Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/31

 is only by living a clean, self-controlled sexual life that a boy can make the most of his physical and mental powers.

The boy of fourteen begins usually to take his first real interest in society when he enters high school. He is making his first real friends, and he is coming to realize for the first time the basis upon which friendship is formed. Here again self-control and discipline are necessary. A boy's friendships determine his character as much as any influence which operates in his life. Very few of us have formed alone the habits that possess us, but on the contrary we have done so in connection with one or more of our friends. When a high school boy cuts class or learns to smoke or stays out late at night or falls into any sort of irregularity, no one who has any sane knowledge of human nature ever supposes that he was alone when he did so. The fourteen-year-old forms into groups, he organizes little exclusive societies, he has his particular pals with whom he consorts and schemes and under whose influence he develops character and leadership.

In all these close relationships which grow up between boys of high school age there is invariably a leader. All make suggestions and present plans, but in every group of boys there is some one whose opinion is paramount, whose word and whose decision is law. Now at—the outset any boy may determine, negatively at least, with whom he will associate; after relationships are strongly formed, however, it is not so easy, for it is always a much more