p. 17 | On the Raising of Boys by John F. Cowan

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 14, 1914

On the Raising of Boys

By John F. Cowan

ARE we trying to "raise" the boys in the threefold way of Nazareth—body, mind, soul? "He's a fine, healthy-looking boy," the neighbors say. Does that satisfy us?

Carlyle said all the ministers of finance in Europe could not make one shoeblack happy, because he has a soul larger than his stomach.

But the father and mother must satisfy this growing soul. The former must be willing to lay down his newspaper or magazine to answer the questions of the boy on the spot, or to say in a way that will not quench, but keep alive, the flame of curiosity. "You cannot understand that now, my son; but just as soon as you are old enough father will try to tell you." And the boy must feel that his father is honest with him, and is not telling him a polite lie just to get rid of him, hoping that he will forget the troublesome question.

And the mother must apply the law of suggestion, by telling the boy such stories, and reading to him such books, and holding up before him such lofty ideals of manhood, that early he will be fired with ambitions to be something fine and noble.

The "poor" home is not that one with shabby furniture and plain food and patched clothes; but the home—

With No Top-Story Lookout

Some neighbor boys of mine built them a hut in a big tree, to which they climbed by a ladder.

"Aren't you afraid to have them climb so high?" asked a timid neighbor.

"I'm afraid to have them get the idea that they can't climb high," said the mother.

Accustom the boys to looking high. Have a lookout where they can see sky, and hills once in a while, if you have to go miles to get it. Have a spiritual lookout. Take your boys to it. Let them get glimpses of the noble careers you are planning for them. Don't be afraid to let them see steep heights to be climbed, hard tasks waiting for men to do them.

Have you never heard a wife or mother say to the husband or father, "You don't think of yourself; you are always doing things for others"? Have you not known mothers to quench some generous impulse in the child by saying: "If you give so much away, you will have little left for yourself;" "Don't go on that neighborly errand today, you have a cold;" "Why do you invite such seedy, tiresome guests? You are not bound to entertain them;" "Let some one else serve on that committee, you are doing enough"? She shuts out the sky line, and the soul withers.

How to Get the Boys to Church

"Yes, do tell us how."

"Now his parents went . . . every year." "And when he was twelve years old, they went." Don't you suppose they had talked so much about it to the boy

that he was eager to go even before he was old enough?

"Yes, that is easy enough; our children, when little, always beg to go, but tell us how to keep them interested." The "lookout" again. You must have something ahead of them in the church worth while. Is it any longer a secret that to keep the boys interested in the church we must give them something to do?

Eugene C. Foster says: "I am thinking a good deal about the boy who is just getting ready to slip out of the Sunday school. True, he has been slipping for some time. For several years, perhaps, you have had a vague feeling that the ties were loosening and it was only a question of time."

He goes on to ask: Shall he be made an assistant officer, given a few books to distribute, or a column of figures to add, or some trivial thing; or shall he be put into a training class to fit him to become a leader of younger boys? He thinks there is no device for stopping the leak like giving boys something worth while to do in the school; we may add, in the church, too. Christian Endeavor has taught the Sunday school the value of putting tools into the hands of the young husbandmen, and teaching them to use them by using them.

Here is one other practical suggestion: Set the older boys to collecting a cabinet of lesson illustrations or objects, such as olivewood, Palestine flowers, Wilde and other pictures, Underwood and other stereographs, facsimiles of Bible coins, of Scripture scrolls, sandals, lamps, etc., many of which can be made.

When You Must Trust

There is a story of a mother who was so absorbed in the only boy God had given her that, when he went away to college, she went with him and took a room overlooking the dormitory, so that she could always watch her son in his daily movements across the campus.

How un-Marylike that was! Was it not better to trust the boy of twelve to remember the starting time and the road? Is it not better to put the responsibility on the young shoulders? There comes a time in the life of the boy when an ounce of trusting to his common sense and his conscientiousness is worth a ton of argus-eyed watching.

But you have to know your boy first. Do you think you know yours? Not until you can tell by the steadiness of his eye whether he has kept faith with you. The lines must be all up, and in the most delicate working order, between parent and son; no boy on the street or in the school must have any secrets of his that you have not; and then it pays to trust him.

I knew a father who used sometimes purposely to lose his boy in a crowd, just to give him the experience of relying on his own wits. The father never lost sight of his boy, but he never let the boy suspect that he was following and watching him. It's the making of a boy to put him on his own mettle, and even push him out into hard things; teach him how to keep hard bargains, to play the game to the finish.

There are times when the youngsters amaze us, not by their shallowness or thoughtlessness, but by their depth and far-seeing vision. Have you never had your heart suddenly melted by some revelation of unselfish, lover-like thoughtfulness for you?

Have you never been startled by some flash of manliness, of serious purpose, for which you did not think the boy old enough? But, if Mary has been telling him of the shepherds, and the angels, and the sayings of Simeon and Anna, and of the Magi, we may be sure the Spirit has been faithfully telling him more.

I correspond with a young college fellow who was the despair of his parents the last year in high school. It took the pushing of the entire family, and the faculty, and some friends besides, to get him through. But sometimes he writes more like a man of forty, of his impatience to get his preparation for a business life and get out into work so that he can take some of the burden off father's shoulders.

O, yes, it's worth while to "raise" boys, just to hear them say by and by, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

The threefold growth of the boy—don't lose sight of that. Study food values, mother, and see that his body is nourished by a balanced diet. Have the best school, the best college, or the best periodicals and books in the home; but don't forget to give him high ideals and ambitions, so that when he leaves the nest the eaglet will fly to the mountain top. Sometimes he dives instead of flying, because we have forgotten his wings.

—John F. Cowan, in Christian Endeavor World.