ponsibilities than that of ministering to
his own comfort, has endowed it with half a million dollars, and Mrs.
Auchmuty has added a hundred thousand with the land on First Avenue
between Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth Streets upon which the school
stands, so that it starts out with an endowment sufficient to insure its
future. The charges for tuition in the day and evening classes have never
been much more than nominal, but these may now, perhaps, be reduced even
further to allow the "excellent qualities" of the big boys, of whom the
reformer despairs, to be put to their proper use without robbing them of
the best of all, their self-respect. Then the gage will have been thrown
to the street in good earnest, and the Walking Delegate's day will be
nearly spent.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE BOYS' CLUBS

But it is by the boys' club that the street is hardest hit. In the fight
for the lad it is that which knocks out the "gang," and with its own
weapon--the weapon of organization. That this has seemed heretofore so
little understood, even by some who have wielded the weapon valiantly, is
to me the strongest argument for the University Settlement plan, which
sends those who would be of service to the poor out to live among them, to
study their ways and their needs. Very soon they discover why the gang has
such a grip on the boy. It is because it responds to a real need of his
nature. The distinguishing characteristic of the American city boy is his
genius for organization. Whether it be in the air, in the soil, or in an
aptitude for self-government that springs naturally from the street, where
every little heathen is a law unto himself--one of them surely, for the
children of foreigners, who never learn to speak the language in which
their sons vote, exhibit it, if anything, more plainly than the
native-born--he has it, undeniably. Unbridled, allowed to run riot, it
results in the gang. Thwarted, it defeats all attempts to manage the boy.
Accepted as a friend, an ally, it is the indispensable key to his nature
in all efforts to reclaim him _en bloc_. Individuals may require different
methods of treatment. To the boys as a class the club is the pass-key.

There are many boys' clubs in New York now, and room for more. Some have
had great success; a few have failed. I venture the guess that the real
failure in a good many instances--most of them perhaps--was the failure to
trust the boys to rule themselves. I say _rule_. Rule