Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/165

 he has had in college he had tried before he came. If you think I am wrong ask him."

I knew I was right, for the boy had told me so, and he had told me also that neither at home nor in the high school had he been given any specific or friendly instruction as to the danger to his mind or to his body of the habits which he began early to form.

"If you want us to live a clean life, to stand for the highest moral principles," one of my freshmen said to me not long ago, "don't wait until we get to college before you set before us the ideals we should follow; begin in high school before we have begun the practices which are sometimes almost impossible to give up."

Every boy comes to the time when his moral principles are tested, when temptation stares him suddenly in the face, when he must prove to himself and to his friends whether these principles are a pretense or a reality. As their foundations were laid early, as they have been held to firmly and honestly they will stand, for the ultimate test of any boy's manners or morals is how successfully he will meet the unexpected social or moral crisis.