BOYS.

A. G. Umbreit, Principal of Boone High School. Boone, Iowa.

It affords me great pleasure to be able to speak to you today on this subject which is at once so interesting and so vital. I cannot but quote Charles Dudley Warner, who says in his delightful story of boys life: "One of the best things in the world to be, is a boy; it requires no experience, though it needs some practice to be a good one. The disadvantage of the position is that it does not last long enough; it is soon over; just as you get used to being a boy, you have to be something else, with a good deal more work to do and not half so much fun." And yet, he goes on to say, “every boy is anxious to be a man, and is very uneasy with the restrictions that are put upon him as a boy." These words of Warner's are but too true, for the best thing in the world to be, is a strong, healthy, virile boy, and the time for being a boy is far too short, and yet it is equally true that every boy looks forward to the time that he may be a man, and having become a man, who would not wish to be a boy again, if but for a day?

There are three periods in the life of every boy, which may be fairly well described or classified from the standpoint of age. First there is childhood, a period when the boy was and should be almost entirely in the care of his mother. The Spartans of Ancient Greece recognized this need and kept the small boy in the care of the women of the house, and yet today who has not seen the youth, a mere infant sometimes, sophisitcaten, wise and smart, far beyond his years, and wanting to be a man even at that age? I shall not discuss, however, the boy problem during this period of life.

The second period of a boy's life constitutes the years between eight and twelve. This is a unique period in the life of a boy. The acute stage of teething is past, the brain has acquired nearly its adult size and weight. His health is almost never better, and his activities are greater and more varied than ever before or later during his life. There is during this period in a boy's life a peculiar endurance, vitality and resistance to fatigue. The boy at this stage of his life is almost a little savage, for his interests are very much outside the home interests, he is interested only in other little boys of the same age, has a profound contempt for feminine society, and the tragedy of it is, that during this period of his education, he rarely has strong men to influence him,

and is taught and influenced by women who are entirely out of sympathy with his view of life! Now it is no sign of natural depravity, that during this second stage of boyhood, he is almost a little savage, for every little boy who is good for anything at all is a natural savage. Those scientists who want to study the primitive man, and who have so much trouble finding one in this modern age, could do no better than to study a group of small boys, between the ages of eight and twelve, when these same boys do not know that they are being watched. But we must catch our boy young, before he has acquired any of that artificiality which we moderns choose to call "manners" and which make a hypocrite of every live boy! But it is not this stage of a boy's life which I wish to discuss in detail, for there is a third stage in the life of every boy which should merit our attention and study, for the boy of today is the man of tomorrow. This statement may sound old, but it is as true today as it ever was, that as the "twig is bent, so the tree will grow."

The third stage in the life of the boy is that one which psychologists call the "adolescent period." Some men further divide this period into two parts, the early adolescent, which includes the ages between twelve and eighteen, and the later adolescent period which includes the ages between eighteen and manhood. It is to this early adolescent period that I shall confine the major portion of my remarks, in as much as I deal with boys at this period, and because in many respects it is the most vital of the three periods of boyhood. The changes in a boy during this period are so great and so numerous that the distinction between this and the preceding period are easily recognized. The physical changes during this period are numerous and extensive, followed by great intellectual changes which usually extend over the later adolescent period as well.

This period of a boy's life is a critical one and especially difficult to deal with. It is the period when a boy may be made a man, a good citizen, a prospective lover of law and order, or it is the period when the boy may be made a shiftless vagabond, and a menace to society. So I say, the period of a boy's life which finds him in the high schools of this country, is perhaps the most important we have to deal with.

The first great change during this period of a boy's life is a physical one. He grows tall and awkward, his voice loses its softness and becomes rough and harsh, and his attitude toward his fellow men or boys changes.

Very often during this period the boy who has been "mamma's darling" and whose curls have been the envy of other boy's mothers, and an abomination to these boys themselves, this same boy sometimes becomes the bully of the neighborhood, and seems to loose entirely every vestige of his earlier polish, and it is not un

usual for such a boy to go directly contrary to his earlier training, for if this training has been too severe, it was a training alien to his nature, and not the training which a natural boy should be given. It is during this time that those in authority find the relations between themselves and the boy completely changed, so that they no longer understand each other and are often at cross purposes and actually antagonistic. In more fortunate cases, where the parents are blessed with sense, and the teachers with sympathy, the bond between boy and parent may become closer, because he is better able to understand and appreciate the thoughts and feelings of his elders. In his early life the boy has had little or no feeling of any obligation or responsibility. Being a little savage, his chief business has been to compete and grab all he could for himself. This is a trait which some never outgrow. Now however as a result of his cooperative artivities in games where he must not be the whole show himself, he begins to feel the necessity of sacrifice and loyalty to the group, and has more the tendency to giving and helping than of merely receiving and achieving. It is one of the hopeful signs of our civilization that these traits of boys are being carried forward into manhood. More and more the boy begins to see and feel his obligation to the group, and thus more and more it becomes necessary to see that the boy has the opportunity to see and feel this obligation.

In addition to this physical growth of the boy, and his change in attitude, we have a marked development in the sense perception in relation to touch, sound, color and odor. These sensations appear to him as earlier in his life, but the reactions to the youth and much more marked than ever before. As the senses are developed, so are there "motor" developments marked by an increase in bodily strength, rapidity and accuracy in movement, and a more perfect coordination between the mind and the various organs of the body.

There is a change in the feelings of the boy toward other boys, and especially is this change noticed in regard to girls. Earlier in his life the boy either ignored the opposite sex altogether, or, what was more usually the case, he accepted her as his equal, and looked upon her as he would a boy. Now all this is changed. He becomes very bold and assertive. It is a period that results in "showing off" in various ways. It is a period when athletes become grandstand players, or do or die, not because they care to win, but because they wish to impress the other sex.

The boy also becomes a dreamer. His imagination grows, and the boy without imagination is a dull boy indeed. What is sometimes termed laziness in a boy is this natural advance in his development. Let him dream he will have time enough for other

things all too soon. According to one author and psychologist, a boy must dream if he wishes to make the most of himself. Dreams are ambitions unrealized and may lead the boy to great efforts. The boy's power of thought grows. He is no longer satisfied with simply seeing, he must know why and how. By repressing this feeling we stunt the boy's development, and so we must provide the means of his knowing about that which is brought to his attention. His memory grows in the larger things of life, but he becomes forgetful of some of the small practical things. He needs to have strings tied to his fingers lest he forget to bring home the bread.

This is a period when a boy's morals are made, and the persons who do not understand boys are fearful, and many of them, who because of self righteousness, see the prison doors opening for the youths, forget that their youth was perhaps no good example for anyone to pattern after. And so I might go on and call to your attention many other changes which fall to the lot of the boy during those years when he is in school, not preparing for life, but living a very real and vital part of his life for if he did not learn what he learns in the schools, he would learn them elsewhere. I shall not discuss the later adolescent period, as this includes the years beyond real boyhood, and need not concern us here.

Having discussed some of the problems of a boy's life in the light of our psychological knowledge of him, I shall turn to the more practical side of this discussion, and take up briefly the practical side of this question. How can we best "do" for the boy? The answer is "educate him." Education means more than book learning, and the school is by no means the only factor in his education. The educator plans, the teacher trains, but it is the world which educates, and each one of you here has a vital responsibility in this regard. We desire not only that boys and girls shall learn certain useful things, but that they shall become men and women of personality and a force in the community. We do not wish machines but we want men and

women.

How to do this is the ever-recurring problem in each generation. Each generation thinks it holds the key, but each generation must give way to better ideas of the new. In the same manner as everything else has undergone a change, education and its methods have changed. There are still a few here and there whe speak fondly of the three "r's" and are alarmed at the trend of the new ways of schooling but it is no more logical to conduct schools exactly as they were conducted twenty years ago, as it is logical to discard the automobile because it was not in general use twenty years ago.

We need the following factors in our modern education:

First, we need better teachers in our schools, teachers who understand boys, teachers who are sympathetic to the needs of the times and who see good in every boy, for each is endowed with a body and soul similar to every other, and whether his name be Algernon or just Mike, he will some day be a citizen. We should have more men in our high schools, for the high school boy needs rough treatment to bring out his finer qualities. No one ever blasted out marble with face powder, and you can't influence boys with its help either. The boy needs a square deal, and far too many well meaning women instead of giving a boy a square deal give him a tearful face and tell the boy how depraved he is, and how badly his mother will feel when she learns how very, very bad he is, and probably all the boy has done was to commit the horrible sin of making a face at another boy.

Second we need a broader social training for the boy. It is not good for man to be alone, and being sociable by nature the boy wants company. He will have it and if we do not let him use the school to develop his social nature, he will use the street and worse places.

Third, we need properly conducted athletic sports.

These in themselves are a training with as much value as any feature of his school work. We need football, basketball, baseball or track, and wrestling, at once to train the muscles, and to work off the boy's surplus energy. But these things cost money, and I fear it is very often the cost which prompts us to forego some of the essentials. I cannot help but think strange thoughts when I read of men spending thousands to improve the physical wellbeing of their live stock, and at the same time growling at the few dollars which each one has to pay to support measures to improve the physical well being of their boys. Is not one boy worth more than all a man's goods? Apparently not! I must agree with the man who said that "Boys have always been so plentiful that they are not half appreciated." But it is a fact, nevertheless, that while many men employ the most skilled tailor to clothe them, the expert mechanic for their automobile, the skilled veterinarian for the cow, and an expert lawyer to keep them out of jail, these same men allow immature girls, half trained, with no interest in their work, to be the teachers of their children, to be the inspiration of the boy, who needs a man and a man's view to set him straight; and permit this state of affairs because any other plan for their children costs too much, although they pay the mechanic without question, and all the rest of them with a smile.

Fourth, we need courses in our schools which are of interest to the children and not to the teachers. We need to develop more than the three "r's". We need to have him know of the beautiful as well as of the common things of life, or this boy of