IF I WERE A BOY
By Washington Gladden
If I were a boy again, and knew what I know now, I
would not be quite so positive in my opinions as I
used to be. Boys generally think that they are very certain
about many things. A boy of fifteen is a great deal
more sure of what he thinks he knows than most men of 5
fifty. You ask the boy a question and he will answer you
right off, up and down; he knows all about it. Ask a man
of large experience and ripe wisdom the same question,
and he will say, "Well, there is much to be said about it.
I am inclined on the whole to think so and so, but other 10
intelligent men think otherwise."
When I was eight years old, I traveled from central
Massachusetts to western New York, crossing the river at
Albany and going by canal from Schenectady to Syracuse.
On the canal boat, a kindly gentleman was talking to me 15
one day, and I remarked that I had crossed the Connecticut
River at Albany. How I got it into my head that it was
the Connecticut River I do not know, for I knew my
geography very well then, but in some unaccountable way
I had it fixed in my mind that the river at Albany was the 20
Connecticut, and I called it so.
"Why," said the gentleman, "that is the Hudson River."
"Oh, no, sir!" I replied politely, but firmly. "You're
mistaken. That is the Connecticut River."
The gentleman smiled and said no more. I was not 25
much in the habit, I think, of contradicting my elders;
but in this matter I was perfectly sure that I was right and
so I thought it my duty to correct the gentleman's geography.
I felt rather sorry for him that he should be so
ignorant. One day, after I reached home, I was looking
over my route on the map, and lo! there was Albany standing 5
on the Hudson River, a hundred miles from the Connecticut.
Then I did not feel so sorry for the gentleman's ignorance
as I did for my own. I never told anybody that story
until I wrote it down on these pages the other day; but I
have thought of it a thousand times and always with a 10
blush for my boldness. Nor was it the only time that I
was perfectly sure of things that really were not so. It is
hard for a boy to learn that he may be mistaken; but unless
he is a fool, he learns it after a while. The sooner he finds
it out, the better for him. 15
If I were a boy, I would not think that I and the boys of
my times were an exception to the general rule—a new
kind of boys, unlike all who have lived before, having
different feelings and different ways. To be honest, I
must own that I used to think so myself. I was quite inclined 20
to reject the counsel of my elders by saying to myself,
"That may have been well enough for boys thirty or
fifty years ago, but it isn't the thing for me and my set of
boys." Of course that was nonsense. The boys of one
generation are not very different from the boys of any 25
other generation.
If we say that boyhood lasts fifteen or sixteen years, I
have known three generations of boys, some of them city
boys and some of them country boys, and they are all
substantially alike—so nearly alike that the old rules of 30
industry and patience and perseverance and self-control
are as applicable to one generation as to another. The
fact is, that what your fathers and teachers have found by
experience to be good for boys will be good for you; and
what their experience has taught them is bad for boys will
be bad for you. You are just boys, nothing more nor less.
1. Why would a boy of fifteen be more likely to "think he knew all about it" than an equally honest and intelligent man of fifty? Apply to your answer the preceding story about the two knights. What is the value of experience?
2. Retell the story of the boy's mistake about the river. Why was he so ashamed?
3. What is meant by saying that all boys are substantially alike? What four rules does the author say are always applicable? Compare the training of a boy in ancient Sparta and of a page in medieval times with that of a modern schoolboy.