Men often lose great opportunities to assist their fellow-men through neglect, through carelessness and indifference. It is so easy to say, “you have my sympathy, you are doing a noble work,” when many times the speaker may be better adapted for the same kind of work and be far more successful. And so an opportunity is allowed to slip by all for the lack of taking advantage of it. The influence a man or a woman teacher has over a boy is wonderful. In the eyes of a boy, a teacher stands for a model of perfection and is supposed to be in reality, in daily life and actions, what he seems to be when he shows his best side to the pupils. From the school, from the teacher, from a trusted friend, the boy carries the influence back to the family, into his daily life upon the streets, and many of the teachings follow him through life. The boy at school is taught to be kind, to be generous, and to remember his little friends whenever opportunity favors. Heartfelt sympathy in a newsboy, comes like a flash of lightning, and he is ever ready to fall in line when the boys want to remember a friend. The president was taken by surprise one day when the street sellers, the poorest of our newsboys, through one of their hustlers, presented him with a gold badge. The money to purchase it was raised by subscriptions from the boys, in amounts ranging from two cents to twenty-five. A few days after the presentation the president was walking on one of the main streets when he was accosted by a little seller, from the opposite side of the street. “Say, president, come over here.” A boy never called the president to go where he wanted him to go but he complied at once, and cheerfully. The little ragged fellow stepped in front of him and said: “Pres., have youse got de gold badge we gives you?” “Yes, here it is,” and the badge was taken from the coat and handed to the boy. Looking at it closely, and calling several companions to him, he said: “Pres., youse see that diamond in the center?” pointing a dirty finger to it. “Yes, sir, we all see it, and it’s a beauty.” “Well, you see,” he said straightening up above his natural height, “I subscribed four cents to this here badge, and all the boys put up the dough. When I went home and thought it over, I says to myself, we ought to have a bigger badge than this fur our president. So when I comes down town I see de boys and we concluded to have a diamond put in the center. It met wid de kids ’proval, and it was done. You see de diamond?” “Yes,” replied a dozen voices. “Well, I blowed eleven cents in it,” he proudly replied. Adding, “Ain’t it a bird?” Happy youth. CHAPTER XXXIV. How many prayers have been offered for the salvation of the slums; how many sighs and expressions of regret and sympathy have been given, by well-meaning people, for the “poor and unhealthy boys of the slums.”