What I especially urge, then, is that the good home shall recognize the good gang as among the most efficient of its allies. As the careful parent keeps an eye on school and church and social set, so ought he to keep his eye on the gang. He should make it his business to know, not only that his boy gets into the right gang, but that he enters it at the right age, neither too early nor too late, and that he graduates at the right time, after the gang has done its perfect work and more would be too much. He should see to it also--as I shall point out at some length in another volume--that the boy, being in the right gang, has also the right place in it, so that he gets his due training in the great art of making his will count in actions of other men. Most especially, as I have all along been pointing out, he should see that the gang as an organization gets its chance and lives its life, with its fitting environment and its proper tools. _The Gang and the Boys’ Club_ Unfortunately, however, taking the mass of boys as they come, about one boy in every two, either because of lack of room in his home, or because of sickness or death or poverty, cannot look to his parents for any aid in his group life. For him there remains the boys’ club. The best of these are those which recognize themselves as mere adjuncts to the gang, which furnish a chance for wholesome exercise and play under the direction of a man who knows when to be blind and deaf, and for the rest lets the boys a good deal alone. [Illustration: AN INADEQUATE PLAYGROUND The outdoor gymnasium is not enough] [Illustration: A MODEL PLAYGROUND Boys at the gang age need room for the group games] During the warmer months of the year, the city boy, for whom naturally the boys’ club is designed, will spend his time out of doors. Playing field and swimming place, trips into the country on foot, with longer journeys by rail and trolley, keep the gang actively engaged in ways which are for the most part wholesome. Even the least desirable of them serve to work off the boy’s abounding energy, and keep him from worse things. The peril of the city gang comes with the cooler weather of fall, when the early darkness hides its doings, and any meeting place becomes attractive if it is warm. This is the time for the boys’ club to capture the gang. The game is to keep the boys off the streets, and out of worse places, between the hours of four in the afternoon and ten in the evening. If at this critical time a boy can explode his energy in wholesome ways and amid good surroundings, the rest of the day will largely take care of itself. The gang demands a place to meet and to do things. This place will either be the home, the boys’ club--or elsewhere. _The Gang and the Playground_