San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1877-11-10
The "Plucky" Boy.


,ular synonym for courage and energy,
but more comprehensive than any one
word of the same kind, for it also means
independence, determination, readiness
to cope with difficulties, and, in one
wsrd-manliness, the quality which
more than any other founded our Re-
public and made it great. Pluck is
moral as well as physical and mental
quality; we can not associate it with
meanness, or pettiness of any kind. A
boy may have sort Of bulldog bravery
and tenacity OF purpose, yet be cruel
and mean and treacherous. But pluck
is virtue of quite another sort, and,
as all boys know, a plucky boy, though
he may have hasty temper, is usually
forgiving, generous, open, honest ana
truthful. Not quite willing perhaps to
make allowances for those persons who
possess opposite temperaments, opposite
Qualities, and are less favorably cir
.cumstanced than himself; but despising
falsehood and inspiring confidence
which is rarely misplaced.
1t is not to be expected OF even
manly boy, that he should have the
knowledge, the experience, or imaggina-
ton Of an adult. Other boys to him
are divided into two classes, the "good "
bows, and the chad" boys, or the
plucky boys, and the towards, or the
mean boys, and the generous boys-he
draws no fine distinctions between tenn
permanent and actual inclination in his
estimate of disagreeable qualities, and
can not draw the line between consti-
tutional timidity and natural cowardice.
A boy who is born with fear of conse-
quences, who is not afraid to say emo"
when he ought to say "no," and eyes,"
when he ought to say "yes;" who pos
sesses an innate sense of power and
strength in his own resources, and nerve
enough to make him encounter the new
circumstances and conditions of his
life with quiet self-control which is
the opposite of buster, is very FORUM
ate boy. Fortunate in the inheri-
lance of qualities which will be
worth more to him than houses or lands,
or money or position in the happiness
and security and immunity from evil
which they will insure him.
But all the more unfortunate is he
who possesses none of these qualities
whose actual timidity and want of faith
in himself renders him false and cruel
and hypocritical; who has never cult
waited the heroic quality, which gives
strength to moral purpose and the cour-
age necessary either to do or not to do
things which ought. to be done or left
,undone.
Every body likes plucky boy, be-
.causein Observation-Disclosures brave and
honest man. 1t is not the mere belief
in his physical courage which he in
spires. but in his truth, his honor, and
his manliness.
A well known English author makes
timidity the basis of all vulgarity. He
saws. vulgarity simply results from a
want of confidence" that even when a
person is ostentatious and fond of max
inc pretensions to which he has no solid
claims, it is not half so much vulgar
vanity as want of confidence in what
are his own real merits. But timidity is
not only responsible for much of what
is called vulgarity; it may also be cred
tied with nine-tenths of that awkward
ness which is socially so detrimental,
that it has passed into proverb, "that
If is better to commit crime than a
blunder.h
Timid people are always making
blunders, and are so little certain OF
themselves that it is quite impossible
for any one else to place reliance upon
them. and as we grow older we learn
that reliability is the most valuable
ouality a boy or man can possess.
II there is thoroughly reliable boy
in the list of our acquaintance, we all
know what a comfort he is to his mother,
and TO his friends; every one speaks OF
him as boy that can be depended upon
and this character sticks to him through
life.
Perhaps it may seem at first that reli-
ability has not much necessarily to do
with pluck or courage; but little re-
Election will show that the two must go
together. If boy is not skillful, dar-
ing, inventive, full of resources, he can
not be relied upon in such emergencies
N Ia called nnnn to meet: he