Would it were possible to state a simple golden rule for boy-training! Unfortunately such a complex subject cannot be reduced to fixed rules or mechanical formulas. The complexity of the problem is grounded in the complexity of life; its solution is found in methods as variant as the diverse needs of mind, soul, and body. The author has stressed parental responsibility and the need of parental training as a basic preliminary to solving the boy-problem. The far-flung necessity for parental instruction is made imperative by the racial habit, of Americans especially, of drifting out of touch with their children during adolescence. In the preadolescent period--when our children are childish--we preserve the closest intimacy and companionship by unbending our mature dignity, at least in the privacy of home, to a degree which puts us in perfect accord with their natures. Under such conditions we are the recipients of their confidences and intimacies which they give freely, naïvely and trustfully. In return for the gift of our love, our own lives are rejuvenated by association with the light, joy, and laughter of youth. But the arrival of puberty marks a change in our attitude toward our children of which we are not wholly conscious. At this age the boy is neither man nor child, but part of both, and we become impatient with the idiosyncrasies of his nature and conduct which constantly assert themselves at this period of life. Our annoyance at the manifestations of his psychic changes, which is caused by our failure to understand them, arouses in him the suspicion that he is neither loved nor appreciated and he drifts farther and farther out of the range of our influence until he reaches the hinterland from which little tidings of his inner self ever reach us. The realization of this fact comes to the boy much earlier and with more poignant force than to the parent. The consciousness of his isolation is evidenced by his secretiveness, his opinion that he is not understood and his belief in parental lack of sympathy. The former relationship of chum and comrade has been superseded by an attitude of unresponsiveness or even hostility. The secretiveness of the boy toward those who do not have his confidence is only equalled by his frankness toward the adult with whom he is on terms of intimate companionship. How many fathers take the time to tell a story to their sons after puberty? Or to explain the phenomena of the business, banking, industrial, or mechanical world? The busy parent usually esteems himself fortunate if he can escape the importunate inquiries of his offspring concerning the facts of the man’s world; and the boy, seeking the companionship of men for which he yearns during adolescence, is led to the society of the drunken hostler who is ever ready to regale him with a collection of stories replete with profanity and obscenity.