The good that has been accomplished from the Sunday afternoon meetings, commonly called “The Popular Sunday School,” cannot be estimated. Thousands of people attend these meetings. They are pleased because the newsboys do the entertaining. There isn’t a great deal of preaching, but there is enough. “The object is not to give so much of that sort of thing,” says an editorial in one of the great dailies, “but what preaching they get is wholesome. The boys get a chance to laugh and clap their hands. They are permitted to be boys on Sunday just as on week days. There is good music, too. It is apt to be a patriotic air, or a popular song. A sweet little girl sang ‘The Good Old Summer Time,’ and the newsies joined in the chorus. It wasn’t classical, but it was good. Instead of shooting over people’s heads the musicians aim at their hearts. The preaching isn’t a tiresome string of ‘does’ and ‘don’ts,’ ‘musts’ and ‘mustn’ts’. It is mostly plain talks from plain people who know they are talking to boys whose veins are bulging with rich, red human blood. But the boys themselves furnish most of the program. Boys who sell papers, who shine shoes, on the streets, get up before big audiences, make speeches, sing songs, ‘recite pieces’ and do other interesting and instructive stunts. And hundreds of these little newsboys sit in the auditorium, conduct themselves like gentlemen and thoroughly enjoy the entertainment. An interesting fact about this association, is that its membership comprises the rich as well as the poor. If a rich man’s son carries a route he is in the same boat with the poorest lad that peddles papers on the street. There are boys who have rich fathers, boys who have poor fathers, boys who have industrious fathers, boys who have drunken fathers, and boys who have no fathers at all. There are Protestant boys, Catholic boys, Hebrew boys, white boys, black boys—and all are full-fledged, honored members of the same newsboy family, which is run on the principle of equal rights for all and special privileges for none. Rich boys are not debarred. There is a desire to save them from wealth’s temptations and make good citizens of them in spite of their handicap. The poor boys who sell papers to help keep the family from starvation are generous and are willing to let the rich in on the ground floor. So it is a pretty broad and big Sunday-school. And a good one. Every boy who belongs to it is better for his membership. He is taught to travel on his own merits and not lean on his papa. He is taught that he must paddle his own canoe; and that he will be judged by what HE does, not by his father’s success.” [Illustration: FESTIVAL HALL. WHERE THE NATIONAL NEWSBOYS’ ASSOCIATION WAS ORGANIZED, AUGUST 16, 1904. _See Page 53_ ] CHAPTER IX.