THE SPECIAL VIRTUES OF THE GANG
“The boy problem,” says J. J. Kimball, “is fundamentally not a personal
problem nor a problem of intellectuality; not a moral problem, nor a
psychological problem, though it may be all these,--but is, first of
all, a biological problem.” The instinct for activity is not new at
the age of twelve, but it does take on new forms of expression. Some
of these will begin and end with the gang period; some will persist
through life, as work or as recreation. But during this especially
active period, probably the most spontaneously active period of
existence, there must be laid the foundations of all the more important
interests of adult life.
There is a time for boys to learn to swim, hunt, fish, build huts, make
boats, gather collections, play ball, love nature, work; or by neglect
of this time, to lack interest in both work and play for the rest of
their lives. There is a time also for learning the social arts and the
social virtues. If this time passes with these lessons unlearned, it
becomes highly improbable that they ever will be learned at all.
So far, then, as education is a biological question, it tends to
resolve itself into the problem of utilizing the boy’s instinctive
interests as a basis for his formal training. This is especially true
of his moral education. We take the boy at an impressionable age, an
age during which he is probably more plastic than at any other time of
life, either before or after. We can lead him through the group life
of the gang, while the social instincts are being born and fashioned,
into a social life of the highest ideals and devotion; or on the other
hand, we may make him an unsocial or an anti-social being for life.
The gang is a natural and a necessary stage in normal development.
Carefully watched and wisely controlled, it is both the most natural
and the least expensive instrument that we can employ to help our sons
through one of the most critical periods of their lives. Nine tenths of
the gang’s activities depend on primitive instinctive impulses, which
cannot be suppressed, and which need only to be sanely guided to carry
the boy along the path which nature has marked out and bring him out
at the end a useful citizen and a good man. The men who have been most
successful in handling boys, men like Arnold of Rugby, Judge Lindsay
and William R. George, are precisely the men who have appealed most
powerfully to those boyish impulses.
Of all the gang-nurtured social virtues, loyalty and its allies stand
easily first. The gang, indeed, exists only because of the loyalty of
its members to one another. Without this mutual loyalty there could be
no gangs. All the great leaders and successful trainers of boys use the
lever of loyalty in reaching and holding their boys. Note the words of
Judge Lindsay with Harry. “Judge! Judge! If you let me go, I’ll never
get you into trouble again!” “I had him. It was the voice of loyalty. I
have used that appeal to loyalty hundreds of times since in our work
with boys and it is almost infallibly successful.” If we study the
secret of the power of William R. George, we find him using the same
strong lever. He trusts boys; he appeals to their loyalty; and he wins
the toughest boys, with whom many others have failed.
This gang loyalty, however, is by no means a loyalty to individuals
only; it is a loyalty also to ideals. The boy refuses to “squeal”
under pressure, partly to shield his fellows, but still more because
squealing is contrary to the boys’ moral code. He joins the tribal
wars, partly because, like the good barbarian he is, he loves his
neighbor and hates his enemy, but quite as much because certain
fightings are demanded by the gang’s standard of honor. The moral
education of the gang from the outside, therefore, consists, in part,
of a deft substitution of the best ideals of the grown-up world in
place of the crude standards of youth. But it must be deftly done
and always, at any price, without violence to the immemorial code of
Boyville.
Forgetting this, many an honest and zealous parent and teacher does
irreparable harm when he finds the boy’s moral code at variance with
the man’s. Unquestionably, for example, all good citizens, if adult,
ought to inform the proper authorities of any violations of law and
order, and to use their best efforts to bring offenders to justice.
That we do not always take the trouble to do this, is an important
reason why we are so badly governed. But the boy’s code is precisely
opposite. The good citizen of Boyville will shield the offender, and
persistently refuse information to the authorities. It is far better
to let boyish offenses go unpunished than to encourage boys to violate
their native moral instincts; and all great schoolmasters have acted on
this principle.
Less gifted teachers are often sorely tempted to listen to
tell-taleing. It is often the quickest way to solve deep mysteries.
Is it not better, however, to remain ignorant and suffer, rather than
receive information from the boys’ traitor? Three out of four of our
boys admire the loyal playmate, and despise the traitor. When the
teacher listens to volunteer assistants, she loses the good will of all
the loyalists. From that day on, she has enlisted with the minority,
who are the traitors and outcasts among their playmates.
The fond mamma is, naturally, the chief sinner in this regard. It often
happens that dear Charlie comes in from his play and says, “Johnnie hit
me.” Mamma says, “I will attend to that matter,” and she volunteers
to go over and give Johnnie’s mamma a free lecture on how to raise
children. Charlie enjoys the excitement, and reports to his mother the
next quarrel which he starts. If Charlie’s mother had said, “Charlie,
it takes two to make a quarrel, and when you get into trouble it is
more manly for you to settle the matter without coming to me,” his
whole career of life might have been happier and better. Too often the
mother’s encouragement makes a decent and manly boy into a tell-tale
and a coward, and so cuts him off from one of the great educative
influences of life.
For the explanation why only three in every four boys are in gangs,
instead of four in every four, is largely that the fourth boy is one
whom the gang will not have. Some boys, of course, are solitary by
nature,--sensitive, retiring boys who do not care for the rough life of
the gang, but prefer to play alone, with one companion, or with girls.
Some, too, grow up in isolated neighborhoods where there are few other
boys of the same age. These lose, perforce, the education that comes
in the gang. But the rest who stay out of the gang, stay out for the
gang’s good. They have been trained, often against their nature, to do
violence to the gang’s standard of honor. They fail to pass through the
normal development of human males; they lack a fundamental virtue and
their fellows will not trust them, boy or man.
In the gang, then, we find the natural time and place for the somewhat
sudden birth and development of that spirit of loyalty which is the
foundation of most of our social relations. We must, in short, look
upon the gang as nature’s special training-school for the social
virtues. Only by associating himself with other boys can any youth
learn the knack of getting on with his fellow men; acquire and
practice coöperation, self-sacrifice, loyalty, fidelity, team play;
and in general prepare himself to become the politician, the business
man, the efficient citizen of a democracy. Nature, we must believe, has
given the boy the gang instincts for the sake of making easy for him
the practice of the gang virtues. It may well be questioned whether any
association of state or church or neighborhood or school or order has
had a greater influence over the lives of most of us men than had the
dozen or so of boys who were our intimate companions between the ages
of twelve and fifteen.
We must not forget that the instinctive vices of the gang tend largely
to be self-limiting, so that the boy, even if left entirely alone,
would outgrow most of his faults. Not so with the gang virtues. The
impulses to loyalty, fidelity, coöperation, self-sacrifice, justice,
which are at the basis of gang psychology, are powerfully reinforced,
as we have already seen, by nearly all the typical gang activities.
Even collective stealing is a lesson in coöperation. Thieving
expeditions are often definitely planned; one boy watches while the
others steal; one engages the attention of the storekeeper while
another annexes his property; one member of the gang plagues the victim
to get chased, and then the rest loot his goods. Most especially,
however, in the group games of the gang do we find the most convenient
tool for teaching many of the most essential social qualities. “In
playing group games,” says Joseph Lee, “morality is being born and the
social man, man the politician, man the citizen; and it is my belief
that in most instances this political or social man will get himself
thoroughly and successfully born in no other way.”
The steady pressure of gang life on the side of the social virtues
appears strikingly in the rules and customs of the organizations.
“Put me out,” reports one youth, “because I said one fellow didn’t have
spunk to play the leader.” “Put a boy out of the gang for fighting when
he didn’t need to.” “Put a fellow out once for fighting with another
boy. The other fellow was in the right.” “Never allow a big fellow to
pick on a little one. We were against smoking.” “Had to be at work when
he comes into the gang; must pay his dues.” “All stand up for a fellow
in trouble.” “Help each other out if we get into trouble.” “If anybody
picked on one of our fellows, we would fight them.” “If a fellow didn’t
divvy up, we started fighting with him.” “Put a fellow out because he
wouldn’t take his share of expense.” “A fellow wouldn’t share up, so
we fought him.” “Put three out for bossing and running the place.” “No
fellow ever told on us. One fellow was caught. He stayed in Charles
Street jail three months before the rest of us were caught.”
Or consider the following unwritten laws of various gangs as a
preparation for a law-abiding life. “If there was a dispute, leader
settled it. If two fellows were fighting for a thing, he took it
away from them and gave it to another fellow. In playing dice, chuck
the fellow out who made the dispute.” “I was leader. Would settle
disputes. Would say whether it was right or not.” “Quarrel for five
or ten minutes, and then ask N. to settle it. We would be satisfied
with what he would say.” “The officers would most always settle the
disputes. Talk it over, get circumstances, then settle it.” “One of the
bigger boys would settle it. They would stop the fighting.” “If we had
disputes, we would vote on it. One who would get majority, to him we
would leave it go.” “Get a fellow who could keep things to himself.”
“If he knew enough to keep still, let him come in.” “If he was a good
guy and round the corner every night, after a while let him in if he
was not a squealer.”
A “squealer,” be it observed, is one who, being caught in an escapade,
tells on the rest to save his own skin.
Disloyalty is the one unforgivable offense in boyish eyes, the one
crime which inevitably leads to expulsion from the gang. “If he went
against us, call him a back-biter. Chuck him out.” “Put a fellow out
for squealing on them.” “Put him out because he would run off when
needed to fight.”
Among twenty-one boys who had been expelled from their gangs, eleven
were put out for disloyalty, three for fighting in bad causes, and but
one each for all other reasons. There is no other institution on earth
that can take its place beside the boys’ gang for the cultivation of
unswerving loyalty to the group.
Close beside loyalty and fidelity, come the related virtues of
obedience, self-sacrifice, and coöperation. The boy who will not obey
the captain cannot play with the group. Baseball and football are
impossible without coöperation, and they demand constant self-sacrifice
of the individual to the team. The gang fight, brutal and useless as
it commonly is, also calls for the highest devotion. It is fought, not
for personal ends but for the honor of the gang. Often the fight is to
redress the wrongs of another member of the gang; not infrequently it
is on behalf of a younger brother of some member. In the great battle
between C---- and E---- in which nearly a thousand boys took part, the
_casus belli_ was the wrongs of the little C---- lads on whom the
E---- gangs had been “picking” beyond custom.
After all, there is nothing finer in all our human history than the
loyalty of men to comrade and chief, to regiment and king and country,
and their obedience even unto death. The Old Guard at Waterloo, the
Spartans at Thermopylæ, the Boy on the Burning Deck, the Roman Guard at
Pompeii, Horatius, Arnold von Winkelried,--who of us was not brought up
on these stories? The manly virtues are instinctive in proper men, but
men first learn their practice in the gang.
Almost every activity of the gang is a lesson in coöperation. Not
only the group games and the fighting, but the peaceful tribal
occupations,--the hunting, fishing, exploring, hut-building,
swimming, skating,--all have to be done more or less in common. Tact,
adaptability, skill in getting on with one’s fellows, are among the
minor virtues of the gang. So, too, is the spirit of democracy, for
the gang is as little snobbish as any human group. It puts a premium
also on strength of body, while most of its typical activities involve
wholesome physical exercise which most boys would hardly undertake
alone.
Last, but by no means least, of the gang virtues comes courage. Now
courage and self-reliance are partly a matter of habit. One simply gets
accustomed to danger, and so meets it without fear, knowing that he
can take care of himself. Baseball and football are both brave games.
The boy who is afraid to get his shins kicked, or to stand up to bat
against a swift pitcher, has no place in either. Fighting often demands
high courage, especially in group fight, where one cannot stop to pick
an opponent of his own size but must stand his ground against all
comers, little and big. Then there are also the “stunts” and “dares”
which the members of the gang give one another. These also are a
constant incentive to bravery. The coward is a social outcast who has
no place in the gang; but the timid boy stands to have his timidity
shamed and practiced out of him. For the naturally brave boy in the
gang, courage soon becomes a fixed habit.
Considerations such as the foregoing are rapidly bringing about in the
minds of educators, social workers and enlightened parents a radical
alteration of opinion with regard to the nature and influence of boys’
gangs. The time was when it was the nearly universal opinion that all
gangs are bad and should be broken up as quickly as possible. This
opinion, it must be admitted, is still that of a considerable majority
of persons.
Of recent years, however, we are coming to see that this older attitude
is not only false but futile. Man is a social animal, the social spirit
in him has had a very long history, and the fundamental social virtues
which support the complex structure of our modern civilization have
been built into man’s nature through thousands of generations. The
little boy is an extreme individualist; somewhere he must be born again
into the world of social coöperation. For the beginning of this new
life, the gang seems to be the natural place. It is through the gang
and by means of the gang that the modern educator and the modern parent
will train the growing boy to his part in the collective life of the
community.