Produced by amsibert, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) [Illustration: THE WHARVES ARE A FAVORITE MEETING PLACE FOR THE GANG] THE BOY AND HIS GANG BY J. ADAMS PUFFER _Director of Beacon Vocation Bureau, Boston_ ILLUSTRATED [Illustration] BOSTON NEW YORK CHIGAGO HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY J. ADAMS PUFFER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PREFACE Sixty-six boys who were members of gangs are responsible for this book. They told me the stories of their gang life and I wrote them out in the form illustrated in Chapter II. I showed these stories to President G. Stanley Hall, who asked me to present them in the _Pedagogical Seminary_, where an article appeared in June, 1905. These original stories of Boys’ Gangs and Boy Leaders later became the basis for a series of lectures on Boy Problems. In revising my material for book publication, many interesting criticisms by parents, teachers, and social workers, in various sections of the country have been consciously or unconsciously incorporated into it. I have found a wide interest in and demand for such a book as this--bearing upon the group psychology of boyhood--and a lamentable scarcity of readable literature on the subject. For aid in preparing this book I am indebted first of all to the boys for their confidence, which I have tried to keep; to President G. Stanley Hall for his kindly encouragement at the right time; to President Edmund C. Sanford and Professor William H. Burnham for pedagogical guidance; to my wife, E. Hope Puffer, who has shared in the task from the beginning; to Mr. E. T. Brewster for his invaluable assistance in editing the book, and to _McClure’s Magazine_ for permission to reprint the illustrations. J. ADAMS PUFFER. CONTENTS PREFACE iii INTRODUCTION xi I. THE ETERNAL BOY 1 The nature of the problem, and the persons to whom this work is addressed. II. THE GENERAL NATURE OF THE GANG 8 Importance of gangs--Their neglect in the literature of boyhood--The single conspicuous exception--The author’s own experience with boys’ gangs and its lessons--Boys’ own stories of six specimen gangs--Fundamental likeness of all gangs--Their instinctive basis. III. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE GANG 26