1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1517 



and put some of the fruit in his mouth. He 

 and I did not get along well together; and I 

 confess that, from my point ot view, I did 

 not suppose he would ever amount to much. 

 His mother was dead, and his father did not 

 seem to have a faculty for making him mind 

 very well. Now, I hope none of his rela- 

 tives and friends will feel hurt by what I 

 have been saying, for it brings out 9, great 

 and grand truth. Shall I tell you why? 

 Day before yesterday I heard from that boy 

 after many long years. He has just mar- 

 ried, and he has a position as designer or 

 draftsman in a great machine-shop where 

 he gets fifty cents an hour. Was I glad to 

 hear it? Why, to be sure I was. It was 

 one of my happy surprises. May God be 

 praised that there is at least something bet- 

 ter under the surface, perhaps away back 

 out of sight, with these thoughtless heedless 

 boys than we ofttimes give them credit for. 

 Yes, I have seen more cases of that kind. I 

 have seen boys with whom I was thoroughly 

 disgusted turn ayound and make themselves 

 of value and consequence in this busy hus- 

 tling world. 



Now, if I should stop right here the moral 

 of the point I have made might induce some 

 parent to think it is not worth while to be so 

 very strict. Our text tells us we must train 

 up a child in the way he should go. If we 

 can not make of the boy exactly what we 

 want him to be, let us come as near it as 

 possible. Never let up. But please do not 

 think it is necessary to be having a jangle 

 with the boy all the while. Get his good 

 will. Bend down as much as you can, not 

 only to his stature, but to a level with his 

 boyish ideas. Do not be discouraged, even 

 if his whole thought and aim seem to be 

 baseball or football or college pranks. I 

 have not much sympathy with the latter, 

 but very likely there are good and wise pro- 

 fessors in our colleges who feel differently 

 about it. May God help us all to do our 

 duty by the boys. 



So far I have not said a word about sa- 

 loons and their influence over the boys. 

 Medina is a dry town. We have had no sa- 

 loons here for twenty years ; but recent 

 events I have mentioned have shown us that 

 we have had speakeasies that did a trade 

 amounting to several thousand dollars a 

 year. I do not know exactly who their 

 patrons were: but very possibly there were 

 many boys there still in their teens. We 

 have billiard-rooms in our town, and once 

 in a while it comes to my notice that some 

 of our young boys are spending quite a lot 

 of their money in the billiard-hall. Boys 

 who earn only a little more than enough to 

 pay their board are spending their money in 

 such places: and they are being out nights 

 to such an extent that they do not get the 

 sleep a growing boy needs. Sometimes a 

 foreman reports that a boy is late in getting 

 to work, and does not show any interest in 

 his business after he gets there. He is not 

 making any progress Investigation almost 

 invariably shows that such a boy is up late 

 nights. Robbing a boy of his sleep is a seri- 



ous matter; and when cigarettes and intoxi- 

 cants go along with it, it is a terrible thing. 

 How can any parent vote for open saloons, 

 or encourage his boy in the use of tobacco, 

 to say nothing of cigarettes? Sometimes 

 when boys get to be at that critical age, say 

 sixteen or seventeen, they suddenly turn 

 about and turn over a new leaf, i know of 

 a few such cases. God grant that they may 

 become more common. George Miiller, that 

 great friend of the orphans, and the founder 

 of that wonderful institution that will make 

 his name almost immortal, was a vicious 

 boy. While in his teens he was almost, if 

 not quite, one of the hopeless sort, and 

 guilty of almost every thing that was bad. 

 Through God's providence he got a glimpse 

 of what the gospel of Jesus Christ was doing 

 and might do for-a sinful world, and all at 

 once he became a great reformer. 



In order that every parent, especially eve- 

 ry parent of boys in their teens, may be in- 

 duced to look after that boy a little more 

 closely, I want to tell you something about 

 one boy whom I knew. I hope he has 

 reached the turning-point, and broken away 

 from his evil associates and bad habits. I 

 want you to pi'ay for him. This boy, unfor- 

 tunately, lost his father when he was, per- 

 haps, twelve years old or less. He had 

 Christian parents, and for a time bid fair to 

 follow in their footsteps. But he got in with 

 a bad crowd. He got to using tobacco and 

 then cigarettes. I think he went to the bil- 

 liard-hall — at least he got a fashion of being 

 out late nights. He was not only irregular 

 in being on hand with his work, but he did 

 not seem interested in it. As a consequence 

 he lost his place and then got another. But 

 it was the same old story. Although at 

 work most of the time, he never seemed to 

 have any money to help pay his good moth- 

 er for his board and lodging. 



Here is another error that many parents 

 fall into. Parents often consult me in re- 

 gard to their boys, and ask my advice. Of 

 late I usually commence by asking this ques- 

 tion: 



"Your boy is now earning wages: but 

 does he pay you something for his board and 

 lodging every Satui'day night?" 



The answer is, almost invariably, "Why, 

 no, Mr. Root, we have not yet ever asked 

 him to pay for board and lodging in his own 

 home. We always expect our children to be 

 welcome to the home roof: and don't you 

 think it seems a little tough to ask them to 

 pay something out of their scanty earnings?" 



After having it put that way X have some- 

 times agreed with them. Perhaps I was 

 right and they wrong: but when it turns out 

 that giving this boy all the money he earns 

 only lets him have so much morey for cigar- 

 ette's and tobacco, to say nothing of drinks. I 

 have come to the conclusion that every boy 

 who is earning wages should take a part of 

 his money to pay for his keeping. It teach- 

 es him to be manly. While a boy is going 

 to school, of course that is a different matter. 

 Some parents — I hope only a few, however 

 — receive all the boy's wages every Saturday 



