THE HUMAN BOY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3687, 23 November 1912, Page 10

THE HUMAN BOY.

Sir lan Hamilton, before he left for the Far East, delivered and address as president of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, which showed that he thoroughly understands that perpetual, but fascinating, puzzle—the average human boy. Ask the small boy, said Sir lan, what he thinks of the competitive super boy, the boy with the best record, and the hoy sergeant, or corporal in the cadet corps. The small boy’s answer would be, Sir lan added, that the first is a “swat.” which is Army and boy’s slang for one who always works *nd ] never plays; that the second is a sneak, but that the third “is''one of the greatest■ men that ever lived.” In that statement Sir lan Hamilton got right to the core of the small boy’s heart, as Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Tom Browne and all the best boys in Mr Eden Rhillpotts’ delightful fantasy, “The Human Boy,” testify. In that last work there is a. passage which hits off the small boy to perfection:— “Lastly” (it is one of the other boys who is speaking), “Freckles had a flat lead mask with holes for the eyes and mouth, which lie always fitted on when trespassing. He said it was copied from the helmet Nod Kelly, the King of Bushrangers, used to wear, but it Was not bullet-proof, but only used for a disguise. We were in the same dormitory, and one night when all the Chaps had gone to sleep, he dressed up in these things and stood where some'moonlight came in, and certainly looked jolly.” Every healthy English boy has'to go through the period when lie wants to be a pirate, a bushranger, or something equally fantastic or imopssible. It Is a sort of moral measles for him, and when he .gets over it he emerges, if ho is the right sort of boy, healthier in tone and saner in his ideas than before. Sir lan Hamilton had other things to say about the small boy, with all of which there will not be general agreement.' He will, however, find most people in sympathy with his suggestion that the cadet corps should lie used to give cohesion to the nation, and that corps should also servo as a constant object lesson in the subservience of the bo.y to the group, and of the group to the company. The making of a good citizen, who will carry on the traditions of his family and his race, and stand shoulder to shoulder with his comrades, is the ideal Sir lan wishes to attain. It is a high ideal and worthy of acceptance in whatever way it is attained.