Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1882 — What are Boys Good For. [ARTICLE]

What are Boys Good For.

The urchin who answered, “They are good o make men of made an admirable reply. But the sort of men we are to have in a few years depends upon the sort of boys we have now. A man is but a grown-up boy. The present crop of boys contains some hopeful specimens, who gave promise of useful manhood. But it also shows a large percentage of boys who must be reconstructed before they can possibly develope into a manhood that can fill any honorable or useful position in society. Boys who shun or shirk useful work or improving study, and spend their time in idle dissipation or vicious activities,can never become useful men. Boys who, being obliged to do something for their supper, assiduously seek easy work, are not hopeful prophecies of manhood. They will never amount to much. When we see the tendency of city boys to be industrious only in playing biilards or baseball, or in some other useless or demoralizing pursuit, and the disposition of country boys to seek in the city for easier or more respectaole (?) employment than the country offers, we feel unhopeful of the future. It is from these two classes that the constantly increasing armies of shyster lawyers, quack doctors, poor preachers, bummer politicians, drunken loafers, petty thieves, tramps, deadbeats, etc., are chiefly recruited. “Boys, if you want to be men of worth, don’t be afraid of hard work or hard study. * t * “Lives of great men all remind you You can make your life divine.” Read the lives of great men of the past and present, and emulate the virtues and imitate the example of their boyhood. Dr. Benjamin Franklin went from a soapboiler’s shop through a printing office, to fame world-wide and immortal, by dint of industry and st udy. What bt >ys have done you can do.