hat
between two and three times as much incorrigibility occurs between the
ages of thirteen and sixteen as at any other period of life.

The second division of motive power has been treated in the preceding
chapter. The present chapter is an effort to point out the necessity
for an understanding of the first trend of motives if we would
minimize the temptations of the struggle and free the boy from the
constant sense of the stupidity and savagery of life. To set his feet
in the worn path of civilization is not an easy task, but it may give
us a clue for the undertaking to trace his misdeeds to the
unrecognized and primitive spirit of adventure corresponding to the
old activity of the hunt, of warfare, and of discovery.

To do this intelligently, we shall have to remember that many boys in
the years immediately following school find no restraint either in
tradition or character. They drop learning as a childish thing and
look upon school as a tiresome task that is finished. They demand
pleasure as the right of one who earns his own living. They have
developed no capacity for recreation demanding mental effort or even
muscular skill, and are obliged to seek only that depending upon
sight, sound and taste. Many of them begin to pay board to their
mothers, and make the best bargain they can, that more money may be
left to spend in the evening. They even bait the excitement of "losing
a job," and often provoke a foreman if only to see "how much he will
stand." They are constitutionally unable to enjoy anything
continuously and follow their vagrant wills unhindered. Unfortunately
the city lends itself to this distraction. At the best, it is
difficult to know what to select and what to eliminate as objects of
attention among its thronged streets, its glittering shops, its gaudy
advertisements of shows and amusements. It is perhaps to the credit
of many city boys that the very first puerile spirit of adventure
looking abroad in the world for material upon which to exercise
itself, seems to center about the railroad. The impulse is not unlike
that which excites the coast-dwelling lad to dream of

"The beauty and mystery of the ships
And the magic of the sea."

I cite here a dozen charges upon which boys were brought into the
Juvenile Court of Chicago, all of which might be designated as deeds
of adventure. A surprising number, as the reader will observe, are
connected with railroads. They are taken from the court r