Your Boy

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 27, 1915

Teach your boy to be accurate. If he is not taught accuracy in childhood, he will never learn it in manhood. Teach him to speak accurately on all subjects, and he will scorn to tell a lie.

Teach him the valuable lesson of consideration for the feelings of others. Teach him to disdain revenge. Impress him with this beautiful sentiment, “Write injuries in dust, but kindness in marble.”

Let your boy be boyish. A mannish boy, a boy who is a man before his time, is a disagreeable object.

Instill into your boy’s mind decision of character. The undecided boy is sure to become a namby-pamby man. He will be, as Dryden says, “everything by starts and nothing long.”

Teach your boy courtesy. “Manners make the man.” True politeness is rapidly becoming one of the “lost arts” in this country.

Do not give your boy expensive notions. Bring him up to be simple in his habits and pleasures.

Teach your boy to look upon labor as dignified, and idleness as disgraceful.

Teach your boy to be open and frank. If he has carelessly broken anything, and takes the full blame upon himself and makes no excuse about it, don’t punish him, but commend him for his honesty.

Teach your boy to be self-reliant. “Ability and necessity dwell near each other,” said Pythagoras. The wisest charity is to help a boy to help himself.

Teach your boy that there is no such thing as “luck.” Good pluck is good luck. Whole-hearted energy crowns men with honors.

Teach your boy that the use of tobacco is a filthy, costly, and unhealthful habit. The boy with a cigar in his mouth, a swagger in his walk, and impudence on his face, is going too fast. Stop him, father; stop him! The chances are ten to one that in a dishonored grave will soon lie the buried hopes of a father, the joys of a mother’s heart, and the pride of sisters fair.

Teach your boy to be strictly honest in all his dealings with his brothers and sisters. If he disregards their rights, he will grow up to disregard the rights of men. “As the twig is bent, the tree inclines.”

Put your boy on his honor. Trust his honor. Nothing will improve his character more. The boy who always requires looking after is in danger.

Treat your boy as a gentleman. If such treatment does not make him a gentleman, nothing else will.

Teach your boy that the best whisky sling is to sling the bottle or the concealed jug out of the window, and that the best throw of the dice is to throw the dice away.

Guard your boy’s companions. “He who goes with wolves soon learns to howl.” A boy readily copies all that he sees done, good or bad. A boy’s temper and habits will be formed on the model of those with whom he associates.

Above all, bring up your boy in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Let yours be a religious home, and God’s blessing will descend upon it. It will give to the boy’s soul its “perfect flowering,” and make it “lustrous in the livery of divine knowledge.”—Selected.