will it be. To
regain what has been lost is always difficult; more difficult is it to
displace an influence that is already established. How many, many times
there comes to the earnest teachers the anxious parent with the
oft-repeated statements and questions. "My boy has grown away from me. I
don't know him any more. What I say no longer has any influence with
him. I don't know what to do. How can you help me? He thinks more of
what you say than of what I say and would follow you even if I objected.
What can I do? What advice can you give?" In many instances it is too
late and never again can the father recover the influence he has lost.

On the other hand, it is possible in most cases for the father to
reinstate himself if he proceeds in the right way. That way is never
through command or restraint or discipline. _By only one process can he
succeed, and that is by placing himself in the position of the boy,
learning the boy's tastes and interests and in joining with the boy in
the things the latter likes._ If there has never been much community of
thought between the two, the parent may say in substance or show by his
acts that he has rather neglected the youth because he was too young to
be in sympathy with a man's work and because it was better for the
mother to have the care of her son during his boyhood; but that now he
is old enough to begin to think a man's thoughts and to take an interest
in a man's occupations. Sometimes if this is followed by a real hearty
confidence, if the father takes the boy with him on his business trips,
shows him how the money for the family is made and what are the joys and
compensations of a busy career, the boy's confidence is won, his
interest aroused and a frank comradeship established, new bonds are
created and the father finds a delightful companion, the boy an honored
friend and a worthy leader. Such fathers have said again and again, "I
have found a new and trustworthy friend, a helper whose enthusiasm and
good sense is worth more to me than anything I have had in years; and it
is _my_ boy who is doing it." Unfortunately, most men fail to realize
the power of a boy's mind, the helpfulness of his companionship. His
outlook on life is so fresh and true, his ambition so strong and his
willingness to be taught so refreshing that intimacy with him makes the
adult much stronger and better able to master the annoyances of the day,
and to win the commercial victories upon which subsist