The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1875-10-22
ONE THING AND ANOTHER.
PAPER NUMBER ONE.

"Boys will be boys" is only a mild
way we have of saying that because
boys are boys, they must perforce be
rude young rascals-a terror to quiet
people, and as much to be dreaded by
the order-loving as an attack of the neu-
ralgia-that, in truth, it is in the course
of nature for them to be the torments of
society, and it can't be helped. "Boys
will be boys" is the excuse profered
for all the acts of rudeness, carelessness
and cruelty in which many of them
seem to delight; and "boys are so much
trouble,' has almost passed into prov
erb with mothers, while the adjective
rude is commonly used to qualify the
noun boys.
Oh, the boys! the boys with their
soiled clothes, their dirty feet, their bad
manners and their noise The mere
mention is quite sufficient to bring on
nervous attack. In fact, the boys have
not established very enviable reputa-
tion; yet the boys are not to blame. AS
class they are badly misused, and
were our girls subject to the same treat
ment, without doubt, they would give
US thesamecausef for complaint. ''Train
up child in the way it tshould co." etc.,
always holds good as a general rule,
aud when we fail to train it up in the
way it should be, we, by neglect, train
it in the wrong way. Yes, "boys will
be boys" but that is no reason why
they should not be gentlemen, instead
of rowdies. They need to run and jump
and play ball to expand their lungs and
develop their muscles, but they need
not be bears.
You have been shown through the
house of friend, and when you came to
the chambers, you were delighted with
the apartments belonging to the girls
the tasteful curtains and carpets, the
beautiful furniture and dainty toilet
sets, all kept in perfect order, because
the careful mother required her girls to
be neat, and encouraged them in the ex-
ercise of good taste, considering such 3
course necessary in order that they
should acquire good habits and become
ladies. But when you came to a room
with the door ajar, revealing bare
floor, hats, caps, boots, shoes, socks and
pants in wild disorder; furniture, such
as was too old to be presentable else
where, and various articles that different
members of the household considered
not ornamental to their own rooms, yet
wished to have conveniently at hand,
the door has been hastily closed with
go, that's the boys room," uttered in
tone that implied that as a matter of
course the boys room could not be in
spected. Think you that those boys
would not have taken pride in q
nicely furnished room, and could not
have been trained to take care of it as
$ we'll as the girls take care of theirs?
: We know a mother who is nervously
3 particular in her housekeeping. Her
boys are rude. She mends their clothes
and tells them to get out of the way. At
table they are constant source of an
noyance, and as means of reformation,
she gives them their food in the wood
shed. Would she adopt that method
) with her girls ? "Boys will be boys"
but they should be trained as carefully
as their sisters are, and they will be the
3 better for it. Too often in the case of
girls, the more solid branches of course
t Of study are passed by for those that
: merely serve to cultivate the taste and
give refinement of manners, but more
often with the boys the ornamental
branches have been entirely ignored.
emusic hath charms to soothe the savage
breast" yet the piano is always bought
' for the girls. The portfolio of drawings
. on the centre table, and the pictures on
It the walls are exhibited as evidence of
of the accomplishments of the girls, but
d the finger marks on the doors, and the
Il dirty tracks on the floor show the prog
ress the boys have made in the fine arts.
We do not wonder that boys of good
g families are sometimes surprisingly
awkward, or that they so often seek So
ciety among the roughs. 1t is natural
that they should seek associates who
have no polish if they lack it themselves.
It is matter of surprise that highly re-
spectacle men will occasionally go out
side the walks of respectability to make
8 friends with the low and worthless, yet
}. it is simply because they were led to
y seek such society when boys from lack
:. of proper cultivation of the taste-com-
s bined with that moral instruction that
all good people give their children.
g MADGE BRIGHT.