CONCLUSIONS
Every boy is endowed “with certain inalienable rights,” not the least
of which is the right to be so trained that he will approach the
stature of perfect manhood. It is a birthright in the same sense as
his right from birth to food, clothing, and shelter. And this right of
the child fixes upon the parent the corresponding duty of supplying
intelligent training and character-building environment. The basis of
all boy-training is parent-training, which I wish to emphasize even at
the risk of continued reiteration. And parent-training should be based
on a knowledge of boy-psychology and its application to the evolution
of the boy, which will throw a flood of light on many of the problems
which we formerly attempted to solve in the dark. His physical and
moral growth are so dependent upon or intimately related to his mental
growth that the solution of his psychological problems will, in most
cases, tend to solve the others.
The subject presents no serious difficulties to the parent who
possesses a consciousness of its importance to the welfare of his son.
All of us have certain preconceived ideas on boy-training which emanate
from the adult viewpoint and the adult standard of morals. We realize
how, if we were in our son’s place, we would act or ought to act, but
too often we forget that this is an application of the adult standard
which is psychologically impossible to the boy. Get the boy’s viewpoint.
Patience, tact, and insight; insight, tact, and patience will work
wonders with your boy. Insight is but another name for the boy’s
viewpoint; it implies acquaintance with his psychology. The adult
viewpoint of boy-problems is out of focus. We must re-adjust our
psychologic lenses to see and perceive the motives which actuate his
conduct, if we are to judge justly and sentence righteously. While the
parent is passing judgment on his son’s acts, he should not forget
to pass judgment on his own judgment. In training your boy, “you are
handling soul-stuff and destiny waits just around the corner.”
Again I would stress the need of a companionship between father and
son which should attain the intimacy of chumship. Such relationship
is indispensable to a knowledge of all his difficulties, trials and
troubles, for he will attempt to solve them in his own crude way if
there is no one to whom he can lay bare his soul in the belief that he
will find sympathetic understanding and advice. Fewer sons would go
astray if more fathers would be big brothers to them. The foundation
of such companionship is laid in infancy and early boyhood, but it is
neglected and frequently lost at puberty, at which time it is most
needed. We are quite willing to accept the pleasures of association
with the light-hearted frankness and joyousness of infancy, but too
often we evade the responsibility of sharing the burdens of the
adolescent.
Few fathers know their adolescent sons. It is true that they recognize
the exterior boy and are familiar with his patent activities, but
they seldom know his inner self and it is his inner self which needs
help. Unfortunately, we men are endowed with a superfluous amount of
egotism which causes us to assume that our sons will, through heredity
or force of our example, absorb or inhale much of our surplus moral
virtue. Few boys can work out their own salvation. The let-alone policy
is no policy at all. A passive system of training cannot be commended
for results. Instead, a plan of active, suggestive, sympathetic,
intelligent, and informative coöperation will produce the same
beneficial results when applied to the boy-problem as to a business
problem.
Certain apparent deficiencies of intellect as well as of character
are often the result of influences far removed from those which are
commonly assigned as their compelling causes. It is usual for us to
look for the immediate and proximate causes of ailments while remote
causes are often unsuspected. Among such causes are the physical
abnormalities known as adenoids and hypertrophied tonsils, both of
which exercise sinister influence in repressing the growth of intellect
and character. It is now generally conceded by the medical profession
that these conditions exercise such a profound influence on the
physical and nervous system that the free and normal development of
intellect as well as of character is retarded. Frequently the boy who
is backward in school and who often displays tendencies toward truancy,
evasion, and falsehood because of his mental retardation has reached
this state on account of his physical condition.
The correction of astigmatism, myopia, and other defects of eyesight
(alarmingly prevalent among children) by supplying him with proper
eyeglasses uniformly results in better school grades as well as marked
improvement in cheerfulness. The evil effects of impaired hearing,
decayed teeth, and malnutrition on intellectual progress are also
noticeable. The backward, indolent boy should always have the advice
and assistance of the physician, the oculist, and the dentist before
he receives blame for either mental deficiency or laziness.
The effects of heredity and prenatal influence in determining the
character of the child have been, in the opinion of many investigators,
greatly overestimated by the popular mind. The causative influence of
training (and environment which is a part of training) is immeasurably
more potent in the upbuilding of strong moral qualities than heredity.
The records of the Children’s Aid Society of New York, covering more
than 38,000 children, many of whom are the offspring of drunken and
criminal fathers and dissolute mothers, show beyond cavil that a good
home with love and moral training will usually submerge hereditary
tendencies be they ever so vicious. A very large proportion of these
children of delinquent parents, stamped (according to the theory of
heredity) with rotten physiques and rottener characters, have, through
good training and good environment, developed into law-abiding and
useful citizens. Among them may be mentioned two governors of states,
two congressmen, four judges, one justice of the Supreme Court,
nine members of state legislatures, thirty-five lawyers, eighty-six
teachers, nineteen physicians, twenty-four ministers, sixteen
journalists, twenty-nine bankers, and countless farmers, mechanics,
clerks and business men. The theory of the “inherent depravity” of the
boy, whether attributed to heredity or to an act of God, is a rapidly
fading myth. The boy is inherently good--not bad.
First know your son and love him; then you will be able to help
him. When you come to know the boy--even the adolescent--he is an
exceedingly lovable creature; and his inherent potentialities for
future excellence should be our inspiration for such assistance as
will build them into perfect manhood.
Do not deceive yourself with the belief that your Johnny is different
from other boys and that therefore the principles of boy-psychology
have no application to him and to his problems. Diversities of
temperament and character differentiate individuals, but all boys
possess a common nature whose evolution progresses according to fixed
laws. Idiosyncrasies and abnormalities of character are of slow growth.
They do not erupt suddenly like the measles. It must be obvious, on
consideration, that no simple panacea can be found for the speedy
cure of such complex and diverse diseases of character. Good training
and wholesome environment supplied throughout boyhood will make good,
wholesome character in manhood.
We may summarize, in so far as it is possible to do so (of necessity,
crudely and imperfectly) the principles of boy-training in the
following statements:
“Better boys!” should be our slogan.
Intelligent training is the birthright of every child.
The boy is the mirror of his home.
The wayward boy is usually the son of a wayward parent.
When we reclaim wayward parents we will reclaim wayward boys.
The average parent is either unskilled or underskilled in boy-training.
The first step in boy-training is the education of the parent.
The intelligent parent is the natural and best teacher of his own child.
The busy boy is the best boy.
Constant activity is the key to his evolution.
Encourage athletics and out-of-door activities for the growing boy.
Work _with_ boys, not _for_ them, produces the best results.
Get the juvenile viewpoint.
Insight and patience are the corner stones of boy-training.
Every father can become a hero to his son through chumship.
Through play the boy attains a large part of his growth--physical,
mental, and moral.
Fix the habit of obedience early.
Every boy is a gangster at heart. Encourage him to join a good gang
instead of a bad one.
Never punish him in anger. He has a keen sense of justice. Let the
punishment fit the “crime.”
The mother’s influence on the child is most potent before puberty--the
father’s after puberty.
Adolescence is the period of storm and stress in which incongruities
of conduct and character are certain to appear. With your patient
helpfulness he will outgrow them.
Train by positive, helpful suggestion, rather than negative repression.
Never prohibit an act without suggesting a substitute to fill the void.
Give him your reasons for the change.
Environment molds a score, where heredity molds one.
Do your part in building up symmetrically all four sides of his
nature--physical, mental, moral, and spiritual--and the result will be
God’s noblest work--a Man!
What profound emotions are stirred in the father’s breast when he
realizes that his long years of intelligent training have borne fruit
in the son he has sired; and what supreme joy comes to the mother when
she beholds her son standing at the threshold of superb manhood and she
can truly say, “I mothered a man!”
If I have seemed too severe in my strictures of delinquent parents, it
is because of a desire, grounded in the necessities of the case, to
impress upon them duties and responsibilities which are so frequently
neglected. If I have seemed too ardent a champion of the adolescent, I
offer no apology but the fact that he is often misunderstood and needs
an advocate to present his side of the case at the bar of parental
judgment.
Happy the man who has a son and thrice happy he who has three!
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.