Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/99

 ure. If he does not learn while he is young to make some sort of sacrifice and to deny himself, he will not find it easy later in life.

Granted that there is danger to the young boy who has a considerable amount of leisure, there is, also, to the one who will use it wisely, a great opportunity. Most men who have come up from poverty and ignorance to positions of financial responsibility and intellectual attainment have done so through the regular and wise utilization of their leisure time. One of the best French scholars I know got all his preliminary knowledge during his leisure hours in the army when he was only a young boy. The biographies of well-known men furnish innumerable illustrations of boys who, with little encouragement and less opportunity, by using their leisure hours wisely made themselves ready for positions which would not otherwise have been open to them.

There are various ways in which the high school boy may utilize his leisure time. He may use it, as too many boys do, in the pursuit of so-called pleasures that are actually injurious to his health and to his character. It is not necessary to specify all of the things which are a real injury to a young fellow; one may be pretty well assured, however, that when the high school boy is out every night of the week until long after he should be in bed, whatever he may be doing, he is not attending Sunday school. When boys are found nightly hanging about street corners or talking to careless silly girls, they are not picking up