Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1857-12-12
A Chapter on Boys.
BY HENRY WARD BEECH Err.

BY HENRY WARD E Err.
A boy is a piece of existence quite sep
arate from all things else, and deserves q
separate chapter in the history Of man.
The real lives of boys are yet TO be written.
The lives of pious and good boys, which
enrich the catalogues of great publishing
societies, resemble a real boys life about
as much as a chicken picked and larded,
upon a spit, and ready for a delicious eat
ing, resembles a free fowl in the fields
With some few honorable exceptions, they
are impossible boys, with incredible good
ness. Their piety is monstrous. A mans
experience stuffed into a little boy is mon
strous. And we are soundly skeptical of
this whole school of JUVENILE pate de .froie
gras piety. Apples that ripen long be-
fore time are diseased or worm bitten.
So long as boys are babies, how much
they are cherished! But by and by the
cradle is needed for another. From the
is an anomalous condition, for which there
is no special place assigned in Nature, they
are always doing something to call down
rebuke. They are inquisitive as monkeys,
and meddlesome just where you don't
wish them to be. Boys have a period Of
mischief just as they have the measles or
.chicken-pox. They invade your drawers,
mix up your tooth powder with hair oil
pull your laces and collars from their re-
p%ositories; upset your ink upon invaluable
manuscripts; tear up precious letters scat
ter your WATERS; stick everything up with
experimental sealing wax; spoil all your
pens in the effort at spelling all your pa
per,
Poor boys! What are they good for?-
1t is an unfathomable mystery that we
come to our manhood Gas the Israelites
reached Canaan), through the wilderness
of boyhood. They are always wanting
something they must not have, going
were they are not wanted, saying the most
awarkward things at the most critical
times. They will tell lies, and after in
finite pains to teach them the obligations
of truth, they give us the full benefit of
frankness and hteralness by hurting ont
before company, a whole budget Of family
secrets. Would you take a quiet nap?-
Slam bang go a whole bevy of boys thro'
the house! Has the nervous baby at
length after all tanners of singings, trot-
tings, soothings, and maternal bosom O.
plates, just fallen asleep? Be sure an I'M
mannerly boy will be on hand to bawl out
for permiseio ion to do something or other
which he has been doing all day without
dreaming Of leave.
Shall we describe the daily battle of the
hair and bath, the ordeal Of aprons for the
table, the placing and the moving up, and
the endless task of good manners! Ii
thqrean another on the calender, it is a pa
tient, sweet-tempered childron's nurse!-
Talk of saintship, simply because a man
lived in a cave and was abstemlous, or be-
cause he died bravely at the stake? What
are fagoots of fiery sticks for a few hot
moments compared to those animated fag-
cots which consume nurses and governes-
ses for months and years, to say nothing OF
the occasional variety Of parental Goals!
Are we not then on the boys side =
Ito be sure we are. 1t is not their fault
that they are boys, nor older people are
not patient. :,
The restless activity q boys is their ne
|~cessity. To restrain them is to thwartNa-
ture. We need to provide for it. Not
to attempt to find amusement for them
but to give them opportunity to amuse
themselves. 1t is astonishingto see how
little it requires to satisfy a ~boypature.
First in the list | put string What
'grown-up people find in a thousah forms
Of business and society, a boy scores in 6
Istring! He ties up the door for Exquisite
5 pleasure of untying it again. Heharness'
es chairs, ties up his own fingers halters
! his neck, coaxes a lesser urchin t be bis
, horse. and drives stage-which viii boys,
is the top of human attainment. Strings
are wanted for snares, for bows an'arrows,
: for whips, for cats cradles, for Hes, tor
= fishing and a hundred things MOI thai
can recollect. A knife is more SeitIng
: than a string, but does not last sopng.and
y is MT so various. After a short the 1t is
/ lost. or broken, or has cut the fgers.-
It But a string is the instrument oendless
devices, and with the managemel and In,
~genuitv of a boy. The first alele that
parents should lay in, on goin, into the
country, is a large ball offtwine The boys
must not know it. If they SEA whole,
IS ball, the charm is broken. 1t hist come
is forth mysteriously, unexpectedlysn as II
there were no more! .
For indoors, next, we shopa lace up
on the list pencils and white par. At
r least one hour every day will be SLY Sc
I'd cured by that. A slate and peil are
e. very good. But as children alys do
e. what men do, they account the hused
N half of a letter and a bit of penclb be
worth twice as much as any slate.
Of Upon the whole, we think a stlin Of
Is water near by affords the greatest count
y of enjoyment among all natural oels.-
n There is wading and Washing; tie is
,rs throwing of stones, and finding Of piles;
X there is engineering, of the most %lafous
,le kind, by which stone and mud are ne to
dam up the water, or to change thfhan-
nol Resides these things, boys afensl-