The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1915-11-03
FOR BENNINGTON COUNTY.
DEVELOPMENT AND
RETIREMENT
department Edited by Secretary
Willard Bartlett of the County
Association.
Why Boys Leave Home.

The first man ! ever married was
a farm hand. and | was always proud
OF the job. He was under twenty,
however, and at first | hesitated. His
father objected, because the old man
was accustomed to collect the boys
wages. He preferred TO have the
money rather than that his son have
wife, But | made the girls father
consult a lawyer, and We went ahead,
married them and rescued the boy
from his exploiting father. The re-
suit demonstrated that the evils of
early marriages were less than skin
ming the boy of his personal rights.
He had to become a woman's hus-
band TO escape from being his faith
er's property,
Boys are natural resources. They
can be worked out" as soil can be
impoverished by forever exaeting the
same thing OF them and never fertil-
izing them with play. Country boys
need rotation of experience, as fields
need rotation of crops. Boys are ex-
plotted like a timbered hill, when the
nobility that crowns them is cut off
and turned into money. And when
the crop Of boys is exhausted in the
country town the community produc-
es less of everything else
Boys leave the farm because they
are made work-cattle They sleep
and eat in the house, but they work
like a horse" When a boy feels
most at home in the barn his father
ought to ask the question, What am
doing to make him at home with me
instead of with the hired man."
When boy smells like a COW ev-
cry time he comes into a closed room
his mother instead OF scolding him.
should help to find associates among
ladies rather than boyines That boy
is in danger of leaving the farm for
hatred OF it, or sinking to an animal
Level and ceasing to care, In the
former case the church loses him
the school, the grange and the social
gathering lose him, and the stable
gets him. In both cases the, com
munity loses him. @
The great men at Washington say
that all classes must work together
for the conservation of natural re-
sources The boy is natural re-
source. All kinds of people should
work together in order that he should
be saved. His mind should be conserv
ed by a knowledge of the world about
him. The country school should
teach him the mysteries of the soil,
the habits and value of birds and the
marvellous wealth of the vegetable
world about him Unfortunately the
country school in America has wasted
more boy property than all the pre-
datory corporations have wasted in
the way OF timber and water power.
The country school and church
should make the community enjoy
able for the boy My first and most
valued words of praise as minister
came TO me from the father of a big
family who thanked me for giving
his sons an opportunity for whole
some recreation and happy social
life. Their minds and hearts were
starved for social enjoyment and
human company
Profit-sharing, too, is as good on
the farm as in the steel industry.
Every farmers son should have an al
lowance, even if the farm has to be
mortgaged to pay it to him If he
were laborer you would be Obliged
to pay him, and as he is both your
son and your farmland he has rights
of ownership as well as wages to his
credit. If you do not give him
square deal in the way OF money, he
will desert you when you need him
most and go out to practice upon the
rest of the world the same unfair
"closeness" which he learned on the
farm where he was born and brought
ur.
Warren II. Wilson Phi. D.
Courtesy of Presbyterian Dept. of
Church and Country Life, 156 Fifth
Ave, New York City.
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