Building Your Boy How to Do It How Not to Do It Kenneth H. Wayne f'r' Vt'S-’' W3<» b \ 2 »\\ The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN NOV 1 3 wor OCT 3 1 '581 L161— 0-1096 BUILDING YOUR BOY By the same Author “Building Your Girl” Building Your Boy HOW TO DO IT HOW NOT TO DO IT KENNETH H. WAYNE SECOND EDITION CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1911 Copyright A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1910 Published September 10, 1910 Second Edition, May 31, 1911 publiatiera’ ^reaa CHlxta^a n ^-1 I in A BOY is an animated bundle of well-nigh infinite possi- bilities. How best to develop these is the problem; largely the father’s task. The right and the wrong of it, this booklet discusses. K. H. W. V Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/buildingyourboyhOOwayn CONTENTS PAGE Exordium ix I Pride and Responsibility . 1 II A Good Solid Boy .... 7 III Contented Mediocrity . . 10 IV Give Your Boy a Chance . 13 V The Wrong OF Inattention 17 VI Be the Chum of Your Boy 23 VII Get Interested in His Af- fairs 26 VIII Concrete Facts .... 27 IX The Boy’s Judgment ... 31 X Put a Boy on His Honor . 34 XI Kindliness Versus Coer- cion 36 XH Breaking the Will of a Boy 39 vii CONTENTS — Continued XIII Don’t Strike Your Boy . 45 XIV Do Not Spy on Your Boy 47 XV The Benefit of a Doubt 50 XVI Do Not Nag at Your Boy 53 XVII Make Your Home Attrac- tive 55 XVIII The Boy and His Reading 64 XIX Choice of Life-work . . 73 XX Encourage Physical De- velopment .... 81 XXI Hand -CRAFT and Head- craft 84 Vlll EXORDIUM T hat every sane, intelligent, and active man of affairs has the desire to perpetuate himself, to project himself beyond the limit of his years here in the world, is the teaching of our literature and our experience; the desire to per- petuate his name, his wealth, his moral characteristics, his business, and his political views and activi- ties — in a word himself, as the personal incarnation of these be- longings in life. In this we find, largely at least, an explanation of IX EXOEDIUM the common, world-wide discrimi- nation against the girls of the family in favor of the boys. The moral justification of this discrimination is not a matter for debate in this booklet. This is simply a statement of a fact, which seems to be sustained by a domi- nant public opinion, and law, which follows public opinion. The fact is, that the advent of a boy baby is an epoch of family re- joicing. He is accorded a heartier welcome by the father — even by the mother — than a girl baby; and later in life he does not have to overcome X EXORDIUM any prejudice against his sex, but, on the contrary, there is a definite and persistent prejudice in his be- \ half on account of his sex. It is not easy for the average person, perhaps, to grasp the idea that a difference in sex constitutes a bar to the enforcement of the ordinary and common sentiments which blood-relationship is sup- posed to represent. Yet the fact remains, and is often revealed in the distribution of property by will, the law consenting to the discrim- ination in favor of the sons, as against the daughters. If a man XI EXORDIUM chooses to treat his daughters as if they were of minor consideration by diverting his property from them to his sons, either to gratify a feel- ing of posthumous vanity, or to make sex a test of merit, the law supports him in the discrimination. Right or wrong, these instances are so much a part of the regular course of events, and we have be- come so accustomed to them, that we do not stop to think about their mischievous purport and tendency. The influence of custom and pre- cedent is controlling; and funda- mental sentiments of equity and xii EXORDIUM impartiality, in the premises, are subordinated to the doctrine of the superiority of the male sex. So the boy is gladly welcomed, because the father, in his narrow selfishness, finds opportunity in his boy to realize his desire to perpetu- ate his name, personality, and char- acteristic belongings. He bears the family name. He will carry it on through the years, until, in his turn he leaves it as a legacy to his own son. The girls marry, merge, and lose it. As the boy advances in years, he is assisted and stimulated in every xiii EXORDIUM way. Not only his family, but the world at large, affords ample scope for the assertion of all his possi- bilities and powers, and liberal re- wards follow his endeavors. If he shows an aptitude for public and political service, society hastens to open the path for him to the high- est honors. XIV Building Y our Boy I PRIDE AND RESPONSIBILITY a father, you cannot be too 1 . JL proud of the fact that you have a Boy in your home ; that he is your Boy ; that he is to share in the intimacies and private associations of your home; that amid these associations and in the atmosphere of your home, this Boy is to grow and develop, physically, mentally, morally. It is to be his play and study ground for some years. 1 BUILDING YOUR BOY Nor can you too deeply feel the responsibility of your fatherhood. That along with your other affairs of life, you are going to build, and, in large measure equip, a human being for life-work, a Boy, then a young man. It may be pardon- able that you purpose and plan to make him another You. That is for your decision. Consciously and unconsciously, you will give this Boy physical, mental, and moral shape. From you, as his father, the Boy will take his first ideas in manliness, in honor and integrity, in morals, in 2 BUILDING YOUR BOY politics, in social life, in religion. You cannot shift this responsibil- ity; nor should you want to do it. Your pride in him will protest against it. He is your Boy, and you are his pattern Man. After a while he will know other men, but now, in his formative period, you are his model man. Every day you may take your Boy by the hand and heart, and with fatherly wisdom and discern- ment and kindliness, train and educate and equip him, to meet successfully the test of the hour when, as a man, he enters real life 3 BUILDING YOUR BOY and the world’s work. Therein lies the foundation of all true Boy- building; pride and responsibility. His safe-conduct in growth and development amid the dangers that lie ambushed along the pathway of every Boy, will depend upon the character of your interest in him, the expenditure of your care, and the wisdom that is yours, through experience out in the world. While there is no occasion for the hysterical and frenzied clam- orings of the average reformer — which give scant credit to the good 4 BUILDING YOUR BOY and trustworthy qualities of the average Boy — there is opportunity enough for the exercise of these finer qualities of the father, in a kindly, beneficent, and benignant guidance of his Boy, most of which will be in the home intimacies and associations. With his Boy, every father will have a different, and his own task. Different problems will present themselves, but there is a common term of specifications applicable in all cases of Boy-building. They are offered in these pages. It was Mr. Spencer who said: 5 BUILDING YOUR BOY “By no method of alchemy can we get golden conduct out of leaden in- stincts; but instincts can be changed; fresh grafts can be introduced upon the stock ; the whole tree can be trained in a new direction.” In Boy-building, and with the ability and power in the father’s hands, nothing should be left to chance or to possible adventitious circumstances. 6 II A GOOD SOLID BOY T ake it for granted that you have a good, solid boy, with- out any of the intensities. If so, be thankful. It is these intensities, these keen points, that make mis- chief. We should despise them. The world has had enough of them, and to spare. More than one Soc- rates would have made wreck and ruin of Athens. More than one Emerson would have destroyed the literary prestige of Boston. It is a blunder to wish that the world 7 BUILDING YOUR BOY might have more Shakespeares. One was enough. Providence did not duplicate Washington. A sec- ond might have become a pilot on an oyster dredge. Be glad that your Boy is not a genius, — cadaverous at twenty, bony at fifteen, wearing spectacles at twelve, the pride of the village at ten. Set apart for the ministry, the genius generally bolts and goes into law or politics, or both. In your soul be thankful that your Boy is not an intensity of this kind. Be glad that he is a medi- ocre fellow; that he is handsome BUILDING YOUR BOY in body, strapping like an Absalom; handsome in mind, not a whit more ; that he is ordinarily clever; rotund as a Johnsonian sentence; not specially vicious; not abnor- mally good; with a wholesome look, bright eye, and a magnetic atmosphere. All this will give him a chance for morals. By morals, we mean a healthy, wholesome way of look- ing at things of real life. You can afford to be thankful for that sort of material with which to Build a Boy. 9 Ill CONTENTED MEDIOCRITY M EDIOCKITT has its compen- sations on all sides. Teach that to your boy. The hour when it becomes clear to a youngster that his life is, in all probability, to move along the pavement of mediocrity, may be full of danger, or it may be full of hope. If he is wise and courageous enough to compromise with the gilded gew- gaws and aspirations of the average baccalaureate, and to accept the hard-hammered promises of an in- 10 BUILDING YOUR BOY tensely practical world, well and good. That is, if he can make up his mind to get along without either of the different sorts of in- spiration which come to men who are better off, and to men who are worse off than he is, he is toler- ably safe. Let him be satisfied with being neither a five-talent man nor a one-talent man, but a middle man, who is neither very much nor very little. That is a good lesson to teach your Boy. And it is especially pertinent in these days of “honor men,” medals, degrees, and so many of those 11 BUILDING YOUR BOY brilliant, imaginative, and word- decorated gang-planks, over which college presidents are wont to send graduates from their ships of learn- ing to the shore of a very matter- of-fact and practical world. 12 IV GIVE YOUE BOY A CHANCE I F you are fortunate enough to have an all-round Boy, say in his middle ’teens, then give the little fellow a chance. By chance is meant a great deal more than the commonly acted-out notion that a boy is a sort of cipher with the rim rubbed off all the way round, and that any old thing in the way of treatment- — just any haphazard, indifferent attention and training — will do for him. Of course, there is neither decent treatment nor 13 BUILDING YOUR BOY training in it, and yet it is about what is really accorded to more than half our boys, even in homes where the persons claim to be civilized and eminently respectable, cultured, and Christianized. The marvel is that so many of these boys grow up into clean, wholesome men. It would be a weighty addition to philosophy and science to know why they succeed as they do. No man who owns a Boy could made a greater blunder than to take that view of him, unless he looks at his Boy as a kind of croquet ball that must be forced through certain 14 . BUILDING YOUR BOY wickets by the insistent use of the mallet of authority, which expresses itself in blows, dwelling on faults, iteration of “don’ts” and scolds and frets, and the belittling of every- thing the small fellow does or tries to do. When we know that that is the curriculum in tens of thou- sands of homes, the surprise is that there are so many splendid Boys. Some fathers assume that atti- tude so persistently that the Boy comes to believe, without knowing the philosophy in relation to it, that his defects have been branded deeply into his nature, and that it 15 BUILDING YOUR BOY is not worth while for him to try to get rid of them. The father who assumes that sort of an atti- tude toward his Boy does n’t deserve to have a Boy. As a parent, he is a misfit. He isn’t even a decent heathen. He be- longs to that class of men who are always condemning Boys for get- ting away from home at the earliest possible legal moment, or before, and who stay away. No sane man can blame the Boys. 16 V THE WRONG OF INATTENTION bad as either of these is the ^ inattention of the father who is always “too busy” with his affairs, his club, his newspaper, or his theatre to listen to, or to give any time to his Boy; “too busy” to have a chat with him; “too busy” to take any interest in his Boy’s affairs; “too busy” to visit the schoolroom of his Boy on examina- tion day, to watch his Boy play ball now and then, to go to the fair or the zoo or the circus with his 17 BUILDING YOUR BOY Boy, to go swimming or fishing with him. Every father ought to look upon these intimate associations with his Boy as among the greatest privileges of fatherhood, and to look upon their neglect as being fraught with evil consequences. The Boy is sensitive on this point. He desires above all things the companionship and interest of his father. It stimulates and inspires him to do the best he can. A word from his father, even the presence and manifested interest of his father, will give the Boy 18 BUILDING YOUR BOY pleasure and encouragement. If the father neglects these oppor- tunities of a close and helpful as- sociation with his Boy, and shows no interest, the Boy feels it keenly, more keenly than most of us im- agine. He grows discouraged, in- different, and careless, not only as to his achievements in his studies, but as to his associations. There are thousands of men, gray of hair, and of middle age, who would give half their posses- sions to be able to go back and correct the error of the “too busy” father, and share these simple 19 BUILDING YOUR BOY things with their Boys the neglect of which has cost them pain and sorrow. The regret has come too late. The “too busy” of the father has cost many a Boy heartache and disappointment; has made a wide breach between father and son ; has lost the father many an oppor- tunity of being morally helpful to his Boy. It has sent many a Boy into the “far country” of the street and lounging places of town and city, where he has had put into the structure of his character materials in the way of evil habits which 20 BUILDING YOUR BOY have laid his life in wreck and ruin, — materials which the “too busy” father would now be glad enough to get out at any cost. His “too busy” has wedged and mortised them in. These evil habits are more “catching” than the most contagious disease, more tenacious. One evil habit may be, often is, the source of all the subsequent ruin of manhood. It is the duty X of the father to stand by his Boy in the closest association, until he is sure that the character of the Boy is sufficiently well formed to resist the encroachments of evil. 21 BUILDING YOUR BOY V At a very early age the father should impart to his Boy that wise instruction which may forestall the enemy of moral cleanliness and purity. To keep the Boy clean and pure and wholesome should be the strife of the father. Not to do it is to be criminally negligent. 22 VI BE THE CHUM OF YOUR BOY a father, chum with your ^ Boy. No father should ever grow too old or too dignified to be the intimate companion, the real chum, of his boy. He makes the mistake of his life when he does not do it. Win the confidence of your Boy, every whit of it. Win his affec- tion, his highest esteem. It will be a sad, well-nigh tragic break in the life of a Boy when, for any rea- son, the father ceases to be to him 23 BUILDING YOUR BOY the best and finest man in the world. To win and keep the con- fidence of his Boy is the privilege and duty of the father; the earlier in life it comes to the father, the better. A Boy wants company and com- panionship; he wants a confidant. All human nature is gregarious. The human nature of your Boy is no exception. No one is so natur- ally the companion and confidant of the Boy as the father. Be his chum. Do not, as you value his future good and your own peace of conscience, by your “too busy’’ or 24 BUILDING YOUR BOY your indifference in his boyish in- terests, send him elsewhere for his intimate associations and compan- ionships. 25 VII GET INTERESTED IN HIS AFFAIRS G et interested in what he re- gards as the chief affairs of his boyish life. It will pay you, in more ways than one. You will discover that it is a mutual give and take. Your Boy gets the benefit of your knowledge and mature experience, which he will appreciate as fine and great because you are his father, and you will get some of his youngness into you and find that it helps might- ily. The more of it you get, the less the years count in your life. 26 VIII CONCRETE FACTS S IMPLY because concrete facts are of worth here, the author gives a bit of his own experience. Experience is what we go through ; what goes through us. It taught me that, while at first it was not easy to get down to my Boy’s level, it would have been a wretched mistake not to persist in it to accomplishment, and that it would also have been a mistake to try to lift my Boy and his belong- ings and interests to my level. 27 BUILDING YOUR BOY And so, without any inklings of either the patronizing spirit or su- perior knowledge, I knuckled down to kites, pet rabbits, woodchuck- hunting, Indian wigwams, baseball, marbles, figure-fours, swimming, skating, reading, school work — in a word, the whole A B C of boyish interests and delights. Looking back at it through a doz- en years or more, two things in that experience stand out clearly ; it did me good all round, and it gave me my Boy, as fully as is possible for a father to have his Boy, — gave me his confidence, his affection, 28 BUILDING YOUR BOY his esteem. The memory of it is pleasant, and will have no dying, nor here, nor beyond the crossing. Fathers who try it will find that it pays, in the coinages of what is richest in life, to plan a late after- noon or an evening at home or afield with the Boy — with him and for him, to be his alone. If there is sacrifice in it, and the Boy knows it, so much the better. Play games with him, even rol- licking ones ; have quiet talks with him about his affairs; get at his heart-thinkings; read with him; tell him stories — all this, rather than 29 BUILDING YOUR BOY go so often to tlie club, the theatre, or social functions. Such hours with your Boy make bright spots and incidents in his life, — happy events, filled with untellable influ- ences for good. Somewhere in his life, fronting temptation, the mem- ory of these hours will prove morally bracing and saving. We may well pity the Boy whose younger years have had no comradeship with father. It is the inalienable right of your Boy, and any act or circum- stance that deprives him of it is a violation of justice and equity, a la- mentable mistake of fatherhood. 30 IX THE boy’s judgment D O not ignore the fact of your Boy’s judgment. Boys in their ’teens have a keenness and accuracy of judgment for which they get scant credit. A boy of this age knows intuitively whether his confidence is wanted, and where to place it. He knows, too, whether interest in him and his affairs is genuine or not. A Boy has sharp eyes and detects shams at a glance. Any namby- pamby make-believe, and half- 31 BUILDING YOUR BOY hearted interest is soon detected by a Boy. First of all, the Boy wants to give his full confidence to his father; he wants to place it there. The father should get it and hold it. The time in which a father has a helpful, shaping influence with his Boy is limited. It is shorter than many of us realize. Indeed, your Boy may have reached confirmed tendencies before you have thought about creating them, before you begin to perform your duty in this direction. The criti- cally formative period in your Boy’s 32 BUILDING YOUR BOY life is, perhaps, between twelve and sixteen years of age. It is then that the tendencies toward shaping character are getting well settled in their moulds. In these years the father should be especially com- panionable with and watchful of his Boy. It is the character crisis point in the Boy’s life. 33 X PUT A BOY ON HIS HONOR s far as possible — and the pos- ^ sibilities are much greater than we commonly suppose — a father should put a Boy on his honor. At an early 'age a Boy has the sense of honor, knows what honorable conduct is and what it means. The sense of right and wrong is instinctive in all human- ity. Give the Boy a chance, as far as possible, to make his own settlement of these questions of right and wrong in conduct. 34 BUILDING YOUR BOY Every Boy likes to be trusted. Above all, be wants his father to trust him, to believe in him, to trust him in word and act, to be- lieve that he will do right. Somebody asked the great actor, Joseph Jefferson, what he was do- ing for his children in the way of training. He replied: “I am train- ing them to fish, to play fair, and to tell the truth; I trust them.” Not in one case in a hundred will a Boy who is put on his honor dis- appoint his father. Let the Boy know that you believe in his honor, that his word is good with you. 35 XI KINDLINESS VERSUS COERCION X' T^INDNESS is the highest hu- man excellence; and no- where is it more applicable, more positive in value, and more certain of good results, than in the building of a Boy. Kindness in treatment will touch and temper the better qualities in him, and induce obedi- ence; coercion will not. You cannot make men moral by law, nor can X/ children be compelled to be good. In your Boy -building, there should be no compulsion, no scold- 36 BUILDING YOUR BOY ing, no nagging. There should be no attempt to drive the Boy, than whom nothing in the world is more stubborn when antagonized by injustice and inconsiderateness, nothing more amenable to fairness. In Boy-building kindliness is in- stinct with success, because instinct with the qualities of justice, sym- pathy, and helpfulness. The father who is kind respects his Boy, honors him, treats him with the highest consideration, is tender and humane toward his Boy. Your Boy is yours, now, in his ’teens, and if you fulfil this law of 37 BUILDING YOUR BOY kindness, he will be yours later in life. By this treatment you may influence and control his life long after he has gone out of his home. The Boy who has a kind, close, companionable confidant in his father, and finds him genuinely in- terested in what concerns him as a Boy, will not in after-life, as a man, yield easily, if at all, to the temptation of mean and contempt- ible things. 38 BREAKING THE WILL OF A BOY C oercion, or what is termed “breaking the will” of a Boy, is cruel, inhuman, and un- manly; a relic of the most igno- rant and brutal paganism in the annals of the race. No father has the right under any circumstances to attempt the breaking the will of his Boy. Fathers who do try this sort of thing contend that they find warrant for the brutality (and it is brutality) in the Scrip- tures. They will glibly quote Deu- BUILDING YOUR BOY teronomy XXI, and the Proverbs. “ Train up a child [by coercion] in the way he should go [according to this father’s idea], and when he is old he will not depart from it.” The counsel of Solomon should be read as he uttered it: “Train up a child according to his way [his temperament], and even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” The meaning is clear. The Boy’s temperament and peculiari- ties, the needs of his nature in the individual sense, should be taken into account and carefully consid- ered. His training should be adapted especially to these, so that 40 BUILDING YOUR BOY he is helped into his proper way, rather than into any way picked out for him by a strong-willed father. Solomon’s injunction is utterly opposed to this “will-break- ing.” The author of the Proverbs was a wise man, and it is n’t even thinkable that he would advocate will-breaking in children. Unable to interpret intelligently the Scriptures, and actuated by sel- fish and unenlightened motives, these fathers make the blunder. Will-training is an important part of the Building of a Boy, but will- breaking has no part or place in it. It is noteworthy that the mother 41 , BUILDING YOUR BOY always protests against it. Her intuition is far superior to this man’s judgment. The father who sets out on a campaign of coercion and will-breaking in the training of his Boy is totally ignorant of the first principles of parental rela- tionship. A broken will is a broken bow. Will is the power of choice. A Boy is endowed with it. It is God- implanted. There can be no choice when, under coercion, there is but one possible course to pursue. To do under compulsion and force is not to choose. 42 BUILDING YOUR BOY No sane man claims that the will of a Boy should be lawless, or that he should scout and trample upon home authority. Nor, if there is kind, persuasive training will it be. It is common information that wholly unrestrained recklessness in youth makes criminals, but if the statistics in criminology and the records of our police courts are worth anything as evidence, they prove absolutely that more boys and girls go wrong because of un- fair, unjust, and brutal treatment in the home, than from any other cause. That is the belief of every 43 BUILDING YOUK BOY chief of police in this country. To crush out and break the will of a Boy, to wound his spirit in his cal- low and formative years, by cruel, coercive methods, is to destroy the groundwork of manhood and life. The divine plan is, that control and training shall be saturated with the grace of kindness and suffused with interest and persua- sion. If some correction is neces- sary to exact obedience, give your Boy a reason for it, and deprive him of some coveted pleasure, rather than resort to corporal methods. 44 XIII don’t strike your boy N o matter what the offence, don’t strike your Boy, with hand or fist. A father should be V ashamed to strike his Boy. No man worthy of fatherhood will do it. It is both brutal and cowardly V in any father. If he is the average Boy, a blow from his father injures his self-respect and suddenly in- terrupts, if it does not break, the tender threads of affection that should bind a Boy to his father. In most of these cases of physical 45 BUILDING YOUR BOY punisliment the Boy feels that his father inflicts it because he is physically able to do it. No cor- poral punishment in the home ought to be the rule. The grace of kindness and persuasion is far more effective. Every human being is susceptible to kindness. That, and a judicious exercise of real fatherliness, will accomplish the desirable ends. 46 XIV DO NOT SPY ON YOUK BOY W HATEVER else you may do, do not play the spy on your Boy. That is a contemptible stoop in a father. If you wanted to destroy your Boy’s confidence in you and shatter his affection and esteem for you, you could not find a better way to do it. It is beneath the dignity of a father. If you attempt it, he will find it out, and when he does, so far as your influence for his good is concerned, 47 BUILDING YOUR BOY you have lost your Boy. You can- not adopt any course of conduct toward your Boy that will so quickly, so thoroughly, and so ever- lastingly drive you out of his life. Nothing you can do, no apology you can make, will repair the in- jury or reinstate you in his affec- tion and esteem. He will live with you, technically obey you ; but the fact that you have refused to trust him, and have stooped to spy on him, is an evidence of your disbelief in him, and will always remain a rankling wound in his 48 BUILDING YOUR BOY heart. He will give you distrust for distrust, and withhold his con- fidence. The embarrassment of the situation will be very painful to you. 49 XV THE BENEFIT OF A DOUBT I F occasion arise where you, as a father, think you have a case involving the integrity of your Boy, the utmost caution and tact should be used. Sift it to the bot- tom before you either speak to him or act. His whole future, and your peace of mind, may pivot on this incident. Your Boy is en- titled to the benefit of any doubt. Don’t attempt any ‘‘third degree” device. Get incontrovertible proof of the guilt of your Boy before you 50 BUILDING YOUR BOY accuse him; accept nothing less. If it is against him, let him tell his story of the alfair. Do not question him while he tells it. Sympathetically listen. Weigh all the circumstances. If he has done wrong on the spur of the moment, impulsively, without viciousness, while you may not condone the act, you can be fair and considerate. If he is penitent, let him find forgiveness and no change in your confidence in him. Let him be altogether conscious of this. It will deepen his penitence. That he has caused you sorrow and pain 51 U. OF ILL LIB. BUILDING YOUR BOY is enough. After the incident is closed, never let him have occasion to feel that you are keeping it against him. Like the reasonable being that he is, he will not do the wrong again. If there is the shadow of a doubt as to his guilt, give the Boy the benefit of that doubt. 52 XVI DO NOT NAG AT YOUR BOY I \0 not nag at your Boy. If he breaks or tears, do not display a nagging, scolding, fretting spirit. If he is a wide-awake, fun- loving Boy, do not crucify his jubi- lant spirit. Do not snap him up with any sharp, brusque, and harsh reprimand. He is just a Boy, and your Boy. He has all the exuber- ance of a wild animal. If he expresses an opinion, do not cut him out with some exclamation that has the tone of displeasure in 53 BUILDING YOUR BOY it. Hear him; and if he is right, commend him. If he is wrong, then kindly set him right. He takes himself seriously as a Boy. Do not call his attention to the model Boy next door, by the way of comparison, to the discredit of himself. It is a common and a great mistake which fathers make. Quite often, the Boy next door is an insulferable prig, who is about as animated as a cigar-store Indian, and, as a model of primness and virtue, is given to calling attention to his own goodness. No Boy pro- fits by these extraordinary models. 54 XVII MAKE YOUR HOME ATTRACTIVE M ake the home a delightsome place for your Boy. Make its surroundings and its atmos- phere congenial and appealingly pleasant. You can make it so much this that your Boy will not care to spend his leisure hours elsewhere. Sometimes it is the monotony of home life of which the Boy may weary. Among adults, monotony creates worry and discontent. Have something new and fresh and interesting with 55 BUILDING YOUR BOY wBicli to entertain your Boy and contribute to his love of home. Among other things, give him a room that he can refer to as his own, where he can keep and dis- play his own boyish belongings. Not away off in the top of the house, — maybe in the unceiled story, — where the little fellow swelters through the summer and shivers through the winter nights, a room all devoid of comfort and attractiveness. Every Boy has the instinct of fitness and decency, with some sense of beauty, and everything about this average up- 56 BUILDING YOUR BOY stairs room outrages and insults these instincts. It is usually given to him in the wretched notion that anything will do for a Boy. Your Boy is entitled to some- thing better than this. Give him a room in a better part of the house. Have it tastefully ar- ranged, with some good story tell- ing pictures on the walls to greet his morning eyes; books and fancy things on the table. Give it an air of comfort and attractiveness. Let him feel the pride of owner- ship; let him recognize your love and interest in all that it contains. 57 BUILDING YOUR BOY Give him the privilege of having boy companions visit him there. Visit with him yourself, not only when he may be sick, but when he is well. Take an interest in what he has there as his own. Add something to his treasures now and then. These visits offer rare op- portunities for getting hold of the deepest affections of your Boy. Such a room as that, and the daily care of it, will do more to create in your Boy contentment and a love of home, and stimulate his sense of order and neatness, and make him morally stronger in hours of 68 BUILDING YOUR BOY temptation, than almost anything else you can do for him. It will, as well, awaken within him the desire to please you by obedience and good conduct. In this you are enacting one of the finest maxims in our speech: “Starve the evil in a man by feeding the good there is in him.’’ All this is within the reach and means of every father who has a home. The lack of it is not so much a matter of means as it is of thoughtlessness and want of con- sideration. An attractive home, to which a 59 BUILDING YOUR BOY Boy will go with delight, will great- ly reduce the possibilities of con- tamination by contact with evil associations which lie await out- side. And these evil associations will lie there always, and await always. Tour Boy must meet them. He is not an immune. Nothing you can do will give your Boy im- munity. What you can do, by teaching and training and the in- culcation of the principles of the virtues and manliness, is to pre- empt the fertile soil of his young mind, laying the foundations for moral cleanliness, honor, self- 60 BUILDING YOUR BOY respect, and mental integrity, strengthening and equipping him for the ordeal through which he must inevitably pass on his way up in years. So long, and so far as possible, prevent contact with associations that are evil. As a father, you ought to know a good deal about the character of the associates of your Boy, the boys he likes and has chosen as companions. You cannot know them as intimately as you know your Boy, but you can know enough for a decision as to their fitness or unfitness as corn- el BUILDING YOUR BOY panions for your Boy; and it is dereliction on your part not to know. And places, you should know, as well as Boys. A father will find it a good rule to get firmly fixed in the mind and heart of his Boy never to go into doubtful places; and not only places that are known to be doubtful, but places that are not known to be safe. This is a rule that, obeyed, will be help- ful in guarding your Boy against contaminations of evil. If a Boy has such a home, and such a room in it, he will find there 62 BUILDING YOUR BOY alluring occupations for time and mind. A true fatherly interest will find a way to make these home and room occupations interesting and entertaining to his Boy. When they are interesting, they are absorbing and engaging to the mind as well as the body. 63 XVIII THE BOY AND HIS READING I READING is one of the chief ^ delights of your Boy, and because it is, it is one of the most vitally important factors in Boy- building, and one about which you, as his father, cannot be too much concerned. We may well give the epigram, “As a man thinketh, so is he,” a new direction: “As a Boy readeth, so is he,” largely. Nor is there any occasion here for the deliriousness and fright so often assumed by the professional alarm- 64 BUILDING YOUR BOY ist. All that is necessary is the expenditure of common sense and intelligent judgment on the part of the father. It is assumed that a father may not wholly know the character of the associates and chosen compan- ions of his Boy, but he can know altogether the character of his Boy’s companions whom he meets and talks with in books. And he ought to know them and the in- fluence they are to exert upon the mind and heart of his Boy. There should be restriction by the father as to the quality and quantity of read- 65 BUILDING YOUR BOY ing matter; a fair and just super- vision of books. There is a lavish provision in our public libraries for the free gratification of the reading taste. The right and usefulness of that provision ought to be a ques- tion to be settled largely by the father. Fiction will always be a large part of your Boy’s reading; and your duty is to see that his stories contain mental and moral nutrition, and that the imagination, as the most creative element in your Boy’s mind, be fed bountifully in true and harmless and beautiful ways. Many of our ablest and most 66 BUILDING YOUR BOY accomplislied modern writers have contributed to the stock of juvenile literature. This fact assures the issuance of entertaining and inter- esting, as well as helpful, books for the Boy, which will aid the father in his supervision and selec- tion of reading matter. The father ought to have the best and widest knowledge possible in respect to desirable books and papers for his Boy. Nothing that is likely to lead to a perverted imagination, or false views of life, should be allowed. Books and papers of this last character are scattered broadcast 67 BUILDING YOUR BOY in our land. As well, there is an ample supply of the other kind, where splendid stories are attrac- tively told; where the language is good and pure, the descriptions of character and of places are vivid, and the narratives and conver- sations themselves are invested with all the glamour and bright- ness which each one of our best authors knows how to throw about his subject. In such books there is a deep undercurrent of good teaching, which the young reader is well-nigh certain to find and appropriate. The importance of 68 BUILDING YOUR BOY style in a book for a Boy can hardly be overestimated. It cre- ates in him a love of fine dic- tion and cultivates good taste. It may be asserted that one great reason which unconsciously causes a bright lad to enjoy his story-book is the beauty of the diction. One of the first conditions of a good book, for a Boy, is that it should not be written contemp- tuously, with the notion that any nonsense and a slovenly use of language will do for the purpose, or with the patronizing air of one who writes down rather than up to 69 BUILDING YOUR BOY the level of a Boy’s comprehension. The point of view from which a bright Boy looks into literature and the world is not necessarily a lower one than that of the 'author. Dif- ferent, no doubt; but the difference is one of kind rather than of degree. Books for your Boy should awaken his curiosity, feed his fancy and imagination, stimulate his men- tal and moral qualities, entertain and interest him, provide him with ideals of robust manliness, and not in any sense pander to viciousness. Such books and papers are plenti- 70 BUILDING YOUR BOY ful. Give the Boy romance, but the best there is ; that which gives his mind a love of the great and the wholesome; that which carries his thoughts out from himself, stirs his observant and reflective facul- ties. Interlard this with reading that goes hand in hand with his school work ; the one helps the other. Of course, no father wants his Boy’s mind fed on the trashy stuff that lies within the covers of the average five-cent novel. A little care and kindly advice will soon make it out of the question for the Boy to enjoy a book of 71 BUILDING YOUR BOY questionable morality. Books that increase the knowledge of the Boy, that add to his skill or arouse his enthusiasm, that make him appre- ciative of what is good and true, and that render him more resolute to follow what is best and highest, are the books you should put into his hands. 72 XIX CHOICE OF LIFE-WORK T hen there comes the question of the life-work of your Boy. It is here that some of the greatest blunders of parents are made. These blunders are needless because heedless. The nature of the Boy has de- cided, or is deciding, the place in life that he can fill with the great- est satisfaction to himself and others. The natural bent toward this or that occupation is in the Boy. As his father, it is your busi- 73 BUILDING YOUR BOY ness to find that bent in his early life. When you have found it, fos- ter it in every legitimate way. Never oppose it by trying to make something else of him. Nature has put within your Boy the embryonic qualities of the engi- neer, the carpenter, the blacksmith, the physician, the lawyer, the mer- chant, the preacher, the teacher, the farmer — some one of the many occupations of men in life. These qualities you are to discover and aid in their realization. They may run athwart your plans for him, and counter your dearest wishes; but if you are wise, and have gar- 74 BUILDING YOUR BOY nered anything worth while out of your experience in the world, you will not attempt to force your Boy into some sphere of life-work for which it is apparent he has no natural bent, no aptitude, no earnest desire or thought or en- thusiasm. You may sincerely desire a re- production of yourself in your Boy, so far as occupation is concerned, a desire to make him another yon; and happy are you if nature in the Boy is with you in it. But the blunder of all blunders will be the effort to make him a merchant, or a lawyer, or a preacher, if nature 75 BUILDING YOUR BOY has outfitted him for a farmer, a mechanic, or an artist. Study his originality, his initia- tive. Recognize the personal pe- culiarities of your Boy in these matters, then cheerfully guide and aid his development along his own leanings. If you do not, and you push him or persuade him into some other place, perchance because it an- guishes your soul to see the smut of the shop on him, you will see him as a square man in a round hole, or a round man in a square hole — a misfit for life, a sadly pa- 76 BUILDING YOUR BOY thetic, spoiled life. In the wretch- edness of dissatisfied existence, the fret and chafing of it, in its failure of success, your Boy will pay the penalty of your heedless, needless blunder of trying to defeat a nat- ural law. These things have their price, and the price must be paid. The world is full of these pathetic misfits — lawyers who should have been carpenters, and carpenters who should have been lawyers or doctors; ministers who should have been merchants, and merchants who should have gone into the pulpit; and so on, through the long list. 77 BUILDING YOUR BOY If your boy has a natural taste and aptitude for music, do not spoil a successful career in this direc- tion by trying to make him drop it for the tools of a mechanic. It is safer, and far more sane, to let him follow his ambition. Encourage it. If the Boy would rather play with tools than eat, stand by him. Pitch your own notions to the winds, and help him develop his individuality in its own natural direction. The bent of your Boy will reveal itself in one way or another. My own Boy wanted one of two things, and the desire came out in a 78 BUILDING YOUR BOY queer way. Getting off a train and walking past the powerful locomo- tive behind which we had been travelling swiftly, my Boy pulled at my arm and pointed to the cab of the engine, saying: “Up there is where I want to be, papa”; then he added, “or behind the guns in the navy.” I had altogether different plans and desires for my Boy’s future, but thence on, I dismissed them, never mentioned them to him, and willingly helped him to a realiza- tion of his desire. I am glad that I did, for he is not a misfit, and has made good. 79 BUILDING YOUR BOY History is replete with cases where the father has attempted to take a Boy away from nature and make a misfit of him, and nature has always won out. There were Webster, and Adams, and Benja- min West, and Michael Angelo, and Bach, and Handel, and Arkwright, and Galileo, and Watts, and A. T. Stewart, and numberless others, whose fathers made a losing fight. It is wise for you to find out which way nature is leading your Boy in the matter of life-work, then cheer- fully acquiesce, and help the Boy on his way. 80 XX ENCOURAGE PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT Q uite always a Boy is physi- cally active, athletic, brimful of physical unrest. But he uses it in chunks, with no system or regu- larity or purpose in its expenditure. This you are to teach him. Teach him the value of health and a fine physical condition. Teach him that a well man is a king among men. Men like to look at him; women admire him; children confide in him. Teach your Boy the intimate rela- tions of mental, moral, and physical 81 BUILDING YOUR BOY health; how they hang together, grow together, are dependent on each other. Teach him how to con- serve physical strength, and how to develop it in a rational, sane way; how to build up any weak points that he may have, until his phy- sique is symmetrical and service- able. Point out the habits that neutralize and weaken his physical nature. Do not minimize these habits ; better set his thoughts toward the maximum of their evil. Show him this in the object lessons of afflicted and subnormal men and boys. Develop a sense of responsi- 82 BUILDING YOUR BOY bility in him in this matter of the physical nature. Point out the dif- ference between making a fad of physical training, and a sane and systematic development. 83 XXI HAND-CRAFT AND HEAD-CRAFT G ive your Boy all the educa- tional training of the book- and-school kind you can, even adding to the three K’s, the dear old classical kind. Give him Greek and Latin and all the rest of the flowers of the Hymettian field, if you will, but, somehow, give him training in the field of manual work — hand-craft. There is a steadily increasing demand in the business life of this country for brains coupled with technical skill. 84 BUILDING YOUR BOY The advertising columns of your daily newspaper make this very clear. Even if your Boy goes into the professional field, a knowledge of and experience with hand-craft will prove of positive benefit to him. In the absence of the old-while apprenticeship, the only alternar tive is to give him tools and the lessons from the correspondence or the technical schools. These are developing and practical. The Boy’s best intelligence, and that natural bent which manifests itself at an early age and which is 85 BUILDING YOUE BOY nature’s way of showing in what direction he is best calculated to work, will turn him to a given occu- pation and decide that he can fol- low it to advantage. You may have a Boy who has grown tired of school. This may be because of his slow progress or of some inherent weakness. He has tired of the uphill work; the fa- tigue of study is genuine with him. He has lost his interest. He is fifteen or sixteen and has his eye on some handicraft occu- pation. He longs to begin it as his life-work. If he is a thought- 86 BUILDING YOUR BOY ful Boy, he is probably right about leaving school. If, after a thorough investigation and study of the situation, these facts are made clear, your duty is plain: let him go into the shop or store, and bid him Godspeed. To keep him in school, of which he is tired, and where he makes no reasonable progress, is an unwise thing to do. It invites trouble and disaster. Covet for your Boy the best gifts, then see to it that he has the freest choice and opportunity to make the most and the best of his life. Let everything you do for your 87 BUILDING YOUR BOY Boy invite his affection and confi- dence ; let it beckon bis aspira- tions for what is highest and best, and awaken true ambition. So train and so build him that his character will be not only symmet- rical, but a symphony of all the virtues which make for true suc- cess. It is a great privilege. THE END 88 BUILDING YOUR BOY: HOW TO DO IT. HOW NOT TO DO IT nPHAT “BUILDING YOUR BOY” has the ^ hearty approval of the press is indicated by the following extracts from reviews : Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican: “Mr. Wayne’s essay is a little sermon to the father who thinks he’s ‘too busy’ to attend to his boy, and if such a father reads the book he will be sure to appre- ciate, if he hasn’t realized it already, that properly bringing up a boy is a good deal of an undertaking.” Rocky Mountain News^ Denver: ‘ ‘ Most excellent suggestions to fathers on the train- ing and companioning of sons. It is to be hoped the book will find many readers.” The Advance^ Chicago: “It is a little volume, but it contains a lot of dynamic suggestions to the father which, if he will accept and put into practice, are likely to help him to start his boy on the way to becoming a fine man.” Journal qf Education ^ Boston: “This is a mighty wholesome book. It is primarily a book for fathers, and all the more important because it is for them, because it dares to assume that it is primarily the father’s business to build the boy into a young man. It is admirably written. There are twenty-one chapters, each crisp, direct, and earnest.” Religious Telescope ^ Dayton, Ohio: “ ‘Building Your Boy ’ is a thoughtful little book. Every father should send himself a copy as a gift.” A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO BOOKS OF INTEREST IN CONNECTION WITH CHILD STUDY ZITHER books pertaining to various phases of ftiQf will be found profitable child culture that will reading are: MAKING THE BEST OF OUR CHILDREN By MARY WOOD ALLEN. In two volumes, 16mo. Each $1 net This is a new presentation of child study, in which right and wrong methods of training are illustrated. Beginning with the baby of six months, the author illustrates right or wrong meth- ods on the part of parents, carrying the problems on up to sixteen years of age. The first volume is concerned with younger child- ren, the second with older. A MOTHER’S LIST OF BOOKS FOR CHILDREN By GERTRUDE WELD ARNOLD. Second Edition. 16mo. $1 net This volume presents a list of the best books for children, classified, first, as to age, from two to fourteen years, and second, as to subject matter. Besides the authors, publishers and prices are given, and under each title is a brief descriptive paragraph. FINGERPOSTS TO CHILDREN’S READING By WALTER TAYLOR FIELD. Fifth Edition. 16mo. $1 net For librarians, school officers, teachers, young people, and all who have the interest of children at heart. The suggestions, if followed, will awaken in the children a genuine love for good books. The volume has the official endorsement of librarians, reading circle boards, and Sunday-school workers. TRUE MANHOOD By JAMES, CARDINAL GIBBONS. Bound in boards, tall 18mo. 50 cents net. Cardinal Gibbons has filled this little book with inspiring thoughts for young and old. All the books mentioned in this list can be had at your nearest bookstore or direct from us A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 3 0112 003649636