The American Boy 129 



danger if it becomes one-sided and unhealthy, has 

 beyond all question had an excellent effect in in 

 creased manliness. Forty or fifty years ago the 

 writer on American morals was sure to deplore the 

 effeminacy and luxury of young Americans who 

 were born of rich parents. The boy who was well 

 off then, especially in the big Eastern cities, lived 

 too luxuriously, took to billiards as his chief inno 

 cent recreation, and felt small shame in his inability 

 to take part in rough pastimes and field-sports. 

 Nowadays, whatever other faults the son of rich 

 parents may tend to develop, he is at least forced 

 by the opinion of all his associates of his own age 

 to bear himself well in manly exercises and to de 

 velop his body and therefore, to a certain extent, 

 his character in the rough sports which call for 

 pluck, endurance, and physical address. 



Of course boys who live under such fortunate 

 conditions that they have to do either a good deal 

 of outdoor work or a good deal of what might be 

 called natural outdoor play do not need this athletic 

 development. In the Civil War the soldiers who 

 came from the prairie and the backwoods and the 

 rugged farms where stumps still dotted the clear 

 ings, and who had learned to ride in their infancy, 

 to shoot as soon as they could handle a rifle, and to 

 camp out whenever they got the chance, were better 

 fitted for military work than any set of mere school 



