Pool halls tempt the boys, and these places are breeding places where filthy stories, criminal slang and evil practices are hatched.
Pool halls and saloons invite and fascinate the boy. He sees the lights. There is a keen pleasure in watching the pink-shirted dude with cigarette in his mouth making fancy shots.
There is no one to nag him or bother him; it gets to be his "hang-out," and soon he drifts into a crowd that knows the trail to the red light district.
Painted fairies dazzle the giddy boy. It takes money to go the pace. Crime is gilded over with slang words. Stealing is called "easy money." Robbery is "turning a trick," and so on.
A boy becomes what he lives on mentally and physically; that's the net of it.
If Dad is his chum, if sister shares with him his amusements, if the family work and live on the "all for one and one for all" plan, if the boy is kept busy and interested, he can be easily trained.
Neglect him and he will neglect you. Love him and he will love you. Meet him half way; he's impressionable.
Show him kindness, he will respond. Show him example, he will follow.
You have to be with him or know where he is every minute.
During his period of adolescence, say from twelve or thirteen to sixteen or seventeen, that boy is a mass of plaster of paris, easily shaped while plastic, but once set, impossible to recast.