The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-07-29
SHOULD BOYS BE
 TAUGHT TO ROUGH IT?

"The twig is so easily pended,
 I have banished the rule and rod; I have taught them the wisdom or knowledge, They have taught me the wisdom or God.
 Of the mountains of sin hanging OCT
 Of the tempest of fate blowing wild
 Oh! there's nothing on earth half so holy
 As the innocent heart of child.' That was a question which occurred to me-should boys be taught to rough lit?-dpon reading the remark or warrior to a lady. She had made the statement that should our country need defenders, a million young Amer ican youths would respond. Al mighty army could be raise,h in a day. He responded: "Yes, youths, but they are 1 not soldiers; soldiers cannot be made ! in a day. To send such inexperienced young fellows to the fore would mean slaughter of the innocents."
 | Yea, verify, say I, it takes sailor for the sea and a sohdder for the bat tie. It takes years of hard and per- sistent training to make either the one or the other and the training must begin early in youth
 | I sent out a vast number of letters to mothers of boys, asking if they thought boys should be taught from early youth to rough it.'' or be spared i hardships they might never in after i life be called upon to endure It has been the work of many days sitting the wheat of judgment from the chaff of sentiment in the hundreds of re- plies It has given me a wonderful insight into the hearts of mothers and lthe unsurpassed strength Of mother Hove.
 The gist of these replies unfolded to me that while many yearned to have the lads grow up strong and brave they shrank from sending them forth from home, parents and their infiu-
 ence, to hardship and pain unnecessa- rily. In "roughing it'' they were
 brought in contact with other youths whose teachings could dwarf their
 minds and. morals or expand them in the right directic-. according to their
 bent and mood. The lads easily led might become degenerates. Those who could go to boys camps and be under the watchful guidance of proper men ] might get much benefit from life in I dthe open, walks covering miles, taking I turns at hewing down lyoung trees splitting wood for camp fires the use of the rifle and so forth, but the lad sent forth with a crowd of other boys to learn to encounter hardships or put to earning his own livelihood in fac- tory or shop at too tender an age has his eyes opened to only the seamy side of life. To him it is world of clouds with mo sunshine peeping through. | These mothers in their hundreds o1 letters, with one accord, denounced compulsory military training for al young men. Each one seemed to i'm agine it would imbue her boy with a military spirit which would not de. vel6p otherwise. Each ingenuously added: There are lads who could undergo the rigid life such prepared.
 ness entils, the strong would survive the weak might not'' The greater
 number of mothers. educated, deep.
 thinking women, agreed that rough. ing it in nfe's a1ard school brough Tout the best there was in a boy, mad, him se1f-reliant in the after years tt ldare and do, made him a gallant de
 fender of home and country. The, lagreed that the men who had roughet
 it and therefore became self-mad
 were the American kings of today. I
 does a boy more good than harm t, learn how to take care <of himseI through having to roui.l it.