The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1913-12-11
CALLS IT NATIONAL PROBLEM
Speaker Who Has Had Charge of 5000
Boys in Fifteen Years Urges Greater
Bond of Sympathy Between Fathers
and sons-Gives Statistics.


of Kenosha heard most interesting
story of boy life at the Guild hall on
Tuesday night and it was a story told
with such dramatic effect that it rel
called memories of the pleasures Of
William Allen Whites ssCourt of Boy
VILE" The speaker was Prof. Lloyd
Elmo Peddicord, principal of the Haw-
thorne school at Oak Park, and he came
to Kenosha as the guest Of the Men s
Club of st Matthew s parish He spoke
on the subject, H.The Big Boy'' His
talk of more than an hour was an ar
raignment of the older boys for their
failure to appreciate the Importance OF
the great problem of dealing with the
:" big boy Mr.. Peddicord has been
in charge of boys for the past fifteen
years and in that time he has made a
study Of more than five thousand Of
them. He declared that the weakest
spot in the United States is the tsBig
Boy He found it the biggest and the
most neglected problem in the country.
He showed interesting statistics of boy
life, showing that eighty-fve pen. cent
of the boys leave the Sunday schools
and the public schools before they reach
the age of fifteen. He showed that
only one per cent of the boys who start
into the public schools complete the
high school course, but on the other
ban7 that eigbtystwo pr css & the
leaders of men as shown IN Who is
Who come from that single per cent
of boy life which had taken advantage
of school as offered to him.
Mr.. Peddicord has theories of bows
that are interesting. He said that the
boy becomes a big boy when he be-
gins to feel big. This stage usually
comes when the boy reaches the age
of eleven or twelve years and it is this
period Of the life of the boy that is.
most interesting in the development of
manhood. He paid a high tribute to-
fathers, but he declared that fathers
were making the mistake of considers
ing their boys from the standpoint of
a man rather than from the standpoint
Of the boy. Mothers, he declared, were
in closer touch with their daughters.l
The father he found lacking in thea
sympathy with the boy life SO essen~s
tial to interesting the boy an, in mak-
ing the fatherea real power in his de-
velopment
Mr.. Peddicord told Of statistica1
which he had made showing that IS per1
cent of the boys in America and M
England did not attend Sunday SCHOOL,
after they became ~1Big Boys" but he
held that it should not be taken asl
certain that all boys who continue ind
Sunday School would be models as he1
cited the example that the first SundaY1
School Superintendent he had come ms
contact with was now doing time In. a,
penal institution.
Mr.. Peddicord had lot to say about
the ebay Dreams" of boyhood and he
declared that this period was the reaL3
formative period Of the boy and thaba
sympathy with the day dreams was the
best way to reach the heart of the boyS
and LET him see that there was a reald
interest in his future as he HIMSELF
sought to work it out. He urged thei
need Of the "man'' in handling boys
at this critical period Of their lives and
saw the demand for men teachers ind
both public and church schools in order
to get the best results in training the
boys. He urged the development of
boy experts in every community, hold
ing that the work to be done by such
experts was the most important work
offered to any community for the up-4
building of right citizenship.