Business men and social leaders have been known to hesitate in subscribing to funds until the subscription list had been perused by them, when the list of names already secured has caused them to make generous additions to the fund.  The Sunday school offering is a poor index of Sunday school enthusiasm.  Giving money—­even more than one can afford to give—­is not always real self-sacrifice.  Sometimes it is self-saving.  At any rate, it is not the reliable guide of a boy’s interest.

Maybe we shall never get boys to understand the word Missions.  Perhaps it is hopelessly confused with heathen—­a poor, unfortunate, know-nothing, worth-little crowd of black or yellow people—­who can never amount to anything, unless money be given to put grit enough into them to get them to try to live right—­a pretty doubtful investment, after all.  Yes, this is the logic of the average boy, due to the information of the non-christian’s degradation, lack of initiative, low ideals, and poor morals, as set forth by the returned missionary.  Even the fact that one or two folks, by reason of the missionary’s work, have been raised to better things, affords no promise of rejoicing on the part of the boy.  The American teen age boy shuns “kids,” “dagoes,” “hunkies,” and everything that seems to him to be inferior.  He may occasionally give them a little pity, but he associates himself in thought and interest and conduct only with his peers.  His gang is as exclusive as the traditions of Sons of the Revolution.  The non-christians of other lands, like the non-christians of North America, somehow or other, have got to get as good as he is—­not in morals, but in genuine worth-whileness.  If they can “pull off a couple of stunts” that are beyond him, watch his real admiration and interest grow.  Maybe, after a while, we will drop the word Missions and substitute another word—­Extension.  Perhaps!  Then the fellow whom he teaches to “throw a curve” in the vacant lot, or the foreign-speaking boy, who can “shoot a basket,” to whom he gives a half-hour lesson in English, or the Hindoo lad, who easily swims the Ganges, and who is being sent to school by his gang, will all command his interest, because they are partners with him in the common things of his everyday life.  The boy grows by ever-widening circles of interest; first, the self, then the gang, then the school life, then his city, then the state, then the nation, and so on—­out to humanity.  And all of it must be on a par with his highest ideals.  That which falls below meets his contempt.  Interest, then, in non-christian folks in foreign lands, will become the boy’s interest only when it reaches his admiration and the level of the worth-while.  The pity and love that burns to help another is a mature passion, and is only in germ in boyhood.  It is capable, however, of great development.

The interest of the early adolescent is primarily physical.  Most of his life centers in his play and games.  Wise educators are using the play instinct as a medium for his education.  Manual training is increasing, the formal work of the class-room is taking on the nature of competition and music, even music with its old-time monotony and routine of running scales in the practice period under parental persuasion, has ceased to be a thing of dread, and has become a delightful thing of play—­a building of houses, a planting of seeds, etc.