RAISING A BOY.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1940, 24 December 1913, Page 9

RAISING A BOY.

• A professor of tho Chicago University has been indulging in figures relating to the cost of raising a hov. He says thai no matter how poor a hoy's parents may be, it costs four thousand dollars to bring him from babyhood to : the ago of eighteen, i'his is tho minimum for any boy. And you can spend as much more than this as you please. Tile professor, perhaps unconsciously, conveys the impression that 'even if you spend as little as four thousand dollars you may not got your money's worth. , But ni our humble opmaon, it it should happen to cost one million dollars to raiso a boy it is well worth it. Not that wo would encourage tho expenditure of a million dollars on any boy. But is there any other investment which pays such big returns? It is true, of course, that you' are always taking a gambling chance with , any boy. Be may go wrong in spite of'everything you can do, and yet, looking at the matter in its very worst aspects, there is so much that you. gain in Inrgcj human experience, in varieties of emotions, in expansion and contraction of the. soul, the mind and tho heart in raisins a boy, that it pays under any conditions.

When you put thought and affection' and interest and encouragement, and as much chastisement as may he sary, and hopo. and faith and charity into a bov, it, is better than planting a pardon.' better than speculating irt \Yall Street; better than falling in love with a woman, bettor than nnythiiyg else in tho world that wc ltuow anytliivig about.

A boy is a much moro human dufcnmrnit than any other kind of a hu-jian being. There is morn genuine response in a small boy than there is in ,a(Wagner orchestra or a medium-sized .ripan. Them is everything in a small boyf that there ought to be. and. a., great < deal more. Besides, n small boy can •' cause more trouble to the square incSji than anything,else on earth. And that is the reason, professor, why it pays to raiso one. no matter how miic.li ho costs. —T.L.M. in New York "Life."