Three institutions are responsible for the education of the adolescent boy.  By “education” is meant not merely the acquisition of certain forms of related knowledge, but the symmetrical adaptation of the life to the community in which it lives.  The three institutions that cooperate in the community for this purpose are:  the home, the school, and the church.  There are many organizations and orders that have a large place in the life of the growing boy, but these must be viewed solely in the light of auxiliaries to the home, school and church in the production of efficient boyhood and trained manhood.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ON EDUCATION

Draper.—­American Education ($2.00).

Payot.—­Education of the Will ($1.50).

I

THE HOME AND THE BOY

The greatest of the three institutions affecting boy life, from the very fact that it is the primary one, is the home.  The home is the basis of the community, the community merely being the aggregation of a large number of well-organized or ill-organized homes.  The first impressions the boy receives are through his home life, and the bent of his whole career is often determined by the home relationships.

The large majority of homes today are merely places in which a boy may eat and sleep.  The original prerogatives of the father and mother, so far as they pertain to the physical, social, mental and moral development of boyhood, have been farmed out to other organizations in the community.  The home life of today greatly differs from that of previous generations.  This is very largely due to social and economic conditions.  Our social and economic revolution has made vast inroads upon our normal home life, with the result that the home has been seriously weakened and the boy has been deprived of his normal home heritage.

To give the home at least some of the old power that it used to have over the boy life, there must needs be recognized the very definite place a boy must have in the family councils.  The general tendency today, as far as the boy is concerned, is an utter disregard on the part of the father and mother of the importance of the boy as a partner in the family.  He is merely the son of his father and mother, and their obligations to him seemingly end in providing him with wholesome food, warm clothing, a place to sleep and a room in which to study and play in common with other members of the household.  Very little thought is given on the part of the father and mother to the real part the boy should play in the direction of the family life.  Family matters are never determined with the help of his judgment.  They are even rarely discussed in his presence.  Instead of being a partner in the family life, doing his share of the family work and being recognized as a necessary part of its welfare, he is only recognized as a dependent member, to be cared for until he is old enough to strike out and make a place for himself.  This sometimes is modified when the boy comes to the wage-earning age, when he is required to assist in the support of the family, but even then his place in the family councils to determine the policy of the family is usually a very small one.