"What a plague boys are!" sighed Mrs. Brown. "That White boy has been getting our Harry into all sorts of mischief, and I can't make Harry give up that gang."

Mrs. Green agreed that boys were a plague. Her Jack went with a lot of boys, too, and they were always up to some sort of tricks which she was quite sure her boy would never do if it were not for those other boys. And Mrs. Green was right. Any boy will do things when he is with the gang that he never would think of doing alone— and that he wouldn't dare to do alone, if he did think of them. Even your boy—and mine, too, I hope. That's the way of boys.

What we mothers will have to do is to stop fretting about the other boys in the gang who spoil our boys, and about the mischief and noise and dirty boots and staying away late for meals, and get down to a practical way of making all the boys in the gang as we find them into a lot of decent young men. We shall have to stop trying to make boys do what it is impossible for them to do; and we shall have to stop trying to keep the boys from doing what it is absolutely necessary that they should do, if they are to develop into the decent young men we have in mind.

The modern way, the efficient way, of treating children is to find out their instincts and then use these almost irresistible forces of nature as a means of directing their development. And that is what we shall have to do with the boy and his gang, and that is what we shall have to do with the girl and her set. The boy is a more serious problem because, under the promptings of his instincts, he soon becomes indifferent to the attractions and amusements of the home and seeks the companionship of boys of his own age, and he seeks activities that cannot, for the most part, be carried on in the home. The girl, on the other hand, remains much longer subject to the will of her mother and to the conventions and standards of the home; she remains for a longer period satisfied with the kinds of activities that can be carried on at home.

We have been told over and over again that the instincts of childhood are all for activity, and a few of us have trained ourselves not to expect the children to be still all the time. Of course, there are times when we simply must have them be still, and, of course, we allow the teachers to insist upon the children being still in school. But we recognize that they must play and romp and run and shout, and we are willing even to spend public funds for playgrounds. This shows that we can learn, and that we can make use of our knowledge. It is necessary only that we extend our knowledge of the instincts of our children just as fast as we can make use of more.

Up to the age of about ten, boys are apparently satisfied to play games by themselves, or to play with others in ways that let each look out pretty much for himself. At this age, however, a change begins to appear. Now the boy tends to associate himself with others of the same age, and before you know it your son "belongs" to some "gang." Every street in a town and every corner in a city has its gang. And if your boy has red blood and hard grit in him, he is a member of one of these gangs. He can't help it. He does not join because it is the fashion, or because he is afraid to keep out, or because he has social ambitions. He joins because it is his instinct to join with others in carrying on the activities to which other instincts drive him. If you stand in the way of the gang, you are fighting against one of the strongest forces in human nature.

Now if you feel the way Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Green felt about the gangs, I do not blame you. But you must not stop there. Let's try to find out first what the gang means to the boys and what it means to the race. When a boy joins a gang, he does not discard his instinct for play or for running and shouting. He simply takes on a new relation to the world about him. As a member of the gang, he still runs and plays and shouts; but now he has become conscious of his place in the world, and that place is with his fellow-members, surrounded by all sorts of enemies and dangers and obstacles to his well-being. In his gang he finds comfort and support for his struggle with the outside world. Here he finds opportunity for satisfying exchange of thought; here he finds sympathy and understanding such as he can get nowhere else.

The gang, without a written code in most cases, without formal rules, without very definite aims, even, nevertheless has a moral scheme of its own that every boy understands and lives up to as earnestly and as devotedly as ever man followed the dictates of conscience. The gang demands of the boy unfailing loyalty, and—what is more—it usually gets it. Of how many other institutions or organizations can as much be said? The gang demands fair play and fidelity among its members, and it usually gets these. The gang demands devotion and self-sacrifice of its members, and the boy who cannot show these qualities becomes more effectually ostracized than any defaulting bank official or corrupt politician. These fine virtues, then—loyalty, honor, devotion—are cultivated by the gang just at the time when the instincts for them are strongest, and at a time when no other agency is prepared to do the work.

For you will realize, when you once think of it, how much we coddle the baby when he is cute, how we shower him with toys far in excess of what he can use or enjoy, how we fuss and fondle him, and how much thought we give to every possible and impossible want; and how, on the other hand, we neglect the boy when he enters upon that most unattractive, but very critical, age in which he finds other boys more interesting than his sister and her dolls, when he cares more for other boys than he does for his mother and her parlor, when he thinks more of the "fellers" than he does of his teacher and her lessons. Just at this time, when the boy is beginning to wonder vaguely and to long just as indefinitely, we abandon him to his own resources and to Mrs. White's Bob, the leader of the gang.

The problem that confronts us is: How can we save and strengthen the fine qualities which this spontaneous association with other boys produces without encouraging the lawlessness and the destructiveness and the secretiveness of the gang? First of all, we mothers must recognize not only that the boy cannot be happy without his associates, but also that the social virtues will never be developed in him at all if we keep him at home away from the others or restricted to one or two play-mates—which we may like to select for him. Then, when this is perfectly clear to us, we will take the next step, which will be to use all the resources of the homes and of the community to change the antisocial gang into a club. The difference between a gang and a club is not a matter of clean clothes and "nice" manners. It is a difference in mental attitude. The gang has rules and it has power. The club has put its rules into form and it knows what it can do and what it wants to do. In other words, the gang is a casual, random group that drifts about in the village or in the city, subject to every passing influence, whereas the club is a deliberate, purposeful organization with definite aims and developments. Both meet the needs of the growing boy for association; both give the social instincts and virtues suitable opportunity for exercise.

This problem of giving the boys a chance to get together and do what their instincts drive them to do is not one merely for the mothers who can provide for their boys little or no supervision, and whose boys play in the streets and vacant lots. The problem is just as great in the case of the well-to-do, who provide constant supervision for their children. Indeed, it is a serious question whether the condition of the children of wealthier families is not in this respect more dangerous than that of the less wealthy. With the boys of the street the problem is how to divert the activities into suitable channels; with the closely-guarded boys of the wealthy the problem is how to develop the spirit of loyalty and self-sacrifice and honor, which have been suppressed by the restricted and artificial associations of the solicitous home. Both kinds of boys must be left free to form their own associations, but the groups must be so directed in their club activities (without, however, suspecting that they are being directed) as to connect their interests with lawful amusements, civic needs, and social relations. The great danger is that when adults take a hand in these matters they fix their attention upon the civic and moral virtues and overlook the instincts of activity and sociability which call the gang into being, and the club degenerates into a preachy Sunday- school class.

[Illustration: The boys need a chance to get together.]

In organizing clubs, or rather in presenting opportunities for the organization of clubs, we must recognize that bodily activity, taking the form of athletics, or of workshop effort, or of camping, hunting, etc., is a fundamental condition of healthy growth for the boys and girls. As every group must have its meeting place, this should be first provided, and it should be of a nature that allows gymnastics and hammering and boxing to go on without any restrictions beyond those required by the nature of the little animals. That is, there is need for sleep and rest and meals—and perhaps certain definite hours for school and church—but beyond such disagreeable though necessary interruptions the meeting place of the club should be a busy place at all decent hours. We are tempted to force literature and debating upon our clubs; these things usually come later, and appeal at best to but relatively few boys. Literature and debating are good, but they can never take the place of parallel bars and boxing gloves and hammer and saw.

We are also tempted to pick out the boys for the clubs that we are interested in. This is a serious mistake. It is this sort of thing that causes the failure of so many well-meaning attempts to redeem the children of the "slums" or of the street. We must let the groups form spontaneously; the boys' instincts are keener in detecting the sneak and the coward and the traitor than yours are, and if the club has the right start, the undesirable citizen will either adopt the morals of the club or be squeezed out. And the right start is chiefly a good meeting place. It is here that the church and the school and the home can cooperate. In the larger cities the settlement has pointed the way by carrying on practically all of the work with children through the medium of clubs.

It is not necessary for every parent to furnish a suitable meeting place; indeed, each club needs only one meeting place. But every home can contribute something. If you have not the suitable garret or barn or shed, you can supply the baseball outfit, or the Indian clubs, or the work-bench, or some of the tools. You can lend your homes for those not very frequent occasions when the boys are quite satisfied to have a quiet evening of table games or theatricals, or imitation camp-fire with chestnuts to roast and songs to sing. You can make up lunch-baskets for fishing or tramping trips, or you can sew tapes on the old pants for "uniforms."

It does not matter so much what you do, so long as you do as much as you can, and, above all, if you show an "interest." The bond of sympathy and intimacy that comes from such an understanding and from the hearty cooperation of the home with these natural instincts of the children is an immense gain to the individual parent, as well as to the individual child. Instead of friction and opposition of forces, there results a cooperation of forces that all make for good.

As for the community, the village or town that can provide meeting places for all of its groups of young people, under the direction of those who understand them and sympathize with them, with suitable equipment for physical activities of all kinds, can make no better investment of the money that such a venture would cost. For it is in such association that the boys and girls learn to be members of a group, and eventually of the larger group that includes us all. The good citizen is the one who has developed the instincts of loyalty and devotion and self-sacrifice and honor, and has directed them toward the community. The bad citizen is the one in whom these virtues were never developed, or one in whom these traits remain in the gang stage.

In the attempts that have been made to direct the instincts of children we have given the boys much more attention than the girls, for the simple reason that the boys have given us more trouble. Still, the girls should not be neglected. They are entitled to all the advantages that can be derived from organized opportunity to associate with one another and to develop the social virtues. They should also have the opportunity for physical exercise and development which the boy gets because he makes violent demand for it, but which the girl needs just as much.

It has been found unwise to have mixed clubs of boys and girls in the early years, and even later, when girls and boys could profitably associate together, they like to have their separate groups for special activities. For the strictly sociable times, however, boys and girls may be brought together at any age.

Apart from the other advantages to be gained from the club, the girl or boy will be saved from his friends. There is a real danger that children who do not get into larger groups will take up with a single chum or intimate. While it is true that many lasting and valued friendships start in these early years, the danger is nevertheless a serious one. Chums or intimates, in their tendency to get away from other people, may do nothing worse than carry on silly conversations; but they may also read pernicious literature and develop bad habits. Activities in a group are more open and less likely to be of a secret nature.

Intimacies at this early age will spring up for all kinds of superficial reasons. In a study made some years ago these were some of the reasons given for the formation of friendships: "We were cousins," "He taught me to swim," "We had the same birthday," "She had a red apron," "Her brown eyes and hair," "Neither of us had a sister." A large proportion of the children who were questioned gave as the only reason for their intimate friendship the fact that they "live near each other." However absurd these reasons may appear to us, we are compelled by what we know of the child's mind to respect these attachments. But if there is any danger in the intimacy—and there often is—the only remedy is encouragement of association in a large group. "There is safety in numbers."

So, whether we are more concerned with the mischief done by the gang, or with the danger of intimate chums, whether we care more for the development of good citizenship in boys and girls, or merely to make the children happy while they are growing up, it is necessary for parents to use all the means at their disposal to organize and encourage the social activities of the young people to the fullest extent.