The Right and Wrong Beginnings
By William S. Sadler
DEMORALIZATION OF THE YOUNG MAN. NO. 2.
The Right and Wrong Beginnings.
IN considering the young man, let us begin by inquiring concerning the surroundings of his boyhood. Who are his associates? With whom does he keep company? His future life and character will be largely determined by the nature of his associates. It would be much safer for parents to send their children to the pest-house, or the leper's abode, than to permit them to associate with vicious companions, whose influence will, in the end, prove more ruinous and disastrous than the smallpox or the plague itself. Home Education vs. Community Education.
Children should be taught at home. The boy, perhaps a mere lad, should not be allowed to get his education on the street, or from older companions well informed in regard to vice. The only teacher of the young boy should be his parents. Many an innocent lad, who has scarcely learned to read and write, has become old, hardened, and familiar with many forms of vice. It is far easier, by restriction of the associations, to prevent the acquiring of this pernicious information, than it is to undertake to rescue the lad from the meshes of iniquity when he has once become entangled. Let the home itself be the most delightful place on earth to the boy. Let memories of home and home-folk be so pleasant and agreeable to his youthful mind that he will recognize no enticement in the temptations by which the enemy of his soul seeks to lead him on to the streets, there to sow in his young breast the seeds of demoralization, which will by and by effect his utter ruin. I wish I were able so to emphasize the importance of surrounding the boy with proper association that every parent in the land would, from this time forth, place first in mind the question of their children's associations. The Wrong Place to Begin.
If you wait until the boy has reached the age of fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen years, you will find it a difficult matter to influence him concerning his associates. He has then acquired a liking for a particular kind of society, and it will then be well-nigh too late to undertake the work of undoing the mischief resulting from years of association with vicious companions. When the heart and mind were pure, soft, and tender, they were easily molded. As noted before, there is little hope of rescuing the majority of wayward youth when they have approached too near the fatal falls. If it were ever true that an "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," it is certainly true in this connection. A prominent religious teacher once said: "Give me a child until he is seven or eight years of age, and he will always be what I have made him." I once asked a young man, who was serving a life sentence in a prison, where all his trouble began. He said: "The work of ruination was completed before I was eight years of age. Altho my parents were well-to-do, and I was associated only with the neighbors' children, yet it was the influence exerted by these children that has proved to be the seed of my destruction." When a boy (or a girl for that matter) is found to have more confidence in any living soul than he has in his parents, it may be regarded as a danger signal of the most serious sort. The parent is the one who stands between God and the child, and he should look well to it that no influence is allowed to intrude itself between himself and the childlike confidence of "his boy." The early confidence which a boy has in his father is so full of respect and trust that it almost partakes of the nature of reverence. Let the parent lose the confidence of the boy or girl, and he has met with a loss that is irreparable. That confidence which will lead the boy to unfold to the father all his plans, all his doings, to open up his very heart, constitutes the most powerful safeguard against vice and impurity with which the character of every boy or young man may be fortified. Great care should be exercised in reprimanding or chastising the boy. Let the virtues of love and mercy be mingled with what many parents term firmness or justice. Let the same spirit be present when correcting the boy of his mistakes, committed either through ignorance or forgetfulness, that you would have present when you would pray with him or otherwise seek to influence him for a high and holy purpose. The administration of arbitrary punishment is one of the easiest ways of divorcing the confidence that a boy should have in his parents. When he has done wrong, or made a mistake, and makes known the facts to his parents, they should mingle with the counsel and admonition subsequently administered, a spirit of love and compassion that will lead the young mind to recognize in them that sympathy and interest that are so necessary to inspire a boy or girl with courage, confidence, and perseverance. Too much can not be said in this connection against the practise of indirectly deceiving the child. False statements are generally made, altho well-meant, by the sincere parent, concerning the origin of life and other vital questions, which the parent considers the young mind of the child unable to understand. This unintended deception has a direct bearing upon the terrible consequences that are sure to follow when the child's confidence is weakened, broken, or lost. Let the parent make such a thorough-going study of the divine order of teaching truth as portrayed in both revelation and nature, and let his life be such a beautiful presentation of the truths of virtue, purity, and righteousness, that the child will be captivated with what he thus learns from the life and teachings of the parent. Then when these vital subjects are subsequently presented to him by the emissaries of Satan, clothed with all the vileness of the street, it will prove to be a thing so repulsive, compared with the high teaching with which his young mind has been fortified, that the evil will be powerless either to interest or entice him.