After more than fifteen years’ experience among the newsboys we can
say with considerable force, that the only way to give substantial
assistance to the poor boy is to give him a start in life, helping him
to work his own way through a hundred little temptations that would
easily lead him wrong. Today Boyville Association boasts that it has
driven from the streets of a great city all kinds of begging, gambling,
swearing, smoking cigarettes, and instead of insulting, impudent
newsboys, we have the finest lot of gentlemanly young business men in
the world.
How to carry on successfully work of this kind, with results as
previously stated, is the desire and wish of thousands of people in
our country today. A person must bring himself in touch with the boy,
he must learn his ways, his habits, by so doing he learns the best way
to approach him and gain his confidence. This done, the rest is easy,
because the boy works with you and you simply guide.
Education cannot be given, it must be achieved, and the value of an
education lies not only in the possession, but also in the struggle to
secure it.
Everybody knows that the infallible receipt for happiness, is to do
good, and under the right conditions it is as natural for character
to become beautiful as for a flower. In scores of instances it has
been seen that the principles early established in the minds of the
street-boys, especially where they are watched by their companions, and
warned when they do something wrong, leave a lasting impression that
time cannot efface.
Life is full of opportunities for the young man to do good, and if in
his early career he begins to do right it soon becomes part of his
life. The street-boys who first join the association are so gradually
led into the good fellowship of their own making that the toughest
natures thaw out, they are subjugated, submit cheerfully to the
controlling powers of truth and honesty. Their manners soften, their
words become more gentle and their actions show a willingness to be
little gentlemen. The good that is in them is brought out by their own
unselfish acts, and the hidden sleeping humanity bursts into a fuller
life.
Today it takes a high order of men to succeed.
With the world as a competitor, where profits are figured by fractions,
it requires young men of brains, combined with hard common sense, men
of good moral characters, and a willingness to work.
For a young man to reach a rich inheritance he must work; he must
remember that the root qualities of character are sobriety, industry,
unselfish economy, and he must be honest in all that the word implies.
Swearing, stealing, grafting inclinations, expecting something for
nothing, smoking cigarettes or drinking intoxicating liquors will
prevent securing good positions.
Already some of our great railroad systems will not employ a young man
who drinks intoxicating liquors, or smokes cigarettes; and some go so
far as to forbid swearing while on duty.
To gain this rich inheritance, to build up the boy who has no chance
in life, who, in many cities, is regarded as a sort of a pest,
something to be kicked and cuffed out of the way, is the great aim
of the Boyville Newsboys’ Association. It is a kindergarten in the
great school of business and citizenship, and many years experience
proves conclusively not only that the boy of the street is capable of
conquering himself, and of mastering his own will-power, but also that
he can assist his companions, to be honest, patriotic, and self-reliant.
Many a boy goes astray simply because home lacks sunshine. If home
is the place where faces are sour and words harsh, and the boy is
continually hampered with don’ts and censures, he will spend as many
hours as possible elsewhere. A personal investigation of twenty homes
of boys who were upon the streets a greater portion of their time,
especially at meal hours or after nine o’clock at night, revealed the
fact that nine boys were away from their homes on account of there
being no restriction on the part of the parents. These nine families
did not know, did not care, at what hour their sons returned at night,
or whether they were at home at meal hours or not.
Home should keep in sympathy with a boy. His little troubles, his
sorrows are made much easier and lighter through attention and
sympathy, and if the boy can’t get this at home he will go elsewhere;
and he will often find it in society he would otherwise shun. No boy
ever grows too old for love. And should the boy seek companionship
in our crowded streets and discover some one in whom he can place
confidence, his whole life is wrapped up in that love.