“The court decides that you shall discipline yourself by submitting implicity to the commands of others, and it is only through this severe discipline that you will become men. The probation I shall order is not going to be for your pleasure. You will submit to rough fare and to all the privation and discipline of prison without going to prison. You will be punished with hard work and regular living until you grow to like it.” The probation was to be considered broken if the boys: Used liquors or tobacco in any form. Entered a poolroom or saloon. Disobeyed the probation officer. Attended a movie, or went out nights without the probation officer’s consent. The officer was enjoined to see that the boys worked hard in school and made all their grades. They must stay at home evenings and conduct themselves quietly at all times. They were recommended to go to church twice every Sunday. The probation period was to continue until the court issued further orders. The serious consequences of their rash sport, the severity of the judge, and the narrow escape from the reformatory, sobered the boys. They kept their probation and graduated two years later, having won back at last the forfeited respect of their teachers and classmates. 6. Submitting to Conventionalities Probably a good many persons older than the two boys named below would be puzzled to explain many of the conventions which they, nevertheless, implicity obey. It is one of the curious manifestations of the regulative instinct that we yield such humble submission to what are oftentimes meaningless customs. On the other hand, this imitative sort of regulation of one’s habits may often lay a foundation for desirable conduct where a rational method applied in the beginning would have failed utterly. The danger is that when the questioning period arrives there may be only superficial answering of the oft-repeated question, “Why?” CASE 144 (FIFTH AND SIXTH GRADES) [Sidenote: Why Remove Hats?] Leonard and Karl Rosenbush were two sturdy little rationalists of ten and twelve years. They despised poetry, utterly rejected fairy stories, and took a strictly scientific view of life generally. They belonged to a family of culture and refined tradition, and their attitude amused their father greatly, while it reduced their mother to despair. She was often unable to give them the reasons they demanded for what she had always accepted without a question. Miss Forbes, their teacher, was one day giving her room a lesson in good manners. They were discussing modes of salutation when Karl raised a vigorous protest to taking off his hat to women. “Well, now, _why_ do we have to take off our hats to women any more than to men?” he asked. “I don’t see why they’re so terribly good they have to be treated like a church.” “Why, Karl, I never heard of such ideas. Doesn’t your father take off his hat to women?”