But some will say, “Why take the boy out of the home at all?  The good home, the public school, and the established agencies of religion are enough.  A club is not needed.”  It might be replied that all boys do not have good homes and that relatively few attend church or Sunday school; but if that were not the case the desirability of the boys’ club would still be apparent.  The fact is that the boy gets out of the home anyway and seeks his group.  There is a process of socialization and self-discovery for which the best home-circle cannot provide; and the club only recognizes and uses this “gang” instinct.  It capitalizes for good the normal social desires of the boy.  In so doing it does not necessarily conflict with a single good element in the home, but is rather the first formal token of citizenship and the guarantor of proper deportment in the midst of one’s peers.

In a well-directed club the consensus of opinion will usually be more effective in securing good conduct than the father’s neglected or fitful discipline or the mother’s endless forbearance.  The boy has profound respect for the judgment of his equals; and wherever the leader can make the group ideals right he can be practically assured of the conformity of all who come within the group influence.  “The way we do here,” “the thing we stand for,” constitutes a moral leverage that removes mountains.  The boy that has been too much sheltered needs it, the boy that has been neglected and is whimsical or non-social needs it, the only son often needs it, and the boy who is distinguished by misconduct in the Sunday-school class needs it.

The club is never justified, then, in offending against the home.  Keeping young boys out late at night, interfering with home duties or with the implicit confidence between a boy and his parents, or dragging him off into some sectarian camp away from his family is not to be tolerated.  This is never necessary, and the wise leader can always co-operate harmoniously with the home if he takes thought so to do.

But the leader who fails to recognize the sanctity and priority of the home, who permits his interest in boys to be blind to home conditions and influence, or who does not approach the home problems as a reverent and intelligent helper is very far from an ideal workman.  One great advantage of the small club in the church consists in this personalized and teachable interest which gets in close by the side of perplexed, ignorant, weak, or neglectful parents and seeks to raise the home as an institution so that all its members, including the boy, may be richly benefited.  To be a pastor rather than a mere herdsman of boys one must know their fold.  It is well enough to be proud of the boys’ club but it is good “boys’ work” to develop home industry and to encourage habits of thrift and of systematic work that shall bless and please the home circle.  The boy may far better work too hard for the communal welfare of the home than to grow up an idle pleasure-seeking parasite.