The herald., 1895-08-17
Gen. A. B. Campbell Tells Some
of His Traits
EVERYONE IS BORN COOL
Bad Habits and Evil Ways Taken On
From Without
The Home, School and Street to Blame.
Some Commonsense Suggestions Of
How to Remedy Things

Last evening, in Pythian castle, on
North Spring street, General ABB. Camp
bell delivered powerful and intensely
interesting lecture on the American Boy.
Mr.. Henry z. Wilson introduced the
speaker with few apt and happy words.
The general then took the platform and
for nearly an hour held his audience by
the simple force and honest directness
with which he treated his most import
ant theme. The American boy was pre-
sented as he appears between the ages ol
and 16 years; those years when he is
never idle, always alert and to be found
in every :neig ghborhood, whether in the
city or country.
The speaker announced that the news
boy, the bootblack, the American bad boy
was the especial branch of his subject
that he would dwell upon and he also an
nounced at the same time that he was
that boys friend; that he was at the
same time friend OF the court but he
proposed to show how that court, the
court of public opinion, by abusing, SLAM
dering, kicking and cutting the bad boy
helped to make him think of himself too
often as an outlaw and hardened cri
inal.
The general then gave forcible instances
of the diIe threats and forebodings of all
kinds of evil and untimely ends by which
old women, neighbors, and even the boys
father and mother melted him (uninten-
tionally of course) to commit further
depredations; to make him sorry he is
alive, and to believe in his own total de-
pravity. OF the father, who by his harsh
treatment, arOuses all the brute instincts
in the boys nature and awakens evil ten.
denotes which, if he grows up other than
a bad man have been overcome. for at the
time. in his heart, the boy deties his
father.
In school it is the same thing. contin-
ued the speaker; all the mischief. all the
pranks and even wIckedness are at.
tributed to him, until he grows to look
upon mis- teachers as his natural enemies,
and he VOWS to live until he gets even.
He grows to look upon his home
as place to him for eating and
go anywhere else. The systematic edu-
cation of the good qualities in these boys
is never thought OF. and they are sent to
reform schools and other such institu-
tiOns.
OF course, there all wild and wayward
boys are not treated harshly, and great
many are ruined by the other extreme
too great gentleness. that is just as de
moralizing. There never was boy
born into the world OF sound physical
and mental constitution" asserted the
general with much decision, without
all the elements necessary. If properly
developed s and ID. controlled; d TO make 2,
Wholesome food. pure air and culture
will bring about the best ana desired re.
suits with boys as with plants; but it
rests with the fathers and mothers and
teachers to develop the intellectual and
moral life, as we'll as the. physical.
Bad boys are never stlhgy; they are al.
ways liberal. If they are not properly
governed that liberalty will grow into
prodigality; for prodigality is liberality
gone to seed, just as stinginess Is pru-
dence gone to seed.
If there is any fun anywhere. the bad
sympathies for everything except imple-
ments of labor. He is unselfish generous:
courageous, generally bright anu smart
rather than dull; has vivid magma
ton, good memory and quick and
ready wit.
Instead Of denying him pleasure. give
hin, all that is possible, but teach him to
and never give up boys with these at
tribute or any of them, and consider
them incorrigible.
OF course there are many traits that are
not good, too, which must be studied.
understood and eradicstsd by parents
fror them. Wrong ambitions, too, from
which they must be turned with the
greatest care. But, said the general.
very impressively, all bad habits and
ambitions come from without, and not
from within, the BOY must be surround
ed with good influences and clean at
mosphere; chewing, smoking, drinking,
GA n, bIinp living a nd nprhanq vioou
are all taken on from without-but
where2 In the home?
If father or mother have a bad habit
they had better break themselves of it, for
aIboy's first idea of manhood is his father;
when he grows to know him and life bet
ter perhaps he changes his mind, because
he watches his father like cat.
The second place from which boys learn
bad habits is the school; and the third
is another school-the school of the
street-from one or the other of those
three places do the bad habits come.
The home above all, however, is the
model place, that where good habits and
only good should be acquired; it should
be a merry place, too, one in which the
boy should be told not to "go and do this
or that" but to come and do it. In
dustry is acquired as easily as idl sness,
and with frowns and hard knocks ban
ished, ard rather than brute force, let
tbc uiC DC tiao vi iofcb iOI tutIC Is llO
field in the human heart that cannot be
governed by 1t.
= Empress the boy that he is here for q
good purpose, said the speaker in con-
cluson, empress him with love fol- his
country, that one of his first duties is to
obey her laws and love her flag; hold
before him that he is good. not bad
teach him that you believe you have a
good boy and he will become good, and
hold him to your heart until the clods
rattle upon his casket. Outside forces
may work him harm, but you must not
desert him; he has been given to you
and you must hold him up; and as long
as he lives and you can reach him, put
your arms about him, wild and wayward
though he be, and lead him on and up to
Heaven
The lecture was illustrated with many
anecdotes. the points brought out with
telling force, and the whole peryaded
with wholesome cummonsense.
Cecil Rhodes White Rhinoceros
prem iar Gecil EhOdes raceptlv coc,a e.,