rce with them than all other
considerations.

We see all this very plainly in respect to the action of the limbs and
organs of the body; for it is palpably evident to our senses, and we
feel the necessity of providing safe and proper modes of expending these
energies. Since we find, for example, that boys must kick something, we
give them a football to kick; which, being a mere ball of wind, may be
kicked without doing any harm. And so with almost all the other
playthings and sports which are devised for boys, or which they devise
for themselves. They are the means, simply, of enabling them to employ
their growing powers and expand their energies, without doing any body
any harm. We know very well that it is not safe to leave these powers
and energies unemployed.

But we are very apt to forget that there are powers and faculties of the
mind, equally vigorous, and equally eager to be exercised, that ought
also to be provided for. The strength of the will, the power of
exercising judgment and discretion, the spirit of enterprise, the love
of command, and other such mental impulses, are growing and
strengthening every day, in every healthy boy, and they are all
clamorous for employment. The instinct that impels them is so strong
that they will find employment in some way or other for themselves,
unless an occupation is otherwise provided for them. A very large
proportion of the acts of mischievousness and wrong which boys commit
arise from this cause. Even boys who are bad enough to form a midnight
scheme for robbing an orchard, are influenced mainly in perpetrating the
deed, not by the pleasure of eating the apples which they expect to
obtain by it, but by the pleasure of forming a scheme, of contriving
ways and means of surmounting difficulties, of watching against
surprises, of braving dangers, of successfully attaining to a desired
end over and through a succession of obstacles interposing. This view of
the case does not show that such deeds are right; it only shows the true
nature of the wrong involved in them, and helps us in discovering and
applying the remedy.

At least this was Mr. George's view of the case in respect to Waldron,
when he heard how often he was getting into difficulty by his
adventurous and restless character. He thought that the remedy was, as
he expressed it, to _load_ him; that is, to give to the active and
enterprising spirit of his mind something to expend his energies upon.
It required gr