OUR SONS
They Pattern After Us; Be Worth Copying
We love our own the best; maybe that's why we indulge our own too much. Our duty to our boys: that's a subject old as the hills and it is as important as it is old.
Today I had the boy problem forcibly presented to me. Today in court twenty-four boys were brought before the Judge charged with petty crimes. Three were sent to the penitentiary, seven to reform school and fourteen let go temporarily on good behavior.
A friend of mine interested in criminology tells me the great bulk of hold-ups, thefts, burglaries and murders are committed by boys between 16 and 22 years of age.
These twenty-four boys I mention were just ordinary boys, capable of making good citizens if they had had the right kind of home treatment and surroundings. Most of them got in trouble through their association with "gangs" or "the bunch," or the "crowd," and this because daddy didn't have his hand on the rein.
That boy must have companionship; he must have a confidante to whom he can share his joys, his sorrows, his hopes, his ambitions. If he doesn't get this comeraderie at home he gets it "round the corner."
We know where the boy is when he is at school, but how few know the boy's doings between times.