e does not. Nearly every boy, at an early age, is thrown in
contact with low-minded persons who think it amusing to persuade the
youth to prove he knows indecent things. He thinks it a test of manhood
to be acquainted with various vices and so in order to prove his
knowledge is led into various indiscretions, which result in the
contraction of vile habits or of loathsome diseases.

If a boy at an early age were given the true idea of the meaning of
being a man or of manhood we would have fewer physical wrecks and
incompetent individuals.

CHAPTER XXI

WHY BOYS GO ASTRAY

"What can a boy do, and where can a boy stay,
If he is always told to get out of the way?
He cannot sit here, and he must not stand there,
The cushions that cover that fine rocking chair
Were put there, of course, to be seen and admired;
A boy has no business to ever be tired.
The beautiful roses and flowers that bloom
On the floor of the darkened and delicate room
Are made not to walk on--at least, not by boys;
The house is no place, anyway, for their noise,
Yet boys must walk somewhere, and what if their feet,
Sent out of their houses, sent into the street,
Should step round the corner and pause at the door
Where other boys' feet have paused often before;
Should pass the gateway of glittering light,
Where jokes that are merry and songs that are bright
Ring out a warm welcome with flattering voice,
And temptingly say, 'Here's a place for the boys.'

"Ah, what if they should? What if your boy or mine
Should cross o'er the threshold which marks out the line
'Twixt virtue and vice, 'twixt pureness and sin,
And leave all his innocent boyhood within?
Oh, what if they should, because you and I
While the days and the months and the years hurry by,
Are too busy with cares and with life's fleeting joys
To make round our hearthstone a place for the boys?
There's a place for the boys. They'll find it somewhere;
And if our own homes are too daintily fair
For the touch of their fingers, the tread of their feet,
They'll find it, and find it, alas, in the street,
'Mid the gilding of sin and the glitter of vice;
And with heartaches and longings we pay a dear price
For the getting of gain that our lifetime employs,
If we fail to provide a good place for the boys."

This little poem, published anonymously in a coun