Confidential Chats with Boys

by William Lee Howard

The boys in the past—many of the UNsuccessful men of to-day, though not by any means through their own fault—were brought up under a false idea of democracy. Matters were not as well understood as they are now, and the progress made all goes to benefit the boys of to-day. There is a fairly good reason why we have had so many dissatisfied youths in the past who are the failures to-day. It is because these men as youths were never fitted for the work in the world they could best do.

The error was in the false idea of the teachers that all boys’ brains were made of the same workable stuff, and all that was necessary was to give to each and every boy the same teaching and then turn him loose to try to make a happy career.

Of course in many, too many cases, there was nothing the boy could find to do that meant anything to him. He could hang around corners, smoke cigarettes and hear stories and words of injury to any healthy youth. He could find some job in a store or perhaps office work, but fitted for real work and happiness in that work, he never was. Such a boy had really wasted valuable time in school, and it was not strange that when he left school he had no sense of the value of time. And such a boy often left school with an idea that he was not as bright as some other boys; this was the commencement of a state of discouragement all through his life—the reason he felt himself a failure.

Yet all these unfortunate lads were the equal of those who had graduated with high honors in Latin or history, only the things they could do best had never been given them to do.

If a boy disliked Latin or history and could not come up to the teacher’s idea of the interest he should have in these studies, he was too often considered lazy or stupid. If that boy was interested in mechanical drawing and happy in such work, no matter, he MUST do his Latin, and disliking it, he, of course, neglected it.

This line of treatment went on throughout the boy’s school-life if he attended a public school, and generally he left disgusted and untrained for anything. Then he found there was really no place for him in the world, nothing but some small clerkships or other uncongenial work, and being continually dissatisfied, of course, never made a success in anything—just a living. As he grew older such a youth soon dropped into habits of drinking, or worse habits, worked like a machine day in and day out, not much caring how things went, so long as he received his weekly pay envelope.

The thousands of men of this kind with whom I have talked, were discouraged from the start. As boys they were always blamed for being useless, when, in fact no efforts had ever been made to make them useful.

With you boys of the present day all this is to be different. Every one of you can now find education and training in what you are fitted to do. Ideas are rapidly changing, as are methods. You are aware by this time that vocational schools are being rapidly established, and I hope to soon see the day when all academic high schools are retained only for those who are going to college and from there to the professional schools. Of course you should all go to a high school, but to a high school where the foundation for some practical vocation, trade or business career is thoroughly taught.

I am frequently asked by young men, “Do you advise me to go to college?” The answer is easily understood when I say: “Never be SENT to college.” Here is where much of the harm has been done—the boy has been sent to college when in reality he WANTED, or needed, to go to some institution where his particular talents could be trained. For we each and every one are born with SOME particular talent, something in us which makes us able to do a certain thing better than the other man. If we were all equal in the matters of thinking and doing,—that is, if we all did the same thing,—how far would the world progress?

So this brings us down to the question, what is the basis for success? What is it the boy needs to progress every day in the trade or vocation he has chosen?