ece of her
clothes-line along the ground so that when her orphan boy came out for
an armload of wood after dark, he would trip on it and send his wood
flying all over the yard.

This would not be a sign that they were morally any worse than the boys
who read _Harper's Young People_, and who would every one die rather
than do such a cruel thing, but that they had not really thought much
about it. I dare say that if a crowd of the _Young People_'s readers,
from eight to eleven years old, got together, they would choose the best
boy among them to lead them on in works of kindness and usefulness; but
I am very sorry to say that in the Boy's Town such a crowd of boys would
have followed the lead of the worst boy as far as they dared. Not all of
them would have been bad, and the worst of them would not have been very
bad; but they would have been restless and thoughtless. I am not ready
to say that boys now are not wise enough to be good; but in that time
and town they certainly were not. In their ideals and ambitions they
were foolish, and in most of their intentions they were mischievous.
Without realizing that it was evil, they meant more evil than it would
have been possible for ten times as many boys to commit. If the half of
it were now committed by men, the United States would be such an awful
place that the decent people would all want to go and live in Canada.

I have often read in stories of boys who were fond of nature, and loved
her sublimity and beauty, but I do not believe boys are ever naturally
fond of nature. They want to make use of the woods and fields and
rivers; and when they become men they find these aspects of nature
endeared to them by association, and so they think that they were dear
for their own sakes; but the taste for nature is as purely acquired as
the taste for poetry or the taste for tomatoes. I have often seen boys
wondering at the rainbow, but it was wonder, not admiration that moved
them; and I have seen them excited by a storm, but because the storm was
tremendous, not because it was beautiful.

I never knew a boy who loved flowers, or cared for their decorative
qualities; if any boy had gathered flowers the other boys would have
laughed at him; though boys gather every kind of thing that they think
will be of the slightest use or profit. I do not believe they appreciate
the perfume of flowers, and I am sure that they never mind the most
noisome stench or the most loathsome sight. A dea