of myself. I have been treated pretty well. 
 Nobody would say that about John. 
 
 I found out about some of the rough 
 sides of life that his tender years have had to 
 rub against and now when I look up from my 
 work and see his laughing eyes peeping 
 around the corner of the door at me, I am 
 67
 
 68 TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS 
 
 compelled to laugh, though something in the 
 very sight of him makes me heavy at my 
 heart. But I never let him know that and 
 as soon as he sees that I don't object, in he 
 comes and right over to my side and an- 
 nounces that he has come up to see me. 
 
 He never remembers that I am busy. To- 
 day I was in the midst of some thinking. 
 What was the thought I was after? bless 
 me 1 it has gone as suddenly as the boy 
 came. But I shall not pull down my brow 
 and try to recall it now. Some other time I 
 may do that. To-day John is here and I am 
 glad to see him. God knows I ought to be 
 genuinely pleased, and so ought anybody, to 
 have such a lad climb two flights of stairs 
 just to " see you." 
 
 He must like the place. Though, honestly, 
 there isn't much to the place but space and 
 poor equipment ; all of which is made good 
 use of, however. But to those who have seen 
 something better in the favoured spots where 
 people speak good American, it is all sug- 
 gestive of the neglect of some who ought to 
 do better by John than they are doing. But,
 
 TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS 69 
 
 as it is, John doesn't mind the neglect. More 
 than likely he wouldn't know what neglect 
 means if I should ask him. And certainly he 
 would not see neglect up here, where he 
 peeps in shyly and is happy. A little atmos- 
 phere that is warmed up with love seems to 
 just meet his case and he, for the time, isn't 
 aware of a thing in his soul but happiness. 
 
 Not many of us are like John. Climbing 
 two flights of stairs brings him face to face 
 with a contrast. If you should climb up with 
 him, you too would feel and see a contrast, 
 and you would glance about and smile a little 
 meaningless smile, but what a difference be- 
 tween the two of you ! Your contrast is of 
 another kind. John has lived his own few 
 years and you have lived yours. You think 
 you have done very well. Maybe you have. 
 But you have never looked back into John's 
 soul and seen what sort of a soul it is after 
 living a few, short years. So you may as 
 well wish us good-day and go stumbling 
 back down the dark, worn stairs and out into 
 the noisy crowd, that goes jabbering along 
 the street, tickling your ears with what is to
 
 7O TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS 
 
 you a foreign tongue, but what is in reality, 
 a dozen tongues. 
 
 I will drop my work and John and I will 
 sit here for a while with nothing particular to 
 do but visit. Inwardly, I am trying to get 
 something to say to him. I have told him 
 every last thing I know and much more 
 that I don't know about Indians, mountain- 
 lions, and the turn in the old, quiet creek, 
 where we lads used to duck each other and 
 have the best times of our lives. No, I'll 
 take that back. That was altogether too 
 selfish to be the most fun. It's very much 
 better fun to be up here and feel my heart 
 grow warm in the presence of John's affection. 
 
 John hasn't always been radiating love, for 
 the very good reason that he hasn't had the 
 good fortune of being with those who would 
 tolerate it. If you think that sounds strange, 
 you are mistaken. It is as commonplace as 
 dirt in some second-rear shack, or fourth- 
 story tenement. If God hadn't looked after 
 John's soul, the lad wouldn't know how to 
 smile, for he has been brought up (whatever 
 that means) in one of such places that I had
 
 TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS 71 
 
 trouble in finding a few days ago, when I 
 jumped mud-puddles and waded through 
 several others in the alley on my way to re- 
 turn a friendly call. When I reached the 
 place, I wasn't sure where I was. A vigorous, 
 young woman with rigid features and a child 
 at her breast told me I was where I wanted 
 to go ; and then when she found out who I was 
 she made haste to add that she wished I 
 " would do something with the kid. He's on 
 the bum and we can't do nothin' wid him. 
 But you can," she added hopefully ; the con- 
 fession being either smooth tactics to transfer 
 responsibility, or an honest admission of their 
 failure. Then she continued : " That kid says 
 he won't do anything for anybody but you." 
 She is John's sister and has taken her 
 husband and three children in to share the 
 floor space with the old folks, or she was 
 driven in by the absence or meanness of her 
 husband. I haven't taken the trouble to in- 
 quire which it is, but she is there and hasn't 
 much faith in John ; and maybe he has less 
 faith in her. Perhaps there is poor excuse 
 for the friction, and maybe there is much
 
 72 TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS 
 
 cause for it. John may be a little terror at 
 home. I wouldn't doubt it a bit. Honest, 
 friend, wouldn't it be a miracle if he weren't ? 
 Ah, it would 1 That is the way I feel about 
 it. You need not agree with me if you pre- 
 fer to think otherwise. Since you don't know 
 John, I shall not expect you to say, unless 
 you have met a similar John and have been 
 comparing experiences. 
 
 In justice to the man, I must tell you that 
 John's father isn't as bad as he used to be. I 
 have it on good authority that he came home 
 drunk one night a few years ago, and pro- 
 ceeded to carry out his usual program on 
 such occasions. Only this time the furniture 
 suffered less than did one of the daughters. 
 They took her to the hospital, and before she 
 died, she sent for the lady whose loving 
 Christian life had reached her over in the 
 gymnasium at the Institutional Church. Then 
 she died, wishing she had been as good a 
 Christian as her gymnasium teacher. To 
 this day I have heard John ask : " You have 
 heard about my sister, what died, haven't 
 you ? " Yes, John, I have.
 
 TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS 73 
 
 God Almighty pity the souls who do not 
 offend, yet are sufferers. I want some time 
 to stand on the brink of hell and see enough 
 destruction of the liquor traffic to assure me 
 that it has come unto its own. God knows 
 I have seen enough of the product of the 
 business to make me know where it belongs. 
 Hell is too good for it that is my only re- 
 gret. 
 
 John's presence here to-day is not of 
 doubtful significance. That is the way you 
 would feel about it if he were your John or 
 Clarence. Your boy, sir ! I shall call John 
 mine, and talk for him. My heart will not 
 consent to have John hang around one of the 
 one hundred and fifty saloons within half a 
 mile of us. Nor will I be willing for him to 
 loiter about the streets down here in this 
 place at nine o'clock at night. It is bad 
 enough at three in the afternoon. There are 
 plenty of loiterers both around the saloons 
 and on the streets at night. And boy 
 loiterers at that. There isn't enough in 
 John's home to entice him to stay there a 
 great while after he has eaten his rye bread
 
 74 TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS 
 
 and drunk his coffee. The fact that he 
 comes our way is significant. When I know 
 that John's foot rests on our door-step and 
 I hear him coming up two flights of stairs, 
 I become conscious that an opportunity is 
 turned in our direction ; and when John 
 comes in and sits on the arm of my chair and 
 is happy, I conclude that we are in the pres- 
 ence of a responsibility. Furthermore, when 
 John is about, it is our honour. 
 
 Be generous, brother, and give me your 
 boy for ten minutes. Let me dispose of John 
 and put your dear lad in his place. Re- 
 member what sort of a home he has now, 
 after taking John's place and suppose he has 
 never known any other kind. One day he 
 hears about something for boys over at the 
 Institutional Church. He has passed the big, 
 dirty building every day, as far back as he 
 can remember, but he has never been in. 
 This time he enters the club-room. They 
 are having stereopticon pictures and a fellow 
 is talking to the crowd of two hundred boys. 
 He has told about some young man who had 
 grit enough to do what was right even when
 
 TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS 75 
 
 he knew he would be fed to the lions for 
 doing it. Your boy listens to this and then 
 hears the other fellows sing something about 
 loving to tell the story, while beautiful pic- 
 tures of the kindest face he ever saw look 
 down at him from the screen. He hears an 
 announcement about the gymnasium and 
 baths, and true to the resolution he makes, 
 the next evening he is in the gymnasium 
 and having a "bully" time. When the 
 class is through with the gymnasium he 
 follows the fellows down-stairs to the baths 
 and looks on doubtfully for a minute, for 
 they don't have baths over his way. A wash- 
 tub would be nearer like it. Sometimes it 
 isn't even that. But the boy isn't prejudiced 
 and he takes a shower. 
 
 If this experience of the boy were an ab- 
 stract matter with me, I should guess that 
 he would return for another bath. The fact 
 is just that every time, and he comes back 
 often. And if the man who greets the boy 
 in the meetings and down in the rain-baths 
 smiles a bit and is kind, he had better keep 
 his ears open, for one of these days he
 
 76 TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS 
 
 will hear a boy coming up two flights of 
 stairs. 
 
 Is it significant? Yes, yes it is. There 
 is a way to the heart of a boy, and some 
 people are concluding that the boy is worth 
 all of the equipment needed to provide an 
 avenue of approach. And still more are 
 concluding that they are in big business when 
 they are good-natured, big, brotherly and 
 chummy with a boy. 
 
 Now I cannot say how soon the gym- 
 nasium, baths and boys' club can make a 
 Christian gentleman out of your boy the 
 boy, mind you, who has found in these things 
 the fellowship and good cheer that have 
 never before come into his life but I'll 
 venture that you are not a whit concerned 
 about that. You are happy all over that the 
 church down there in that congested district 
 was big and liberal enough to attract your 
 boy. And if your boy's future lay between 
 the saloon or the street and the social life of 
 the Institutional Church, you would say 
 that your boy's presence at the top of two 
 flights of stairs was significant.
 
 The Transition to Manhood 
 
 If you are going to do anything permanent for the average 
 man you have got to begin before he is a man. The chance of 
 success lies in working with the boy and not with the man. 
 Roosevelt.
 
 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 
 
 AS soon as an American boy realizes 
 that he is not so large as the other 
 fellow, he begins to stand in front of 
 the mark on the wall and watch himself grow. 
 Long before he has persuaded his mother 
 that the pleated kilt should be worn only by 
 " sissy," he rebels at the thought of being a 
 baby, and with his first pair of double- 
 pocketed " knee-pants " he develops into a 
 boy. Here he remains until the thought of a 
 mustache begins to grow upon his upper lip, 
 when he becomes more than a boy, but not 
 quite a man. 
 
 These changes keep a boy's ambition 
 alive, and every silent hour is burdened with 
 the thought of what he is not and he longs to 
 be a man. What inspiring dreams ! If in 
 later years his castles do not cover the earth, 
 the failure may be due to an exhaustion of 
 his resources in building the structures in the 
 79
 
 80 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 
 
 air. But even so. This foretaste of great- 
 ness does not hamper a boy's life with a 
 trailing-stone to retard his progress. It is 
 ambition his priceless inheritance which 
 will cheer him on to the reward earned only 
 by those who strive for greatness. 
 
 The fire of youth should not smoulder. 
 Let it blaze. It will burn out the excess of 
 flimsy dreams and temper the life for the 
 making of a useful and solid destiny. The 
 youngster must spend part of his time mak- 
 ing dreams, but see to it that he isn't a 
 dreamer. Thinking about being a man will 
 help him to become one, provided he is kept 
 supplied with the stuff from which men are 
 made. * 
 
 Out in the back yard you see the little 
 hopeful who, three minutes ago, slammed the 
 door and jarred every nerve in your body be- 
 cause you drew the line when he thought his 
 Indian equipment required the Navajo 
 blanket that delights your eye whenever you 
 look at that wall-seat over in the corner. 
 Now he has started to whistle and is rigging 
 up his Indian teepee, which cost you all the
 
 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 8l 
 
 gunny sacks on the place and a right good 
 strip of carpet you had planned, that very 
 day, to use on the back stairs. Or maybe 
 you don't see the boy in the back yard. He 
 may have fallen into the dumps when you 
 gave him a piece of your mind, and is now 
 on his way to Pat Flinnigan's. Nobody ever 
 had such unmolested satisfaction in doing 
 what he pleased as does Pat 1 
 
 You sit down to study it over and con- 
 clude that your boy is beyond any puzzling 
 creature you ever heard about. You are 
 quite right. He is a proposition. But he is 
 not unlike some other fellows who have built 
 wigwams, or run away with the dumps, and 
 then grown big and paid taxes for a back 
 yard to accommodate an Indian camp. The 
 whole trouble is in this : we are afflicted with 
 hypermetropia, or far-sightedness. And we 
 need to spend a quiet hour off somewhere 
 in company with ourselves. The silence may 
 suggest the source of a surprising number of 
 unpleasant characteristics. 
 
 It would surely be very embarrassing to 
 wait for a child to remind us, as did a little
 
 82 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 
 
 fellow the other day. He and his sister 
 Helen had been playing together in the back 
 yard, while the mother was in the parlour 
 entertaining a number of her lady friends. 
 In the course of the hour a difficulty arose 
 in the back yard. Harry was declaring that 
 he positively knew he was right, and anyway 
 he would not give in to a girl. He was of 
 that unchivalrous age, preceding the delight- 
 ful years that too often emerge into a post- 
 chivalrous period, after the preacher is paid 
 and the lovers discover that they are two 
 souls with not a mutual thought. 
 
 Helen began to cry and started for the 
 back door to seek the consoling lap of the 
 mother. Harry followed a close second. 
 The chatting in the parlour gave way to a 
 consideration of the children's disagreement, 
 and the mother turned to Harry. 
 
 "My boy," she began, "why do you and 
 Helen always disagree and so often have 
 spats when you are together ? " 
 
 Could you imagine a harder question for 
 an obstreperous youngster? 
 
 Harry had observed domestic government,
 
 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 83 
 
 and he was thoughtful. The silence became 
 embarrassing, but he found the answer. 
 
 " Well, mamma," he replied, " I don't 
 know, unless it's 'cause I take after you and 
 Helen takes after papa." 
 
 That was an awful shock for a boy to give 
 his mother, and the mortification continued 
 until after supper when she and her well- 
 meaning husband talked it over. It cured 
 them of their affliction. Thereafter, in look- 
 ing for the source of their children's char- 
 acteristics, they did not lose time with the 
 old far-sighted vision. 
 
 Let us also become acquainted with our- 
 selves, and be patient with the boy. He is 
 in the transition. To-morrow you will have 
 a man. 
 
 There is nothing unusual in this. Ma- 
 turity comes sooner than we expect it. The 
 lad goes away for a month's vacation and 
 comes home a man. We need not be con- 
 cerned at meeting the boy matured. And 
 when we meet him, likely as not, he will im- 
 press us with the foolishness of proffering 
 advice to a man. Naturally we are con-
 
 84 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 
 
 cerned about the man, but frequently our 
 concern does but little good, and it is foolish 
 if the growth of a mustache is required to 
 stimulate our anxiety. Certainly we ought 
 to be supremely interested in the character 
 of the man. But if our interest shall be in- 
 telligent, we will first believe in the autocracy 
 of childhood. 
 
 Whatever of virtue and power the future 
 man shall proffer the nation is latent to-day 
 in the youth. Beginnings are generally 
 autocratic. What is put into the start of 
 life is put into all of life. A perverted use of 
 any of the energies of adolescence bespeaks 
 a weakened maturity, if not a tarnished 
 career and a poor heritage to the future. An 
 individual's childhood forms the character of 
 his maturity, and the same development will 
 be the primary potential in making the char- 
 acter of his posterity. Thus a child will live 
 again, heredity securing physical immortality 
 for the individual as well as for the race. I 
 am compelled to believe in the autocracy of 
 childhood and whether I welcome the bur- 
 den, or seek to ignore it, I am conscious that
 
 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 85 
 
 this fact places upon me a responsibility of 
 supreme importance. For the child is not 
 the architect of his own fate. He is the sylla- 
 bus of the past, plus what I give to his life. 
 
 After childhood comes adolescence. It is 
 the threshold of life. It is the transition 
 period and the time when boys become men. 
 Furthermore, what it develops or reveals 
 may give you your first good reason to con- 
 gratulate yourself for the good work you 
 have done. Or you may have cause to feel 
 otherwise. Up to this time you have been 
 final authority and have enjoyed the honour. 
 But not now. Something has happened, and 
 you spend your time speculating on an un- 
 certain quantity. 
 
 When the boy approaches his fourteenth 
 or fifteenth year, a revolution arises in his 
 mind and body. A latent element of his na- 
 ture bursts into activity, fills him with strange 
 impulses and places him in a new world. 
 Girls whom he has heretofore recognized as 
 mere playmates suddenly become to him the 
 most beautiful creatures on earth. An inter- 
 nal war arises and all the contending forces
 
 86 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 
 
 of his nature meet in closer conflict than ever 
 before. His entire body pulsates with new 
 life. School work goes slow and, take him 
 altogether, he feels like anything but him- 
 self. What a mighty change ! He passes 
 the borderland into the mysterious country of 
 youth, and is a man ! 
 
 It is doubtless impossible for any environ- 
 ment to make a boy's soul invulnerable to evil. 
 There are, however, no factors in social en- 
 vironment and education which can so surely 
 safeguard and immunize the boy from the 
 misuse of physical functions, as will adequate 
 physical education imparted by a tactful 
 parent or friend who has his love and confi- 
 dence. No subject of education sustains a 
 more vital relation to the^life most of us live, 
 than the laws governing the physical organ- 
 ism, yet no part of a child's or youth's educa- 
 tion receives so little attention as this. The 
 causes are varied. A portion of society 
 stands condemned in the presence of the 
 theme. The ultra-fastidious tastes and false 
 modesty of many cause them to blush and 
 flee in horror at the suggestion of any of the
 
 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 87 
 
 mysteries of physical life ; many more parents, 
 dominated by excessive modesty in educating 
 the children, answer their honest questions 
 with silence or a lie, leaving the youngsters to 
 absorb the talk of more enlightened compan- 
 ions by whom their questions are answered. 
 This course of society is wrong. It is natural 
 that boys and girls should be interested in 
 themselves, and especially in the chief func- 
 tions of their physical life. 
 
 There is no greater honour than to be the 
 recipient of the confidence of a child. If you 
 are so graciously favoured, it will be well for 
 you to remember that adolescent impulses, if 
 not restrained by the loving sympathy and 
 careful guidance of a friend, may run riot with 
 the life and project the soul into an eternity 
 of remorse. 
 
 Do not taboo physical education, for a boy 
 can't fight until he sees the enemy. That is 
 the way I began my argument the other day, 
 in the presence of a good mother who would 
 sacrifice all, rather than have her boy know 
 about some of the common moral dangers 
 that tempt boys and girls when they step out-
 
 88 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 
 
 side of the home. And she was more liter- 
 ally sacrificing all than she knew, for the boy 
 whom she was so zealously protecting, had, 
 that very hour confessed that the purity of his 
 thought and life was already sacrificed 
 through the ignorance imposed by the 
 mother's educational plan. 
 
 Her mistake was the common product of 
 the old prudery, and the same spirit that, a 
 generation ago, compelled the good Doctor 
 Todd to write in Latin certain paragraphs in 
 his " Student's Manual," exhorting the youth 
 to preserve the virile power of manhood. 
 
 Our boys and girls are not factors in an 
 inert world. They may for a time withstand 
 the alluring life of their fellows, but, believe 
 me, in America with either the seclusion which 
 opulence may afford, or the poverty which 
 necessitates early labour, your boy and girl 
 will meet the world. Be sure about that. 
 And the question you will have to settle is not 
 whether your child shall know of the world's 
 moral dangers, but instead, shall he be pre- 
 pared for the pressure when the weight of 
 social life is thrown against him? It is,
 
 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 89 
 
 furthermore, worth remembering that in the 
 realm of morals there is an important relation 
 between certain unrestrained, spontaneous 
 thoughts and acts of childhood, and trans- 
 gression in later years which society 
 promptly condemns as an unpardonable 
 violation of moral law. 
 
 Frequently the hardest thing to learn, but 
 what should, nevertheless, be the first thing 
 learned, is not to expect too much of a boy. 
 Children are very much like their ancestors. 
 Animals are governed by impulses. And 
 since we classify certain manifestations of 
 normal impulses as impure conduct and vio- 
 lation of physical law, we must admit that in 
 the presence of the prudish educational plan, 
 harmful thoughts and acts may be encour- 
 aged in the child's life. Children's actions 
 are always more certain when they are in the 
 open. When an eye is on them they are 
 subject to proper guidance ; but varying 
 quantities of trouble may be caused when 
 the spontaneous impulses are manifested back 
 of us. The fact suggests the question as to 
 the relative importance of ignoring the pres-
 
 90 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 
 
 ence of sin, or keeping the devil in plain 
 view. 
 
 My opinion is that we should keep an eye 
 on him. Recently a little repentant culprit 
 friend of mine agreed with me. We were 
 discussing the matter together, and our talk 
 was touching somewhat on the non-resistance 
 theory. We had started to discuss " get 
 thee behind me, Satan!" when Fuzzy my 
 untamed friend shook his head. 
 
 "Then, old man," I replied, "you don't 
 agree with that." 
 
 " No, sir," answered the street urchin, " I 
 ain't goin' to tell the devil to get back of me 
 any more, 'cause onct I did that and he 
 pushed me into more trouble. Dat don't 
 work. Eny guy what t'inks der ain't no 
 chance for him to git into eny more trouble 
 'cause de road's clear and de cop's off his 
 beat, is off in his head. Just then he'll go 
 dreamin' into somethin' what'll be de worst 
 trouble he ever runned up against." 
 
 I am compelled to believe Fuzzy. Whether 
 it be for good or evil, I am sure that the 
 fellows I know who keep their thoughts clean
 
 THE TRANSITION TO MANHOOD 91 
 
 and their lives straight are, without exception, 
 well up on the lay of the devil's territory. 
 Ignorance with them is a chief ally of sin. 
 
 Theorizing about morality is not the way 
 to protect a child's soul. His virtue and 
 strength will be preserved only by a fight, 
 and the child needs to be well able to identify 
 the enemy.
 
 A Study of the Individual Boy 
 
 There are no two children alike. The laws of heredity are 
 so complex as to differentiate every life from every other life. 
 Because of these inherent differences the management and edu- 
 cation of each child should be adapted to its specific require- 
 ments. What is right and best for one may have no application 
 to another, and may be positively harmful to a third. Riddell.
 
 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 
 
 AVAST amount of energy is expended 
 to no good purpose in efforts for 
 boys. Social workers are too am- 
 bitious. They frequently encourage the in- 
 flation of their zeal and impose a handicap 
 upon their work from the start by seeking to 
 adopt a plan which will be broad enough to 
 bring under their influence all the boys of 
 a community. From a purely spectacular 
 standpoint such a policy is, doubtless, a suc- 
 cess, provided, of cburse, the worker is an 
 individual of unusual personality. But usu- 
 ally such mass efforts are futile, or, at their 
 best, of questionable value. 
 
 As with all forms of work for the develop- 
 ment of soul-stuff, the boy is peculiarly an 
 individual quantity, who must be studied and 
 dealt with personally and not en masse. 
 What we try to do in working with the 
 crowd is, as some one has suggested, not un- 
 95
 
 9 6 
 
 like placing a hundred cups together on the 
 ground and expecting to fill them by throw- 
 ing a bucketful of water into the air above 
 them. Some of the water may fall in the 
 cups, but the greater quantity will be lost. 
 While if the cups were taken separately, the 
 volume of water would be sufficient to fill 
 them all. 
 
 This common fault, from which we suffer, 
 is but another evidence of the American de- 
 sire to do something big. It is a serious 
 error. The winning worker with boys is not 
 concerned about quantity. Quality must be 
 his paramount aim. And if he shall win one 
 boy and be the source of uprightness and 
 strength of character in him, he will have 
 done what many well-meaning, earnest work- 
 ers have failed to do in their eagerness to 
 win the crowd. 
 
 The individual boy is the problem. He 
 must be your incentive and the object of 
 your work. If you can strike an affinity 
 with him, then your next and final con- 
 cern shall be to know him. Perhaps you 
 will fail here, for a knowledge of the boy
 
 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 97 
 
 embraces an understanding of his inherent 
 strength and weaknesses > and the thousand 
 factors which constitute his heritage from the 
 past ; it will necessitate an intelligent ap- 
 preciation of his faculties, sentiments, emo- 
 tions, passions and their intricate correlation. 
 By the time you have a fairly good view of 
 the psychology of the youngster, you will 
 agree with me that one normal or one atyp- 
 ical youngster can present a composite con- 
 stitution, sufficiently complex to keep you 
 busy for a while. 
 
 It is not my purpose to enter into a care- 
 ful study of the boy's physical and mental 
 constitution. I do desire, however, to sug- 
 gest the value of making careful observation 
 of the individual boy and the social and other 
 factors which influence his constitution and 
 conduct. 
 
 An early deduction in the study of an 
 ordinary case should be, that the boy is not 
 a miniature man. He is only an embryonic 
 man. His physical organization and mental 
 faculties are, in many essentials, purely rudi- 
 mentary. The mental phenomena which he
 
 98 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 
 
 presents are characteristically evolutionary in 
 their character. His body undergoes pro- 
 gressive and radical changes. Functional 
 power is in some particulars intensified ; in 
 other organs it is diminished. His nervous 
 system is especially unstable. Boyhood is a 
 period of rudimentary development. A nor- 
 mal young chap ought not to present too 
 much power, except it be the exuberance of 
 animal life. Physically, he is normally viva- 
 cious. If he is not, something is wrong. It 
 is not wise to dote on precocity ; generally it 
 is a prophecy of early senility. 
 
 The physical growth of the boy oftentimes 
 bears a very direct relation to his conduct. 
 Perhaps some of us are more familiar with 
 the relation as we have observed it between 
 an adult and his refractory liver. But ordi- 
 narily, boys don't know they have livers. 
 They are, nevertheless, subject to the vary- 
 ing states of their physical functions, and 
 conduct is frequently directly traceable to the 
 body-mood. For example, a lad has entered 
 the pubescent period. He is drowsy and 
 torpid. His mental alacrity has been influ-
 
 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 99 
 
 enced by the lethargy of his body. Nothing 
 is doing. He is idling around the streets 
 before school hours with fellows, and is sleepy 
 and indolent. His school record has been 
 good. Now a culprit associate suggests that 
 they play hookey, and he is willing. For the 
 time, his body-mood is sufficient to over- 
 come the home control, and he plays hookey. 
 While in this stolid, susceptible mood he may 
 commit other violations of his regular con- 
 duct. Maybe it is the beginning of a bad 
 career. 
 
 Boys frequently present transient, apathetic 
 moods which may easily be traced to errors 
 in their diet, hours of sleep, or wrong habits. 
 It is a commonplace observation, made by 
 all students of child-life, that there is a dis- 
 tinct relationship existing between the phys- 
 ical condition of a boy and his conduct and 
 intellectual capacity. Nearly every com- 
 munity presents one or more troublesome 
 lads who are, to a careful and competent ob- 
 server, clearly defective. In the community 
 they are not understood, but little pitied, and 
 the object of general censure for much that
 
 100 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 
 
 they do, and many things they are not re- 
 sponsible for. The trouble with many of 
 these atypical boys is some functional defect. 
 In the more marked cases there may be some 
 structural defect back of the symptom-com- 
 plex. Usually, however, in the cases that 
 suggest some physical influence back of the 
 objectionable conduct, the trouble will be 
 found to be only functional. A nutritional 
 defect, with consequent anaemia, fatigue, or 
 toxaemia, may be observed. Circulatory dis- 
 turbance and remarkably complex nervous 
 phenomena may result from the rapid ado- 
 lescent growth and the resultant unstable 
 nervous system. The friendly cooperation 
 of a sympathetic physician can be of much 
 assistance with these cases. 
 
 Conduct in boy-life is largely dependent 
 upon association and other external in- 
 fluences. But inheritance exerts a greater 
 force in a vast number of individuals than is 
 commonly recognized. Whatever the source, 
 we know that character is an integral part 
 of the boy, and conduct is generally a spon- 
 taneous expression of a mental state. In-
 
 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY IOI 
 
 herent factors may be manifested at intervals 
 and suggest an evolutionary unfoldment of 
 transmitted characteristics. Unusual talent 
 may be dormant until forced into expression 
 by some external influence. The nobler 
 qualities of a boy's soul may be hid and kept 
 unknown, both to himself and you, by an 
 unfortunate home and social environment. 
 
 No more important duty will devolve upon 
 the worker in the study of the individual 
 boy, than a careful consideration of his home 
 and allied influences. The thoughtless in- 
 difference of workers, in this particular, is 
 frequently apparent. The author remembers 
 vividly, and with some feeling, a little inci- 
 dent which occurred in his Sunday-school 
 class, one day when a lad of fourteen. The 
 wife of the minister was substituting for the 
 regular teacher, and during the discussion 
 of the lesson, which dealt with Ananias, she 
 asked him what was meant by the statement 
 " he fell down and gave up the ghost." He 
 had never before heard of such a thing as 
 " giving up the ghost " and replied that he 
 didn't know. She regarded his ignorance as
 
 102 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 
 
 quite inexcusable, and remarked that " even 
 her little eight-year-old daughter knew what 
 it meant 1 " Perhaps he too would have 
 been better informed if he had been reared 
 in a parsonage. But he wasn't. He knew 
 some other things, however, which the good 
 preacher's wife might not have been " up " 
 on. 
 
 What we know depends a great deal upon 
 the atmosphere of the home we are reared 
 in. This little incident was quite a trifling 
 and altogether unintentional offense, but it 
 made such an impression on the sensitive 
 boy heart, that the scar remains to this day. 
 Is it not remarkable how intensely suscep- 
 tible the child-mind is upon certain oc- 
 casions ? There are few adults who cannot 
 recall some impression made upon their 
 minds in childhood, and retained throughout 
 life. How carefully the worker should watch 
 his influence when with the child! And 
 what a demand for careful discrimination ! 
 
 The extent of a worker's interest in a boy 
 should depend, to a considerable degree, 
 upon the home the youngster comes from.
 
 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 103 
 
 Some homes are not altogether adequate 
 for the moral and physical protection of their 
 boys. We ought to remember this. Some- 
 times we don't. Boys from homes exercising 
 their full function do not need the attention 
 of solicitous workers. Many boys are so well 
 born and reared that they do not need to be 
 born again. Religious workers do well in 
 hunting for more needy cases. There are 
 enough inadequate homes to furnish abun- 
 dance of material, and efforts should be cen- 
 tered on those. 
 
 The inadequate home presents three 
 classes of boys : 
 
 First, the normal boy with insufficient 
 adult companionship ; 
 
 Second, the abnormal " bad boy " ; 
 
 Third, the unfortunate " bad boy." 
 
 Our interest is usually abundant and 
 spontaneous in the presence of the normal, 
 bright boy, whose home may be incomplete 
 because of the absence of one of his parents, 
 or what is worse and frequently the case, is 
 not adequate because, for one reason or 
 another, the parents do not offer the loving,
 
 104 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 
 
 tender companionship which the boy should 
 enjoy. Boys so situated, who are picked 
 out by a worker and made the object of 
 generous friendship should not be considered 
 " pet cases." They are needy boys and just 
 as deserving of careful interest as the so- 
 called " bad boys." 
 
 Some troublesome, offensive fellows may 
 properly be classed as abnormal. They are 
 morphologically unnatural. Their "bad- 
 ness " may be traced to an abnormal phys- 
 ical or mental state. It may be a congen- 
 ital or an acquired condition. Generally the 
 trouble is congenital. Perhaps it is what 
 some have called original sin. These are 
 the cases that try workers' souls and some- 
 times lead to the conclusion that another 
 generation or two, under favourable environ- 
 ment, will be required to correct the defects. 
 They demand careful, untiring effort, and 
 should always be considered charitably. 
 None but a skillful worker will be of service 
 to an abnormal " bad boy." He may need 
 the services of a physician and, occasion- 
 ally, a surgeon would be able to restore
 
 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 105 
 
 the boy to a normal physical and mental 
 equilibrium, by correcting some slight phys- 
 ical lesion. 
 
 The last, and very numerous class of boys 
 is made up of the unfortunate, troublesome 
 fellows. We are a part of these boys' 
 troubles. They have been true to the in- 
 fluences that have touched their lives. They 
 are the product of insufficient home influence 
 and immoral association. Society has turned 
 out a bad product. They do not deserve 
 criticism. We deserve it. Our first duty is 
 to find the source of their trouble and then 
 we must correct it. These cases cannot be 
 handled in the aggregate. That has been 
 said before. It should be said twice in refer- 
 ence to these boys. 
 
 The results which may be secured with 
 any of these classes of boys will depend 
 upon the loving, companionable attitude, 
 and the character of the congenial worker, 
 together with the discrimination he makes in 
 the detail of his effort, following an intelli- 
 gent analysis of the individual case. 
 
 It will frequently be of assistance in the
 
 106 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 
 
 study of an individual boy, to follow some 
 such systematic outline as the following : 
 
 1. Name. Nickname : this may give a 
 clew to the character ; boys are remarkably 
 proficient at concentrating character into a 
 title. 
 
 2. Address. Note characteristics of the 
 neighbourhood. What kind of a house? 
 Is it healthful ? Sanitation ? Is there a 
 home atmosphere ? 
 
 3. Family history. Nationality. If for- 
 eign, note any inharmony apparent between 
 boy, with his rapid absorption of Amer- 
 icanism, and the parents, with their foreign 
 manners and habits. Is there a congenial 
 feeling in the home? Study the father. 
 Does he use intoxicating liquor? What is 
 his occupation ? How much does he earn ? 
 What is the father's disposition towards boy? 
 What is boy's disposition towards father? 
 Study the mother. Is she temperate ? Note 
 relation between boy and mother. How do 
 parents seek to discipline boy? By force? 
 Absence of discipline ? Any brothers or sis- 
 ters ? Note their characteristics. 
 
 4. Personal history. (a) Physical con- 
 dition. Age. Quality of organization : skin 
 and hair, fine and soft, suggesting good 
 quality, or hard, dense and of a low grade ? 
 Study his face and compare your early im- 
 pressions with later observations. Is he
 
 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 107 
 
 large or small for his age ? Well nourished ? 
 Sluggish or alert ? Habits ? 
 
 (&) Mental condition. Is he affectionate? 
 Secretive? Honest? Imaginative? Boast- 
 ful ? Ambitious ? Stubborn ? Combative ? 
 Industrious ? Lazy ? Kind to animals ? 
 Benevolent ? Generous ? Timid ? Cau- 
 tious ? Self-confident ? Studious ? Inter- 
 ested in mechanical work? School record? 
 Grade? Record of attendance? Deport- 
 ment ? Best work ? Poorest work ? Record 
 at work ? Does he hold his positions ? If 
 not, why? Opinion of employer? Social 
 record ? Who are his companions ? Get ac- 
 quainted with them. Where do they spend 
 their time ? What do they do ? 
 
 Such a study as suggested in this outline, 
 if made with an absolute avoidance of the 
 spirit of an investigator, will be of inestimable 
 value in enabling you to understand a boy. 
 But be sure that you are not an investigator. 
 You are a friend. Give no one the slightest 
 cause to suspect that you are curious, or try- 
 ing to pry into private affairs. People are 
 suspicious, yet how dearly they love a tried 
 friend and with what appreciation ! You are 
 to be a friend. Learn all you can without 
 asking questions.
 
 108 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 
 
 The student can frequently facilitate his 
 study of a given case by keeping memoranda 
 of his observations. Such a record would 
 frequently be of value to the worker if care- 
 fully used with each member of a class or 
 club. 
 
 The following concrete example of an 
 ordinary case, selected from the author's 
 files, may be suggestive : 
 
 Name. G. W. Nickname, " Skeeter." 
 (He was suggestive to the gang of a mos- 
 quito, because he was slim, always flitting 
 around and exceedingly restless. Your de- 
 duction : nervous temperament ; choleric ; 
 not well nourished.) 
 
 Address. 2438 Gersplace. Three-room 
 house for family of six. Near city dump. 
 Bad air. Dirty. No home attractions. 
 
 Family history. Irish. Father occasionally 
 intoxicated. Labourer, $1.50 a day. No 
 companionship between boy and father. 
 Mother temperate. Takes in washing. Says 
 she "don't know what ails the kid. She 
 can't do nothing with him." During a call 
 she commanded him to wash his face, he re- 
 fused, ran for the door as she threw a stick of 
 wood at him. 
 
 Personal history. Age thirteen. Nervous 
 temperament. Growing rapidly. Slen-
 
 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY JOQ 
 
 der and very nervous. Anaemic. Good face. 
 Always meets me with a smile. Bright, but 
 shiftless. Stubborn. Has a dog and six rab- 
 bits. Asked me if I knew where he " could 
 trade for a pair of white rats ? " School 
 record : Fifth grade. Played hookey regu- 
 larly last year. Teacher stated only time she 
 could depend upon him was when she sent 
 him to the country to secure material for 
 nature study work. Social record : Member 
 " Gersplacer's Gang " (named after street). 
 Entire gang arrested once for stoning a 
 peddler. 
 
 Treatment. Should have the fellowship and 
 careful attention of a friend who can strike 
 an affinity with him. Would recommend 
 that parents permit him to secure work in 
 the country, where he could have care of 
 stock. 
 
 Prognosis. Good. 
 
 There is an element of danger in making 
 a formal study of a child to whom we sus- 
 tain nothing more than a friendly relation. 
 We should at all times remember that we are 
 trying to reach the heart, and all that we do 
 should be apparently informal. Service 
 should never be mechanical. There is no 
 danger of it ever being such with the win- 
 ning worker. But the worker who wins the
 
 110 A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOY 
 
 boy and secures results will know the boy. 
 Such an analysis of a lad and his past and 
 present environment ought, naturally, to lead 
 to individual service for the individual boy. 
 This is the essential point, and the physical, 
 mental and social study of the boy should be 
 encouraged only so far as it enables the 
 worker to know the material he is working 
 with, and the ways and means that will best 
 enable him to secure the coveted results.
 
 Fresh Air Work With Boys 
 
 The greatest help after all is to take the children back to the 
 garden that the Lord God planted. A boy must learn to sleep 
 under the open sky and to trarnp ten miles through the rain 
 if he wants to be strong. He must learn what sort of men it 
 was who made America, and he must not get into this fuss and 
 flurry of our American civilization and think that patent leather 
 shoes and white kid gloves are necessary for the salvation of 
 his life Hale.
 
 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 
 
 THERE is no incompatibility between 
 boys and fresh air. The open coun- 
 try harmonizes with their souls. 
 Most of the trouble experienced in efforts to 
 control the wild, noisy youngsters, is caused 
 by forcing the lads away from the unre- 
 strained life in the open. Boys are animals. 
 As sure as they live, that is true. There is 
 the nomadic tramp instinct in every fellow. 
 An undomesticated boy can shoulder a 
 blanket, and with a can of sardines and some 
 rolls, turn his back on civilization with as 
 much good grace and enthusiasm as can an 
 Indian. He is not to blame for this. God 
 has tuned his soul into harmony with the 
 swimming hole, the mountains and the 
 green fields. 
 
 A few years ago when Huckleberry Finn 
 and I struck out across lots with the music 
 "3
 
 114 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 
 
 of the " last bell " jingling at our rear in a 
 frantic attempt to coax us into the school- 
 room, I remember the harmony. And to 
 the best of my recollection there was never 
 a note of discord until we reluctantly fol- 
 lowed the teacher into the principal's office. 
 If I had known that God was on my side 
 then, it would have been a satisfaction. But 
 I didn't know it. Yes, I am quite sure that 
 big folks are sometimes responsible for the 
 discord, and now that I have grown some, I 
 am willing to share the responsibility. We 
 are sorry for ourselves and wish we were not 
 so artificial and refined. Even a sedate, pro- 
 fessional gentleman of fourscore years con- 
 fessed in my ear the other day, that if he 
 were sure no one was looking and his joints 
 would permit, he would be tempted to hie 
 himself off to some quiet nook, and turn a 
 somersault ! What God puts in the blood is 
 eliminated slowly, and we are all impreg- 
 nated with a love for the natural life. 
 
 The other morning as the interurban car 
 sped through the valley on its way to the 
 city, I caught a glimpse of a freckled, brown-
 
 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 11$ 
 
 faced lad trudging along a lake bank with a 
 fishing-pole over his shoulder, a can of bait 
 dangling at his side, and his legs bared six 
 inches above his knees. Going a fishing? 
 Sure ! God bless his little, uncivilized heart, 
 and give good luck to his bait 1 And God 
 bless every little, uncivilized lad, trudging 
 along across lots ! Maybe school is not out. 
 No matter. If spring has come, and the 
 sand lilies are tumbling under their feet, that 
 is enough. If some lucky chap has discov- 
 ered that the fish are biting, could anybody 
 blame the boy for temporarily forgetting 
 school and what not? in the presence of 
 such inducements ? 
 
 One day when the wind was still frosty 
 from the snow-capped mountains, a thirteen- 
 year-old boy who sells me papers down at 
 the corner, ran a quarter of a block to meet 
 me and presented a blistered arm bared to 
 the elbow. 
 
 "Say, doctor," he began, "do you tink 
 you can fix that so me mother won't make 
 me quit goin' swimmin' no more ? " 
 
 Fortunately, I could and I did, and yester-
 
 116 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 
 
 day as I went to my car he sidled up to me 
 on the curbing and with a mysterious twinkle 
 that only he and I could understand, he said : 
 " To-morrow I'm goin' ter blister it again ! " 
 Dear hearted lad, thought I, go on with your 
 blistering and I'll do my part towards keep- 
 ing mother willing. 
 
 I wouldn't care to vouch for this boy's de- 
 portment in school or when the kitchen coal- 
 box is empty at home. But give me thirty 
 days with him in the open and I will guar- 
 antee his record. 
 
 The out-of-doors offers the most satisfac- 
 tory environment for work with boys. So 
 often our faithful and energetic efforts are di- 
 rected only to the unnatural boy as we meet 
 him in our formal town and church associa- 
 tions. We cannot reach the boy himself. 
 The Sunday-school hour gives us not the 
 boy, but anxiety. We ask him to pass the 
 books at the junior meeting, and he obliges 
 us. Perhaps we do not accomplish more 
 than this. It is not the worker's fault. The 
 worker is not in touch with the boy. He is 
 struggling against the unnatural, artificial
 
 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 1 17 
 
 nature. The lads are encrusted with civi- 
 lization. 
 
 Sometimes this artificial condition may be- 
 come so much a part of child-life, that 
 the country or mountains are strange and 
 uninviting. How could it be otherwise 
 with some of the little folk who have been 
 reared in the miserably dirty and congested 
 sections of our cities? A child, suddenly 
 transplanted from such conditions, to rural 
 life, could not but feel out of place, and 
 would, quite naturally, express a desire to 
 get back to his element. 
 
 Recently I observed this disposition in an 
 anaemic, soulful-eyed, Italian boy, whom I 
 have known for some years. The death of 
 his father, a while ago, left him an orphan, 
 and we suggested that arrangements could 
 be made for him to go to the mountains for 
 the summer. But Dominic was not en- 
 thusiastic. 
 
 " Onct I went to the mountains," he re- 
 plied, " and I geta homesick, and I think I 
 nota go up there no more." Poor little soul I 
 He is the best Jumbletown can produce.
 
 Il8 FRESH AIR \VORK WITH BOYS 
 
 What Dominic needs is to be educated to 
 the country. His nerves have become so ad- 
 justed to the confusion and pressure of the 
 Italian quarter, that he feels abnormal, when 
 placed in a normal environment. I love the 
 lad and you will forgive me for hating the 
 conditions which have alienated him from 
 Nature's heart. 
 
 Boys for the most part, are like my friend 
 Eickey, a diminutive little chap, who heard 
 we were going to take a crowd to the moun- 
 tains. He pushed his way into the crowded 
 office, and the first evidence I had of his 
 presence, was the side-glance I caught of a 
 bunch of healthy, red hair, up in the air 
 above the several dozen little people crowded 
 about my desk. I looked up and Eickey 
 smiled. 
 
 " Say, are you givin' out tickets for the 
 mountains ? Kin I get one ? " 
 
 In an instant sixteen kids told him we 
 were, and that if he didn't quit shoving, they 
 would " knock his block off ! " 
 
 Now Eickey was blessed with the good in- 
 stincts of a gentleman, and he quietly slid
 
 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 1 19 
 
 down into the chair and waited his turn. 
 The bunch of happy youngsters passed from 
 the room, one by one, and stood around the 
 hall in chattering groups, awaiting the other 
 members of their crowds who were still inside 
 waiting for tickets. 
 
 Eickey came last. He stepped up to the 
 desk and presented at close range a head of 
 good size, surmounted with that tangled hair 
 of glowing colour which cast a radiance 
 about him and nearly hid a little pink face 
 that always smiled into prominence, when an 
 eye was turned in his direction. His shirt 
 was ingeniously diminished in the arm lengths 
 and, aside from this alteration, the bulky 
 dimensions were patiently tolerated and held 
 in conformity to the little body by his over- 
 alls, with their usual slack rolled up at the 
 bottom. 
 
 Could he get a ticket ? God bless his lit- 
 tle heart, of course he could ! In two minutes 
 he had it securely deposited in his overall 
 pocket, and ignoring parting ceremonies, he 
 bolted out of the office and, I presume, ran 
 every step of the way home to get ready.
 
 120 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 
 
 Did you ever feel a little of that bubbling- 
 over-with-happiness sensation, that at once 
 puts a boy in love with the whole world 
 and incidentally generates a disposition to 
 keep the kitchen wood-box well filled? It 
 must have been the way Eickey felt. 
 
 We asked him to bring a note from his 
 mother, expressing her willingness for him to 
 go, and early the next morning he handed 
 me a well-soiled piece of paper and re- 
 marked : " Here's the note from my mamma. 
 She can't write, but she told me to and I read 
 it to her and she said it was all right." The 
 p^te was as follows : 
 
 " Deer doctor i can go to the mountains if 
 you wil tak good care of him. i wil be a 
 good boy. Mrs. Sampson." 
 
 The following Monday twenty-five hilari- 
 ous boys swarmed about the station and 
 Eickey came up to me and asked if I didn't 
 think he was clean. " I took a bath Satur- 
 day night and then I took another one last 
 night, too. And I rubbed with soap ! " 
 There was no doubt about it. Three dim-
 
 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 121 
 
 pies were in plain evidence, that were before 
 filled to the level 
 
 The train started and Eickey sat next to 
 the window. We neared the canon, and for 
 an hour his big eyes watched every break in 
 the foothills that might be the place where we 
 would " run into the mountains." Suddenly 
 we rounded a bluff and our small engine 
 drew up at the water-tank, just inside the 
 mouth of the canon. 
 
 " Oh, lookee ! Whew ! " exclaimed the as- 
 tonished youngster, " just see that big moun- 
 tain, made out of nothin' but rock ! Did the 
 railroad company dig out this canon for the 
 train to run in ? " 
 
 It was a great day for the lad, and when 
 night came, we tucked him up snugly in his 
 blankets. Then the wind began to sing in the 
 pines, as it blew over the mountainside, and 
 the boy looked up and asked if it " wasn't 
 God blowing His breath down at us ? " 
 
 Wasn't that worth going to the mountains 
 for ? It was. And all of this time I kept on 
 saying, God bless little Eickey ! 
 
 There are innumerable desirable and work-
 
 122 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 
 
 able plans for out-of-door activities with 
 boys. To make a plan serviceable, the di- 
 rector must leave his formal dignity in town, 
 and be successful at making a red bandanna 
 set to his neck. Furthermore, he should be 
 able to put a chunk of bacon on the end of a 
 stick, dig it out of the ashes a couple of times 
 while trying to broil it over the camp-fire, and 
 then eat it with good grace. It is important 
 for the leader to enjoy the freedom and in- 
 formal spirit of unrestrained life in the open. 
 It will not often be advisable, perhaps, to plan 
 for very extensive camping trips. But they 
 are worth taking, if the local conditions justify. 
 One night away from home will be as much 
 as most ten- or twelve-year-old boys will 
 stand. The twelve- to fifteen-year-old boys 
 will be the candidates for longer trips. 
 
 Organize a "Travel Club." Limit the 
 membership to five or ten boys for each 
 adult leader. Begin during the winter to 
 plan for a camping trip next summer, and 
 at your gatherings from time to time discuss 
 together such topics as " Indian Life," " Camp 
 Cooking," " Camp Supplies," etc. This pre-
 
 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 123 
 
 liminary experience will not be the least 
 valuable to the boys, for anticipation is one 
 of the most vital points to be considered in 
 work with boys. Keep something ahead of 
 them. 
 
 When you are ready for the trip secure a 
 team of horses and a covered wagon to carry 
 your tents, blankets, cooking utensils, and 
 food supplies. Provide a couple of baseball 
 outfits. If the boys decide that your " trip " 
 is to be a " hike," select your objective point 
 and plan to walk not more than five or ten 
 miles a day. Take it easy along the road. 
 Pitch your tents and strike camp near a 
 stream, if possible, or near some good water 
 supply. Look carefully after the sanitary 
 condition of the camp and insist upon every 
 boy doing his assigned work promptly and 
 well. Build a camp-fire after supper and 
 spend an hour telling Indian, war and cow- 
 boy stories. Or spend an entire evening in 
 Bible-study or the discussion of some topic 
 relating to character and the spiritual life. 
 In the morning, pull up your stakes and 
 move on.
 
 124 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 
 
 If the above " hiking plan " fails to look 
 good, arrange for your transportation to a 
 suitable place, and spend your time in one 
 camp. The site should be selected with con- 
 siderable care, as to the water supply, fuel, 
 sanitary conditions, etc. Your list of sup- 
 plies should include : beans, potatoes, rice, 
 prunes, dried fruits, cereal and other package 
 goods, bacon, ham, and canned goods. If 
 the camp is within reach of a farm you may 
 be able to secure milk and butter, which 
 would be of great value. 
 
 A " One Day Hiking Trip " is very prac- 
 ticable. Start early in the morning. Take a 
 kettle and a mess of raw navy beans, to- 
 gether with an ample supply of prepared 
 lunch. Select a camp-site within a two-hour 
 walk. Swing the kettle under a tripod, 
 which the boys can make with limbs from 
 the trees; build a camp-fire and cook the 
 beans. And after you have put in the day 
 playing ball, swimming, fishing, and eating, 
 if the youngsters aren't thankful that they 
 " live, move and have their " beans, I'll miss 
 my guess.
 
 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 125 
 
 Take to the woods whenever you can. 
 Hold your religious meetings on the lawn 
 at the side of the church or go out to the 
 park. Organize an "Audubon Club," and 
 teach the boys that "a bird in the bush is 
 worth two in the hand." Take a "bird 
 walk" in the spring and observe how the 
 birds build their nests, how they mate and 
 care for their young. And let the boys get 
 a lesson of faith and optimism from the 
 birds. 
 
 Organize a " Camera Club," and announce 
 an exhibition of original pictures of birds, 
 squirrels, chipmunks and all other kinds of 
 wild animals living in our forests, mountains 
 and prairies. Offer prizes for the pictures 
 indicating the most careful, persistent effort. 
 
 Send the boys a-fishing, and at night have 
 a " Fish Party." Serve the fish caught dur- 
 ing the day and spend an hour telling fish 
 stories. There are plenty of good fish stories. 
 Ask different boys to look up the informa- 
 tion beforehand and describe the methods of 
 catching fish in China, Alaska, the Great 
 Lakes, etc.
 
 126 FRESH AIR WORK WITH BOYS 
 
 There are many ideas that I might suggest 
 to you, but they will occur to any versatile 
 worker after fresh-air methods have been 
 given a place in the junior work. The im- 
 portant thing is for you to get into the spirit 
 of enthusiasm for the physical and God's out- 
 of-doors, and let that spirit dominate much 
 of your work. 
 
 Don't be afraid that all of the time you 
 spend with the boys will not be profitable, 
 because part of your activity is "secular." 
 There should be no secular. The Church 
 has been too small in its interests, and the 
 boys have been obliged to go elsewhere for 
 the expression of their "secular" life, and the 
 Church has lost. There should be nothing 
 objectionable about a boy turning a flip in 
 the Church basement. We have waited for 
 the annual Sunday-school picnic to suggest 
 a potato race, the broad jump and the fifty- 
 yard dash. The average boy doesn't require 
 the stimulus of the picnic to make him inter- 
 ested in these things. An athletic event is 
 always in order and ought to be considered 
 thoroughly religious.
 
 Religious Meetings for Boys 
 
 The new work for boys contains the germ of a new evangel- 
 ism new because its methods are different from those of the 
 typical evangelistic service, but old because its aim is the 
 original one of winning men to Christ. Coe.
 
 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 
 
 NO form of effort requires greater 
 resourcefulness and versatility of 
 mind, acuity of perception and 
 buoyancy of spirit, than religious meetings 
 for boys. Boys will not go out of their way 
 to hear a sermon. They will frequently do 
 much more to avoid hearing one. A boy 
 normally has no objection to religious meet- 
 ings, per se. His antipathy is occasioned 
 by the absence of all features which he would 
 class as attractive. This is the estimate of 
 the average boy. When we remember that 
 he is not an adult, we are not surprised. 
 He is a boy. That is enough to make us 
 charitable. 
 
 It is not an offense to question the use- 
 fulness of the public service as a means of 
 grace to the boy. He needs religion, and 
 has more by nature than is sometimes re- 
 tained through mature years. But the ques- 
 tion of his spiritual nurture involves so 
 
 129
 
 130 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 
 
 intricately the peculiarly sensitive elements 
 of his nature, that his soul development 
 resulting from public worship will be small 
 compared with the results which may be 
 secured by personal effort. This is not an 
 excuse for the boy to remain away from the 
 public worship. He needs the Church. In 
 more than a theoretical sense, the ideal place 
 for a boy is at the public worship, by the side 
 of a chummy father. But we are consider- 
 ing especially the boys from inadequate 
 homes, whose chummy fathers if they have 
 any are not in the habit of spending much 
 time in church with their boys. All boys are 
 pretty much alike on religious matters, how- 
 ever, and the best of them sit ill at ease 
 through the ordinary preaching service. 
 This fact ought to suggest that if we would 
 secure the most satisfactory results, some of 
 the public worship should be designed for 
 the boys. 
 
 Most of our religious organizations are 
 failures with boys because they possess 
 nothing of notable interest to the average 
 adolescent. And of more importance than
 
 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 131 
 
 the absence of any magnetic features in the 
 organization, is the presence of many plans 
 which we exhibit in his presence, that are 
 positively repulsive to the ordinary boy. If 
 we are not justified in thus placing a low 
 estimate upon the success of our junior 
 organizations, we shall, most of us, be com- 
 pelled to admit that we fail to reach a repre- 
 sentative number of boys. If by accident, 
 or ice cream, husky lads are persuaded to 
 meet with us, their huskiness is chiefly mani- 
 fested at the expense of the devotional senti- 
 ments, and by the time the effervescence of 
 their enthusiasm has been expended, they 
 are off in search of new adventures, much to 
 the delight of the gentler natures who are 
 pleased to enjoy the soothing devotions of 
 the organization. 
 
 Whether we fully appreciate the fact or 
 not, we are confronted with the necessity of 
 making our plans conform to the require- 
 ments of the boy we seek to win, rather than 
 try to coerce him to adapt his nature to our 
 ideal, which has been conceived and doted 
 upon in the stuffy, devitalized atmosphere
 
 132 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 
 
 of our chambers of theory and imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 Devotional meetings are of comparatively 
 small value in getting at the boys. A crowd 
 of youngsters can pray more easily and 
 effectually on the run than on their knees. 
 It is easier for a boy to be a Christian in a 
 gymnasium than when back of a hymn- 
 book. A "hike" across fields is frequently 
 a speedway to God, for in His good land of 
 clean air, fragrant fields, mountains and 
 water, the soul of a normal, vigorous boy 
 will not fail to vibrate in tune with the heart 
 of God whom he has found in fellowship and 
 learned to love as his Father. Let us not 
 hesitate to sacrifice devotional solitude, so 
 long as taking the boys into the open or 
 bringing them in touch with wholesome 
 secular stimuli will exert a formative influ- 
 ence which shall be conducive to Christian 
 character and good citizenship. 
 
 Boys are naturally religious. But some- 
 times a Bible, a hymn-book or a season of 
 prayer are the poorest means on earth of 
 awakening their spiritual life. In saying
 
 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 133 
 
 this I do not in any degree deviate from my 
 fixed conviction, that the Bible is of inestima- 
 ble value in every phase of religious work 
 with boys. Indeed the religious worker 
 with boys may dispense with all accessories 
 except the Bible, reinforced with a con- 
 secrated heart, a resourceful mind and 
 vigorous body. With this equipment, the 
 successful director will be able to go to 
 work, and so long as he works he will have 
 the boys. But mark you, my friend, the 
 moment there is nothing doing his grip on 
 the lads will weaken. The boys' department 
 must, therefore, be Christianity in action. 
 Get plans and carry them out. Stick to the 
 job, and do your best. Above all, keep 
 something doing. 
 
 Make your church the centre of boy life 
 in your community. If you cannot give 
 them a club room, lay off from your work 
 some afternoon and help the boys dig a cave 
 on the rear end of the church lot. Did you 
 ever crawl on your hands and knees through 
 a passageway leading from an unsuspected 
 fence corner, down into the bowels of the
 
 134 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 
 
 earth, and be compelled to do three right- 
 angled-twists in the tunnel, and as many 
 four-foot " step-offs " before you could 
 emerge into the appalling solitude of the 
 underground cavern? The knee exercise 
 required in the passage is beneficial and I 
 have an idea that Old Testament stories 
 never read so well as when you and the boys 
 are in a cave around a boiling kettle of beans, 
 or presumably lost in a forest and gathered 
 about a crackling camp-fire. 
 
 With this, some of you will think I would 
 transplant you and the boys back into a 
 primitive state of savagery. I do not care 
 to stand for that. It is enough for me to 
 say that boys do not thrive well on too much 
 civilization. A judicious use of unconven- 
 tional methods and out-door life will, I assure 
 you, render remarkable service in turning 
 boy energy to a harmonious cooperation 
 with you and the service you desire to do 
 for his spiritual development. Let us bear 
 these things in mind, good Christian worker, 
 and not forget that we are leading the boy 
 towards Jesus Christ.
 
 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 135 
 
 Do not be afraid of modern methods. 
 They are designed to reach the very boy 
 you are after. The splendid work being 
 done by the many well qualified workers in 
 the Church, speaks with profound emphasis 
 of their importance. It is not surprising 
 that this educational advance has invaded 
 our children's room and sent the faithful 
 worker home with a mind hungry for new 
 methods. For truly, it seems that the atmos- 
 phere of this children's century has even 
 vitalized the child's mind and he comes to us 
 and demands the best we have ; and if that 
 isn't good enough, we are left alone. Un- 
 fortunately, this spirit doesn't always con- 
 tribute to the soundest religious life ; but if 
 the influence is detrimental, the cause will be 
 found in the administration and not in the 
 methods. Herein lies the greatest difficulty 
 in church work with boys. Not all workers 
 are able to combine the good, wholesome, 
 spiritual element with the newer ways of 
 handling the boys' work. And it is well that 
 it is so. Some can only conduct a class- 
 meeting. These may not be the least sue-
 
 136 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 
 
 cessful in work with the boys. I believe, 
 however, that that rare individual who is 
 doubly blessed with the spiritual life and the 
 ability to lead the restless, energetic young- 
 sters through the play hour to Christ, will 
 be several times more successful with the 
 average lad. 
 
 In addition to the antipathy which boys 
 commonly manifest towards devotional meet- 
 ings, there is another, and equally important 
 reason why we must give the question 
 careful consideration. I refer to the psy- 
 chology of the boy. And without entering 
 into a study of the subject, I shall venture the 
 assertion that public religious devotions which 
 depend more or less upon the emotions, are 
 objectionable among boys and should not be 
 encouraged. 
 
 Recently I discussed the subject with a 
 friend of mine, Mr. W. W. Crawford, who is 
 superintendent, or rather, godfather, in one 
 of the most ideal homes for boys in America. 
 A strong religious atmosphere has always 
 been encouraged and enjoyed by the boys. 
 Some years ago the home was frequently
 
 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 137 
 
 the centre of marked revival fervour and the 
 boys would, of their own initiative, come 
 together for prayer services, at which times 
 they would weep and pray with great concern 
 for their souls and the spiritual condition of 
 their associates. These emotional phenomena 
 have since been discouraged, and my friend, 
 who is a man of rare Christian character and 
 influence, told me that he feels there is more 
 real piety among his boys now, when their 
 religious devotions are kept at a sensible 
 minimum, than there was during the period 
 of revival fervour. There is very good 
 reason for discouraging the emotional in the 
 child's religious life. 
 
 There are communities in which the 
 presence of a large number of un-churched 
 boys has suggested the need of some form of 
 a popular religious meeting for their special 
 benefit. We recently had the pleasure of 
 observing a series of such neighbourhood 
 meetings at the Halsted Street Institutional 
 Church, in Chicago. The meetings were 
 vigorously advertised as the "Boys' Happy 
 Friday Nights," and as the "Boys' Lucky
 
 138 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 
 
 Nights," and usually two hundred or more 
 street boys gave enthusiastic attention to stere- 
 opticon talks, cartoon addresses, boy soloists, 
 musical features and the Gospel for boys. As 
 a suggestion of the tactful plans demanded and 
 used in these meetings, a beautifully coloured 
 slide of Hofmann's " Christ Kneeling in the 
 Garden " was thrown on the screen while the 
 director led in prayer. All confusion ceased 
 at once, and thereafter the boys were abso- 
 lutely silent during prayer. 
 
 A number of mass boys' clubs conduct 
 similar popular religious meetings for their 
 boys, and the Boys' Departments of the 
 Young Men's Christian Association are 
 securing large results throughout the country 
 in such meetings. The Chicago Boys' Club 
 has a regular Thursday night Gospel meet- 
 ing which has proved to be one of the most 
 popular and helpful features of their club 
 work, notwithstanding the fact that they have 
 the most difficult part of Chicago's boy pop- 
 ulation to draw from. 
 
 The attendance secured at such boys' 
 meetings, depends in a large measure upon
 
 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 139 
 
 the amount of good advertising that is done. 
 Boys are the finest kind of advertisers, and 
 the important thing at the start, is to cause 
 your announcement to strike a popular vein. 
 For example, at the beginning of the " Boys' 
 Happy Friday Nights " a large six-by-eight 
 foot poster was displayed conspicuously, with 
 the question " Have you met the Happy 
 Kid ? " printed in good sized letters at the 
 top ; in the centre of the sheet was painted a 
 rough picture of a hilarious, laughing, street 
 urchin, and at the bottom was added : " Meet 
 him next Friday evening at the Boys' Room." 
 The following Friday the boys were there. 
 
 It would, of course, be exceedingly poor 
 judgment to rely solely upon the advertising 
 for the popularity of the meetings. The boys 
 must be interested after they assemble. And 
 this is the biggest part of the job. The 
 leader should first know just what he wants 
 to do. The songs must be selected. See to 
 it that you don't have to send for the janitor 
 to have the piano unlocked after the boys 
 have assembled. Don't be dignified. En- 
 courage the boys to laugh and laugh your-
 
 140 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 
 
 self, whether you see anything to laugh at or 
 not. Maybe the boys do. We may be big- 
 ger jokes than we think. Let an adult do the 
 praying, and let the prayer be short. Either 
 have the boys remain seated with bowed 
 heads or stand together during the prayer. 
 It is a mistake to command boys to kneel 
 in a large, popular meeting for children. 
 Demand good order and don't be afraid 
 to be in charge of affairs. It is better to 
 cause a boy to leave the room, if it is 
 necessary, by letting him see by your eye 
 that you mean business, than to grab him by 
 the arm and throw him out. 
 
 In talking to boys one should know what 
 he wants to say, and then should say it, and 
 if it is worth saying once it may be said a 
 second time to good advantage. If you 
 know what you want to say, talk plain and hit 
 hard. It is possible to talk at a boy for an 
 hour and not once hit where he lives. Be 
 sure to find stories somewhere and use them. 
 And after you have said what you wanted to 
 say, and have said it hard and hit the boys 
 where they live, and have put in a story or
 
 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 14! 
 
 two to keep their ears open, then stop, for 
 you have said enough. It is far better to talk 
 too short a time, than too long. Make the 
 meeting objective. Use a stereopticon or a 
 black-board, or any other device that will 
 give the boys something to look at and hold 
 their attention to your subject. Seek for 
 something unusual, and turn commonplace 
 things and events into startling object-les- 
 sons. Cultivate action and enthusiasm in 
 your talks. If walking on your hands and 
 knees across the platform will help to illustrate 
 or impress a point in your talk, then walk 
 on your hands and knees. 
 
 In such popular, advertised meetings you 
 may reach large numbers, create any degree 
 of enthusiasm you desire and give some in- 
 spiration. These results are of little impor- 
 tance compared to the opportunity the meet- 
 ings present for the worker to follow up in- 
 dividual boys in their life and thought during 
 the week. 
 
 It is not advisable, in my opinion, to en- 
 courage boys to make public religious con- 
 fession at these open meetings. If the leader
 
 142 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 
 
 is alert and in intimate touch with the boys, 
 it will be reasonably easy, in most instances, 
 to supplement the public meetings with a 
 Boys' Bible Club or probationers' class, 
 which should include in its membership only 
 those boys who have presented evidence of 
 being specially interested in the religious life. 
 The worker's relations with these boys can be 
 much more personal and helpful than with 
 the others. With the limitedf number all 
 kinds of out-of-door trips can be arranged. 
 Occasionally lunches may be provided and 
 the crowd will find satisfaction in going for a 
 hike several miles to a river or into the woods 
 or mountains, where, I can assure you, your 
 devotions will be far more profitable than they 
 would be if you were in a stuffy, uncomfort- 
 able room. 
 
 In religious meetings as well as in social 
 work with boys, the question of securing the 
 cooperation of boy leaders will arise, and the 
 observing worker will appreciate the refer- 
 ence Emerson makes in his essay on 
 " Power," to the active and passive sex of the 
 mind. One class of boys will be observed
 
 RELIGIOUS MEETINGS FOR BOYS 143 
 
 who are passive, uninventing and ready to 
 accept what is created, invented and pro- 
 moted by the active element. You will al- 
 ways do well to use the aggressive boys. It 
 is a mistake, however, to let them run things. 
 Elaborate schemes for self-government in 
 work among boys are more spectacular than 
 sensible. Self-government is sometimes too 
 big a job for adults, and it is not at all sur- 
 prising that young lads are not always com- 
 petent to plan for themselves. I confess 
 that self-governing experiments among boys' 
 clubs and other organizations, provide the 
 imagination with much space for inflation, 
 but the plain, common facts indicate that boys 
 are, as Jane Addams says, rather better when 
 " mixed with adults."
 
 A Club for Boys 
 
 When the Church learns that a love for prayer-meetings is 
 not one of the instincts born into a boy at puberty, and dis- 
 covers that it owes pastoral service to shouting boys as well as 
 to ripening saints, and that stories told to the boys on Sunday 
 lead to boyish confidences on Monday then it will better fulfill 
 its function, and the churching of boys to-day will be the man- 
 ning of the Church fifteen years hence. Jump.
 
 A CLUB FOR BOYS 
 
 BOYS do not need a club. This might 
 be said to good advantage in a dis- 
 cussion of corporal punishment. In 
 this connection we find that it is twice ap- 
 plicable. Boys may demand a club organiza- 
 tion and secure it somehow among them- 
 selves either underground or elsewhere, but 
 the clannish association is not essential for the 
 development of manhood, notwithstanding 
 our common notion about the gregarious 
 nature of the boy. I am the more inclined to 
 preface my consideration of the boys' club 
 with these remarks as I recall the excess en- 
 thusiasm that is sometimes manifested by 
 adults who get the idea somehow though 
 never from experience that a boys' club is, 
 in itself, a panacea for the solution of every 
 difficulty presented in the problem of the boy. 
 I believe heartily in the boys' club, but it is 
 one of the very good things whose usefulness 
 makes necessary a frank statement of its limi- 
 tations. 
 
 '47
 
 148 A CLUB FOR BOYS 
 
 A club for boys is a substitute. It is a sub- 
 stitute for the home, and compared with a 
 good home it is a very poor substitute. 
 Professor Francis G. Peabody says, " A good 
 boy is the natural product of a good home, 
 and all the efforts of philanthropy to make 
 boys better are consciously imperfect substi- 
 tutes for the natural influences of a healthy- 
 minded home. The great and overshadow- 
 ing peril of a boy's life is not, as many sup- 
 pose, his bad companions, or his bad books, 
 or his bad habits ; it is the peril of homeless- 
 ness. I do not mean merely homelessness 
 having no bed or room which can be called 
 his own, but that homelessness which may 
 exist even in luxurious houses the isolation 
 of the boy's soul, the lack of any one to 
 listen to him, the loss of roots to hold him to 
 his place and make him grow. This is what 
 drives the boy into the arms of evil, and 
 makes the street his home and the gang his 
 family, or else drives him in upon himself, 
 into uncommunicated imaginings and fever- 
 ish desires. It is the modern story of the 
 man whose house was ' empty,' and precisely
 
 A CLUB FOR BOYS 149 
 
 because it was ' empty/ there entered ' seven 
 devils' to keep him company. If there is 
 one thing that a boy cannot bear, it is him- 
 self. He is by nature a gregarious animal, 
 and if the group which nature gives him is 
 denied, then he gives himself to any group 
 which may solicit him. A boy, like all things 
 in nature, abhors a vacuum, and if his home 
 is a vacuum of lovelessness and homeless- 
 ness, then he abhors his home." 
 
 It is the fact of the homelessness of boys 
 that gives the " open " or " mass club " a 
 place in society. If the boys have homes of 
 the right sort, it is not likely that they will 
 loiter about the streets after dark. The 
 street can never produce a good product. 
 The boys' club promoter knows this and he 
 secures a room or building and equips it 
 with games, reading matter and gymnasium 
 apparatus. Then he turns on the light and 
 lets the boys in off the streets. This is a 
 boys' mass club in a primitive stage. The 
 idea sometimes evolves into an institution of 
 large dimensions, with game rooms, library, 
 gymnasium, baths, plunge, assembly room,
 
 150 A CLUB FOR BOYS 
 
 manual and industrial departments. The 
 boys make use of these privileges in large 
 numbers, and thus through its various 
 agencies the club substitutes for the home. 
 
 Then again, the club is frequently not a 
 work of substituting, but of supplementing 
 the inadequate home. In both capacities it 
 has a legitimate and useful sphere for work. 
 Thus a mass club may be anything from a 
 shelter to a trade-school ; and in any form 
 of activity it should be of service in provid- 
 ing a wholesome environment for boys and 
 in being an agency for the cultivation of the 
 spirit, mind and body. When comparisons 
 are made, I agree with Jacob Riis that 
 " Boys' clubs are better than policemen's 
 clubs," but when compared with a good 
 home the boys' club at its best is a poor 
 substitute. 
 
 The man or woman in charge should be 
 the biggest part of a club. An objection 
 commonly raised against mass efforts with 
 boys is the fact that the worker can do but 
 little for the boys individually, compared 
 with the personal service that can be ren-
 
 A CLUB FOR BOYS 151 
 
 dered in the group plan which I shall speak 
 of later. It is very true that the adult's 
 individual association with the boys is 
 limited and his knowledge of them may 
 be unsatisfactory, but it should be re- 
 membered that he is the known and con- 
 stantly observed centre of an ever enlarging 
 boy constituency, and the influence he exerts 
 among them cannot, presumably, be known, 
 but it may be enormous. And the manlier, 
 more sincere and inspiring the man is, the 
 greater will be his influence for good. One 
 of the most notable facts observed by 
 workers among boys is the remarkable 
 rapidity with which they become known by 
 boys even far beyond the neighbourhood 
 boundary, which they have fixed as the 
 probable limit of their influence. 
 
 The more adult personality that is mixed 
 with the crowd of lads the better. It is the 
 personality that counts in securing and 
 maintaining neighbourhood influences, and 
 furthermore, the adult personality has con- 
 siderable to do with preventing the club 
 from becoming a generating station for
 
 152 A CLUB FOR BOYS 
 
 rough, riotous conduct. If it is such, there 
 is a flaw in the plan somewhere that should 
 be corrected at once, or the plan modified so 
 there will be fewer boys and more adult per- 
 sonality to control the exuberant energy of 
 their riotous little souls. An open club 
 should, therefore, provide helpful fellowship 
 and congenial, wholesome associations for 
 boys of the street. And of more importance 
 than this useful mission, is the opportunity it 
 offers for the worker to get acquainted with 
 the boys. 
 
 The equipment for a club of this kind 
 should include one or more rooms that are 
 easily accessible. They should be furnished 
 with plain, attractive, substantial furniture. 
 The walls should be made attractive with 
 well-selected pictures, especially religious 
 and historical prints. A reading-table should 
 be provided with wholesome, juvenile peri- 
 odicals, together with popular mechanical 
 journals, illustrated magazines, etc. There 
 should be several game- tables with a supply 
 of such games as checkers, chess, ping-pong, 
 crokinole, parlour croquet, shuffle-board,
 
 A CLUB FOR BOYS 153 
 
 crown combination caroms, saturn, arch 
 arena, crolard, flinch, and other similar card 
 games. Keep the reading and game tables 
 fresh by placing part of the games in reserve 
 for substitution every two or three weeks, 
 and by frequently replacing old periodicals 
 with current issues. 
 
 Insist upon good discipline from the start. 
 Under some conditions it is impossible to 
 secure good order. In the first place the 
 boys should understand what the club is for. 
 Don't admit too many at the start. Begin 
 with a few boys. Educate them. Enlist 
 their cooperation, and then admit a few more. 
 Club privileges will be more appreciated if 
 admission doesn't come too easy. Never 
 admit more boys to the room than can be 
 conveniently accommodated. 
 
 From the hour the doors are first opened 
 for a mass club, or similar organization for 
 boys, a number of puzzling and difficult 
 situations and questions will present them- 
 selves. And the worker will soon realize, 
 if he did not know it before, that an activity 
 among the common, refractory youngsters ol
 
 154 A CLUB FOR BOYS 
 
 the street, must have something more sub- 
 stantial back of it than sentiment. The 
 worker is on the safe side if he first gives 
 more attention to the development of a 
 definite conviction and plan of procedure 
 than to the inflation of a sentimental " interest 
 in the boys " and a desire to " do some- 
 thing." There is plenty to do. But in work 
 with boys it is good policy to figure out how 
 a thing ought to be done, before you begin. 
 If the local conditions do not clearly suggest 
 the value of some kind of a public organi- 
 zation for or among the boys of the street, 
 it would certainly be unwise for an adult to 
 become too ambitious and try to tie another 
 appendage to a much encumbered town or 
 church. 
 
 There is, however, no great danger that a 
 discerning adult will inflict any injury upon 
 a community by organizing a boys' club. 
 There are usually, in most communities, 
 enough boys of several varieties, to encour- 
 age the application of all the known schemes 
 for helping them, and when all plans have 
 been faithfully tried, there will, likely as not,
 
 A CLUB FOR BOYS 155 
 
 be a sufficient number of young chaps hang- 
 ing about somewhere, to give the new and 
 ambitious worker enough material to work 
 with. 
 
 There are three objects which a worker 
 should have in mind when planning for club 
 work. They are entertainment, inspiration, 
 and companionship. 
 
 Entertainment should never be the final 
 object in work with boys. The question is 
 frequently discussed. There is cause to 
 ponder over the advisability of our purely 
 social efforts in behalf of children. The boy 
 likes to be entertained. He is easily lured 
 by a shuffle-board and exceedingly prompt, 
 and much in evidence during any exhibition 
 of ice cream or other commodity that costs 
 money. One has no difficulty in " getting 
 the boys " so long as the expenditure meets 
 the demand. Indeed, " standing in with the 
 kids" is the easiest accomplishment within 
 the reach of mortals, provided you are a 
 generous giver. Most of us are easy marks, 
 or, if not now guilty, we have been. Neg- 
 lected' children make liberal givers out of
 
 156 A CLUB FOR BOYS 
 
 sympathetic adults, and the more the adult 
 gives the more the child expects. Later, a 
 pampered lad stipulates the demand, and if 
 he doesn't get what he wants, he won't play ! 
 Many boys' clubs have for their first and 
 final object, entertainment. And many boys' 
 clubs are failures. We may class them as 
 efficient because they are patronized. Be- 
 yond the value of providing a shelter, if a 
 club does not educate or protect a boy's soul, 
 or awaken him to some productive activity, 
 it is a menace to his future. Entertainment, 
 therefore, should be given minor considera- 
 tion. 
 
 Inspiration is an object of greater signifi- 
 cance. In a mass club where one or more 
 rooms are thrown open for the free use of a 
 large number of boys, this factor may be of 
 prime importance. Inspiration radiates from 
 subtile influences. Maybe a lad's future 
 may be directed by the inspiration of a pic- 
 ture. Perhaps a book may radiate the in- 
 fluence. Or vast inspiration may be exerted 
 by informal, round-table talks. But the most 
 valuable inspiration to the boys in a club,
 
 A CLUB FOR BOYS 157 
 
 should emanate from the soul of the worker. 
 He must be inspiration. And the more soul 
 he has that strikes an affinity with the boys 
 of the club, the greater will be his influence 
 for good. 
 
 Companionship is, above all else, the ob- 
 ject to be most encouraged. For this reason 
 and because of the difficulty in trying to 
 extend a limited influence among a large 
 number, we shall now consider the group 
 club as the most successful and generally 
 satisfactory form of church club work with 
 boys. And the most significant point about 
 the group club is the fact that the nearer its 
 membership approaches to the single, indi- 
 vidual boy, the better will be the worker's 
 chance to accomplish his purpose of being 
 helpful. 
 
 A group club may have its beginning in an 
 innumerable number of ways. We will sup- 
 pose, for example, that you have a Sunday- 
 school class of ten boys, between ten and 
 twelve years of age. They are all harmo- 
 nious fellows, but no more interested in the 
 Israelites, et al. y than is the average lad. You
 
 158 A CLUB FOR BOYS 
 
 want to get better acquainted with them and 
 be chummy ; so one Sunday you ask them if 
 they would like to organize a club. They 
 would. You ask them to spend the evening 
 at your home the following Friday. Then 
 you bake a cake or, being a man, you get it 
 some other way, and maybe you also secure 
 some ice cream. 
 
 Friday evening you hear the boys shuffling 
 about on the porch half an hour ahead of 
 time. But you don't mind that. You are 
 tickled to see them, and after all are made 
 comfortable in the living room, you proceed 
 with the organization of the club which may 
 be called anything from the " Apache Ath- 
 letes " to the " Roosevelt Club." Then you 
 elect your officers. It doesn't much matter 
 how many officers you have, so long as you 
 have enough. Every fellow will want a job. 
 After these important official matters have 
 been disposed of, you will talk over the time 
 and place of the future meetings. Then you 
 tell them an Indian story or something more 
 edifying if anything else could possibly be 
 more edifying to a bunch of boys. But if
 
 A CLUB FOR BOYS 159 
 
 you do venture away from the Indian tales, 
 don't get too near the study of ethics. Start 
 in this very first night and continue during 
 your career with boys to ask yourself if there 
 is enough boy in what you say and do. 
 
 From week to week as your boys come 
 together for their club meetings, you will 
 always have some surprise or a new plan or 
 story to keep their interest alive. Boys like 
 sudden and startling changes. The kind of 
 activity your boys engage in at their meet- 
 ings will depend upon your personal gifts 
 and ideas. If you are trained in sloyd work 
 you will find the boys much interested in 
 whittling. All sorts of handicraft work will 
 present attractive, useful employment. Other 
 ideas will occur to the resourceful worker. 
 Spend time with your crowd in cross-country 
 " hikes." Go a-fishing with them, and then 
 help them with their long-division. Did you 
 notice I said " your crowd " ? If you strive 
 faithfully until they recognize the relation- 
 ship, I shall expect you to win the boys. 
 Then your club will be a success. Meeting 
 the lads twice a week is better than a single
 
 160 A CLUB FOR BOYS 
 
 hour with them in Sunday-school. I doubt 
 if any teacher ever became really well ac- 
 quainted with a boy in the Sunday-school 
 class or junior devotional meeting. More of 
 the lad is usually exposed during a ball game 
 Saturday morning. 
 
 A friend of mine who lives with some boys 
 said to me the other day that his boys had 
 learned that he is human. I discovered that 
 same fact the day before while his crowd had 
 him down on his back at the bottom of a 
 free-for-all heap of boy-flesh. He was en- 
 couraging the personal touch. By having a 
 part in the spirit of boyhood you will have 
 a chance to be chummy. After all is said 
 that is the secret of successful work with boys.
 
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