for themselves. However,
upon the father devolves more responsibility than the mere providing for
the daily need of his children. Especially is it true that the boys of a
family need the personal influence of the father fully as much as that
of the mother. However patient, wise and devoted a mother may be, there
comes a time in every boy's life when he ought to be under the influence
and subject to the control of a man. _Every boy looks to men for his
models and for a time follows them blindly, in spite of the most careful
training a mother can give._ Curiously enough it is often to a man other
than his father that the boy looks for advice and direction. It is some
other man who influences his thought and through his thought his actions
and the development of his character. Even when the relations between
father and son are of the closest the boy begins to look around him and
often, for no other reason than the novelty of the influence, he falls
under the tutelage of another to whom he gives a confidence that his
father could never secure. As they enter the period of adolescence, boys
will often talk on many subjects with strangers with a freedom that
parents, especially fathers, can never hope to see equalled unless the
most perfect confidence has existed from the earliest childhood. Those
who have taught for many years and who have had growing boys in their
charge know how true this fact is and try to make it of service by
seeing that someone of strong character shall be at hand for the boys to
lean upon. They are impressionable, these men in embryo, and will go to
such lengths for persons they happen to admire and who have secured
their confidence, that those who know tremble when they find evil or
trifling influences gathering about their charges.

Unfortunately in too many cases the parents fail to realize the
importance of this change of relationship and allow children to drift
without any effort to stem the tide that is bearing their progeny away.
Fathers are particularly blind. One would think that they would remember
how it was with themselves in their youth and be guided accordingly. But
as a matter of fact a large majority of the fathers of the land have
forgotten the perils of their own boyhoods; they look upon their own
sons as proof against the temptations they weathered, or as being exempt
because of their better position in life. If these same fathers would
only consider that the temptations come from wit