Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 172, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1911 — The Boy PuBBle [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Boy PuBBle

DR. j.S.KIRJLEy

Team Work

“Mamma, I wish I was two little puppies, so I could play together.” When little Joe said that, he revealed two of the strongest characteristics of boyhood, Insatiable fondness for play and companionship. But with him, play was first of all; companionship was to promote play. That was in the early stages of Joe’s life. By and by, it will be just the reverse. He likes children, especially boys; shrinks from being alone, likes team ■work, from the very start. But there are about five stages in the development of his social relationships, &UK ring his boyhood; then several, during th 6 remainder of his life, but we are not, at this moment, concerned with tracing him beyond the boundary of boyhood. First is the indiscriminate and impersonal stage, when he scarcely asks who his companions are, requiring only that they be boys and plenty of them, the more the better. To be sure, he has his preferences; but he has not yet specialized, In a decisive and final way. Their work is play, exclusively, not original, but imitative. During that period, he is apt to be carried by his strong team sentiment over into the realm of the opposite sex and fall furiously in love with some little girl. In fact, he usually does so, each season, or each session of school, and he thinks he can’t live without her. This is about the only thing in his boyhood that he cannot turn into play. Whenever he forms a special attachment for a boy, the friendship is like soda pop, comes with a phiz and a bang and they must make, the most of -it while It lasts. The two use the same slang, the same yell, the same tones of voice, the s&megamOsandiaeeminldy ,the same personality, the same chewing gum; and, when they have a quarrel and make up, the one who was to blame usually treats. They acquire a stock of common possessions and, when their spell is over they are apt to scrap for the possession of It This period seems provisional and temporary. The next stage comes when he is about ten or twelve years old and it sometimes has the element of permanency in it. What has already been said applies partly to this more personal phase of his team work. He and his chum may become chums for life, and they almost surely will, if they are living in the same com; munity when they enter the next stage. • .The third period begins when ho is twelve or thirteen. That has been

identified as the gang period. Here, again, his attachments are more or less impersonal, though restricted to the gang.; The social nature is unfolding in new ways and they do * new things, new even to their forgetful fathere, who wonder why boys are such strange creatures, and declare they were never like them. In this period of team work, they get together by neighborhoods, as a rule, under the direction of some boy who is a natural leader and assumes all the functions of a leader without appointment and without hesitation. There Is no rotation in office and, When the chief goes, the gang is already gone; It has reached its natural term and expires by limitation and the boye-have no more use for it than for their fathers’ old clothes. This team work is in. original activities, 'original to them but.not to the rest of mankind, present or past, for that is what the race has been doing fell its life. It is fellowship in frolic andfun, adventures by land and water, swimming and skating and hunting and fishing, provided the fish bite fast enough; games of all kinds, with no disinclination for rough ones. ~~ The fourth stage of his team work Is that later chum period, when the gang breaks up and they come out of it, as the animals came out of the ark, two by two. He ties up with some special boy and likes him better than any other boy that Over lived, and they are apt to be friends all the rest of their lives. He win like play, but It is different now. This is the pairing age. He and his chum will have many things to talk about, but the two paramount topics will be their future careen and their “girls,” as-they alwaya eaU them. :>.- The fifth stage of his boyhood team work Is when he has a great Inclination to form an intimate attachment with some fairy creature whom he considers the most angelic being on earth. His sentiments about girls have changed.. Something new has waked up in his soul. He can talk with his chum about it, but with no one else. They are just alike on that subject.and know how to be confidential. A great day has dawned upon him. Imagination is at new tasks. The rational and deliberative faculties are in the field. Sentiment hangs haloes over the outlying future. Each stage of his friendship has added something to him and now this one •deems to put some finishing touches to his rapidly crystallzing character. His team work has been a- success. He is ready for a new life.