TACKLING THE BOY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4878, 16 September 1925, Page 4

TACKLING THE BOY.

A NOTABLE ADDRESS. A TOC H PADRE AT CONFERENCE. At the Birthday Conference of Toe H a notable address was delivered by Padre C. W. Hutchinson, who discussed the question of ‘‘The Adolescent Boy—How to Treat Him.” “Tackling the Boy” is my subject (he said), by which I take it we mean the boy between the age of 14 and 16. the boy adolescent, the boy in the thrilling process of growing up, the boy in the pre-Toc H stage, the younger brother. There is no time to make more than a few preliminary remarks about him. Remember in the first place that he is growing up, and this fact of growing up is the very devil and all, a most difficult, dangerous, and yet most beautiful process.

First, a word or two about the physical side. The boy in the process of growing, up is subject to a severe physical strain up to a certain point; in fact, the years that precede adolescence are, as it were, a kind of vigil or preparation, a period of placid growth and development all along one front. But when the process of adolescence approaches its crisis then that development is largely by fits and starts. I have not time to go into that very much, but if you read a book like Stanley Hall’s book you will find that this is the case. This spasmodic development of course means lack of equilibrium ; the boy is gawky, he cannot manage his legs and arms, and we shall find that physical difficulty affecting, quite naturally, his spiritual development. There are four things about the growing boy I should like to emphasise. While the boy’s body.is going “through the hoop” in that particular kind of way we are not to expect to find him a very stable person. We are not to be surprised or impatient when he presents, us with all. kinds of difficulties, nor be astonished at the ebb and flow of his enthusiasm. He is unstable an.d liable to change, and for the first time perhaps there develops in him the spirit of rebellion, a questioning of all established things. It is not enough that he has always done certain things ; he wants to know why he should do them. In this and in other directions, I would ask you to look back and remember what you were like when you were growing up, how you felt about things, how you rebelled against things, how you grew tired bf things and threw things down and started new things and grew tired again in turn. So many people fail to remember their own youth; in fact, I do not think it can be done without very real and very deliberate effort. We all know what it is when gro,wit-up people, perverse and rather heavy, lecture the young boy—“l remember when I was a young man, . . . .’’- and it always confirms the boy’s conviction (if he wais not sure already) that the particular person in his youth must’have been quite. intolerable.

First of all, then, there is a feeling of.rebellion, a desire to do things differently, a Spirit of Adventure. Life seems suddenly to have immense scope and range, the boy’s experience beebmejs so .much wider that old things, bld games, old acquaintances, in many cases simply don’t do. Growing up for me is, associated with one particular instance. I remember in my old home, when growing up, coming home at night (and winter nights are particularly ‘ impressed on my memory), hurrying through my tea, very preoccupied, answering very shortly and thoughtlessly the affectionate questions of my mbtheir, full of my own thoughts and the things I was going to do —exciting, ridiculous things—snatching up my cap and running Out, just throwing back a careless reply to the question, “Where are you going ?” hurrying down the steps, and looking back and and seeing my mother’s face at the window. Where was I going ? Merely going out. This everlasting adventure, going out from the things we know to the things we do not. know ; I'had to go out. This, restlessness, this spirit of adventure, is, a source of endless worry and trouble .to the club worker and the schoolmaster — unless they are prepared for it. Then, too. remember that the growing boy has an exaggerated “sense of individuality,’” he feels definitely, passionately,, that he is different from, everybody else ; things strike him diffreently, and. altogether he is full of the sense of his own personality, full also of the need, tp express it, and express it he does, often in odd ways. Some-

times the ridiculous things boys do are just exaggerated expressions of their individuality. They must get noticed, they must get that individuality, which they feel so passionately, saluted in some way; they have got to make you realise that they are people to be reckoned with. And then there is an awakening of a Sense of Beauty. I speak perhaps rather of the finer types, but,it is true of all growing boys—and girls for that matter—a sense that the world is much more wonderful and beautiful than they imagined, vague thoughtis that cannot find expression in them, and often never will.

And then comes that new wonder in the relationship with their friends —that wonderful New Genius for Friendship. Up to a point the growing boy takes his friends much as he finds them. They are good enough to play with, to roam with, but when the crisis comes upon the boy he is wont to see his friends, in a new light. Suddenly he finds that the boy who was his school boy friend for many months or a yeai’ suddenly becomes a being remote from him, of whom ne is almost afraid, and to whom very often he is too shy to speak. That is another characteristic I am perfectly certain, if you search your memory, you will find to be absolutely true, a new sense of awe and wonder about relationship. It must be remembered, too, that the boy has a great nose for humbug of any kind. As a child he takes things for granted, and up to a point he takes the grown-up world around him for granted; he cannot improve it, although he may think the conduct of grown-up people perfectly ridiculous. It does not make him angry, but. critical and rather patronising. But when the boy grows up he is perfectly furious about it; he becomes genuinely angry with the tiresomeness of grown-up people, and cannot understand why, with all the professions grown-up people make, the world .is still the place he finds it to be. The challenge of youth to the adult Christian is, I think: “If you really believe all you profess why in God’s name have yo>u not made the world a better place than I find it to be ?’ ’

One further thing about the growing boy, and especially the boy of the working class. What kind Of life does the world of to-day offei" him at that particular stage of his life which I have tired to describe? He is restless, he cannot maintain his ’ equilibrium in Ms new and changing conditions. He leaves school at' 14 and goes, very likely, into some great factory, where his life is determined by the factory bell in the morning and the release of the factory hooter at night. Put down to some repetition task of a very soulless character just at a time when he has a sense of life being a great adventure, of a world where all thing hoped for might be possible, the . vision gradually contracts and he finds life offers him very little in the way- of scope. Just when that sense of -individuality is such a painful passionate thing to him he loses the personal interest and affection of his schoolmaster and becomes a mere cog in the wheel, of the factory system. Just when his sense of beauty and his appetite for knowledge are awakening the hideous guillotine of the industrial system comes ■down and cuts,it all off from him. I don’t think I have exaggerated the picture of the growing boy in the great industrial towns. For those who care for boys, and whose work lies among boys, let me say, with what uplift of heart I see great accession to the ranks, of those who serve boys; coming from Toe H. I can think of men before the ' War, 15 or 20 years ago. working single-handed in the slums of the great towns, pouring out their lives in the service of boys single-handed, with no equipment and no money, giving everything for the young life. Indeed, the .scene has changed! It is an odd thing, too, how much one can achieve without help and without money. I have a vision of a place in South London where a great saint of God worked and died at his post. Round the corner was a boys’ club with a wonderful billiard table, beautiful showerbaths, everything but boys. Not very far away was another club in an old stable, where the boards were sb worn away that one had to be careful when one trod, with nothing, but a broken billiard table and balls' cracked right across, and this one nian who loved the ffioys and loved to serve them; to that club all the boys of the district came. It might be some .encouragement to'some of you who are taking up boys work for .the first time in your lives to know that it does not really matter that you should be the ■kind of persjon described in the adver-

tisement columns "of "The Church Times” as being “Good with boys.” We know people of that kind, and very tiresome they are. It does not matter if you can’t play football br ping-pong ; it does not matter a penny if you can’t do any of those things, provided you have got the right spirit, are interested in boys arid love them. I know, many men who have none of those special qualifications, who have done splendid work amongst boys. I know a man whose only qualifications were a collection of butterflies and an interest in physiology, but his rooms were always full of boys and he is today surrounded (and this is the great test) by a huge phalanx of men, his old boys grown up.