Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-08-25
To a Puzzled Parent.

The fact that your boy has a peculiar
faculty for spending money, and a pc
culiar distaste for saving or even seem.
ing to save it. so that of two articles OF
\ equal desirability he would always pre-.
fer the more expensive. especially il
the prices were to be known to ''the
boys" may well give you some con.
Germ, and certainly calls for some watch
fulness and care; but it is not necessa-
rily a bad sign. 1t indicates rather 10.
norance than vice. and is a fact due
rather TO the social civilization of the
times than to special personal charac-
teristics.
For in America the common though
rude test of character is the ability to
make money and generosity in spending
il. We do not admire a miser, we dc
not worship. as it is sometimes said we
do. mere wealth. There is no commu-
nifty where boarding is more despised.
But those men are most respected who
have means and use them with liber-
atty. The man who has a handsome
house, tastefully built and furnished,
who drives a fine span, who dresses
himself and his wife and children well,
who hires an expensive pew in church,
who gives literally to public and be-
nevolent enterprises-in other words,
who apparently has plenty of money and
uses it freely-is the man most likely
to be looked up TO by all his neighbors,
including the deacons and the min
ister. The test thus furnished is not
altogether bad one. If a man in
America has money, this indicates ener-
gy, industry, temperance and thrift-in
brief, the economic virtues; If he spends
1t freely, this indicates a liberal, gener-
Gus disposition-in brief, the chief so
cial virtue. These two classes of vir-
tues-the economic and the social-by
no means constitute n complete man.
hood; but they 90 very far toward max
ING useful and agreeable member OF
society. The free spending of money is
furthermore uncOnsciously encouraged
by ministers and religious literature.
Pulpit exhortations to liberality are fire.
quent; to economy, rare. The duty of
parting with money is emphasized; the
accommodating of money is treated rather
as 4 vice than as virtue Under such
circumstances it is not at all strange
that our boys should grow up ambitious
TO be free Spenders and ashamed of
small economies; that they should wish
to appear to have plenty of money, and
that they should think itmanly to spend
it freely. They can hardly be expected
TO look into the philosophy of this mat
ter, or to realize that there is a differ
ence between spending their father
money and spending their own. Not a
few grown men. and some with a repu-
tation of greatness, never comprehend
this distinction. There are members of
Congress with n large reputation for
liberality wholly built upon their ex-
penditure of other peoples money, and
others subjected to the odium of mig
gardliness simply because they are care
tut about voting away money which
comes out of the hard earnings of 9th
ers.
Nor is the mere fact that your boy
gets into some bad companionShips and
some demoralizing activities any proof
or even any indication of n depraved
nature. 1t indicates danger for him.
and demands foresight and caution
from you, but it does not indicate moral
culpability in him; certainly not of an
extraordinary kind nor to an extraordin-
airy degree. Good boys are often ONLY
insane boys. They do nothing very bad
because they do nothing at all: they
NOPE and are quiet and get a reputa-
ton for sanctity simply because they
are half sick. They never tear their
clothes because they never climb trees:
never get wet because, like cats, they
are afraid of the water; never fight be-
cause they are towards; never disobey
because they have no will of their own.
The colt that is hardest TO break is
worth more rs horse if he is wisely
broken. There is no danger of an eX-
plosion in steam-engine which has no
tire in the fire-box and no steam in the
boiler. An energetic, ambitious,
vivacious, inquisitiye boy, DESTROYS to
know everything that any one else
knows and to do everything that any
one else can do, full of the sense of his
own strength, and ambitious to trv it in
season and out of season, is in some re-
spects an uncomfortable boy 10 get along
with; sure to be getting into continual
scrapeS and misleading younger and
weaker companions; but these are the
boys who make the efficient, successful
and useful men. if in their bOyhood they
are rightly trained. Christian Union.