"Hurry the baby as fast as you can,

Hurry him, worry him, make him a man,
Off with his baby clothes, get him in pants,
Feed him on brain foods and make him advance.
Hustle him, soon as he's able to walk,
Into a grammar school; cram him with talk,
Fill his poor head full of figures and facts,
Keep on a-jamming them in till it cracks.

"Once boys grew up at a rational rate;
Now we develop a man while you wait,
Rush him through college, compel him to grab
Of every known subject a dip and a dab,
Get him in business, and after the cash,
All by the time he can grow a mustache;
Let him forget he was ever a boy,

Make gold his god and its jingle his joy;
Keep him a-hustling and clear out of breath
Until he wins-nervous prostration and death."

In how few homes is sex instruction given by fathers and mothers. The boy has the right to be taught God's laws of reproduction and life and those engaged in the business of human culture, whether father or god-father, cannot brush aside lightly this great responsibility. For a parent not to know the boy's physical characteristics and possibilities and powers is a kind of negligence bordering on the criminal. Parents should understand that building a clean, wholesome character is much greater than erecting a house of stone and mortar. The replies from 169 churches received by the Commission appointed

by the International Sunday School Association to study Adolescence, to the questions regarding the physical life of the adolescent,20 reveal a startling lack of interest and knowledge concerning the religion of the body and its relationship to the religion of the soul, and the twelve recommendations made by the Commission should be considered seriously by every church worker among boys. Other organizations have for years recognized this relationship, which in part is responsible for their success in winning and holding boys.

"The Health Creed" distributed by the Massachusetts State Board of Health among boys and girls is proving a most effective method of winning boys to self-preservation through the sane observance of the laws of good health. creed is as follows:

"My body is the temple of my soul, therefore,

"I will keep my body clean within and without,"

The

"I will breathe pure air and I will live in the sunlight,"

"I will do no act that might endanger the health of

others,"

"I will try to learn and practice the rule of healthy living,"

"I will work and rest and play at the right time and in the right way, so that my mind will be strong and my body healthy, and so that I will lead a useful life and be an honor to my parents, to my friends and to my country."

20 Alexander, "The Sunday School and the Teens," p. 216.

Through well conducted camps, exhilarating hikes, interesting scout work, exciting games, attractive lectures on health and hygiene, boys have been led to reverence for their bodies and to definite Christian living and service. Building boys is better than mending men. The compensation for such work is clearly set forth in the following verse:

"Who builds in Boys builds lastingly in Truth,

And 'vanished hands' are multiplied in power,
And sounds of living voices, hour by hour,
Speak forth his message with the lips of Youth.

Here, in the Home of Hope, whose doors are Love,
To shape young souls in images of right,

To train frail twigs straight upward toward the Light; Such work as this God measures from above!

And faring forth, triumphant, with the dawn,
Each fresh young soul a missioner for weal,
Forward they carry, as a shield, the seal,
Of his example-so his work goes on.

Granite may crumble, wind and wave destroy,
Urn, shaft or word may perish or decay;
But this shall last forever and a day-

His living, loving monument—a Boy!”

CHAPTER II

INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS

"Mind is the master power that molds and makes
And man is mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills-
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass
Environment is but his looking glass."

-BENTON.

The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind, whether the thought be deliberately chosen or automatically expressed. At the bidding of unlawful thought the body sinks rapidly into disease and decay; at the command of glad and beautiful thoughts it becomes clothed with youthfulness and beauty; therefore a "sound mind in a sound body" is something more than a maxim, it is a reality. "Tis the mind that makes the body rich." What is mind? Mind is the feeling, thinking, willing part of man. More exactly, the mind is that which manifests itself in our processes of knowing, of feeling, and of willing. What mind is in itself we do not know. We know only what it does.

The body is the means of communication between the mind and the outside world. The part of the body most intimately connected with the mind is the brain, and it is interesting to note here that, according to the study made by Kirkpatrick, "The weight of the brain of boys at birth is 12.29 per cent of that of the body, while at twenty-five years it is only 2.16 per cent of the weight of the body." It is outgrown "It by other organs. This brain mass born with the boy betokens his capacity for mental development and it is this which to so large an extent presents him to us for the making.

"The organs of behavior, if one may use the expression, are nerves and muscles. Acting conjointly they form the nervo-muscular, or as it is now more often called, the 'sensori-motor' system." The brain is the chief part of the nervous system. A brief presentation of the nervous system will help us understand the workings of the boy's mind, for we are rapidly retreating from the old mistaken idea that "children's heads are hollow," and the following verse taken from the London Post is a bit of irony in favor of the more progressive educational movement, which believes in natural and visualized methods in

1 Kirkpatrick, "Fundamentals of Child Study,” p. 19.

Mark, "Unfolding of Personality," p. 48.