The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1857-09-26
A Chapter on Boys.
BY HENRY WARD BEECHER.

The real lives of boys are yet to be writte
The lives Of pious and good boys, which eI
rich the catalogues Of great publishing 81
ciet:es, resemble real boys life about
much as chicken picked and larded, upo
a spit, and ready for a delicious eating, r.
sembles free fowl in the fields. With SOU
few honorable exceptions, they are imposs
bic boys, with incredible goodness. The
piety is monstrous. A mans experient
stuffed into a little boy is simply monstrou
And we are soundly sceptical of this whol
school of Juvenile Partie de .toae gras piety
Apples that ripen long before their time n
either diseased or worm bitten.
So long as boys are babies, how much ar
they cherished! But y-and-b the cradl
is needed for another. From the time tina
babe becomes q boy until he is youn
man, he is in an anomalous condition 70
which there is no special place assigned il
nature. They are always in the way. The
are always doing something to call down re
buke. They are inquistive as monkeys
and meddlesome just where you don't wisl
them to be. Boys haYe a period of mis-
chief just as they have measles or chicken
pox. They invade your drawers, mix you
tooth powder with hair-oil; pull your lace
and collars from their repositories upse
your ink upon valuable manuscript; teal
your precious letters, scatter your waters
sick everything up with experimental seal
ing-wax; and spoil all your pens in the EFF
fort to spoil all your paper
Poor boys! What are they good for? i
is an unfathomable mystery that we come
to our manhood (as the Israelites reach Ca
naan) through the wilderness of boyhood
They are always wanting something they
must not have, going where they ought no,
to be, coming whtre they are not wanted,
saying the most awkward things at the mos,
critical times. They will tell lies, and after
infinite pains to teach them the obligations oi
truth, they give US the full benefit of frank
ness and litera!ness by hurting out before
company a whole budget of family secrets.
Would you take quiet nap! lam-bang
go a whole bevy of boys through the house !
Has the nervous baby at length, after all
manner Of singngs, trottings soothings and
maternal bosom-opiates, just fallen asleep. :.
be sure an unmanneriy boy will be on hand
to bawl out for permission to do something
or other which he has been doing ali day
without dreaming Of leave.
Who shall describe the daily battle OF the
hair and the bath, the ordeal of aprons for
the table, and placing and moving up, and
the endless task OF good mannersl II there
is one saint that ought to stand higher than
another on the calendar. it is a patient,
chldren's nurse! Talk Of
saintship, simply because a man lived in
cave and was abstemious, or because he
died biavely at the stake! What are fag
gots of fiery sticks for few hot moments,
to those animated faggots which
nurses and governesses for months
and years, to say nothing of the occasional
variety of paren al Goals!
Are we. then, not n the boys side? To
b. sure we are 1t is not their fault that
they are boys, nor that older people are pot
patient.
The restless activity Of boys is their ne
cesss!ty To restrain 1T is TO thwart Nature.
We need to provide for it. No, to attempt
10 find amusement for them ; but to give
them opportunity TO amuse themselves. 1t
is astonishing TO see how little it requires to
satisfy boy-nature.
First in the list | put striHgs What
rrown-up people find in a thousand forms of
business and society, boy secures in
string He ties up the door for the exqul-
site pleasure of untying it again. He har-
ncsses chairs, ties up his own fingers, hal
ters his neck, coaxes lesser urchin TO be-
come his horse, and drives stage-which
with boys is the top Of human attainment.
Strings are wanted for snares, for bows and
arrows, for whips. for cats cradles, for kites,
for fishing, and a hundred things more than
can recollect \ knife is more exciting
than a string, bu. but does not last so long
and is not so various. After short time IT
S lost, or b oxen or has cut the fingers
But string is the instrument OF endless de-
vices, and within the management and lnge-
nuity of boy. The first thing that parents
should lay in, on going into the country, is
l large ball Of twine. The boys must not
know 1t. II they see whole ball the charm
IS broken. II must come forth mysterious
y, Unexpectedly, and as if there was no
more
For indoors, next we should place upon
the list pencils and white paper. At least
one hour in every day will be safely secured
BY that. slate and pencil are very good.
But as children always aspire to do what
men do, they account the unused half let
er and bit of pencil to be worth twice as
much as any slate.
Upon the whole, we think safe stream
IF water near by affords the greatest amount
IF enjoyment among all natural objects.
There is wading and washing; there Is
throwing of stones aud finding of pebbles;
here is engineering, Of the most laborlous
Kind, by which stone and mud are made to
lam up the water, or to change the channel
Besides these things, boys are sensitive to
hat namcless attraction Of beauty which
specially hOvers about the sides Of streams
and though they may not recognize the
cause, they are persuaded of the fact that
.hey are very happy when there are stones
with gurgling water around them, shady
trees and succulent underground, moss and
water-cress, insect, bird, and all the popula-
lion of cool water-courses.
But boys are not always boys. All that
IS in us in leaf, is in them in bud. The very
warnings, the imaginings, the musings, yea,
the very questions which occupy our later
years as serious tasks, are found in the oc-
"a sional hours of boyhood We have scarce
y heard one moral problem discussed in Ia
ter life that is not questioned by children.
The creation of the world, the origin of evil,
divine foreknowledge, human liberty, the
Of the soul, and various other
elements Of elaborate systems, belong to
childhood. Men trace the connection of
truths, and their ethical applications and
but the simple elements OF the
most recondite truths seem to have gained
in them very little by the progress OF years
indeed, al! trutnS whose root anu hie Is III
the infinite are like the fixed stars, which
become no larger under the most powerful
telescope than to the natural eye. Their
distance is too vast to make any appreciable
in magnitude possible. They are
mere points of light.
Boys have their soft and gentle words,
co. Yon would suppose by the morning
racket that nothing could be more foreign
% their nature than romance and vague
sadness. such as ideality produces in adults:
But boys have hours Of great sinking and
sadness, when kindness and fondness are
needful to them.
1t is worthy of notice, how soon little
iindness, little consideration for their boy
nature, wins their confidence and caresses.
Every boy wants some one older than him
elf to whom he may 20 in moods OF CONN.,