Show About Bringing Up Boys BY MARGARET E SANGSTER N Boys are on the way to be men If they were to remain boys it would matter flatter very little about bout their bring ing up but the period of boyhood hur ries on and the lad will presently be out in the thick of the fight scrambling for lor a foothold and having hard work ork to maintain his own among the fierce erce competitions of the day What sort of man shall your boy become It is not too much to say that the little fellow eager and earnest tt t his bis play pl y foreshadows the older fellow who will be no laggard in business and who will find as much to engage am cm later on as he lie finds in sport on the playground now Some of us cod dle our boys too much Women are especially in danger of shielding their boys from every rough wind or treat Ing them th m too tenderly and of making them effeminate through their over anxiety and continual fussing Men Menon on the other hand make the mistake of beginning the hardening process i too soon of being too rigid In their re and of forgetting wholly that they have been boys themselves If you want to bring a boy up aright you mu t win his confidence keep in touch with him care for the things that please prease him and occupy his iris thoughts and at the same time hold him to a right standard of conduct Neither too muc mut indulgence on the theone theone theone one side or too m ch severity on the theother theother theother other results in the tion of ot a bey The first years are Important beyond II others because In them are laid the foundations of character Truth hon honor i or obedience kindness to animals and b fairness In Intercourse with playmates tes and friends are inculcated while aboy a boy is still wearing short trousers and while he is under supervision and tute tilte lage at home and at the primary school Principles of of submission to authority and of defer deference deference deference ence to women if not practically given while a boy is very young are seldom well taught during adolescence After a boy has mastered the elemen elementary elementary tary studies of the grammar school it Is time to think what shall be done with him in the matter of active prep preparation preparation for life What is he to be Here his tastes and capacity must be consulted and it Is most unwise for a parent to arrive at a decision without careful balancing of the arguments pro and con and without knowledge of the youths fitness for this or that ca career career career reer The boy whose chief delight it Is to care for wounded and suffering creatures who likes to look after the animal that is hurt and who in child hood shows deftness and dexterity in making bandages may have in him the germs of skill that will by and by make him a surgeon or a specialist in some remedial direction HI I am going to be a doctor said a boy who had successfully set the brok broken en leg of a pet dog and who found pleasure in ministering to any dumb animal that was suffering A doctor he became and a good one If a boy Is to be an engineer he must take a course of study that will fit him for that profession prof and if he is to be a law lawyer lawyer lawyer yer or a business man equally his studies should be directed in such a away away away way that he may not fail fall when he at attains attains attains an age to enter on real work There are golden opportunities every everywhere everywhere everywhere where today Success or failure may depend on the personal equation The boy who Is first manly and honest and next capable prompt and efficient will achieve success He will push forward to the front rank rankA A boy of ot 12 whose home in New Eng land is js In a hill country remote a village walked last winter and the winter before three miles to school over a rough road and three miles back Neither storm nor sleet nor wind vind nor Jor rain nor weather of any kind in In the least with the school at of this sturdy boy He sim simply simply simply ply took weather r as it came and went to school Incidentally he learned val valuable valuable valuable lessons in courage steadiness and pluck of this his indifference to conditions A boy should have some stake in his home Country boys who have chores as they are called daily dally tasks In feed ing the farm animals in bringing home the cows milking them chopping wood weeding gardens and doing errands have a decided advantage over city boys who are never called upon to per form a single duty in the practical management pf of the house A boy bo Y should take his share In whatever hap pens to be necessary about the home and it is sometimes worth while for a mother to devise errands and entrust t a son with messages and tasks when i it t would be easier for her to do without his assistance In bringing up boys it should be b e remembered that th t they are entitled to courtesy as their sisters s are and as their elders are axe A boy ought not tobe to tobe tobe be snubbed when he expresses an opinion Of the late Thomas K Beecher Beech who for many years was in influential influential as the pastor of ot one of the first institutional churches in thIs tills country was said that as ass a boy he often wrote sermons at the dictation of his father Rev Hey Lyman Beecher Dr Lyman Beecher was a very great preacher and one of the famous men of his time The boy of 15 was called upon to write many things with which he did not agree Fa lier ler he would say HI I dont think as you do on this subject Instead of checking himor him himor himor or commanding him to be silent the great divine would talk the matter over as enthusiastically as with another er man sometimes convincing some times failing to carry carry the point with his youthful antagonist but never obliging him to feel that he was out of his proper sphere In venturing to have an opinion of his own We Ve have no right to treat a boy as if he were an idiot or a slave sl ve The best develop ment comes in the line of a training that recognizes and respects Individual ity The proud boast of Americans used to be that their manner to women In public and private privat was always defer deferential deferential and always unselfish That boast can be made no longer Any wo woman woman woman man who has periled life and limb in a amad a amad mad struggle to secure entrance to a acar acar car let us say one of the Brooklyn bridges or in the effort to get safely sa ly into a New York Tork subway car knows full well that of the masculine mas masculine masculine culine passengers behave like brutes They have no respect for age no tol toleration tolEration toleration for weakness no regard for fo anything except their own claim to transportation A few years ears ago a woman with white wl te hair or a woman w woman man carrying currying an infant was sure to have havea a seat offered her by three or four men at once Last ut week I saw a slight woman pale and wan holding a heavy child with another tugging at att her skirts and a car filled with young men and vig Jg orous allowed her to stand The so called ladles cabin of the ferryboats are thronged with men who tranquilly occupy all the seats while women stand unnoticed by the lords of crea tion For Por this unhappy change I do donot donot not blame the men as boys they have hav been very badly brought up by women who ignored in the training of the child that spontaneous courtesy that every small boy should be taught to show to womankind When a mother points to a vacant seat and tells teUs her small son to take it and keep it while women sr s nd she is giving him his first and host lasting lessons lesson in and boorishness If the men of the next generation are to be polite to be helpful to women omen and knightly in their demeanor there must be a change from the highest homes in this land to the lowest and women must take the thing in hand in bringing up their boys Possibly nothing is more important In the training of boys than to Insist on their being exact and accurate in everything connected with money A boy should have an allowance at an early age and should keep keer within it He should not be taught by example or precept that money making is the greatest thing in life Ufe but he should be made to feel that he annot cannot cheat or gamble or borrow without paying An abhorrence of debt should be in instilled stilled into a boys mind very ver early in life Ufe We would have bave fewer ship wrecks of honor fewer embezzlements fewer ruined names and blighted homes if strict integrity were the cor cornerstone of home education Copyright 1906 by Joseph B Bowles |