The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-11-29
About Boys.

was formerly a race of boys who
worked; who got up at an incredible
hour in the morning to light the kitch-
en- fires and do the chores; who hoed
corn contentedly for three weeks for
the chance of going fishing on rainy
day; who eschewed the vanities of
marbles and baseball except upon rare
occasions, and went through long
days work as if the Eight-Hour law
had never been dreamed of. The testi-
mony to their existence comes from the
fathers who entertain their incrcdulous
sons with 'When was your age, sir,
l could do rs much work in a day as a
man, and my father made me do it.
Johnny turns his toast over to butter
the other side, and wonders why his
father does not make him do it, and
then asks for twenty-five cents to sub
scribe to baseball club, and gets it
the boy must have some exercise.
Meantime father and mother are hon.
estly puzzled. The father having been
brought up to hard work, has a vague
impression that boys need some such
discipline, but he does not see how it
can be secured. The legitimate object
of boys life used to be to chop wood;
but anthracite coal cannot be sawed
and split, and he can hardly afford a
farm, or keep COW in city lot. So
the boys loaf and lounge, and make
work for their mothers, and get into
mischief, and live through vast
amount of fretting and fault-tinding,
until some day they are turned loose in
q working world to give and take hard
knocks and learn to aU0rk.
That is the very thing they should
have learned at home-the working is
not of half SO great importance as the
learning how. No healthy boy was
ever lazy until he was trained to it.
From the tips of his fingers to the ends
of his toes he is full Of that restless,
vigorous, irrepressible something which
makes the difference between a boy
and u girl. You can never delude the
mother of boy with your theo-
ries that it is all matter of education.
She knows it is in the grain, and if she
be wise woman makes provision for
its healthy direction and development.
Give the boys knives and saws and
hammers and nails, and let them learn
to use them, even if you have to shut
your eyes when you see the soft little
fingers struggling with the dangerous
blades. There must be a beginning,
and a multitude of boys have carried
their full complement of fingers up to
manhood. Who is it that says PrOvi-
dence always takes care of boys if peo-
pie do not interfere?
There arc plenty of uses tor boy in
a house. Chairs get shaky for lack OF
glue; hinges loosen and need only the
tightening of screw; the normal con-
dition of Notwithstanding is to be out OF
order, but lock with two knobs is as
simple a bit of mechanism as can be
made, aid any boy ought to be able to
take one off and put it in order. Out
of your boys play you get skill and
training which you may draw upon, and
others may thank you for, all his
life. Work in itself is not an actual
good, but only valuable for its results
either to ourselves or others. and the
market value of boys work in dol
lars and cents is no fair measure of its
worth.
1t is paying investment to furnish
the boys with tools and with material
for their use. Twenty-Five cents in
waste boards from a planing-mill, OF
the odds and ends of finished lumber
bits of molding, shingles, ETC., to be OBJ
tanned for trific from house-builders
or load of boxes from a grocery, viii
make a boy as rich as amilliOnaire, anC
give him hours of hcalthful enjoyment
The girl can draw for the wardrobe O
her dependent family upon the con
stantly accommodating stores of the rag
bag, and those odds and ends of femi
nine attire in the shape of ribbons
laces and bits of gay stutls; but, in thu
average home, boards are not fount
lying around loose, especially if Their
be an avaricious female in the kitchen
to appropriate everything larger than
tooth-pick for kindlimgs.
The rat-traps which scare the rat
from their neighborhood, the bird
houses in which the birds judiciousl,
decline to build, the rabbit-pens which
precisely suit the rabbits, whateve
maledictions they may provoke from
the gardener, the ships and windmill
and biow-guns and cross-bows, may no
be eminently successful from Il mechan
ical standpoint, but they are invaluable
as educators, and as furnishing sub
stantial recreation-a thing far abOv'
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