The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-11-13
TAE BOYS ARE ALL RIGHT.
Hopeful View Taken by a Man Who
Knows American Youth.
New York Evening Sun.


New York Evening Sun.
It is the fashion in some quarters to speak
hopelessly and despairingly of the American
youth. Your mugwump is peesimistic in
this as in other views. He looks through
the distorted goggles of intellectual dyspep-
STA, and nothing seems right to rim. The
unreal becomes the real. In his mental
vision he is color blind. He avoids the fresh
air of optimism as he would avoid
draught. To him everything is out of joint.
The city is going wrong. The State is al
askew, and the Nation is going to the
"demnition bowwows." To his disordered
perceptions the army is no good, and the
navy might be better. He suspects because
his mental indigestion makes him suspi-
cious. He doesn't tell the truth, because
he either prefers to fb, or he can't even see
the truth if it bumped into him. He believes
that all the little boys who are growing up
are very bad little boys, and that they will
develop into very bad men. In his minds
eye he beholds them ali inhaling cigarettes
and reading yellow literature and learning
naughty things TO say and naughty things
to do. He trembles to think what will be-
come of the Republic when all these naughty
boys grow up and are summoned to take
charge Of affairs.
That is, in some of its features, the pessi-
mistic mugwump view of the youngsters
who will soon become men and who are
even now going through the preliminary
training and preparation for the serious
business of the future. There is another
and brighter view of our youth. 1t is the
view OF the sane and hopeful man, the man
who despairs not of the Republic nor of
its future rulers. To him the future
IS brlSht, and he persuades himself that
somehow or other the world is better
than it used to be, that the conditions Of
life are steadily improving, and that the
youngsters VINO are developing into young
MANHOOD are every whit as good, IL not bet
Ter IMAM they were in his day and genera
ton. He will even confess that the chances
are ten to one that the boy of to-day is a
mucn more intelligent and sturdy chap
than the boy of his own youth. He has
every confidence in the American youth,
and he does not grieve and moan and whine
as the mugwunp does. This hopeful view
was hopefully expressed in Baltimore the
other other day at the convention of the
EndicOtt Peabody, head master of Groton
School, Massachusetts. Mr.. Peabody is q
trainer and educator of the youth. He is
admitted to be successful in his work, and
the boys who go to his school testify
to the sound influence he exerts and to
the healthy atmosphere he has created.
lie believes that boys can be guided and
controlled if the powers which con-
stantly asserting themselves within them
this work the boy himself can do q great
ddeal If he learns self-control he
has already made great strides to-
ward self-improVement, and the regula-
ton of those forces which uncontrolled,
would drift him into vicious ways. 1t is
just at this point in a boys career that Mr..
Peabody believes athletics can be intro
duced as a beneficial influence. THE first
element in a boys life" says Mr.. Peabody,
and astound the mugwump despairers to
hear that Mr.. Peabody unreservedly COM
mends athletics as a beneficial factor in
this important self-development. "All kinds
of athletics says Mr.. Peabody, ARE con-
ducive of this end, but especially baseball.
rowing and that game which a friend of
Shades of the Evening Post what heresy
A recognized authority the training of
young men confessing SO unrestrainedly to
the spiritual efficacy of football? Amazing
folly! This rough, rude, boisterouS game,
this game which calls into play brain and
Drawn, muscle and mind, shall this game
be considered as a means of spiritual and
physical grace? We have Mr.. Peabody's
word for it. and he knows more about
spiritual grace and physical culture than
decadent mugWumps ever dreamed of in
their hopeless philosophy. Football is
IN d de 2ey
also in bringing into his life certain sim
plicity This is a comfortable time, and
people are living luxuriousy. The football
player must cultivate hardness, and in or
der to produce this must eat hard food. An
other quality developed in the boy by foot
ball is obedience. Unless a boy is obedient
he cannot be member of a football team
Football also supplies an element of con-
versation for boys. After hearing boys dis
cuss, day after day. the records of athletes,
you may become bored but you also be-
come bored with hearing old men talk con-
stantly of the price of the cigars they
smoke of the rise and fall of stocks
Conversation about athletes keeps the boys
from discussing low subjects"
Mr.. Peabody's testimony, while valuable,
is only one of many testimonials to the
same effect. If the time shall come when
it is desirable that boys shall be fiabby and
weak, soft physically and soft spiritually,
plaVing with dolls and embroidery instead
or on the athletic field, without self
reliance, without self-control then it will
be time to follow out the mugwump idea,
abandon baseball, rowing, track athletics
are not the days to preach such doctrines.
The stirring, times of war not yet for
gotten. Nor arc the lessons of the war for
gotten or the qualities of manlinesS, loyalty
and patriotism which the war evoked and
which the young men of the war mani
tested. Many man who distinguished
himself at Santiago had learned the lesson
of Self-contrOl of obedience of courage on
the football fields of Harvard. Yale Prince
ton and other colleges and the gallant
Wood, has played that game almost
every year since he left Harvard. Under
him fought and served such men as
Greenway of Yale, Wrenn and Dean of
Devereux of Princeton. and the men who
had rowed in crews and had fought in ath-
iectic contests ais representatives of their
colleges. Who shall say that the lessons
they learend in these minor struggles were
not of value to themselves and to their
country when they gave their services to
the country? No; the mugwump idea of the
American youth will not do. The Peabody