III
ONE WAY TO HELP BOYS
I am very much pleased to find the Boys'
Brigade receiving University recognition. I am not aware that it has had this
honor before in its history.
The idea of the Brigade is this. It is a new
movement for turning out boys, instead of savages. The average boy, as you
know, is a pure animal. He is not evolved; and, unless he is taken in hand by
somebody who cares for him and who understands him, he will be very apt to make
a mess of his life--not to speak of the lives of other people. We endeavor to
get hold of this animal. You do not have the article here, and do not quite
understand the boy I mean. The large cities of the old world are infested by
hundreds and thousands of these ragamuffins, as we call them--young roughs who
have nobody to look after them. The Sunday-school cannot handle these boys. The
old method was for somebody to form them into a class and try to get even
attention from them. Half the time was spent in securing order.
The new method is simply this: You get a dozen
boys together, and, instead of forming them into a class, you get them into
some little hall and put upon every boy's head a little military cap that costs
in our country something like twenty cents, and you put around his waist a belt
that costs about the same sum, and you call him a soldier. You tell him, "Now,
Private Hopkins, stand up. Hold up your head. Put your feet together." And you
can order that boy about till he is black in the face, just because he has a
cap on his head and a belt around his waist. The week before you could do
nothing with him. If he likes it, you are coming next Thursday night. He is not
doing any favor by coming. You are doing him a favor; and if he does not turn
up at eight o'clock, to the second, the door will be locked. If his hair is not
brushed and his face washed, he cannot enter. Military discipline is
established from the first moment. You give the boys three-fourths of an hour's
drill again, and in a short time you have introduced quite a number of virtues
into that boy's character. You have taught him instant obedience. If he is not
obedient, you put him into the guard house, or tell him he will be drummed out
of the regiment; and he will never again disobey. If he is punctual and does
his drill thoroughly, tell him that at the end of the year he will get a
stripe. He will get a cent's worth of braid. You have his obedience,
punctuality, intelligence and attention for a year for one cent. Then you have
taught him courtesy. He salutes you and feels a head taller. Everything is done
as if you were a real captain and he a real private. He calls you "Captain."
Each boy has a rifle that costs a dollar; but there is no firing. There is a
bayonet drill without a bayonet. The first year they have military drill, and
the second year bayonet exercises--an absolute copy of the army drill. The
Brigade inculcates a martial, but not a warlike, spirit. The only inducement to
bring the boys together at first is the drill. You might think it is a very
poor one; but it is about the strongest inducement you could offer.
That is the outward machinery; but it is a mere
take-in. The boy doesn't know it. The real object of the Brigade is to win that
boy for Christianity--to put it quite plainly. It does not make the slightest
secret of its aims.
On all its literature is: "The object of the
Brigade shall be the advancement of Christ's Kingdom among boys, and the
promotion of habits of reverence, discipline, self-respect, and all that tends
toward a true Christian manhood."
After you have your boy and are sure of him,
every drill is opened with a couple of minutes of prayer. The boys stand in
line at "attention," with caps off, while a sort of blessing is asked. Then
drill for three-fourths of an hour. After that the Captain gives them a little
talk about anything--business prosperity, courtesy, courage, temptation, or
anything. After that, all repeat the Lord's Prayer and dismiss. Then on Sunday
almost all the companies have Bible class, with the same punctuality, interest
and attention as during the week day. The boy treats his Captain as before.
They sit like statues during the Bible lesson; and, if they are not there to
the minute, they are shut out. Having influence over them, the Captain
maintains it, and how much more apt the boys will be to pick up what he says.
The thorough-going Captain will of course do a great deal more than in the
Bible class; and very few stop at that. Some men get up football clubs and get
fields, give up their own Saturday afternoons --which are a great holiday with
us--to act as umpire for the boys' matches. Our captains are just one remove
from the boys whom they teach, so that the boys are not at all afraid of them.
The presence of the captain on the athletic field means, in the first place,
that there will be no foul language and no foul play. And he, of course, thus
increases his influence over them tenfold. Then in many cases they start a
boys' club where they have a room open every night, where they have debates,
newspapers and books. Then the captain gets to know the boys personally. He has
them up to tea now and then, and gets to know their people.
In addition to that general work, there are one
or two additions which are thrown in by special companies according to their
own inclination. A great many have started military bands. Ambulance classes
are becoming exceedingly popular. After drilling two or three winters the work
gets flat; so they invent new things. Boys cannot join this Brigade until they
are twelve years of age, and cannot clear out until they are seventeen. The
boys hate to clear out; and the fact that they will have to leave induces them
to make better use of their time. Of course they are not turned adrift. The
captain sees that they get into good hands. Then every year, in a city of the
size of Boston, for instance, all the boys belonging to the Brigade would be
gathered together for a church service. If too many for one church, two would
be secured, and the boys would assemble and march to the service and get a
boys' sermon. At Christmas, every boy in the Brigade gets from his officer a
little two-cent book. And there are a number of other little things that link
the captain and the boys together and the different companies together.
This organization was started within a mile of
where I live in Glasgow in 1883, by a Mr. Smith, who was a soldier, and who was
not making much of a Sunday-school class he taught, and who conceived the idea
of giving them military discipline. In our country we have grown to such an
extent that already there are, I think, 22,000 boys belonging to the Brigade,
and I think between 1,100 and 1,200 officers--captains and lieutenants. This
Brigade has been worth starting for the sake of the officers alone.
Perhaps one thousand of these officers would have
belonged to the unemployed rich and educated, if they had not struck this
particular line of work. There are multitudes of young men who do not go to
prayer meeting or see their way to teach in Sunday-school. Many are extremely
fastidious as to what particular work they will do, and many are not cut out
for these recognized fields. But here is a work that does not make any
particular strain on any part of his nature. He simply gives himself and his
muscular Christianity. So we think this has been worth pushing for the sake of
the officers alone. We know a great many men have been made for life simply by
a year or two of contact with these boys. If they develop the boys, the boys
develop them.
Now, you have this movement started in America. I
find the most crass ignorance on this subject here; but in some respects you
are ahead of us. One of the first things you do with the boys is to start a
newspaper. The conflagration has broken out in a somewhat remarkable way in
California, and they must have a great many companies. As usual, when you take
up anything in this country from anywhere else, you improve upon it or carry it
to development in other directions.
Now, you do some things here we do not do, and of
which I am not perfectly sure we would wholly approve. They strike us as being
slightly against some of the fundamental principles for which we work. For
instance, I notice that the boys here have a uniform, and that the officers
have a uniform. We can make a boy for about fifty cents, not including the
brass in his face; but here in America the uniform costs as follows
(See Boys' Brigade Manual, U. S. of A.)
Fatigue blouses (I suppose they have paid duty on
these blouses) $3.35
Pants 3.35
Fatigue caps, first quality 0.75
Belts 0.75
Plain bugles 0.25
Signal service 1.20
U. S. Army bunting flags 9.50
Silk cord for same 3.50
Bugler's stripes for pants 1.50
Extra fine officers' fatigue blouses
6.75
Pants with stripes 6.50
U. S. Army officers' overcoats with hoods $27
to 32.00
Well, you see that means business at any rate.
But what we dislike about it is that it emphasizes the military side too much.
We have refused to admit any company into the Brigade that wears a uniform.
There are one or two in the country, but we don't have them. We don't want the
boys to feel soldiers beyond the point that we need them to feel soldiers. We
don't want them to thirst for blood and come over here and fight you or anybody
else. We simply want to get them disciplined. I suppose there must be in this
country quite a number of companies equipped at very considerable expense.
These boys cannot afford to buy these uniforms for themselves, and they are
very frequently bought by subscription.
This organization in America is almost always
organized within the church. In the old country every organization must be
associated, not necessarily with the church, but with some stable body that
will be back of it and be a sponsor for it. It is usually the church--sometimes
the Y. M. C. A. In this country the initiatory is frequently taken by the
minister. I find the ministers here preserve the dew of their youth and the
freshness of their manhood, and they are not at all the starchy kind of people
one meets in some other countries. It is not because they are not fit for this,
but the ministers must not have all the plums. They have enough to do. Here and
there we have some keen ministers at this work, but, as a rule, we try to keep
it among the laity.
In this country you make the boys promise that as
long as they are members of the Boys' Brigade they will not use liquor and
tobacco, will obey the rules and set an example of good conduct. The question
is whether pledges are right fair to a boy at all. I very much question whether
it is wise to put a strong pledge like that upon anybody. We exact no pledge
whatever. It seems to me to be the difference between compulsory chapel
attendance and optional, as it is here, to make a boy not smoke by compulsion.
If he can be made moral by the influences that are brought to bear upon him, it
is more apt to last.
Now I suppose I was asked to present this subject
to you in behalf of enlisting one or two of you in the service. I do not know
myself of any bit of work to which I would rather give what spare time I have
than this. The boy is open to receive impressions in a way that is marked. It
is possible to get hold of him. There are thousands of these boys who have been
turned outside in. I have watched them. I remember the annual inspection of one
of the first companies. When the prizes were given, it was my duty to pin the
medals on the two leading boys' breasts. When the first boy came up, there was
scarcely a place on his coat strong enough to bear the pin. His coat was one
mass of patches that could scarcely hold together. He was clean. The next year
I noticed he had on a much better coat, and I am sure he is now on his way to
turn out to be a good man. I do not know anything that would pay any of you
better than this. It lies near a young man's nature to take up such work. I do
not think there is anything easier than to win a boy. You get him wound about
you, and he lives through your spectacles and tries to please you. Adapt it any
way you please; but I should like very much if after to-night some of you would
write for some of this literature and take the trouble to spread it.
We gave the boys books each Christmas. Two years
ago I wrote a book and offered fifty-three prizes. The boys competing were to
write a letter addressed to "My Dear Baxter," and answer the question, "What
are a Boy's Temptations, and How is He to Meet Them?" Well, I got about 450
dissections of the boys in answer to that offer. One of the thirty prizes went
to California. I never saw such a revelation of the interior of a boy as I saw
after reading those letters. Every boy, almost, out of the lot, pleaded guilty
to four sins. Every boy, apparently, is a liar and a thief. These were the
first two things that they all confessed. The third confession was that they
all swore; and the fourth great temptation or sin to a boy was smoking--which
is not a sin at all. It showed me that the boys were very badly taught, and
that they have no definite conception of sin.
Every one of these Brigades, almost without an
exception, is connected with the church. The Bible class is held in the church;
and the drill is usually there, too. It is thoroughly under the wing of the
church. The movement is so religious that there is never any religious
opposition to it, and it is entirely undenominational.