The Elk Mountain pilot., 1920-05-27


in Gunnison and have many friends
here who will regret this misfortune.
YOUR BOYS
Boys big and little attract the so
licitude of every well-in-formed and
right-minded adult citizen. All great
men, like Theodore Roosevelt have
loved and tried to understand boys.
The reasons are obvious: If our boys
are failures, then civilization fails,
and every expression and institution
of it fails; if boys fail, the objectives
of good men are never to be realized,
and evolution is diverted from its
straightforward course to crooked
or reversed course; if boys fail, men
cease to be worthy of the name, and
religion fails, and Gods purposes are
brought to naught.
Boys do not fail; but men fail.
Men fail to realize their own respon-
sibility for the boys. Men are often
responsible for bringing boys into
the world and setting them adrift.
A boy drifts if the society in which
he is placed has no program for him
or if the program is inadequate. No
man who has ever tried to work and
play, with boys and do things with
and for them has ever known of a
boys failing. But only too often
the program has failed, and the man
has failed utterly and shamefully,
and society has failed. The boys are
thrown into the maelstrum of indo-
lence and bad habits which society
has countenanced and fostered. Then
Mr.. Ignorance comes on the scene
and ISLANDERS the boy, citing his folly,
unreliability, vicious impulses, and
general uselessness, and Indignantly
asserts that boys are worthless and
that he would not help one "on bet'.
Boy Scout week begins on May
thirtieth, and at this time men all
over the United States are asked to
ioin the Scouts as honortry members.
their fees to be applied to carrying
on the overhead expenses of the great
national organization of Boy Scouts,
and their local influence to be felt as
a stimulation for the encouragement
anu DobtCi PCi ASNtIIk VI tilo iOCdl
Boy Scout Organization
Let me say right here that Gunni-
son needs to wake up ON this matter.
The personal active work with our
local scouts is too meagre to be en-
tirely effective. The duties of the
president of struggling school like
the Gunnison Normal College are
such as to make it almost impossible
for him to give adequate attention to
the boys; and yet no one else has vol
unteered to share the work in any
positive, serious way. What we shall
doubtless need to do here locally is
to hire a clean, high-minded young
man or two to be "Bovs' Men" and
pay them enough so that they can
spend all their spare time with and
for the boys. Just so surely as the
right kind of young men apply for
admission to the college here, they
will be employed for this work and
paid for their time.
Are you willing to invest in the
future manhood of this community?
For every young man that our schools
really prepare effectively for life
there are fifteen to twenty-five equal.
ly good boys, so far as natural abil.
ity goes, who drop out of schooI
early, become drifters if not dere.
licts, and sometimes malicious mem
bars of society. This is through ne
glect-yours and mine, This waste
of human material is chargeable tt
us. Because we-knowing better
failed to provide program of whole
some activities for the middle sizet
boy, the one whose energy was limit
less and overflowing, we gave society
useless and harmful man.
Gunnison people should aid in tn,
national movement, and then the,
should see that some adequate pro
vision is made for the local problem
Personal leadership is the creates
need now. Men who have no time t,
spare as personal leaders should d,
the work by proxy; and since all mel
are so busy earning living. we shall
in all probability pay money for tn,
personal leadership. 1t is the great
est civic problem that can ever con
front this or any other community
We must avoid the tragedy of vast
ing the sacred stuff out of which cit
liens are fabricated
S. QUIGLEY,
! Scoutmaster, Gunnison Troup No. I