The Newtown bee., 1880-03-03
"sThe Disadvantages of City Boys."

The following is from an article in S. Nicholas for. March
 Some months ago, Rev. Washington Gladden., of Springfield, Mass, believ- sing that if he could find out how the active and prominent men of his own city spent their boyhood, it would help to solve the problem of what is the best training for boys, prepared the follow- ing circular, which was sent to the one hundred men who could fairly be said to stand at the head of the financial, commercial, professional and educa- tional interests of the city:
 "MY DEAR SIR: I desire to find out, for the benefit of the boys, how the
 leading men of this city spent their boy
 hood. Will you be kind enough to tell me l. Whether your home during the | first fifteen years of your life was on a farm, in a village, or in city, and, | ?. Whether you were accustomed, | during any part of that period, to | engage in any kind of work when you
 were not in school
 | ] should be glad, of course. to have
 you go into particulars as fully as you
 are disposed to do; but I do not wish to
 tax your patience, and l shall be greatly
 two questions" -..
 No less than eighty-eight of the busy gentlemen who received this circular
 were kind enough to answer the ques- tions-some of them briefly, most of
 them quite fully, and it turned out that
 few had been brought up like most of
 the boys who crowd the ball grounds
 and fill the streets of our cities in these
 later days. Here is 8 brief summary of
 the returns:
 Of these lightweight men, twelve
 spent the first fifteen years of their life
 in the city, twelve in villages, and sixty
 four were farmers boys.
 But of the twenty-four who lived in
 villages and cities, six were practically
 farmers boys, for they lived in small
 villages, or on the outskirts of cities, and had the same kind of work to dc that farmers boys have, One of these , village boys said: II learned to hoe, dig and now; ir fact, 1 was obliged to do work, whcthe, , I liked it or no. In winter went tC : school, and worked nights and mornings for my board" e.............. -.... l Another said "I used to work away ) from home some on a farm in the sum l mer and fall. In the winter, when goins e to school. we three boys used to worl e up the wood for winter use." a Four others told substantially tn = same story. As these were about tn 0 same as farmers boys, may add then , to that list, so that seventy out of eighty t eight-almost four-tfths ot all thes 2 men-had the training of farm life n Now how was it with the eightee e city and village boys or the list? Di ,f they have an easy time of it? Five ( e them did, as they testify; five of ther l. had no work in particular to do, bu e one of the five says that he studied la' IS when out of school, and that was nc 0 exactly play. The rest of the eightee is were poor boys-not paupers by an i- means, but children of the humble
 classes, many of them in narrow an
 seedy circumstances-and though the
 lived in cities or villages, they were a I. customed from their earliest years IS hard work.
 m Was generally employed" says on m during the summer months and in V al cations in doing any kind of work tn r. offered"
 as Four of the city boys were newsboy t. One of them says: ''The last year W of connected with the press I earned sl ne before breakfast" ne Another: ''I have paid my own W; Tt since eight years of age, without al )y assistance except my board from n Id eighth to my eleventh year. CT Of all these eighty eight boys five on r. had nothing particular to do ry While these boys were growing a, ii rHn,.kin0 a great many -ntharS-snns h. up in Springfield, going to school a ct amusing themselves as boys of tn, pl class are apt to do. Where are the q Only five of this class are heard fire CT among the eighty-eight solid men Id that city. Some of them, perhaps, g he prosperous men in other cities, but t rs number cannot be large, for in Sprin is field only five men out of eighty -eig es came from this class. Ninety -four a al a half per cent. were either farme ps boys or poor and hard-working toy or boys. @.f- A.. .. r.... ..-,