Think: A Book for To-day

by William Crosbie Hunter

There is nothing better for a boy than discipline properly administered. And that brings up the whole matter of army life.

The Army: A Maker of Men.

The army is a great maker and developer of men. Boys who were headed for perdition have found in the army a new sense of honor and respect. The rigorous training, the idea of duty, the heroic traditions of the service—all these are renewers and rekindlers of manhood. Many a lad who has wasted his health, wealth and substance on the primrose path, has "come back" gloriously in the service of the flag.

Look at the average soldier or sailor you meet. His skin is tanned by sun and wind to a deep brown. His eyes are crystal clear. There is youth and strength in his tread. There he stands, clean as a whistle. No fat, no flabbiness—just solid sinew and ruddy health. He is a living exponent of what military training can do for every boy in the country.

Hard work, strength-building exercises, sufficient sleep, regular hours, simple, wholesome food, systematic training—these are the things the army and navy offers. And these are the things that make real men.

But no training that school or church or army can give him relieves you, Dad, of your obligation to the boy. In the last analysis, it is your influence that will either make him or break him, for it is to you that he looks for guidance and comradeship in his most impressionable years.

If you are his chum, if sister shares his amusements with him, if the family work and live on the "all for one and one for all" basis, if the boy is kept busy and interested, he can be easily trained.

Be Worth Copying.

Neglect him and he will neglect you. Love him and he will love you. Meet him half way, he's impressionable. Show him a kindness, he will respond. Show him a good 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 years to sixteen or seventeen, that boy is a mass of plaster of paris, easily shaped while plastic, but once set, all but impossible to recast.