“Confidential Chats with Boys,” and “Plain Facts on Sex
Hygiene,” are two in a series on this subject by Wm. Lee
Howard, M.D., and published by E. J. Clode, 156 Fifth Avenue,
New York.
I am going to say now what I should have said at the outset--that the
father, though he may leave every other phase of the boy’s development
to the mother, should take the initiative in sex enlightenment. He
should regard it as his peculiar right, his sacred privilege, to point
out the devious paths through which he himself may have threaded his
way from youth to man’s estate. There are no barriers between me and my
boy. The oneness of affection and the sameness of sex easily compass
the disparity in years. He grows older but I do not, for I am waiting
for him. In fact I am going back to him--I am meeting him halfway. Our
play is as boy with boy. Our talks are as man to man.
In a relationship like this there are no “sex secrets.” There is no ice
to break, because the transmission of knowledge is consistent, gradual
and unconscious. But when the father fails in his duty and the mother
has to step into the breach, it is different, I concede. There is a
certain reserve which is womanly, and perhaps not unmotherly. Still,
mother’s love is a poor thing if it cannot break down that slender
wall to save the boy. And mother’s love is not a poor thing, but a
great power. So if mothers can only be made to see why it must be done,
and when and how, I believe they will do it.
This is an appeal not to parental love only, but to parental reason. It
is made not by a purist, but by one who has travelled the road by which
all boys must go, and who knows its every crook and turn. It is a plea
in behalf of the American boy, who asks only that he be given a torch
to light his way.
VII
THE WEED AND THE WINECUP
In the past fiscal year there were smoked in the United States nearly
two million cigarettes more than in any previous year of the nation’s
history; and the consumption of distilled spirits, exclusive of wines
and beers, broke the record of the preceding year by twenty-three
million gallons.
Now, there is nothing particularly remarkable about these figures
except as they signify that we, as a nation, are smoking and drinking
considerably more than we used to, which in turn suggests the question:
To what extent are our boys responsible for the increase? I’m sure I
don’t know, and I can’t see any way of finding out. But I do know,
from daily observation, that the tobacco and strong drink habits are
formed in boyhood more commonly than there is any need of. I do know
that a great many young men acquire a taste for cigarettes and whiskey
while yet in their teens, purely through lack of the proper parental
influence and instruction.
To me this seems pitiable, especially because it is so obviously
unnecessary. The parents’ duty is clear. It is amenable to a hard and
fast rule to which there need be no exception, from which there should
be no deviation. The boy should be made to abstain from liquor and
tobacco until he is twenty-one.
How can you keep him from them? Facts, logic, reason. By these means
and only these, can you get the boy on the right track and be sure that
he will stick. Threats, coercion, exaggerations, bribes or pleadings
will accomplish nothing dependable. At this stage in his career you
can tell him what to do, but you must also tell him why.
A lady once said to me: “You believe that the parent should live
according to the principle he teaches the child. Then, how can you deny
your son tobacco, with a lighted cigar between your lips?”
The answer to this brings us to the nib of the tobacco question. The
child is put to bed at seven o’clock, although the parents may not
retire until eleven. The child takes milk at breakfast and the parents
may have coffee. The father may devote ten hours of the day to work,
but this would not be well for the child. Many things that the man may
do with impunity are not good for the growing boy.
This is exactly what I tell my boy, and he sees the logic of it: While
a boy is growing he should take nothing into his system that is not
nutritious and he should particularly abstain from anything that may
retard the development of his bodily organs, even in the slightest
degree. Every pulsation of the heart, every expansion of the lung
cells, every function of the nerves must do its work unimpeded while
the frame is lengthening and broadening into the proportions of a man.
Once the frame is completely developed the organs merely have to renew
the old tissues. But during the growing period they have not only to
renew the old but to create additional flesh, blood and bone to meet
the demands of the increasing bulk. There are two chemicals in tobacco,
pyridine and nicotine, that have a restraining effect upon the heart,
lungs and nerves. If you give them the additional burden of carrying
off these two poisonous chemicals, the building up of the tissues is
sure to suffer. If you do not feel bad results from it in youth, you
will certainly feel them in later years.
Said my boy to me: “I know a chap who smokes cigarettes; and he does a
hundred yards in eleven seconds.” “That’s too bad,” said I, “for just
so sure as he does it in eleven seconds with the cigarette handicap, he
could do it in ten and a half without it. And if this boy is running
for an organised athletic department like that of a college or an
established club, the training rules will forbid him the use of tobacco
for a certain period before the day of the contests. Ask any athletic
coach about tobacco and he will tell you to ‘cut it out.’ Ask any
physician about it--even one who is himself a smoker--and he will tell
you that no matter how strong and well a growing youth who smokes may
be, he would be a good degree stronger and better if he did not use
tobacco. You would like to arrive at manhood, as nearly physically
perfect as you can, wouldn’t you? You have not as yet acquired a taste
for tobacco, have you? Well, then, do you not see that by abstaining
from it you have something to gain and absolutely nothing to lose? Let
tobacco alone until you are twenty-one. I might better say twenty-five,
for that is the accepted age of maturity. But we will put it at
twenty-one and perhaps by that time you will add a few years’ more
abstinence of your own volition.”
Mothers, do not go beyond facts in pleading against the cigarette. Do
not tell your boy that cigarettes contain opiates, because they do not.
I have been through dozens of cigarette factories and have followed
the process of manufacture from the raw leaf to the finished article.
The better grades contain absolutely nothing but pure tobacco of the
mildest kind. In the cheaper grades a little harmless glycerine is
sometimes used to relieve the harsh taste of the tobacco. No harmful
drugs are employed. The paper wrappers are purer and less irritating
than the tobacco. Cigarette paper is the purest paper manufactured. The
danger of the cigarette is, first, that its cheapness appeals to the
boy who would not think of buying cigars; and second, its very mildness
encourages the young man to increase his smoking until he drifts into
excessiveness without knowing it. Consumed in moderation, it is the
least harmful form in which tobacco is used. But cigarettes or cigars,
or tobaccos in any shape whatever, are not good for the growing boy.
Mothers, this is the truth about tobacco, and this is what you
should tell your boy. Do not say that cigarette smoking leads to the
penitentiary or the madhouse, because it doesn’t, and the boy knows
better. The principal of my boy’s school walks by every day with a
cigar in his mouth. He is near seventy and a good citizen. Do not say
tobacco creates an appetite for strong drink, because it is not true,
and the boy will not believe it. Do not say that smoking wrecks the
nervous system, because in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it does
nothing of the sort, and the boy, who is constantly observing the man,
will not be convinced. Tell him the plain truth as I have written it,
and he will see the consistency of your reasoning.
* * * * *
Strong drink is no relative of tobacco. The only similitude between the
subjects is that they are both unnecessaries, if I may coin the word,
to the boy’s career. I have little to say about strong drink, because,
while it is a matter of vital importance to the boy, it is a problem
which our mothers appear to have pretty well in hand. The great
majority, I believe, proceed on the theory that alcohol is not good
for anybody, is ruinous to many, and, therefore, should be kept out
of the home and away from the boy. There are a minority, however, who
reason differently--thuswise: That drink is not harmful except to those
who make it so by excessive use; that the boy who is carefully guarded
against it in the home will the easier fall a victim to it when he gets
beyond the home influence and the home restraint; and, _per contra_,
that the boy who is permitted to become familiar with the use of it
moderately in the home, will acquire temperance at the same time and be
the better fitted to combat with its attending evils when he eventually
goes out into the world.
To the majority first mentioned I have but this to say: Go on; you are
doing well.
But to this minority I want to say: Stop! For the love of the God who
made you, stop! You are on the wrong track. And I’ll tell you why.
If alcoholism were only a habit, like the use of tobacco, there might
be a thread of practicability in your line of reasoning. But alcoholism
is more than a habit--it is a disease. There are alcoholic wards in
the hospitals, there are sanitariums devoted exclusively to persons
afflicted with it, there are physicians who specialise in the treatment
of it. Some people are immune to it; others are not. I am, it so
happens, and perhaps you are--but is your boy?
Science has lately ascertained that none are born consumptives. Some
may be born with a tendency for the disease, or they may be born
without that tendency and subsequently acquire the disease. The same is
true of alcohol.
I have no reason to believe that my boy would be particularly
susceptible to tuberculosis. Nevertheless, I do not propose to expose
him to it. His window is kept open while he sleeps, he is encouraged to
spend much time out of doors, he is given breathing exercises daily,
he is taught to take precautions against infection when near any one
afflicted with the disease.
Nor have I any grounds for believing that my boy has inherited the
condition that develops alcoholism. Looking back into his ancestry, I
find some non-abstainers but no drunkards. I, his father, am absolutely
immune to it. Neither a total abstainer nor, in my youth, even a
temperatist, I have walked arm in arm with it, but found nothing to
attract or allure.
But does this justify me in deliberately exposing my boy to it?
I do not know how he is equipped for it and there is no way of
ascertaining. You can take your boy to the doctor and he will tell
you whether or not his condition is favourable to consumption. But
alcoholism is more insidious. Physicians can diagnose it but they
cannot foretell or forestall it. There are some sanitariums for
alcoholism, but there are no preventoriums.
“But,” I am told, “if it is in him it will come out sometime. Might it
not better show itself under the watchful eye of the parents, rather
than after the boy has gone out from the home?”
If it is in the boy, then every year that will put breadth to his
shoulders, brawn on his arm, pride in his heart, judgment into his
head and force into his character, makes him better able to cope with
the disease. No, no, a thousand times no! Do not have on your soul the
guilt of giving your boy his first taste of wine.
We must consider latent alcoholism as a possibility in bringing up our
boys. Remember, alcoholism is not a habit only, but also a disease. It
is much more prevalent than smallpox, but for alcoholism there is no
vaccine; science offers no preventive serum. It is your sacred duty,
then, to prevent the contact, to keep out the contagion until your son
has his full growth and strength, and it is your duty to tell him the
situation as I have outlined it, so that he may know the real danger of
rum.
Then, if the tendency is not in him, nothing has been lost, and if it
is in him, you have brought him to man’s estate well equipped to give
the evil a fair fight for supremacy.
VIII
OUT INTO THE WORLD
A young man of my acquaintance, who had just finished his schooling,
came to his father one morning, flushed with pride, and holding an open
letter in his hand.
“Father,” he said, “I’ve got a situation, and the man says I may start
to work in the morning.”
The father took the letter and read it.
“Do you know all about this man?” he asked.
“Do I know him? Why, no; I don’t know him at all. But he knows all
about _me_. He looked up all my references.”
“Of course he did,” replied the father, putting the letter into his
pocket; “and before you go to work for him I’m going to look up _his_.”
It was a homely, up-state father who said that, but he was a wise and
a good man and I revere him. He was a father who knew the boy from the
skin in. He knew that the boy’s first employer is, in the boy’s eyes,
the greatest man in the world. He perceived that his son, who for
twenty years had looked upon him, the father, as the man of men, was
about to have set before him a new pattern, a new ideal. And out of his
heart came the question:
“What is this man like?”
It is a fine thing to know that you have brought your boy through that
plastic period between his cradle-hood and his majority, and to know
when he comes of age that he is clean and straight and true. It must
be gratifying indeed, when the last text-book is closed and laid away,
to see him start into the world, a man grown, with keen aspirations
and high ideals, ready and eager to grapple with the world on his own
account, and capable of taking care of himself with his own hands.
If you have brought him through safely to this momentous hour, you have
done much. But is your task quite ended? Does your responsibility stop
here?
That up-state father whom I have just referred to thought that it did
not; and I agree with him. I believe that the father and mother yet
have that one last touch to give to the character they have helped to
form. I believe it is their duty to see, not that the boy has a good
situation, but that he starts under a good man.
Naturally, the employer, in most cases, is a man who has met with
some success in his business or his profession. He sits apart from
his subordinates. However much they may use their ingenuity, it is
he who shapes the policy of the business and dominates the concern.
Every one about him defers to him. Everything that is done is subject
to his approval. He is, in fine, the head and front of the entire
establishment. There are clerks and salesmen and accountants and
confidential advisers in the place, some with long experience and grey
hairs, but none are as great as he, and all look up to the place he
occupies as a position worthy of aspiring to.
The youth enters the employ of this man fresh from school or college.
Here he gets his first insight of the career he intends to follow. If
the employer is a good man, a man of high principles, all is well.
But if he is a man of sharp practices, the boy is in danger. Having
no other standard of comparison in business life, he may fall into
the error of accepting his employer as a true type of the successful
man. He has come to this place in a receptive frame of mind. Here the
foundation of his chosen career is to be laid. Is it not probable that
he will absorb something of the morals of his superior, even though
they may not agree with the higher ideals raised in the home? When the
boy first strikes out he is, after all, only a fledgling. The family
nest has been feathered with love and care and kindness and protecting
influences. You have told him of the outside world and you have tried
to give him a clear vision. But there are some things about flying
alone that only experience can teach. You cannot always extend the home
atmosphere beyond the home, but you can do something akin to it. You
can make it your business to see that his first glimpse into the new
life reveals nothing contrary to the morals of the home.
You can see to it that his first employer is the kind of man you would
be satisfied to have your son emulate.
* * * * *
In the selection of the boy’s calling it is admitted, of course, that
the boy himself is, in a large measure, the best judge. The vocation
that he inclines to most strongly is likely to be the one for which he
is best fitted. I think, however, that this rule is made too elastic at
times.
A young man of my acquaintance thought that the stage was his calling.
The father, telling me of it in confidence, said that in his, the
father’s opinion, the boy was best suited to the law, but added that
he would say nothing, believing it to be a matter for the young man
to decide alone. The young man had an exceptionally good memory, a
fine speaking voice and the gift of oratory in a remarkable degree. He
was much of a student, prepossessing in appearance and magnetic in
personality.
That was ten years ago and the young man has never risen above
mediocrity--and he never will. He lacked one essential to the
drama--imagination. The truth is that he should have gone into the law.
He saw the mistake in course of time, and told me so, but it was too
late. Time had elapsed and he could not turn back.
The boy is not always a good self-analyst. He is too prone to measure
his talents perfunctorily. It does not follow that your son’s calling
is art because he can chalk a caricature on the wall; that he should be
a poet because he can dash off a sentiment in rhyme; that he is suited
to the clergy because he is of a pious turn of mind. It does not always
follow that the thing he does the most easily he can do the best. This
is the mistake that parents must guard against when the time comes for
choosing a profession for the boy.
They have studied the boy from infancy, while he has studied himself
but little, and that with an immatured mind. Is it unlikely, then,
that the parents often know his latent capabilities better than he
himself knows them? It goes without saying that the son shall not be
driven by parental authority into a profession that is distasteful to
him; but I think in most cases the parents can aid the boy in finding
the true thread of his bent. With no attempt at coercion they can help
him to accurately analyse those natural leanings which, in the embryo,
are many times conflicting and misleading. It appears to me that the
counsel of the parents is needed at this time no less than at any other
period in the boy’s life.
* * * * *
Having seen the boy well reared and started in the career for which he
is best equipped, and under the direction of a superior whose influence
will be uplifting, I think the parents may rest in that peace and
tranquillity of mind that comes with the consciousness of a duty well
done. They may now sit quietly by and watch while the boy works.
I would caution them against expecting too much of him. Of the
million-and-a-half of American boys born every year, all cannot be
famous--all cannot be rich. Only a few can be President of the United
States. But all can be good citizens, and that is the kind of material
that the country needs. We have plenty of great men, and too many
very rich men. A great man is merely a good man picked haphazard from
thousands of others just as good--picked by Opportunity whenever the
occasion demands. A rich man is one who has more money than he needs.
Either of these, beyond a certain stage of self-progress, is a child of
chance.
What you have a right to expect from your son, if you have trained him
conscientiously, is success. I do not mean the success that is measured
by the dollar sign, or by the size of the type in which the newspapers
print his name.
The successful man, in the true sense of the word, is the law-abiding
citizen who gives unto the world enough of his brain and brawn to pay
the way of himself and his family through it.
I believe there is the making of such a man in every healthy boy
that is born into the civilised world. I believe that every healthy
boy is brought into the world a good boy. If one of these develops
into a bad boy it is because he is made to; not affirmatively, but
negatively--through the want of proper training. All the boy needs is
to be treated as a boy. He is not a god, to be worshipped, or a girl,
to be coddled, or a dog, to be driven. The boy that I know is a sturdy
little human being, distinctly masculine in gender, with a desire to be
doing something and a want of direction; in fine, an embryotic man.
Give him the light, tell him the truth, show him the way. Do this
consistently, conscientiously, and he will measure up to the highest
standard of good citizenship.
More than this I do not ask of my boy.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
--Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
--Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
--Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.