Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/354

350 Not, however, if he run wild and lawless till manhood, or not then without endless pain and punishment can he learn his life lesson. All good in human beings comes from seizing and utilizing the period of receptivity to all manner of impressions, the formation of habits of obedience, of accurate response to orders, to the facilities of craftsmanship. This is highest at birth and diminishes in a parabolic curve.

The boy physically strong, but intellectually weak, should not be judged by the same standards as the one physically weak but intelligently keen. Each will tire in his line of defects before the complemental capability has time to assert its potency. Neither should he hastily be judged inferior, because within his sphere he may be worthy of confidence and equally useful. Barr thinks that the stimulus of music is equal to that from books. The ever-present sensitiveness to disharmonies is developed by rhythmic sounds as well as by military drill. As energies are developed they can be specialized, directed into suitable channels, to varying applications, if not falsely forced, only wisely encouraged.

The problem of educating the tumultuous, effervescent or exasperating boy is usually solved by the military school. The enforcement of implicit obedience, the sharing of responsibilities by boys acting as petty officers and many other features constitute satisfactory methods, in the main sufficient. They often lack something essential. Soldierly qualities in the teachers may be absent, they being not themselves adequately trained for their accidental rôle. Again the routine of an ordinary school, constructed on military lines, even those of governmental foundation, often fails, because the industrial feature is absent, the only relaxations being leisure, or the ordinary athletic games.

Probably the best means of making clear the ideal methods, so far as we can adduce them, is to cite the course of training at a school where the best results are attained; where the boys, all difficult problems, yet become developed into, not only useful citizens, with rarest exceptions, but some of them achieve high qualities although their early status was desperately bad. The one in my mind is the Glen Mills School, Pa., originally the House of Refuge for Philadelphia. The boys are only admitted when committed by the law after perpetrating overt acts. Every one is of the most. difficult kind. The special features of the Glen Mills School are the paternal, intellectual, agricultural, industrial and military. Other schools there may be conceived on a similar system, but I am-safe in claiming that nowhere are these features in all branches so consistently and thoroughly carried to a legitimate issue. None achieve such uniformly satisfactory results. One item of equipment is superior, a magnificent gymnasium, the gift of Mr. Alfred Harrison. Here the boys enjoy every opportunity of a gymnasium, a drill hall, indoor games, basketball, preliminary baseball