LEISURE IS NOT Idleness. 105 from the cook. Martin, in "Tom Brown's School-Days," is represented as entertaining snakes, and hedgehogs, and rats, a young family of field-mice, four young jackdaws, and an old magpie; and that this is not an exaggeration I can testify from my own experience. I might dwell on other ways of spending one's leisure agreeably—as, for instance, with pencil and sketchbook; but enough has been said to bring out the lesson I wish to enforce, namely, that our leisure must not be wasted, must not be spent altogether idly or unprofitably; that it is a portion. of precious time, to be utilised like the hours more directly and definitely appropriated to culture. What I want is to see our boys doing something-something manly, innocent, invigorating, refining,-something not wholly uninstructive,something which for both mind and body shall at least be wholesome! I have known so much evil originate in unemployed leisure, in hours given over to slothful indulgence! Says a minor poet : "Of all the various tasks mankind employ, A man may be known by the way he spends his leisure. In the hours of labour we are compelled to put a certain restraint upon ourselves; in the hours of leisure we throw the mask aside and the world sees us as we are. The sum of the whole is :-Take care of your leisure, for the work-hours will take care of themselves.-Q.E.D. About bad boys-What is meant by a bad boy-A ragged regiment-The sneak-A story of school life-The bully-How a bully was punished-Shy boys and what they suffer-The poet Shelley-ByronThe truant-The braggart-Captain Bobadil-The liar-The toady -The cad. HIS is a chapter I would have gladly omitted; but as I have undertaken to write about boys generally, I cannot conscientiously ignore the unfortunately considerable proportion of them who fall within the category of mali pueri. Truth compels me to acknowledge that there are wicked boys as there are wicked men; and, indeed, I suppose there would be fewer of the latter if there were fewer of the former. It is not my intention to discuss the philosophical or theological aspect of the question, or to inquire why boys are bad, and involve myself and my readers in the labyrinthine difficulties of "original sin." I take the sad fact as it is: there are bad boys-too many of them; boys bad ab origine, or made bad by adverse circumstances, such as injudicious home-training, or the want of training, excessive indulgence, the influence of evil companions, the weakness of an unstable disposition, and idleness, which old Chaucer so finely calls "the gate of all harms." There they are in every school, even in the best-disciplined and most carefully organised; in every little circle, though a strict supervision may be exercised, just as weeds spring up in 108 WHAT MAKES A BAD BOY. the finest cornfields. Dr. Johnson once exclaimed, with even more than his usual roughness :-"If you see three boys together, thrash them; for either they have been, are doing, or are about to do, some mischief;" a dictum almost as comprehensive as that of the Eastern khalif, who protested that there was no evil or misfortune but a woman was at the bottom of it, and when told of any fresh calamity, simply inquired, "Who was she?" Both khalif of the East and lexicographer of the West went far astray in their extravagant generalisations; yet, whatever may be the truth as regards women, we cannot deny that the conduct of too many boys almost justifies the unfavourable estimate taken of the whole "order" by surly cynics. Thank God, there are good boys-noble, manly, honest, truth-speaking boys; and, so far as my experience goes, they are decidedly in the majority. Whether I am luckier than most people, I don't know; but at the present time of writing, I wot of a score of boys, capital fellows, with not a really bad boy amongst them. Some of the said twenty are more thoughtless than they should be; several are much too idle; but none are hypocrites or liars or cowards; none are bad." Here let us pause a moment to decide on the elements that constitute "badness." I think there must be a deliberate intention to do wrong-what the law calls "a guilty knowledge "—an entire absence of conscientiousness, a wilful disregard of truth. Adults are often very ungenerous critics, and apply to boys a standard of judgment the application of which to themselves they would indignantly resent. An ebullition of high spirits, an outburst of carelessness, forgetfulness of the rules and regulations of the social code, they condemn with as much severity as if they were violations of the Decalogue. They expect from them a rigid propriety of behaviour and an austere decorum which would better become a seventeenth century Puritan than a strong, healthy, and lively boy of the nineteenth. Let us hear what an experienced teacher has to say upon this point:-"The moral nature of boys," he observes, "is only more ignorant, not less strong, than that of men. A boy has not so much knowledge of goodness as a man, but he has more faith in it. The true boy believes in as much of God as has been clearly revealed to his little mind, and earnestly and bravely acts up to his belief, showing it THOUGHTLESSNESS CONDEMned. forth by his works. 109 He loves God's law not perhaps so much in word or in tongue as his elders, but more surely in deed and in truth. . . . A boy of ordinary generosity, if he has any money, will spend a proportionately far greater part of it upon his companions than grown-up people spend upon their hospitalities and charities. The average boy, I am certain, fights harder and more bravely against his besetting sin of idleness than the average man fights against luxury and avarice. A boy may be quick of temper and sharp of tongue, because his nature is frank and honest, and he knows not how to play the hypocrite, but he bears malice far less than, and not half so long as, a man does. . . . And, above all, this: that a boy does not hate reproof nor despise correction, does not harden his heart if detected in wrong-doing, and listen to pride urging him to fresh sin, stifling the wiser and holier voice of conscience." ... The Most boys err, as Cymon whistled, for "want of thought;" but, though I am not prepared to denounce thoughtlessness as a sin, I cannot admit that it is altogether venial. grand rule of conduct laid down for us is, that we should do unto others as we would that others should do unto us; and thoughtlessness involves a disregard of the rights of our neighbours, which we by no means forgive if we ourselves are sufferers from it. It would be well for boys to consider a little before they act; to reflect in what way their proposed sayings and doings will affect their teachers, friends, or schoolfellows. They may depend upon it that they cannot break a school law or a home rule without inflicting annoyance, loss, and perhaps suffering, upon some person or other. Cannot we do as we like with our own?" No, not if by so doing you will injure or harass your neighbour. We must respect the feelings, the wishes, even the prejudices, of those with whom we live in daily intercourse. The poet warns us "Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels;" 66 and in all we do or say it should be our constant care to refrain from wounding others. And now, ye bad boys, marshal yourselves before me! I see ye, a grim and grisly troop, with furtive eyes and gloomy countenances—a "ragged regiment," such as Falstaff would |