And State Papers 461 



estimate of life. Example is the most potent of all 

 things. If any one of you in the presence of younger 

 boys, and especially the younger people of your own 

 family, misbehave yourself, if you use coarse and 

 blasphemous language before them, you can be sure 

 that these younger people will follow your ex- 

 ample and not your precept. It is no use to preach 

 to them if you do not act decently yourself. You 

 must feel thaj: the most effective way in which you 

 can preach is by your practice. 



As I was driving up here a friend who was with 

 us said that in his experience the boy who went out 

 into life with a foul tongue was apt so to go because 

 his kinsfolk, at least his intimate associates, them- 

 selves had foul tongues. The father, the elder broth- 

 ers, the friends, can do much toward seeing that the 

 boys as they become men become clean and honor- 

 able men. 



I have told you that I wanted you not only to be 

 decent, but to be strong. These boys will not ad- 

 mire virtue of a merely anaemic type. They believe 

 in courage, in manliness. They admire those who 

 have the quality of being brave, the quality of fac- 

 ing life as life should be faced, the quality that must 

 stand at the root of good citizenship in peace or in 

 war. If you are to be effective as good Christians 

 you must possess strength and courage, or your 

 example will count for little with the young, who 

 admire strength and courage. I want to see you, the 

 men of the Holy Name Society, you who embody 

 the qualities which the younger people admire, by 



