nclinations of
childhood. For example, it is not easy for a school-teacher to
organize a boys' society and to direct it in such activities as appeal
to him. The boys prefer to choose their own mates and their own chief,
and the activities that appeal to them are not the same as those that
seem to their elders to be most suitable. Between the ages of ten and
sixteen the boy tends to gang life. He may work on the farm all day,
but evenings and Sundays, if he is permitted to amuse himself, he
joins a gang. Obviously the characteristics of the gang are seen best
in the city, but they are not materially different in the country.
Hunting and fishing may be enjoyed at odd times of leisure by the boy
without companions, but the delights of the swimming-hole can be
enjoyed thoroughly only as he has the companionship of other boys, and
skating gains in virtue as a sport with the possibility of hockey on
the ice. This liking for companionship exhibits itself in the habitual
association of boys of a certain district for mutual enjoyment. On
every possible opportunity they get together in the woods, pretend
they are Indians, hunt, fish, and fight in company, build their own
camps and plunder the camps of other gangs, and practise other
activities characteristic of the savage age through which they are
passing. Gangs exhibit a love of cruelty to those whom they may
plague, a fondness for appropriating property which does not belong to
them, and if possible provoking chase for the sake of the thrill that
comes from the attempt to get away. Group athletics of various sorts
are popular. Six out of seven gangs have physical activities as the
purpose of their organization. The boys do not necessarily adopt any
particular organization or choose a leader; on the contrary, they are
a natural group, tacitly acknowledging the leadership of the most
masterly and versatile individual, finding their own headquarters and
adopting the forms of activity that appeal most to the group,
according to the season and the opportunities of the region of country
where they belong.

116. =Leadership of Boys.=--The gang is but one expression of the
group instinct. It is often a nursery of bad habits that sometimes
lead to crime and degeneracy, but it is capable of being used for the
good of boyhood. The gang develops the virtues of loyalty to the group
and loyalty to the group principles. It stimulates self-sacrifice and
co-operation, honor and courage. These