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Show THE BAD BOY. Somewhere in His Nature Is a Hidden Hid-den Germ of Manhood. (From the Ave Maria.) A recent issue of the "Catholic School Journal" contains a thoughtful paper on a perennially practical subject the management of the bad boy. The writer disbelieves in the utter depravity deprav-ity of even the worst of boys. "Somewhere "Some-where in each boy's nature there is a hidden germ of manhood. Find it, stimulate it into health growth, and you will have saved your boy from a life of shame, your son from endless anguish." There can be no question that a sympathetic soul can discover in the most unpromising youth bright spots of virtue, or what, may be developed devel-oped into virtue; nor cain there be any doubt that patience, knowledge, love and wisdom Hre capable of preserving many a boy from the downward path on which he seems determined to set cut. The writer whom we have quoted supports his final advice. "Never give up." by this personal allusion: "Less than five minutes before this paragraph was written a fine young man and his wife left the house of the writer. Six years ago I was helped from my sick bed to an office, where', to save this same young man from the penitentiary, I gave a check for $300. Pages would be required to detail his many terrible errors during the next year. Few believed he would ever do as he should. Yet for the rast five years he has been one of whom his widowed mother and young wife may well be proud.- No one can know Avhat satisfaction such t cases aTe to those who have ' .worked, persistently and prayerfully to save such as scemcxl beyond human cower to save." |
