38 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1906 



asked him if he would not like to have a flower garden at the 

 school. He was pleased, so I drove back and told him he 

 might have a place for his garden and that he could have it as 

 soon as he had moved the stones and fixed it up. Soon the gar- 

 den was made and the flowers were cultivated. After five 

 years' work with that boy he was sent back to his father's 

 farm, took charge of it and has to-day the reputation of a man 

 who is willing to work. 



Another boy became interested in the carpenter shop at the 

 school. Before he went away he went to the shop and made a 

 little wheelbarrow, painted it and sent it into the oflice as a 

 souvenir of the last day at school. That boy came to us with 

 the reputation of being a lazy boy. 



I have not seen all the boys in the world and cannot tell 

 what is in the mind and what is the condition of every boy in 

 the world. Many people have said to me, "Why, I know there 

 is such a thing as a lazy boy because I have such a boy myself. " 

 One man came and told me that he knew better because he him- 

 self had been the laziest boy. I am not going to make up any 

 definition but will take the definition that Webster gives for 

 laziness, — "Disinclination to action or exertion." The only 

 boy that I ever knew in my life who was disinclined to action 

 was a dead boy. Laziness in a boy is a theory; in the man a 

 condition. It is like cigarette smoking in a boy, a theory at the 

 start but, after the habit is formed, a condition. So it is with 

 the idle, lazy disposition which is found m the world. It is 

 found in the boy and, if checked, ceases to be even a theory, 

 and does not become a condition, but if this theory is not 

 broken up it reaches a condition which is called laziness. Break 

 up the idle habits of the lazy by work and follow it up. 



There is nothing in this wide world that will make boys do 

 wrong like having nothing to do. If you have a lazy boy in 

 your family you may make up your mind that that boy has 

 nothing to do. If he has something to do, arrange so that he 

 may learn to like his work, and the habit of work will creep 

 upon him. He will become so interested that it will become a 

 pleasure to him to work. Even though boys get into the con- 



