Be patient with the boys. You are dealing with soul-stuff. Destiny awaits
just around the corner. Boys evolve into men, and men sometimes change
the boundary-lines of States. They make political parties; they crown
kings, and they put them to flight. They bring contention or they make
peace. They may build or they may destroy. But boys misused, abused,
betrayed, never forget and seldom forgive. It is a terrible thing to
plant the germs of suspicion and hate in the mind of a child ❦ Tyranny
visited on a boy may implant in his heart dragons’ teeth that spring up
and grow into armed men. The breath of hate consumes, and its voice
affrights. Gluttony and greed sometimes leave the boy out of the equation
❦ Gluttony and greed fatten and forsake. They invite and they alienate.
They welcome and they repel. Grasping greed sometimes forgets. It is the
thing that brings mental and moral diseases and disorders of the state
that can not be cured. ¶ Boys can not be deceived. Naturally, they are
truthful. They are elemental. They do not know how they judge or why.
The words of your lips count for little. They know the things that are
hidden in your heart. To arrest boys and fasten upon them the strong
hand of the law is a tragic thing. A slight, a boy will forgive; but
injustice, never. Boys can be led: they can’t be driven. They respond to
love, but tyranny may set their hearts aflame. My heart goes out to the
boys. ¶ In Kansas City I know one newsboy who supports a widowed mother
and several brothers and sisters younger than he. I know two newsboys,
brothers, whose scanty savings are sending an elder sister to the State
Normal School, that she may be fitted to become a teacher. ¶ Thomas A.
Edison was a newsboy. He sold papers on the streets of Detroit, and on
the Grand Trunk trains. While selling papers on the rail-road platform
at Mount Clemens, he saw a little youngster toddle out on the track, in
front of an approaching train. At the risk of his own life, Tom Edison,
the newsboy, grabbed the youngster, sprang upon the footboard of the
engine and saved the life of the baby. For this deed the station-agent
rewarded Edison by teaching him the telegraph-key. We know the rest. ¶
Paginini was a street musician when a boy, playing his violin and holding
up his hat for pennies ❦ Martin Luther was an outcast and a street singer
when a youngster ❦ Occasionally the proud and the strong would push him
out of the way into the gutter. Such treatment made scars on his soul
that time did not efface. It is a terrible thing to kill animation and
joy and enthusiasm in the heart of a child. Boys should be encouraged,
and not ground down to a starvation-point in all of their worthy and
useful little industries. ¶ Give the boys a chance to grow, to enjoy, to
work, to save their pennies and become men ❦ I used to know a newsboy who
cried his wares up and down in front of the hotel where I stopped. The
years went by, as the years do. Twenty-five years passed, and I stood
in a court of appeal to present a motion which was of vital importance
to me. The judge who sat on the bench looked to me strangely familiar.
All at once it came over me with a flash that this judge was once the
newsboy from whom I had bought newspapers in front of the hotel. He now
held for me the ability to wither or to bless, to destroy or to protect.
Fortunately, for me, his heart and brain were right. ¶ Be patient with
the boys. Bad boys are good boys who misdirect their energies. The hope
of the race lies with the boys. In a year or two we will be going to hear
them preach from pulpits; we may go to them to borrow money; they may
operate on us for appendicitis—aye, they may preach our funeral sermons.
Nobody can prophesy the success to which a boy will attain. Difficulty,
trial, hardship, work—these are the things that evolve boys into men.
Boys can be led. They can not be driven. ¶ Be patient with the boys ❦ You
are dealing with soul-stuff. Destiny awaits around the corner.
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