"What can a boy do, and where can a boy stay,
If he is always told to get out of the way?
He cannot sit here, and he must not stand there,
The cushions that cover that fine rocking chair
Were put there, of course, to be seen and admired;
A boy has no business to ever be tired.
The beautiful roses and flowers that bloom
On the floor of the darkened and delicate room
Are made not to walk on—at least, not by boys;
The house is no place, anyway, for their noise,
Yet boys must walk somewhere, and what if their feet,
Sent out of their houses, sent into the street,
Should step round the corner and pause at the door
Where other boys' feet have paused often before;
Should pass the gateway of glittering light,
Where jokes that are merry and songs that are bright
Ring out a warm welcome with flattering voice,
And temptingly say, 'Here's a place for the boys.'
"Ah, what if they should? What if your boy or mine
Should cross o'er the threshold which marks out the line
'Twixt virtue and vice, 'twixt pureness and sin,
And leave all his innocent boyhood within?
Oh, what if they should, because you and I
While the days and the months and the years hurry by,
Are too busy with cares and with life's fleeting joys
To make round our hearthstone a place for the boys?
There's a place for the boys. They'll find it somewhere;
And if our own homes are too daintily fair
For the touch of their fingers, the tread of their feet,
They'll find it, and find it, alas, in the street,
'Mid the gilding of sin and the glitter of vice;
And with heartaches and longings we pay a dear price
For the getting of gain that our lifetime employs,
If we fail to provide a good place for the boys."

This little poem, published anonymously in a country newspaper, seems to me to tell the story of why boys go astray. They are not understood at home and so naturally go where someone seems to understand and want them.

In a great many homes the boy's room is a very unattractive place, merely a place in which to sleep. He is not allowed in the "parlor." He always seems to be in the way. No one seems to take any interest in the things that are closest to his heart. It is only natural that he should gradually drift to the saloon, the billiard room, the questionable houses, because he is made to feel that he is welcome there. Indeed his tastes and desires are consulted there.

A boy always is interested in sex problems. The vulgar delight in feeding his fancy, in giving him exaggerated ideas of these much abused subjects. He is lead on from one step to another. Often many of the things he does are performed in a spirit of bravado, simply because he does not wish to appear "green."

From one of the reliable magazines comes this information: "Forty-one families—'nice families,' as we call them—were last May thrown into consternation and humiliation by being privately notified by the head master of a boys' school that their boys would not be reËntered for another term at his school. 'A fearful condition of immorality,' wrote the head master, 'has been unearthed at the school, and in order to set an example to the rest of the boys, every boy concerned will be denied reËntrance to this school.'

"The 'fearful condition of immorality' discovered in the school was, as the head master privately explained, traceable, as it generally is, 'to one boy, the son of a family of unquestioned standing in its community,' and he has involved the other boys.

"The boy in question was not a vicious lad: on the contrary, he was a boy possessed of more than ordinary good characteristics. When he was brought up before the head master and the full result of his baneful influence was explained to him the boy was panic stricken.

"'Didn't you realize what you were doing?' asked the head master.

"'No,' replied the boy, who was nineteen and really a young man: 'I knew it was wrong, yes, but I didn't realize how wrong. As a matter of fact,' said the boy, 'I didn't know what I was doing, and how I was getting the boys into a thing that I now see is more serious than I had any idea of.'

"'Didn't your father and mother ever explain these things to you?' asked the head master.

"'Not a word,' answered the boy, and then as a grim look came on his face he said: 'God! I wish they had!'

"A pleasant realization must it be to the parents of this boy as they read this sentence in the head master's letter to the father of this boy:

"'I cannot but feel that your criminal negligence in the most vital duty that can come to a parent is the direct cause in this twofold calamity: first, of the downfall of your own son; and second, of the downfall of each of the other forty boys, and of the humiliation in which they and their parents find themselves. These are hard words to say to you, but they are true, and I say them not alone as the head master of this school, but also as one father to another, and as one man to another.'"

In the growing youth's mind there arise many questions that he would like to talk over with his father, but he feels diffident about asking him. Too often the boy grows up and goes away to college without ever talking with his father about manhood. In all matters concerning his business relations and success, the boy has received careful instruction. He has not been left to work out those problems by himself but is given the benefit of the experiences of those who have trodden the road before. But in this matter so vital to his whole life, he has been left to clear his own path through the woods. With no guide and bewildered with the new ideas and experiences that crowd upon him, is it any wonder he loses his way, wanders off the straight path, falls ofttimes into some bog that perhaps was hidden from his sight by surrounding flowers and to which he has been lured by siren music?

The father's duty to his son is plain—and must not be neglected. In some cases the mother must attend to this duty and for the future welfare of her son she must see that he receives adequate instruction.