"For the wants of this period what safe provision is made by the
church, or by the state, or any of the boy's lawful educators? In all
the Prussian schools amusements are as much a part of the regular
school system as grammar or geography. The teacher is with the boys on
the playground, and plays as heartily as any of them. The boy has his
physical wants anticipated. He is not left to fight his way, blindly
stumbling against society, but goes forward in a safe path, which his
elders and betters have marked out for him.

"In our country, the boy's career is often a series of skirmishes with
society. He wants to skate, and contrives ingeniously to dam the
course of a brook and flood a meadow which makes a splendid
skating-ground. Great is the joy for a season, and great the skating.
But the water floods the neighboring cellars. The boys are cursed
through all the moods and tenses,--boys are such a plague! The dam is
torn down with emphasis and execration. The boys, however, lie in wait
some cold night, between twelve and one, and build it up again; and
thus goes on the battle. The boys care not whose cellar they flood,
because nobody cares for their amusement. They understand themselves
to be outlaws, and take an outlaw's advantage.

"Again, the boys have their sleds; and sliding down hill is splendid
fun. But they trip up some grave citizen, who sprains his shoulder.
What is the result? Not the provision of a safe, good place, where
boys _may_ slide down hill without danger to any one, but an edict
forbidding all sliding, under penalty of fine.

"Boys want to swim: it is best they should swim; and if city fathers,
foreseeing and caring for this want, should think it worth while to
mark off some good place, and have it under such police surveillance
as to enforce decency of language and demeanor, they would prevent a
great deal that now is disagreeable in the unguided efforts of boys to
enjoy this luxury.

"It would be cheaper in the end, even if one had to build sliding-piles,
as they do in Russia, or to build skating-rinks, as they do in
Montreal,--it would be cheaper for every city, town, and village to
provide legitimate amusement for boys, under proper superintendence,
than to leave them, as they are now left, to fight their way against
society.

"In the boys' academies of our country, what provision is made for
amusement? There are stringent rules, and any number of them, to
prevent boys making any noise t