and gets under the new influence, it
is no longer possible for her to do so. Of all the various kinds of boys
to be found at any school, which ones Bobby is destined to have as
closest companions, to exchange confidences with constantly, and have
set him the example, is largely a matter of luck, or accident. It may
come about through adjoining seats in class, or though proficiency in
the same games, or a common interest in collecting bird's eggs, or
postage stamps, or through being room-mates, or sleeping in the same
corridor at boarding-school, or one of a dozen other haphazard reasons.

Let us imagine that by chance, in this way, Bobby's closest companions
turn out, in due time, to be four in number. And for the sake of
emphasizing our meaning and the principle involved, let us imagine that
the accident, in this particular case, is more extreme than usual.

The first boy, Ed, has been brought up chiefly by a stern and rigidly
moral father of the old school, who has reprimanded, disciplined,
chastised, most consistently and thoroughly. The second boy, Sam, has a
society mother, somewhat of a belle, and so feverishly absorbed in her
vanities and distractions, that his up-bringing, from the cradle, has
devolved entirely upon a series of Irish, Swedish and German nurses. The
third boy, Bill, has a very intellectual mother, an ardent devotee of
woman's rights, and an active worker in various up-lift and educational
movements. She laid out a plan of mental development for him, in early
childhood, in accordance with the latest scientific books, but not
having the time to attend to it herself, and having had constant rows
with her nurses, she has ended up by heaping the blame on the natural
stupidity and stubbornness of the boy, which could only have been
inherited from his father. The fourth boy, Hal, is the most up-to-date
of all. His mother and father were both divorced and both remarried and
both have new families, for which his only feeling is mild resentment
and disdain.

These boys are hardly to blame if, as a result of such home training,
the growth of their characters has already become tangled and somewhat
over-run by the weeds of selfishness and calculation. If they were only
mischievous, high-spirited and lacking in respect, the harm might not be
great; but there is also a deficiency of the generous feelings of
sympathy and affection, of moral standards, and of any abiding faith in
what should be. Their bodies