p. 11 | WHAT TO TEACH BOYS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 19, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 25.

WHAT TO TEACH BOYS.

A PHILOSOPHER has said that true education to boys is to “teach them what they ought to know when they become men.”

1. To be true and to be genuine. No education is worth anything that does not include this. A man had better not know how to read—he had better never learn a letter in the alphabet, and be true, genuine in intention and in action—rather than be learned in all sciences and in all languages, to be at the same time false in heart and counterfeit in life. Above all things, teach boys that truth is more than riches, more than earthly power or possessions.

2. To be pure in thought, language, and life—pure in mind and in body.

3. To be unselfish. To care for the feelings and comfort of others. To be generous, noble, and manly. This will include a genuine reverence for the aged and for things sacred.

4. To be self-reliant and self-helpful even from childhood. To be industrious always, and self-supporting at the earliest proper age. Teach them that all honest work is honorable; that an idle life of dependence on others is disgraceful.

When a boy has learned these four things, when he has made these ideas a part of his being—however poor or however rich—he has learned some of the most important things he ought to know when he becomes a man.—Parish Visitor.