Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1906-08-25
ON THE BRINGING
UP OF THE BOYS

boy should have some stake in his
home. Country boys who have chores
as they are called, daily tasks in feed
ing the farm animals, in bringing home
the cows, milking them. chopping
wood, wedding gardens and going on
errands, have q decided advantage over
city boys who are never called upon to
perform a single duty in the practical
management of the house. A boy
should take his share in whatever hap
pens to be necessary about the home.
and it is sometimes worth while for
mother to devise errands and en-
trust son with messages and tasks
when it would be easier for her to do
without his assistance.
In bringing up boys. it should be
remembered that they are entitled to
courtesy as their sisters are and as
their elders are. A boy ought not to
be snubbed when he expresses an
opinion OF the late Thomas X
Beecher, who for many years was in
fuential as the pastor of one of the
first institutional churches in this
country, was said that as a boy he
often wrote sermons at the dictation
of his father. Rev. Lyman Beecher.
DR.. Lyman Beecher was very great
preacher, and one of the famous men
of his time. The boy of Is was called
upon to write many things with which
he did not agree. Father" he would
say, Il don't think as you do on this
subject" Instead of checking him
or commanding him to be silent, the
great. divine would talk the matter
over as enthusiastically as with an
other man, sometimes convincing,
sometimes failing to carry the point
with his youthful antagonist, but
never obliging him to feel that he
was out of his proper sphere in ven
turing to have an opinion of his own
We have no right to treat a boy as II
he were an idiot or a slave. The best
development comes in the line of
training that recognizes and respects
individuality.
The proud boast of Americans used
to be that their manner to women in
public and private was always defer
entail and always unselfish. That
boast can be made no longer. Any
woman who has periled life and limb
in mad struggle to secure entrance
to a car on, let us say, one OF the
Brooklyn bridges, or in the effort to
get safely into a New York subway
car, knows full well that three-fourths
of the masculine passengers behave
like brutes. They have no respect for
age, no liberation for weakness, no re-
gard for anything except their own
claim to transportation.
A few years ago a woman with white
hair or woman carrying an infant
was sure to have a seat offered her by
three or four men at once. Last week
saw a slight woman, pale and wan,
holding a heavy child with another
Juggling at her skirts and a car filled
with young men, able-bodied and Wig
orous, allowed her to stand The so
called ladies' cabin of the ferry boats
are thronged with men who TRANQUILITY
occupy all the seats while women
stand unnoticed by the lords of crea-
ton. For this unhappy change l do
not blame the men, as boys they have
been very badly brought up by women
, who ignored in the training of the
child that spontaneous courtesy that
every small boy should be taught to
show to womankind. When a mother
points to a vacant seat and tells her
small son to take it and keep it while
women stand, she is giving him his
first and most lasting lessons in inc1v-
ility and boorishness. If the men OF
the next generation are to be polite,
to be helpful to women, and knightly
in their demeanor. there must be
change from the highest homes in this
land to the lowest, and women must
take the thing in hand in bringing
up their boys.
Possibly nothing is more important
in the training of boys than to insist
on their being exact and accurate in
everything connected with money.
boy should have an allowance at an
early age and should keep within it.
He should not be taught by example
or precept that money making is the
greatest thing in life, but he should
be made to feel that he cannot cheat
or gamble or borrow without paying.
An adherence of debt should be in
stilled into a boys mind very early
in life. We would have fewer ship
wrecks of honor, fewer embellishments,
fewer ruined names and blighted
homes If strict integrity were the cor
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