The Boy Problem by L. M. CROSS

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 18, 1912

The Boy Problem

By L. M. CROSS

L. M. CROSS

The boy is one of the most wonderful things in the world, and he is one of the least understood of all God's creatures. Even men, who at one time in their existence were boys, do not know how to treat him, or what to do with him.

He was born into this world just as was his father before him. He must tread in the well-beaten paths of his ancestors, and sail on the same stormy waters that his father sailed on. He has inherited the same nature and disposition that his father inherited, and has in him the added virtues and vices that his father created by his own life.

Up to eight years of age he is a veritable interrogation point. Long before that period of his existence he begins asking questions; he wants to know about everything — what is it? and why is it? He is in a strange world, the paths and ways are new to him, and he wants to know about them.

One of his first questions is: “How did I get here?” He asks it of mother and father, and is met with frowns and expostulations for daring to ask such a question. Their repellent manner does not silence his questions, and he is determined to have his answer from some source, he cares not what. His school companions are sought, and he gets the desired information. But, O, how does he get it! In unclean language, made wretchedly filthy by impure lives and thoughts, he is told what God never intended should be regarded as unclean. And thus his whole idea of the sacred relations of home is shamefully distorted. The names father and mother, which should be hallowed with the tenderest and sweetest memories, arouse in his imagination thoughts that are disgusting. Is the picture overdrawn? — You know it is not.

Here is another picture more pleasant to look upon; it is one of a father, with his boy on his knee, telling him sweetly and tenderly the sacred story of birth, of how he grew under his mother's heart, of the sweet, sacrificing suffering of mother; and when the tender truth is told, how he runs into the outstretched arms of mother, and exclaims: “Mother, now I know why I love you so, and why you love me!”

The boy is satisfied because he has heard the truth simply and sweetly, and he has received a lesson that will deepen his affection for his parents, and write the indelible lines of a pure life upon his countenance when he reaches manhood.

The writer never knew that one of the sweetest stories ever told can be made of the story of birth, to even a little child, until he read Dr. Sylvanus Stall's book, “What a Young Boy Ought to Know,” which has taught him, as it has thousands of other parents of a boy, the God-given way of teaching boys.