Get Enough Sleep.
Fifth—Spend eight or nine hours a day in bed. I belong to the sixty-three hour club; that means nine hours a day rest, seven days in a week, which is sixty-three hours. If, through business, travel or other circumstances, I stay up late one or two nights a week, I balance books before the week is up by taking a rest on Sunday afternoon or going to bed earlier one or two nights.
Sixth—Don't stay in bed Sunday morning. It will make you tired, loggy, stupid and cross. Get up Sunday, say, a half hour or an hour later than week days. Later in the day take a nap if you wish.
Seventh—Spend fifteen minutes just before going to bed in quiet, relaxed solitude. This is the time to slow down your tension, relax your muscles and soothe your nerves.
These rules you can easily remember and if you follow them as I hope you will, the red blood will course in your veins and joy will be in your countenance and the halo of happiness will be around your face.
Every once in a while the human has a negative day. Every act, thought, or spoken sentence has a but, a don't, a can't, or some other negative attachment to it.
The Negative Attitude.
The children laugh, play and cut up in the morning, and mother says: "I don't know what I shall do with you, you are just wearing me out." This puts a fear-thought and a weakness-germ both in mother and the kiddies.
On Sunday afternoon the family is resting. Mother maybe gets the blues, and says: "What's the use, I never get anywhere, go any place; it's just grind, work and worry all the time."
Mother worries because there's a leak in the roof and the water stained the paper in the spare room. She worries because she lives in a rented house, and says: "I have no heart to fix things up because this is a rented house."
This negative thought brings on a misery state; it's worry, and the worry comes because you dwell on the off side of things. You rehearseyour problem, you go over your work, you count your obstacles, and you pile up the negative and fear thoughts.
Bless you, my dear sister, I know what this negative can't, don't, but, and what's-the-use thought is and how it brings misery. I know how the children get on your nerves and make you say "don't" all day to them.
Show Your Positive Side.
There's only one way to drive out this negative thought and that is to switch your will power to the positive current. Next time you have a negative day and the fear thoughts come, just start in one by one and count your blessings of health, blessings of home, and blessings of love.
Nothing can hurt you. You've been through these negative days time and time again; the clouds gathered, you were blue, lonesome, homesick and heartsick, but next day you got busy with work, and occupation drove away the clouds, and the sunshine came. The next Sunday you get in this negative state, just put on your hat and go out to see some neighbor, or go to the park, or take a walk.
Don't sit and stew and fret over your magnified troubles.
Let the children play and laugh; they are nothurting anyone. God bless them. They don't have worries; their little lives are all too short. Their example of smiles and laughter should make you happy. Soon, too soon, they will grow up and go their ways in life and how precious will be the memories of their carefree, golden, happy childhood days.
Cut out envy; that's a mighty bad negative wire. It's the devil's favorite food to make worry and discontent.
Envy Makes Worry.
Many of the people you envied in the past are dead and buried. Many of the people you envy now are at heart miserable, and you wouldn't envy them if you could look through the artificial outside and know their real hidden thoughts and lives.
"What's-the-use"—that's a bad thing to say; it plants worry seed.
You are all right; you have far more blessings than sorrows. You can never be entirely free from troubles, care or little irritations.
Rise superior to these things; those around you are affected by and susceptible to your influence and example.
If you have a "but," an "if" or a "don't" tied to every command to your children, they will recognize your uncertainty and your negative,hurtful attitude, and they will take your threats, as well as your promises, with a grain of salt.
Be careful in giving commands; don't put a Spanish bit in the children's mouths to jerk them and torture them.
Be positive, make your promises and orders stick, and the kiddies will soon know you mean what you say.
Exposing Your Weakness.
These negative "driving me crazy" attachments to your commands spell weakness, and make you drive, cajole and spin out your orders, and the children hesitate and are slow to obey. Let them see your positive side. Let them learn to obey with a "yes, mamma" spirit, and your orders will be less frequent, shorter, and they will be obeyed on the instant.
The kiddies learn to size you up, mamma, and if they see a wobbly, worried, despondent, unsure attitude in you, they will discount your threats and make allowances, saying: "That's mamma's way."
Don't show your cry side but show your smile side.
Sunday is a great trial day for you, mamma, but don't let your negative wires get the best of you.
Sing as you make the beds and tidy up; let sunshine in and drive out the gloom.
Blue Sundays are horror days for the children; you can't expect them to sit still like older folks. They are full of red blood and active muscles.
Don't make Sunday a day of punishment to your children. They get their cue from you. Don't you be negative and cross and gloomy. It's bad business for you and all the family.
The benefits of walking are so quickly apparent that I hope to get you to make the start and keep it up for two weeks. Then you will require no further urging.
The Best Exercise.
In walking, there are two most important things to do in order to get the greatest benefits: first—walk alone; second—walk your natural gait. So many people tell me they would like to walk all, or part of the way, between their home and office if they had company.
Company is the very thing you don't want in walking, and there are two reasons for this. One is, if you walk with a friend, you will hold yourself back, or else you will be walking faster than your natural gait. In either case it is a conscious effort, and this conscious effort, to a large degree, will cause you to lose much of the benefit from your walk.
The most important reason, however, is that if you walk with a friend, you are sure to talk, and thus you are using your nervous energy andtiring your brain—the very thing you want to avoid.
Walk, Not Talk.
Walking gives you physical exercise which is absolutely necessary for health. It is the best exercise I know of, because you do not overdo your strength. Walking is beneficial, because when you walk alone, you give your brain a rest. You cannot read the papers, you cannot talk, and your mental apparatus gets complete rest.
I recommend that you walk anywhere from three to four miles in the morning. If your home is more than four miles from the office, walk three or four miles of the distance and then take the car.
Do not walk home in the evening unless the walk is a short one. In the evening you are tired, and you should conserve your strength. In the morning you are fresh, and the exercise comes to you at a time it is most needed. It will give you strength and courage, and help to keep you in a good mood all day.
I cannot too strongly emphasize the importance of walking alone, for it is then that you shift your nerve energy from the dry cell battery of the brain to the magneto, which is the spinal cord. The spinal cord works automatically andit doesn't wear itself out. The brain tires if it uses its energy.
In walking you use the thought and the brain impulse to start the magneto, and then the spinal cord action is automatic.
This automatic action of the spinal cord is a wise provision of nature to conserve strength.
The spinal cord energy is what you might call automatic habit.
For instance, in dressing and undressing yourself, you will recall that you put on or take off your clothes in regular order without giving the matter any thought. It is just habit.
If you wish to demonstrate the difference between the control of the physical body by brain impulse, and the spinal cord impulse, try this some morning: Start out for your exercise and mentally frame sentences like this as you walk—"right step, left step, right step, left step," and so on. Give thought to each step you have taken, and notice how tired you will be when you have gone half a mile.
The next morning, start to walk naturally; give no thought to walking; keep your mind on the beauties of nature which you are passing, or indulge in pleasant soliloquy, and you will feel no fatigue.
There isn't a bit of theory in this chapter; it is positive, practical sense that I have proved by my own experiences and by the experiences of everyone to whom I have made this suggestion of walking alone.
The moral is this—walk every morning and walk ALONE.
The body is made up of billions of little cells. These individual cells are in a state of perpetual activity. They exhaust, wear away, break down with work, and rebuild on food and rest. Every process of life—the beat of the heart, the throb of the brain in thought, the digestion of food, the excretion of waste—all are due to the activity of groups of highly specialized individual cells.
Body Waste.
Every cell uses up its own material and throws off poisonous by-products during activity. These by-products, or wastes, are very poisonous to the individual cell as well as to the entire organism. To get rid of this waste is one of the first duties of the system.
It is with the body, made up of its countless millions of individual cells, just as it is with a city and its myriad people: the sewage of the community must be collected and disposed of. The city forms its poisons which we call sewage and the body its poisons, which we call excreta (or carbonic acid, urea, uric acid, faeces, etc.). Itis no more important for a city to gather up and get ride of its poisonous sewage than for the animal organism to collect and excrete its cell-waste. Hence, the importance of maintaining normal and constant elimination throughout the body.
Health's Safety-First.
Elimination is kept up by the alimentary tract, the kidneys, the skin, and the lungs. These four are the great pipe-line sewerage systems, so to speak, by which the body throws off its gaseous, liquid and solid poisons.
The lungs momentarily strain carbonic acid out of the blood and throw it out in the expired air. They likewise exhale other noxious matters from the system.
The alimentary tract throws off faeces, made up of the waste tissue from the whole system, especially the digestive organs, as well as indigestible and non-nutritious portions of the food.
The kidneys strain out urea, uric acid, and certain other poisons from the blood and eject them through the urinary tract.
Finally the skin likewise is an excretory organ and exhales a very definite amount of gaseous and fluid waste in the course of each twenty-four hours.
The skin throws off all the way from a pint totwo quarts of liquid each day in the form of vapor.
Proper Functioning.
Thus, to carry on normal elimination from the body, the breathing, digesting, urinary and cutaneous systems must be kept working normally. To impair the work of any of these is to retard bodily drainage. To make certain that elimination is going on naturally, it is necessary to secure perfect functioning of lungs, bowels, kidneys and the skin.
Any stoppage in the process of elimination means that some fault has crept into the work of one of these excretory systems. It must be plain now why a disorder of any one of these organs of elimination means so much more profound disturbance to the whole organization than merely disease in one structure. It means that waste products are retained which ought to be thrown out of the body; so straightway every cell in the body begins to be more or less affected. Some poisons disturb one organ more and some another, but in the end the whole body must inevitably be affected.
Lack of exercise, bolting of food, eating soft, starchy things, failure to chew properly, failure to get enough roughage, insufficient water, insufficient fruit—these are the general causes of stoppage in the elimination processes.
Drink one or two glasses of warm water, not hot, the first thing in the morning.
Eat one or two apples, skins and all, every day. Eat toast, especially the crust. Eat cracked wheat or whole wheat bread often.
Exercise plenty. Keep cheerful. Eat regularly.
Very likely you eat too much. You don't need three big meals a day unless you work outdoors at hard physical labor.
Your body is an engine. No use to keep the boiler red hot and two hundred pounds of steam on if your work is light.
Good health depends upon proper assimilation and elimination as nature intended.
Eat less, exercise more, you who work indoors. If you don't use this caution, you are just slowly killing yourself.
Never Say "Can't."
Many have the habit of keeping their minds on their weaknesses or their shortcomings. If they read of some one doing a great thing or making a worth-while accomplishment, they say: "I never could do such a thing."
These persons are always saying, "I never have luck. I can't do this. I can't do that."
Always knocking, always thinking "can't" instead of "can" makes for fear, irresoluteness, uncertainty and weakness of character.
To say, "I can't, I haven't the ability, I am unlucky" makes you weak and knocks out all chance for doing things.
Nothing comes out of the brain that wasn't burned in by thought. If you disparage yourself, belittle your capacity, or drown your good impulses with doubt and self-accusation, you are putting away a lot of bad thought in your brain, and no wonder you will lack in initiative, ambition, confidence and courage.
To those who claim to be unlucky, I want tosay you are not unlucky—you simply lack pluck.
You start at undertakings with a handicap of fear. You have made up your mind that you can't accomplish. You are half beaten before the game starts. In place of the will to achieve, you approach your task in fear and trepidation. In place of confidence and courage and high aspirations, you set out on your journey with the millstone of doubt and irresolution around your neck.
Confidence and Success.
There is but one way to succeed. That is to cast fear and self-accusation aside, and throw your full weight into the struggle with a song on your lips and confidence in your heart. "Victory" should be your battlecry and "Confidence" should be emblazoned on your shield.
Many a man has been whipped in a fight, defeated in a contest, or beaten at an undertaking, but he didn't show it or let the other fellow know it. He just kept on with a brave front, and finally the other fellow quit, mistaking grim determination, pluck and perseverance for strength and victory.
Ethan Allen with his handful of men were asked to surrender by the British general with his superior force. By all the rights and rules of war, Ethan was licked, but he didn't give in.He replied: "Surrender h—ll; I've just commenced to fight." If Ethan had accused himself and said, "I can't whip that big bunch; there's no hope," he would have been whipped to a finish.
Don't show the enemy or the world your weakness. Don't admit anything impossible that is capable of accomplishment.
It's the "I can" man who wins. No man ever won a fight if he started out by saying, "I can't whip him, he is too much for me; I am no match for him, but I'll try."
No person ever made success in business if he started in with uncertainty, lack of confidence and unbelief in his ability. Confidence has ever been half the battle.
The World's Judgment.
Knock yourself, and the world will accept you at your own estimate. Show streaks of yellow cowardice, and the mob will pounce on you like a pack of hungry wolves. Accuse yourself, curse your luck, belittle your worth, be afraid, and you will remain a mere bump on a log, unnoticed, uninteresting, uninvited.
The world welcomes men who do things. The world judges by outward appearances. If your heart is sick, if your courage is low, don't show it. Put up a stiff attitude and act with confidence, and that attitude will carry you over many a pitfall and past many an obstacle.
Show strength and the world will help you; show weakness and the world will shun you.
You are prejudiced when it comes to judging yourself. You compare your weakness with your friends' strength, and this comparison is unfair; it makes you lose confidence.
Doubt and Belief.
Nothing hurts one worse than doubting one's own ability, assets, and character. When you find yourself experiencing doubt, or inability, or hard luck, turn square around and say: "Begone, doubt; henceforth I have belief."
Say: "I have ability; I have pluck, and pluck means luck."
Always express confidence, faith, courage, and cheer thoughts, whether you feel them or not. Do this heroically and persistently, and soon the fear shadows and weakness feelings will leave you, and you will be in reality strong, courageous, active, and will do things you never thought possible.
"As a man thinketh, so is he." Always remember that.
Get hold of your thoughts; make yourself think up, and have faith and courage. Hold to yourresolve, and the whole world will change. You will prosper, you will have poise, and every once in a while happiness will come as a reward.
No man will be more surprised at your complete change of attitude and character than yourself.
Your problems can only be solved by yourself. Friends can advise,Ican suggest, but YOU must act.
Henceforth, never accuse yourself, never feel sorry for your condition or position, cut out fear thoughts,—be strong.
Think faith, courage, cheer, confidence, and strength, and by-and-by the habit will be fixed and natural.
This is as certain truth as I have ever experienced. I know it. I've tried it. I've watched others and the results are always good.
Don't be passive and forget this chapter. Start right this minute to THINK RIGHT.
And you will never regret and never forget this chapter on Self-accusation.
Dare to Dream.
The great colleges turn out thousands of graduates each year, and the great newspapers have much sport ridiculing them in funny pictures. Every great man was once a boy with a dream, and that dream came true because the boy had pep that made him stick to his ambition and kept him from being discouraged because of ridicule or obstacles.
Thomas Carlyle, the poor Scotch tutor, dreamed he wanted to be a great author. His clothes were threadbare, his poverty apparent. Friends taunted and ridiculed him until, goaded to indignation, he cried: "I have better books in me than you have ever read." The crowd laughed incredulously and said: "Poor fellow, he's batty."
Carlyle stuck to his dream and the world has the "History of Frederick the Great" and the "French Revolution" and "Sartor Resartus." When he had finished the manuscript of the "French Revolution," a careless maid built a fire with it. He wasn't discouraged, but went towork and wrote it over again and very likely better than he wrote it the first time.
Bonaparte in the garden of his military school dreamed of being a great general. He stuck to his dream and he realized his hopes.
Joseph Pulitzer, a poor emigrant, crawled in a cellar way in New York to sleep, and he dreamed of owning a great newspaper. His dream came true, and the newspaper is printed in a building erected on the spot where he dreamed in the cellar way.
Livingston dreamed of exploring darkest Africa; his dream came true.
Edison dreamed of great electrical discoveries. His monument is Menlo Park with its great laboratories.
Ford dreamed of making an automobile for the purse-limited masses—he was jeered; to-day the world cheers him.
My friend, Bert Perrine, was chucked off a stage in the middle of Idaho's great sage brush desert. He said to the driver, "Some day I'll own that stage and I'll use it for a chicken house."
He dreamed and schemed, and to-day the desert is the famous Twin Falls country, blossoming like a rose. And on his beautiful ranch at Blue Lakes, that old stage is used for a chicken house.
Rockefeller dreamed, Lincoln dreamed—so did Garfield, Wilson, Grant, Clay, Webster, Marshall Field, Richard W. Sears and all the other men who have done things worth while in the world.
The great West is the result of dreams come true.
Dream on, my boy; hitch your wagon to a star and stay hitched. That dream and that determination are the things that are to carry you over obstacles, past thorny ways, and through criticism, jeers and ridicule.
Your time will come. Dream and scheme, and make your ideals materialize into living, pulsating realities.
There are many persons who act and advocate ideals merely for effect—they are hypocrites.
Here's a little true heart story that probably passed unnoticed except to a very few persons.
Real Charity.
Little Spencer Nelson, a poor boy, eight years old, recently died in a hospital with a little bank clasped to his breast. The bank held $3.41 in pennies which the boy had saved to buy presents for the poor children in his city.
The little hero had fought manfully through three months' suffering, enduring the torture of five lacerating operations. The pain failed to dim the spirit of unselfishness which burned brightly and clearly in his tired, fever-racked body.
After each operation his mind became more securely fixed on his project to help bring cheer to poor children.
The little savings bank was his companion, and each visitor was asked to contribute to his fund.
Three hours before he died, a smile beautified his thin wasted face as the nurse dropped a dime in his bank. His last words—a message to his mother—were in a scarcely audible whisper, asking her to remember to use the money to make poor children happy.
That was real charity; that boy had no hypocrisy in his heart.
Seek and You Will Find.
The daily paper chronicles instances of sensational charity, where men vie with each other to see who can give most and get the most advertising. These men overlook the wonderful opportunities at their door—they do not realize the beautiful love and charity that would stir in their hearts if they would but look into the out-of-the-way places and get direct connection with pain and suffering.
Little Spencer looked from his cot and saw the suffering of other little children and he wanted to help them, and the very resolve and impulse made him forget his own pain and misery.
In the Book of Good Deeds, the name of Spencer Nelson will be recorded as a sweeter act of charity than any million-dollar gift to a great institution.
What one of you who read these lines canread the story of that little hero and not be touched by the generous love and beautiful conception of charity he possessed.
I don't believe much in this far-away charity idea so many have.
Do Good Here At Home.
I believe in helping those near where I am rather than sending money to Siam. Poverty and destitution, unhappily, are familiar spectres at home, as elsewhere. He who seeks to do good will not need to range afar. He can find opportunity close at home, near by, where all of us can find it if we only look.
It may be a pleasurable sensation for you to contribute fifty dollars to a missionary scheme in Siam, and get the Missionary report of the budget made up by the committee for the foreign missionary fund.
I know that a bucket of coal in an empty stove, a basket of bread and a liberal hunk of round steak to the starving family around the corner brings the donor a better sensation.
Take a trip to the hospitals, learn about the homes of the suffering patients in the charity ward, and you will resolve it's a better act to send flour to the poor than flowers to the rich.
Little Spencer Nelson had the right idea ofcharity: definite, immediate help to those he could reach right where he was, rather than sending money to sufferers far, far away.
Let your gifts be principally flour and beef; they help those who need help. Flowers are all right in their place, but there are more places where flour can be used to better purpose.
I'm keener for filling the coffee can of my suffering neighbor than filling the coffers of the big charity five thousand miles away.
I try to help both ways, but the home help pays the bigger dividends. What do you think about it?
You have found a friend who has been so much help and comfort to you. I have such a friend too. To-night I am in the mood to think of that friend and write him a letter like this:
What I Think of You.
This is to You. It is for You. It is about You. You I have in mind and the good influence you have had on me. It is a happiness and satisfaction to know you, and to bask in the sunshine of you.
The world is better because of you. You have helped to raise the average.
You and your goodness—you do not appreciate what that means. You are so modest, so loath to think of yourself, so thoughtful of others, so unselfish that I must tell you of you and about you.
You have a warm heart that throbs for others' woes and holds sympathy. The great world is cold, selfish, and cares little for others. But you are different; you are a great pillow of rest on which I and others who love you may lay our tired, weary heads, and you wrap your arms offriendship and goodness about us and feel our very heartbeats.
What I Love in You.
You with your great goodness, your quiet, sympathetic understanding—you soothe our troubled spirits and make us glad of you and glad we have the precious privilege of knowing you.
Even now, as I am telling you how I love you, you are trying to wave me aside and stop me, but I am in the mood and I want to express myself. You know that it is a great sin of omission to refrain from expressing our gratitude for goodness extended to us.
I want to express my gratitude. I do not want to be guilty of the sin of omission.
So here, then, is this little message for you, to tell you that I appreciate you and love you, and these words will last after you are gone and after I am gone, to tell those of to-morrow about you and what those of to-day thought about you.
Your life, your goodness, is an everlasting plant that will flourish in many hearts. Your influence will last beyond the calendar of time; it is indestructible. You have a great credit in the universal bank of good deeds, where you have deposited worth-while acts, deeds, kindnesses, cheer, help, friendship, sympathy, courage, gratitude, and all the most precious jewels of humanity.
I am happy the very moment I think of you. I try to express myself but the feelings and emotions I would describe have not words or sentences to express them. You understand. You are so big in heart, so sensitive in fabric of feeling, so wise in understanding, that I want you to think and feel all the genuine, noble, lovable, appreciative thoughts you can gather together about the one you can most appreciate.
Think hard, sincerely, deeply, about that one, with all your resources of beautiful thought. Think hard that way, and now you will begin to understand my feelings about you, and how I appreciate you.
You, my inspiration, who are so sensitized to feeling, so delicately adjusted to read heart vibrations—you must feel this within me that I am trying to express. Not the love between sweethearts, not the love of kin, not the love of friends, but a great universal love I have for you—a love which all who are fortunate enough to know you have for you.
It is a love you cannot return to me in equal measure, because you have not the object in me that can merit such love. That you should loveme in the way I love you even in the smallest measure is satisfaction supreme.
It is glorious to know you. You water the good impulses I have; you encourage all that is noble, elevating, and bettering, in me. I shall try to be like you—that is, so far as I can. You are my model; there is but oneYou. Many may copy you, none may equal you. You my comfort, you my joy. A great gloriousYouthat a littleIam trying to paint a picture of.
How futile my efforts. I might as well try to improve the deep beautiful colors of the morning-glory, or try to retint the lily with a more beautiful white.
And so I bid you good-bye, happy that there is such a one as you in the world—more happy that I know you, and most happy that I know how to appreciate you.
The sum of all good things I can say is, "I love you," and the word "love" I use in its greatest, broadest sense, which covers all the good adjectives.
This is what I think of YOU.
There is a time in the business man's life, between the age of 48 and 52, when he undergoes a pronounced change.
More big men are cut off at 50 than at any other age between 45 and 60.
From 48 to 52 most men change vitally in their physical and mental make-up.
Dangers of Middle Life.
Many men—hitherto straight, moral men—go to the bad at this time, and per contra, many men quit their immoral and health-hurting habits and change to moral men. This danger period is when the newly-rich find fault with the wives who have helped them to their success. They grow tired of their wives and seek the companionship of younger women.
The divorce courts give most interesting figures on this point.
At this danger period, men who have been high livers, voracious eaters and heavy drinkers find themselves victims of diabetes, Bright's disease or other forms of kidney trouble. Thecountry is full of prematurely broken-down men who have failed to heed the danger signals along their way. To persist in self-indulgence is to invite disaster. You must deliberately set about to change your mode of living if you would avoid these shoals on which so many men of middle age have foundered.
Almost every man between 48 and 52 who works indoors, eats too much, exercises too little, sleeps insufficiently.
In this book I have made practical suggestions that have been tried in the furnace of experience and proven adequate. They have helped me; they will help you. They will enable you to gain pep and efficiency; they will give you a new lease on life and make life more worth living.
The Simple Life.
First, live simply; eat simply. If you have in the past, eaten rich foods, drunk fine wines, and have been what the world knows as a "good fellow," your course is clear. You must call a halt on yourself. This path leads inevitably to the graveyard. Follow the seven simple health suggestions laid down in an earlier chapter, and you will feel better, feel happier and will attack the day's work with vim and vigor.
Avoid undue excitement. Excitement uses upnerve force. It is an energy consumer. Your mind needs repose as well as your body. When you have finished your day's work, leave business behind you. Do not drag it into your home. In the evening, occupy yourself with a good, worth-while book. Nothing is more conducive to calm and contentment.
Let supper be your one hearty meal of the day. And after supper, play with the kids or joke with your wife; get a smile on your face. When you are home, interest yourself in home concerns. The "home men" are the men who live longest. They lead healthy, regular lives, and they keep alive the outside interests that make for peace, poise, content and happiness.
Keep a sharp look-out for tendencies to change your habits and morals.
At 50 you are walking on thin ice; look out, danger is near.
After you are 55, your habits are pretty well established. If you have lived rightly till then, you're safe thereafter and very likely are on your way to a good ripe old age if you take reasonable care of yourself.
Our Sons.
We love our own the best; maybe that's why we indulge our own too much. Our duty to our boys; that's a subject as old as the hills, and it is as important as it is old. It is a subject that has come to the forefront in recent years. Multitudes of paid juvenile workers and sociological experts throughout the country are engaged in the work of keeping the youth of the nation healthily occupied and away from corrupting influences.
Modern conditions have created a "boy problem" which was unknown two generations ago. Then there were no slums reeking with vice and squalor and ugliness. The era of great manufacturing enterprises was just beginning. There were no densely populated cities numbering millions of souls. Amusements were simple. Everywhere were stretches of open country, and boys were allowed to run wild in field and woodland and stream.
Times Have Changed.
The great cities of to-day have done away with all this. The good, old-fashioned, healthful recreations have disappeared in all but rural communities. In their place has come the lurid "movie" with its tales of crime and violence and passion. At every crowded street corner, vice beckons, and glaring signs lure the curious boy into the vicious cabaret and dance-hall.
To-day I had the boy problem forcibly presented to me. I saw in a court twenty-four boys who had been brought before the Judge charged with petty crimes. Three were sent to the penitentiary, seven to the reform school and fourteen let go temporarily on good behavior.
A friend of mine interested in criminology tells me the great bulk of hold-ups, thefts, burglaries and murders are committed by boys between 16 and 22 years of age.
These twenty-four boys I mentioned were just ordinary boys, capable of making good citizens if they had had the right kind of home treatment and surroundings. Most of them got in trouble through their association with the "gang" or the "bunch," or the "crowd," and this because daddy didn't have his hand on the rein.
That boy must have companionship; he must have a confidant with whom he can share his joys, his sorrows, his hopes, his ambitions. Ifhe doesn't get this comeraderie at home, he gets it "'round the corner."
We know where the boy is when he is at school, but how few of us know the boy's doings between times.
Pool halls tempt the boys, and these resorts are breeding places where filthy stories, criminal slang and evil practices are hatched.
Pool halls and saloons invite and fascinate the boy. He sees the lights. There is a keen pleasure in watching the pink-shirted dude with cigarette in his mouth making fancy shots.
There is no one to nag him or bother him; it gets to be his "hang-out," and soon he drifts into a crowd that knows the trail to the red-light district.
Painted fairies dazzle the giddy boy. It takes money to go the pace. Crime is gilded over with slang words. Stealing is called "easy money." Robbery is "turning a trick," and so on.
A boy becomes what he lives on mentally and physically; that's the net of it.
It is a common saying, but a good one, that the boys of to-day are the men of to-morrow. If you train a boy with care and kindness, he will grow up to be an honest and upright citizen. But let him run a wild, undisciplined course,leave him free to explore the crime-spots and plague-pools of the city, and sooner or later his moral fibre is weakened and ultimately snaps. At best he will become an indifferent citizen; at worst a drifter or a criminal.
There is nothing better for a boy than discipline properly administered. And that brings up the whole matter of army life.
The Army: A Maker of Men.
The army is a great maker and developer of men. Boys who were headed for perdition have found in the army a new sense of honor and respect. The rigorous training, the idea of duty, the heroic traditions of the service—all these are renewers and rekindlers of manhood. Many a lad who has wasted his health, wealth and substance on the primrose path, has "come back" gloriously in the service of the flag.
Look at the average soldier or sailor you meet. His skin is tanned by sun and wind to a deep brown. His eyes are crystal clear. There is youth and strength in his tread. There he stands, clean as a whistle. No fat, no flabbiness—just solid sinew and ruddy health. He is a living exponent of what military training can do for every boy in the country.
Hard work, strength-building exercises, sufficient sleep, regular hours, simple, wholesome food, systematic training—these are the things the army and navy offers. And these are the things that make real men.
But no training that school or church or army can give him relieves you, Dad, of your obligation to the boy. In the last analysis, it isyourinfluence that will either make him or break him, for it is to you that he looks for guidance and comradeship in his most impressionable years.
If you are his chum, if sister shares his amusements with him, if the family work and live on the "all for one and one for all" basis, if the boy is kept busy and interested, he can be easily trained.