old-fashioned precepts or theories, handed
down by parents, grandmothers or school-teachers, to be taken with a
grain of salt. It is something living and vital, which concerns you
directly. You look up to the older boys: you want to be like them; and
approved of by them. What they think and do may be at variance with the
ideas of nurse, mother and school-master, but if it is good enough for
them, it is good enough for you. It is a practical standard which you
can't help being judged by. If you fail to live up to it, or refuse to
accept it and try to act differently, there is a sure penalty. You will
be sneered at, disliked, looked down upon, or laughed at.

If you are a girl, the same principle applies. There is nothing new
about the principle. It is as old as the hills and universal.

Is the effect of it to-day on the forming character any different from
what it has been, in the past? Undoubtedly. A moment's reflection will
show why and how this must be so.

Whatever the nature and influence of the family bringing-up may have
been, in any particular case, the general tendency toward lack of
discipline and disregard for authority can hardly fail to be reflected
in the prevailing standards of the boys and girls to be found at any
school. They have no connection with school regulations or school
penalties. It is the fundamental question of instincts, desires, and
notions--the attitude toward themselves and toward life outside the
school-room which they are going to take with them where-ever they go.

The tendency begun at home finds reinforcement and further development
in the boy or girl by example and contact with others, who are headed
the same way.

Next comes the third group: The influence of public opinion--of
tradition and customs.

There is no mistaking the fact that in the present generation there have
been many striking changes in the prevailing customs, as they apply to
the behavior and conduct of individuals. The growing boys and girls see
these changes taking place on every hand.

When mother and father were young, Sunday was a day set aside for
church-going and dull and decorous behavior. Games and fun of all kinds
were laid away, everybody put on their best clothes and sat around and
talked, or took quiet walks with an overhanging air of seemly propriety.
To-day there are tennis and golf and baseball games and dinner-parties
and gambling at the bridge-table, in which mother and father
participate al