for the most part, were well within the legal limits, eminently just and proper ❦ I do not find that woman’s mental ability to grasp a point in law is inferior to that of man’s.” [Illustration] [Illustration] Just Boys Be patient with the boys. You are dealing with soul-stuff. Destiny awaits just around the corner. Boys evolve into men, and men sometimes change the boundary-lines of States. They make political parties; they crown kings, and they put them to flight. They bring contention or they make peace. They may build or they may destroy. But boys misused, abused, betrayed, never forget and seldom forgive. It is a terrible thing to plant the germs of suspicion and hate in the mind of a child ❦ Tyranny visited on a boy may implant in his heart dragons’ teeth that spring up and grow into armed men. The breath of hate consumes, and its voice affrights. Gluttony and greed sometimes leave the boy out of the equation ❦ Gluttony and greed fatten and forsake. They invite and they alienate. They welcome and they repel. Grasping greed sometimes forgets. It is the thing that brings mental and moral diseases and disorders of the state that can not be cured. ¶ Boys can not be deceived. Naturally, they are truthful. They are elemental. They do not know how they judge or why. The words of your lips count for little. They know the things that are hidden in your heart. To arrest boys and fasten upon them the strong hand of the law is a tragic thing. A slight, a boy will forgive; but injustice, never. Boys can be led: they can’t be driven. They respond to love, but tyranny may set their hearts aflame. My heart goes out to the boys. ¶ In Kansas City I know one newsboy who supports a widowed mother and several brothers and sisters younger than he. I know two newsboys, brothers, whose scanty savings are sending an elder sister to the State Normal School, that she may be fitted to become a teacher. ¶ Thomas A. Edison was a newsboy. He sold papers on the streets of Detroit, and on the Grand Trunk trains. While selling papers on the rail-road platform at Mount Clemens, he saw a little youngster toddle out on the track, in front of an approaching train. At the risk of his own life, Tom Edison, the newsboy, grabbed the youngster, sprang upon the footboard of the engine and saved the life of the baby. For this deed the station-agent rewarded Edison by teaching him the telegraph-key. We know the rest. ¶ Paginini was a street musician when a boy, playing his violin and holding up his hat for pennies ❦ Martin Luther was an outcast and a street singer when a youngster ❦ Occasionally the proud and the strong would push him out of the way into the gutter. Such treatment made scars on his soul that time did not efface. It is a terrible thing to kill animation and joy and enthusiasm in the heart of a child. Boys should be encouraged, and not ground down to a starvation-point in all of their worthy and useful little industries.