Evening star., 1937-09-24
AdoleScent
Boy Needs
Ambition
Unhealthy Idea Is
Routed by Desire
TOWN a Prize.
BY ANGELO PATRI.

WHAT can I do to make my boy
stop smoking?" Sometimes it is
stop drinking, or go to bed on time, or
eat what he needs Talking to adoles-
cent boys rarely gets us anywhere. They
have their eyes on examples outside
of the home. They want to be Babe
Ruth. Tunney, the latest movie star,
or Flashy Dick who shoots billiards
behind the plate glass window. Some
picturesque, mighty, famous ideal Of
man catches their imagination. If
their ideal has any gesture such as
smoking a cigarette or toasting the
leader with glass held high, he catches
the gesture. 1t is all he can get at
the time
That is usually about all that the
smoking and the drinking and the
staggering of younger boys means-a
reaching toward an unattainable ideal
of masculine prowess. Not for worlds
would one of them own to it, but
usually some such influence is behind
their queer actions. 1t is better to be
patient and study their ways in an
effort to discover which way they
think they are going.
What we have to do is to set up the
right ideal to displace the wrong one.
Boys know nothing of men and life.
They can see only the surface things
They know nothing of the gruelling
training and discipline their heroes
have undergone to make them the
success they are. They see only the
gestures of their leisure and mistake
them for symptoms of power.
One of the best ways to get boy
to head toward healthy growth is to
stimulate him into wanting to be that
way. Get him to want to have the
physical fitness of his hero. Lure
him with the success of the fine ath-
lete. Teach him how that athlete got
that way. This means steady teaching,
opportunity for practice, plenty of en-
couragement and a chance to exhibit
skill and endurance and power.
The physical training teacher has a
grea+ opportunity to help boys of ado
lescent age and direct them toward
healthy ideals of manhood, toward
boyhood's healthy goals The games
are the thing for these boys. The teams
are the greatest possible attraction
for them. When they learn that run
ming means good wind, endurance
right weight and the like, they soon
begin asking how to get them. Then
the teacher sets the training plan
Sleep. bathing. eating. exercise, ad-
Justed diet, strict limits on appetite
and behavior are the routine of the
athlete.
1t is astonishing what discipline a
boy will accept and impose upon him.
self to attain his place on the team.
to win this event, to shine in his field.
have seen boys made over by the
simple expedient of team practice and
all that this implies. I have seen the
lazy made eager and the sick made
we'll just by the ambition to win a
track medal.
DR.. Champion, one of the best known
physical training teachers in the coun-
try, has devoted lifetime to teaching
boys how to become fit, how to stay fit
AicN W DS AiSdltiiy anu lldPPy db tllt
same time. In his new book, THE
Boys Book of Strength" he has put
much of what he has practiced in
his training of boys. It would be
fine gift for any schoolboy, especially
one who needed to be set on the road
TO health and usefulness. Give it to
the lad who thinks he wants to smoke,
to the one who thinks sleep doesn't
matter, and to the one who eats any
old way any old time. believe it will
help.
Mr.. Patri has prepared leaf1et en-
titled Crying Children" in which he
tells parents how to cope with the cry
ing habit in children. Send for it,
Address your request to Mr.. Angelo
Patri, Child Psychology Department of
this paper. Inclose self-addressed,
stamped (3-cent) envelope.
(Copyright. 1879