The Blackfoot optimist. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1907-1918, 1915-03-18
THE BACKWARD BOY.

He may have in him the making of a
good and great man.
Many of the men who did great
things showed no promise of it in
boyhood. Many Of them were back
ward and slow to learn. MANY would
be called delinquents' now and b,
sent to the juvenile court and mavb,
to the reform school.
And yet mothers and fathers and
school teachers became impatient and
lose heart and worry because boy
takes slowly to learning and would
rather play than go to school.
Every mother wants her boy to be
at the head of the class. Every father
wants his boy to be brighter and clev.
erer than the average. And if he
seems dull and backward they scold
and fret and hound the poor fellow
with good advice and dire prophesies
of what the future has in store for
him. and sometimes use the strap
And teachers are too apt at classifying
boy as "A delinquent because he
"plays hockey and flips paper wads
in the schooroom. and shows no in.
terest in his books.
Years ago a certain boy was arrested
for horse stealing and was in good
way to go to the reform school, where
he would have learned to be a crimi
nal. But a sensible man happened
into the courtroom Just in time. and
saw that he had good face, and
such a passionate love for horses that
he had taken horses at different times
that were hitched at the curbing and
had driven them around Il while, al
ways returning them to the place
where he found them.
The man pleaded for chance for
that boy, and got it. He sent the bow
to ranch in western Kansas, where
he could handle horses all day. Now
that boy is IA man, and owns a big
ranch, and is one of the most pros.
|
All that was needed to make n
good man of that boy was to find out
the thing he liked best to do and put
him at it.
In Jefferson City, Missouri, ther.
was a boy so dull at school that they
called him, in derision. "pIowboy.' He
hated school, and his teachers predict
Ell that he would never amount to any
thing.
The only books he took any interest
in were sea tales and he read all of
those he could get hold of. He built
boats and played hockey from school
to sail them in ponds. He wanted to be
sailor, and they ieered at him and
scolded-all but his mother; she be
lleved in him. She was wise enough
to put him to do the things he loved,
and to let all else 90. She encouraged
him in his love of the sea. She had
him sent to Annapolis. He became cap,
tain of a school ship and later a lieu
tenant commander in the navy. He
invented improvements in gun sights
winch enabled the gunncrs of the
United States navy to win in marks
manship contest with the navies of the
world. He invented improvements in
submarines. He is working now for a
big shipbuilding concern His salary
is $2o,ooo year, almost twenty times
as much as is earned by the teacher
who called him lullard.
History is full of instances of back.
ward dull boys, even deliquent boys,
who became great men: or useful and
successful men; and the experience of
everyone contains such instances.
In his youth Thomas A. Edison was
known as trfling, no account boy.
>toncwall jackson was so backward
N his stu lies that he was on the point
OF giving mp in despair and he was
away down in his class at West Point
yet Lord Kitchener said to Irwin Cobb
that Stonewall jackson was the great
est military genius ever produced in
America.
benjamin Franklin was accounted n
trlfling, lazy, worthless fellow by his
own brother, who was a successful
business man.
John Bunyan refused to 90 to school
or TO study and became Il WANDERING
tinker; yet he wrote a book that has
heen more often printed and read
and translated than any book except
the Bible.
IL mas beeh proven over and over
again that the backward child, with
right training, can be made "a superior
man. So, be patient and careful with
the dull boy.
IOWA EDITORS GO TO SCHOOL,