Confidential Chats with Boys

CONFIDENTIAL CHATS
WITH BOYS

BY

WILLIAM LEE HOWARD, M.D.

Author of
“Plain Facts on Sex Hygiene,” “Confidential Chats with Girls,”
“Facts for the Married”

New York
Edward J. Clode
Publisher

Copyright, 1911, by

EDWARD J. CLODE

CONTENTS

[vii]

These chats are the pleasurable results of the many little confidential ones I have given at boys’ and young men’s clubs and at preparatory schools.

It has been my fortune—for so I consider it—to have been brought into intimate relations with men who are failures. Not the down and out men, but those who are struggling along dissatisfied with what they are doing—what false and wrong training has forced them to do.

Many of these despondent and useless men have been guided into places where they fit—where there is conservation of energy, happiness and results. These are the factors for a mentally and physically balanced man—provided he has had early instruction in some vital matters.

The impulse to have the future fathers in a position to guide and live in close confidential relations with their sons, is the reason for this book.

Professional experience has proven to my [viii] complete satisfaction that the many failures, misfits, despondents and diseased in our present generation were not fundamentally ill fitted to battle with life, but that they had never been started right, physically, mentally, vocationally.

Physical instructors built muscle, teachers forced much useful and also useless stuff into unwilling brain cells, fathers furnished the money—as a rule I find that this latter was about all the parents did furnish; and thought this all-sufficient.

The results have been deplorable. Wasted energies, disgust for study in lines that never appealed, misdirected powers, and exhausted vigor is what I have daily seen for twenty-five years.

And most of these conditions are avoidable.

How frequently have I heard the remark, after explaining to a young man who came to me a complete failure: “Why didn’t my father see all this?” or “I wanted to do that, Doctor, but they said that I didn’t know my own mind; so they made me study things that I hated.” Then the vital facts which every boy should early have confidentially and chummily told him:—“Oh, Doctor, if I had only known these things ten years ago! What a different man I would be to-day!”

Yes, and your sons can benefit from your [ix] experience, for it has forced me to “chat” with them in these pages.

My plan as outlined is to give the boy and youth the information which will enable him to conserve his energies, increase his vigor and learn just what his mental endowment and powers are. Then to concentrate upon these constantly, allowing deviations only so far as they broaden the horizon surrounding his vocation.

There also is much to say upon physical conservation—the storing of physical vigor which in emergencies can be called upon without injury to the working capital. This vital matter has seldom been touched in the training of our youths; and as men we find them working up to the last degree of power and when the call comes for extra power there is none—the man then goes to the human dump pile. There is no excuse for this sad state of affairs—the cause is ignorance of man’s vital resources and how to conserve them.

Boys, I have been a repairer of human machines all my life; machines sent out on the road not properly adjusted, they have been returned to my shop, and with most of them I could only point out certain parts which were weak and let them go again, taking care not to put too great a strain on these parts.

Now I want you all to start out with every [x] part—brain, body and soul—equally adjusted, all of the same strong material, well fitted to work in peace, happiness and health—these factors working in harmony means success—no matter what line you take up for life’s work.

William Lee Howard.

[3]

Any young man who understands the simple facts concerning his body and the laws of human energy, should be able to be as strong in body and nerves at fifty as he is at twenty-five years of age.

If he is strong in body and nerves at fifty he has the increased brain power of experience and work, and only think of the force he has then to utilize for the next twenty years.

This is a practical idea and not a theory or a statement of exceptional cases.

But if this is so, why have not our parents been able to be boys with us instead of old men at fifty? Because they did not understand; never had the plain points shown them; physicians have not always considered this side of boyhood development, and because physiology as taught in the public schools was not that physiology needed by youths and boys.

[4]

We shall not here bother with the old style and schoolbook physiology. I am going to present to you the simple, common-sense facts about the body and how it must be handled to get the best out of it.

If you have an automobile, the first thing you do is to understand it; its different working parts, how they are dependent upon each other, how much fuel is needed and how applied, what will make the engine run smoothly, what will injure it and what kind of usage is necessary to keep it always in good running order, what will cause it to break down and become an old rattling thing and send it to the scrap heap.

The finest built machine is of no value if any of the parts which have gone into it are faulty; it will break down when a strain comes. It is just so with man; for when you really come to understand the machinery within you, you will realize that you are the most delicate and at the same time toughest piece of mechanism ever produced. Muscular power, brain force, will, mental ability, all depend upon the PHYSICAL condition of man—the parts and condition of the machine in him.

The higher power in us that makes the human body a mere medium for development we shall not here say much about, but so related is it to the body itself, that a poorly adjusted or [5] diseased body will affect this higher power, the soul, the conscience, the morals of the man. That is, a diseased or weak body—not merely muscular weakness, but a general weakness due to neglect of nature’s laws—will show a weak will, a lack of determination and a further falling away from a high moral standard—in other words make a failure of a man.

But why should this be so? Is man to be blamed for being physically weak, to be punished because he has not that full strength of body that others have? Yes; I think so. But suppose he inherits a weak body, inherits disease? Is he to be blamed for something over which he has no control? Not exactly that, for there is only one disease you can inherit , and that is a punishment for your parents’ or grandparents’ sins—or in most cases, ignorance.

When you thoroughly understand your own body, the little tendencies to weakness or predisposition to certain diseases can all be overcome. The distressing effects of venereal diseases seen in children whose parents have been ignorant of the facts you will be given in this book, have been a blessing to mankind, insomuch as you can all avoid them after the knowledge concerning them and your body is yours.

You see, what I mean is that you will possess [6] knowledge your parents did not possess. In such a grand position the future men and women—your children—will be started right. And so will you if you heed and absorb what I shall tell you.

Big muscles do not necessarily mean strength, but to be strong one must have well developed muscles.

Seems an odd statement; doesn’t it?

A man may inherit big bones to which are attached big muscles. The fibres of these muscles may be coarse, inelastic and under control of a slow motor—a sluggish nervous system. Just as you may have a big motor car, big frames and running gear, but under-powered.

Now remember that all real muscular power originates in the nervous system and brain. If the nervous system and brain are not in perfect condition, the full power of the muscles can never be utilized any more than you can get the full power out of your big car if the cylinders are too small or so weak in construction that you do not dare to run them at full speed.

This is one reason why men born with big frames and large muscles are not always the strong men. Frequently these men break down in the prime of life. Also during their active lives they really never get all their power in use. I consider such men unfortunate [7] in that they do not possess the knowledge of their condition, so they neglect in early life the necessary rules and habits which, if heeded would bring them to old age in full possession of their natural strength.

The weakling who realizes his failings and knows how to correct and care for them, is more often the strong and healthy man in middle and later life. This fact teaches us one of the great laws of nature; that is that we cannot for a day neglect our body; the born strong man does, he never watches or cleans his big machine—it goes to rust and wears out in parts.

These strong men as youths, from the mere fact of having big, hawser-like muscles controlled by a slow-moving force, do not have the incentive to build up active muscles nor the energy to train the nervous mechanism controlling muscular activity. The result is that such a man’s muscles remain coarse fibered, fatty, bulky, and respond slowly to the motor centers of the brain. Moreover, they feel in such perfect health that they are careless about their habits and throw away a lot of energy that the man who is building up strength takes care of—saves for future use and material.

A youth who desires to build muscular strength goes about it carefully and slowly. Remember that all staying powers, brain or [8] muscle, must be built up slowly. The tough and hardy oak does not grow like the weak poplar—quickly. Its growth is steady, regular and slow, but in the end it is powerful, long lived and richly reproductive. Make haste slowly is one of the fundamental laws of nature.

Brain and nervous system always come first in starting to build muscular power that is to last and be always at your command. The basis of power depends upon the rapidity with which the muscles respond to mental impulses. Properly developed muscles are finely-fibered, and react instantly to the impulse of the motor cells of the brain—the cells which tell the muscles to shoot out at once. Now let anything such as alcohol, tobacco, loss of sleep or immoral habits, fasten on the youth and all attempts to get the full strength out of muscles, no matter how big they are, will be useless. The reason is that the brain cells have been affected—they cannot act as they should and so the muscles cannot respond to the impulse. This is the cause of so many first-class boxers taking the final count. Success has made them careless; they neglect the rules of the physiologic game, they drink a little, smoke and indulge in other habits which affect their nervous system. They go on the stage breathing the foul and poisonous atmosphere while exhibiting, [9] are necessarily late to bed and while still keeping up their MUSCULAR training neglect the fact that every day they are injuring their nervous motility. It is so little noticed that no attention is paid to the matter. But when it comes to a battle after such a career—even if careful training has been done weeks before the contest—the effect is shown, and down the champion goes before a less experienced boxer, one not so strong in the muscles but one whose full brain and nervous force has remained uncontaminated. Then, sad to relate, THIS champion goes the same way.

So you see that mere gross muscular structure is valueless—except it is needed for daily labor, where it exists as mere animal automatism—unless it is under the immediate control of a highly-organized nervous system free from disease and abuse.

So delicate is this nervous element of the body in getting the muscles to respond, that I have tested hundreds of athletes—including myself—by a very sensitive instrument which shows the response of the muscles to the condition of the brain cells. A youth who has lived a perfect life—physiologically speaking—is kept from one half of his night’s sleep. The next day he is tested and there is a difference shown in the rapidity of muscular response. The difference in a tenth of a second in [10] a blow makes all the difference between a champion and a loser, and this tenth of a second can be brought about by the loss of one night’s rest. How must it be then when the youth has lost several, or been breathing foul air with heavily working lungs?

The extreme muscular development seen in those who pose on the stage and before the camera, while marvelous to the sight, is in reality of little practical use. Such muscles are not developed through normal exercises, but gain their prominence by being contracted and expanded through mental concentration on the muscle itself, not on any work that the muscle should be made to perform. Under this fad form of “physical culture” the levers which the muscles should lift and lower are kept immovable, the muscles themselves do no work, the fibers only being caused to swell and shrink.

Take the “development” of the biceps, for instance. This muscle is intended to flex the forearm, attachments being on the upper arm and shoulder and the insertions in the upper part of the lower arm, making a perfect leverage. Now, in this false “physical culture” system the arm is held semi-flexed and rigid and the muscle made to rise and fall, no tension being put upon its attachments. The result is a development of the center of the [11] muscle, but a development of a mere shape, not the development of the power of lifting. The attachments are not developed or strengthened; they remain thin; hence, to the spectator in the audience, the center of the bulking mass of biceps looms up as a powerful organ of force—it is simply an artificial lump.

This false method of “physical culture” also squeezes out the little amount of fat that the muscle should bed in for ease and nourishment, and this further accentuates its size when illumined by a spot light against a black background.

Big chests do not necessarily mean big lung power, but one must have a capacious chest to have great lung power.

Another odd statement? Not exactly.

The average man does not use in daily work much more than half his lung power-capacity. There remain in the lower portion of his lungs thousands of little air cells, which stay practically closed in ordinary breathing. When a man is called upon to run a long distance he soon finds himself in distress, has “a stitch in his side.” This slight pain is caused by the effort made by the air to get into these closed cells. It is the forcing open of these reserve cells that produces the “stitch in the side.” When these cells become active and take up [12] the extra air needed, the distress ceases and the man gets his “second wind.”

Now, it can readily be seen that the greater the chest capacity the greater the reserve force. As it is in the muscle of the “physical culture” man so it is in the chest development of the same class—an unnatural condition. These latter possess, by constant deep breathing, forcibly inhaling and exhaling, a large chest. But there is no reserve force; all the cells are constantly filled. The chest development is good to look upon, but we must remember that the owner of such a chest has no reserve power—no extra breathing space to call upon when most needed. He has reached his limit at the start—a condition fatal to athletic work. A condition injurious to the man’s future health, for there are many times in illness and in emergencies when he will need some reserve force to fall back upon. It is like taking a journey and spending all your money at the start—when you need some, it is not there.

Athletes are healthy, not because they are athletes, but because all healthy individuals are athletes; not necessarily competitors in games or strivers after honors, but persons who enjoy outdoor living and breathing the fresh red-blood giving air.

But there are so many mistakes made by [13] youths and boys who strive to become athletes before their body machinery is properly adjusted, that much harm has been done by overtraining and a misunderstanding of what really constitutes a healthy man.

Americans have absorbed much of the energy in the world, but not all its wisdom. Too many of our athletic instructors at the schools have tried to turn out athletes instead of strong men and women.

When we read in the daily papers of the collapse of a celebrated athlete, or the breaking down during training of a young aspirant for honors on the cinder path, we naturally surmise that fundamental knowledge of the physiology of the muscular mechanism of the human body is either submerged by the overpowering desire to make a record or is totally absent among certain trainers and their pupils.

The want of wisdom concerning man and his body is the cause of many sad conditions existing to-day among formerly strong and healthy young men. A comprehensive idea of the physiology of growth, of the physiologic and chemic relations of strength and endurance to age and condition, would be of great value to a large number of old individuals—not old in years, but old in vessels and tissues—who strive to put an unusual strain on their weak arteries, as well as to the youth whose central [14] nervous system is often permanently injured by over-exertion in attempting to make records placed by carefully trained and intelligent athletes.

Let us take those Marathon runs as an example. Two years ago I witnessed the real Marathon—that is, the great one in this country—the Boston event. This run is a nerve-racking, lung-pulling one of twenty-six miles up many steep and long hills. Among the large number of contestants were a boy of about sixteen and a man somewhere in the forties. [1] To allow such starters was a great mistake—especially in the boy’s case. There were physicians at the start to examine into the condition of the runners, but what doctor could tell off-hand of the past habits, inherited faults in the bodily mechanism or system of training these various contestants possessed? There was only one reasonable course to take—that is, to withhold their sanction to the starting of those whose years had not fully developed the bodily functions, and of those whose habits had brought a strain on the valves of the heart.

If we were all Indians, having been placed at birth out in the open and lived without clothes until puberty placed a loin cloth on us, accustomed every day to run and tramp, developing [15] the different organs of the body harmoniously and gradually until they all reached their full power and held in reserve extra power, then these runs of twenty and more miles would not injure us. But, as it is, they are of no benefit and in many cases injurious. Young men who spend hours indoors, who have worn clothing since birth, been prevented from using the greatest breathing organ next to the lungs,—the skin,—who train for this event and then step back to our civilized life of houses, furnaces, trolleys and clothing, are not fitted for these great strains on organs which have been unused to them.

The human body is a wonderful piece of mechanism, which not only renews itself constantly, but whose strength and endurance and capacity for more work increase with increased use up to the point at which use becomes abuse. At what time and under what pressure this danger-line is reached depends upon the individual. However, the approach to the danger-line is governed in all cases by fixed and immutable laws.

The athlete must always bear in mind that the length of time a muscle cell can continue to work will depend upon the rapidity with which the energy-holding explosive compounds are formed by the cell protoplasm and the waste products are secreted. In other words, [16] the capital must not be expended at a greater rate than it can be replaced. If it is expended at a greater rate fatigue commences, and a continuance of this expenditure results in physical bankruptcy.

It is simply the case of the automobile over again. To run smoothly and continuously there must be fuel steadily supplied and the exhaust—the waste products—cast off, leaving no residue to clog up the engine. But you watch your fuel tank and see that it is well supplied, for you know the consequences if the fuel runs out—if you run your engine up to the last drop.

To use up no more fuel in the body than the body will replace, is the secret of athletic success. To go beyond this point means injury—often injury that a life time can never repair. This is one reason why sprinters who have made records succumb early in life to disease or ill health. They have over-heated their human machinery, and the worn parts can never run completely smooth again.

How is this fuel that is being used up in the body replaced?

The muscle is continually undergoing change of material. The minute substances which make up the muscle, and whose very actions keep it alive, are being constantly cast off, fresh substances taking their place. The cast-off [17] material is the fatigue poison. And it is a poison. Inject it into a dog and he will soon die. Without muscle rest, this dead poisonous stuff cannot be replaced fast enough by the new products, and the result is an impoverished capital of force elements. This does not apply only to the muscle in active use up to this point, but to all muscles of the body.

The energy products of the food are delivered up to the muscle by the blood, and this fluid picks up and carries away the cast-off substances of the muscle. These fatigue products are only gradually eliminated from the blood.

In the youth these poisonous products are cast off much more rapidly than in the full grown man. Also they are not so rapidly manufactured. But right here lies a danger point—the youth is not warned in time and often goes beyond the point where the off-castings are entirely eliminated and some remain stored up in his system. Then his nervous system suffers and the trouble goes on unrecognized until it is too late.

Another thing may happen. In the youth the fatigue poison may be thrown off quicker than the good material can take its place, hence such an athlete—generally a runner—will fall from sheer exhaustion of the muscular mechanism—perhaps ruined for life.

[18]

To keep on the right side of the danger-line in exercise, the muscle must have short intervals of rest. Nature so well understood the proneness of man not to heed advice that she placed the action of one muscle beyond his control. This muscle is so constructed, internally adjusted, that it has its regular periods of rest, and only in disorder of the body can its expenditure be raised beyond its means. This great and wonderful muscle is the heart.

However, there are certain conditions having their origin in the will and the excitement of mental forces, where the heart is pushed beyond its self-control. Such cases sometimes occur in college boat races—the four-mile races. It is not so much the mere muscular efforts of the contestants as it is the intense mental excitement accompanying the effort. No youth of a highly-strung, nervous temperament should row in these races—no matter what his muscular strength is.

The heart, though making contractions at the rate of seventy-two times a minute, is able to continue its work without fatigue throughout the life of the individual. Each contraction of this wonderful muscle is followed by an interval of rest, during which the cells recuperate. Push the heart-beats to a very rapid rate and we approach the danger-line at which fatigue products cannot be replaced by fresh [19] cells; the intervals of rest are not sufficient. The same conditions exist in every muscle. This is the reason why we often see immediate or ultimate collapse at the finish of a four-mile boat race or a quarter-mile run. Such a collapse may be followed by irremediable loss of health.

You should remember all through your life that each member of the body, in the very act of living, produces poison to itself. When this poison accumulates faster than it can be thrown off, which always occurs unless the muscle can have an interval of rest, then will come fatigue, which is only another expression for poisonous infection—real, genuine poison. If the muscle is given an interval of rest, so that the cell can give off its waste product to keep pace with the new productions, the muscle will then liberate energy for a long time. This latter condition is what we call endurance. When you say a boy has long endurance it simply means that all his organs are in perfect working order; that they repair as soon as they waste. Such a condition kept up means a long life and a healthy one. And you can all obtain this state, as I shall later on show you.

The power and endurance of the human machine are limited according to our understanding of the above facts. But another important bit of knowledge is necessary to have [20] if we wish to avoid ruining our physical energy: that is, to recognize the necessity of starting the human machine slowly. Like any other ponderous and intricate machine, the body requires time to get in harmonious working order. What would you think of an engineer who started his engine off with a jump at high speed? What would happen to a big engine if the throttle were pulled wide open at the instant of starting?

The brain, nerves, heart and muscles must be given some warning of the work they are expected, collectively, to perform. Ignorance of this fact has broken down many a young man who aspired to honors on the cinder-path. The necessity of getting all the parts of the body slowly in working order is well understood by trainers and jockeys on the racetrack, as is evidenced by the preliminary “warming up” they give their horses, although it is doubtful if the trainers could give any physiologic reason for the custom.

I once asked an old darky trainer in the South why he always ran his horses just before a race, and he replied, “I’s got ter ile ’em up; jus’ ile ’em up.” Then he shouted to a little bow-legged coon on a big bay horse: “Youse, git a goin’ dar, Sam; git ’im iled up so I kaint heer ’im squeek—git de ile in ’is jints; go dar!” And Sam went on “iling ’im up.”

[21]

Of the substances supplied to the muscles by the blood, oxygen is one the want of which is soonest felt. The muscle contains within itself a certain store of oxygen, but one which is by no means equal to the oxidizable substances. The muscle’s activity is dependent, to a great extent, on the character and force of the blood-flow. It must be clear of waste products, and contain, as well, sufficient oxygen to keep up continually a renewal of energy.

From what has been said, it will readily be seen that the result of a muscular task which an athlete wishes to perform, will depend primarily on his muscular bulk and on the conditions of these muscles and the rate at which he expends his capital; the test of his endurance will depend upon the condition of the other parts of his body and how rapidly they will carry off the quickly formed poisonous products and supply fresh ones.

A large number of the lesser pugilists have died in the ring the last ten years. Scarcely one of these deaths was directly due to the force or severity of the blows struck, but because the fighters were “out of condition.” The writer, himself, once had an opponent in the amateur ring whose condition was so plainly unfit that he refrained from exerting forceful energy, but let the man poison himself, when a [22] gentle cross-counter laid him out. He literally beat himself.

What I have said about self-poisoning refers also to the nerves and brain. As the muscles work faster, so do the central nerve cells which send the stimulating impulses to these muscles. These latter cells become fatigued sooner than the muscles. This is a grand feature of physiologic economy; for, did not this condition exist, the muscles would work themselves to pieces—run wild, like an uncontrolled engine.

The muscular differences noted in individuals are in reality the difference in the nerve cells, the actions of the muscles indicating the activity of the central nervous system. When the muscles are being exercised the nerve cells indirectly determine the muscular activity.

From the above statement it can be seen why one with exhausted nerve cells should avoid exercise. The nervous system should be at rest. For example; if a youth is recovering from some severe illness—typhoid fever, let us say—he should not at first try to get back his muscular strength by self-exercise. The muscles need blood sent to them to grow and regain their former elasticity, but the nerve cells required for all this must have a rest. How is it to be done?

By the exercise of another person’s nerve [23] cells. That is, the muscles should be massaged by some strong man. As the nerve cells gradually come to their full activity again, then the youth may commence gradual exercises on his own account.

It is the general impression among athletes that exhaustion and “loss of wind” are due to the inability to consume sufficient oxygen and exhale rapidly enough carbon dioxide. When the muscle is moving rapidly and forcibly, it is true that it demands more oxygen and gives off to the blood more carbon dioxide than when at rest. When a man is running as fast as he can make his limbs move, he is able to keep up the pace but for a short distance, unless, like the hunted hare, he runs to death. On account of the forced and rapid muscular action in this case the poisonous materials are thrown into the blood, to be carried to all parts of the body—muscles, nerves, brain. The heart is affected by this poison through the nerve cells controlling this organ; the muscles of respiration are similarly disturbed. The panting, distressed efforts of breathing, sidelong tumbling and final semi-unconsciousness of the hunted stag or hare are good examples of acute self-poisoning ending in death. It is just as much a case of poisoning as would be a case of gas poisoning; the only difference being that in the first case the gas is manufactured [24] in your body, in the other case, outside and you breathe it in.

One of the main “clearing houses” of the body, by which the blood is constantly cleared of much of its poisons, is the liver. The minute cells of this organ each have their individual work to perform in transforming the poisonous material into harmless substances. The cells of this “clearing house” are delicate little organs, and will not stand abuse. All habits having a tendency to cause dyspepsia—eating rapidly, eating indigestible food, constant and intemperate use of alcohol or the use of tobacco in the youth—disturb the normal work of the liver. Hence, one of the first aims of a boy who desires to be a strong man—and what boy does not have this admirable aim?—should be to keep the liver in the best possible condition. Any clogging or disturbance of the ordinary work of the liver prevents the blood from being in a pure state. All parts of the body will show distressing symptoms of fatigue and exhaustion if the little cells of the liver have become diseased or useless through intemperate living and ignorance of the duties belonging to each separate organ of the human body.

In general terms I have given you some facts necessary to know if you wish to reach full manhood in perfect health and with all the organs so adjusted that the human machine [25] in you will work the rest of your long life without squeaking and rattling. But there are many little details for you to know in order to keep the adjustment perfect and to increase the power and energy in you—mental and physical. Too many boys and youths have never been taught how to get the best that is in them to work—to be a success because they are doing what is in them to do and are happy in doing it—this is what means success. I shall try in the next chat to go into some of these details, and so on up to the most important facts in life. To give you a comprehensive knowledge of your sex organs, how to care for them, what Life means, and in all matters that go to make up the normal man. To give you instruction that makes a man, produces the character of the man of honor, to give you the inward grace of a gentleman, which cannot manifest itself outwardly save in good manners, modesty of bearing and fearlessness. And so many of these qualities depend inwardly upon a perfect adjustment of all your organs. You shall be told all about differences of man and woman; why you should be at all times kind and considerate to the girls and women—in fact what the world means in its development and what you can do to assist in its better development.

[26]

I have told you that next to the lungs the greatest breathing organ of the body is the skin. The great importance of this fact has been overlooked by many of your school teachers and parents—that is, from the boy’s standpoint.

It is through the skin that much of the poison of the body is thrown off; and it is because there are conditions in our methods of living which prevent its full activity that we have so much insanity of a certain form, habits that are injurious to body and brain and are often the cause for the boy being inattentive to his studies and blamed by the teacher for being lazy or stupid. He is not, in fact, anything of the kind; he is indolent and unable to interest himself in his work because through his brain is flowing blood contaminated by poisons that the skin has not been able to cast off.

I think we all know about those Saturday night’s baths. Your mother was brought up with the impression that if you had a bath [27] once a week that was sufficient. You see the real facts were never given her. She simply thinks of cleanliness, and once a week is enough to get the DIRT off the ordinary boy. But this is the OUTSIDE dirt—what you must be careful to do is to get the inside dirt—poisons—out of your system. Many an unfortunate boy has been handicapped for life because these poisons accumulated in his system as he grew up and the real cause for his nervousness, restlessness and inability to keep at one thing was never known.

Here is an example of the powerful effects of not keeping the pores of the skin so open that every drop of the poisons being made in the body every minute can work out. If a healthy boy should have his body—up to his neck—wrapped in tin foil, or any similar substance which would completely close the pores of the skin, he would soon have headache. This would become very severe, followed by loss of consciousness and finally convulsions—fits followed by death. Now this would occur even if he were in the open air. You can see by this fact that the lungs cannot alone cast off the poisons in the body; in fact their principal work is to supply the blood with oxygen and throw off carbonic acid gas—carbon dioxide; the skin must get rid of much of the other injurious material.

[28]

Another important thing to remember is that when this poisonous stuff is allowed to remain in the body it causes a ready soil for disease germs to grow in—typhoid fever, malaria, pneumonia, etc. If you keep the body free from all its poisons and have plenty of sleep, exercise and proper food scarcely any disease can attack you, for there are in the human body millions of little cells which roam around devouring all the germs of real diseases if they dare venture into a healthy body. If this were not so, not one of us would live out our infancy.

You have heard a great many stories about the endurance of the little Japanese, and a lot has been said about its being due to their custom of living on rice. This has but little to do with their powers of endurance. Of course a diet of rice and vegetables do not leave in the body such an amount of poison as meat will leave; but even when the Japanese eat meat we witness their wonderful powers of endurance.

They can start on a run and keep it up all day. But they will stop two or three times a day and take a hot bath. Here is the secret—that is, the principal secret. I have had one of these little, but powerful chaps pull me in a ’rickshaw up hills and around mountain roads at a dog trot which tired me to watch [29] him; so fearful was I at first that he would break down. But about every two hours he would stop at a bathhouse along the roadside and literally wash off the sweat containing the cast-off poisons from his body. Then fresh as when he started in the morning, he would go on again.

He wore only a loin cloth, hence his body was free from any covering which would keep the pores from working and performing their duty—the second secret of his endurance.

Now, if this man had been dressed in underwear and over this skin covering wore a pair of trousers and a jacket, he would have become tired, had a heavy feeling throughout his limbs, and if forced onward, succumbed to headache—that is he would have shown all the symptoms of self-poisoning. Especially so would this have happened had the baths been denied him.

Similar habits and customs were the reason for the Indian being able to run long distances and keep the pace up day after day.

But you ask; how about the Northmen; the Icelanders, those hardy and enduring men of Lapland? Surely they have to wear heavy clothing and have no hot baths along the roadside. Partly true; but their endurance is of a different nature; it is that of being able to put out great muscular power, to withstand severe cold and long fasting. This latter ability [30] is simply because when they do eat it is a gorging of fatty food; food which gives out heat. The Eskimo remains quiet and semi-asleep many months in the year. When he makes a kill for food he and his family—even the babies—eat like wolves. They stuff themselves like the animals, then go to sleep in the winter and live off the fat on their body. Then their form of endurance is one of race—a trait which has been passed down to them for generation after generation. But I am doubtful if their contact with civilization does not injure this trait, and then will come their extinction.

But contrary to the general impression those hardy Northmen living in Norway, Lapland and Iceland take excellent care of their skin. In traveling in Iceland after a hard day’s work over ice fields and lava deserts, the natives would bring us to camp where there were either hot springs or little huts built of lava blocks which were primitive Turkish baths. In these huts were round stones; upon these they would build a hot fire and after it had burnt to ashes these were brushed off and water poured upon the stones. This produced a hot steam in which the natives would remain until the sweat poured down in streams. Then after rubbing each other they would put on their heavy homespun clothes and emerge fit for [31] another day’s hard work. It is the same in Norway and Lapland.

These habits are what gives them the ability to endure physical work without exhaustion.

While upon this subject I would like to impress upon you the unnecessary custom of using any perfumes upon the body. The sweetest odor is that coming from a clean, healthy skin.

There is another feature of this skin cleanliness—the help it gives the kidneys. A lot of poisonous matter is cast off from the kidneys. Now, if the pores of the skin are kept constantly open, much of this material goes out through them, thereby relieving the kidneys from extra work. As you grow along in years this becomes a very important matter, for many kidney diseases are due to the overwork they have had to do, when it could have been better done by the skin. When we come to dealing with vital matters in keeping good health—the care of the sex organs—more will be told you about these poisons.

As considerably more than ninety per cent. of the body is made up of water, you can realize how necessary it is that plenty of pure water should be supplied the body. Here again the sweating process aids man to replace waste water by returning to it pure water. The loss of water containing poisonous stuff [32] makes one thirsty, and this is one way Nature has of keeping man’s body well balanced—the useless goes out and the useful goes in.

If we thoroughly understand what our body consists of and how to care for it, there would be no necessity for doctors or medicines. In fact, drugs are far more harmful than useful. Four or five simple medicines—or rather correctives—are all man needs if he has the proper understanding of himself. Of course surgeons are necessary and doctors in accidents—such as the great diseases like pneumonia or typhoid, for these are really accidents, accidental insomuch as you have taken poisonous germs into your stomach or lungs. But even in this latter disease, knowledge of how it is contracted is all that is necessary, for then we can keep our sewerage from emptying into the drinking water; flies from landing on refuse and then on the food we are to eat, and if you carefully remember all I shall tell you, those diseases which are breaking down so many of our fathers and mothers, can be avoided. Kidney troubles, as I informed you, may be avoided by commencing to see that the kidneys do not do the work that the skin is intended to do.

And the liver? Just remember what I said about it being the “clearing house” of the body.

There are many boys and young men who [33] have a sluggish or over-active liver. These unfortunate chaps have always been misunderstood and often blamed for being slothful or willful, when in reality they were suffering from poisons in their body which were not cast off. If these conditions go on, the result is sometimes very unfortunate—destructive to any attempt to make a success in life—no matter how hard one tries.

Here is a case that came under my observation, only one of many; oh, so many misunderstood fellows.

He was twenty-seven years old when I saw him. His father and mother were heart-broken over his habits—that is what they called them.

Everything they knew had been tried; but he would drink at times. These sprees came over him at certain times and nothing the doctors, ministers or friends could do would stop him.

We know better now.

When he was a boy at school he would have severe headaches. When they first came on he would try to keep up with his studies, but day after day became more indolent and the teachers called his attitude “pure cussedness.” At the end of the attacks he would become very sick; vomit for hours, and when the poison was thrown off through his stomach he was weak [34] for days after. The doctors who were called all said about the same thing: “Only a bilious attack; he will be all right after he has thrown the bile off.” But he never was all right. Each attack left some residue of the poison; also left him less able to fight against another attack, and so the poor chap went on suffering misery of the body and pain of soul because he was blamed for a state over which he had no control. He became useless to himself, and after he had reached full age could find nothing to do because he could not stick to anything. One day when he was feeling so badly that he could hardly hold up his head, some older man suggested a drink of whisky. He took it; it was the first and only thing which had given him relief. Of course this “relief” was only a blind one; the alcohol gave him a false impression of his condition. It also sent the poison running through his brain and this called for more whisky. When the next attack came on he, of course, took whisky again and remained practically insane until the whisky drove the poison out through his stomach AND SKIN—it sweated it out.

But by this time he had been pronounced a drunkard. He was nothing of the kind; he would have given up his life for a cure of the awful demand for whisky when these attacks came over him.

[35]

These cases we call dipsomania; and they are now understood to be cases of faulty work on the part of the liver and other organs which retain the poisons of the body.

Turkish baths, sweating and other methods soon put him in a position to understand himself. He was shown just what to do to keep the poisons out of his body and hence keep off the attacks. Of course his liver had been injured, and probably his kidneys, by the absorption of so much alcohol; but by care and watchfulness he became a useful citizen, but could never for a moment forget his delicate condition.

Now it is not necessary for you to understand what to do in these cases—but it is necessary for you to understand how to keep from getting into the same state.

If you have headaches due to some cause that you do not recognize—as you would from those following blows or breathing foul air in closed rooms—just remember that some organ of the body—skin, kidneys or liver—is retaining poison. You must get rid of that at once; for every hour it remains it accumulates and if allowed to go on, some of the organs will be affected. Then when you get to be forty and over you will wonder why your kidneys are not in perfect health or why you have become so nervous.

[36]

If the headaches are so distressing that you cannot exercise violently enough to sweat—not simply perspire—then get out in the air, no matter what the weather is, and take long, deep breathing exercises. Keep this up until your chest muscles ache. Now you should commence to feel better. Put all the pure water in you you can hold. After a while make a brave effort to exercise so that the water and its poisons run off your skin. Then wrap yourself in a thick blanket and go to bed. Before breakfast eat some fruit and drink plenty of water. After your bowels have moved you should be feeling as fit as a trivet.

If this feeling of well-being possesses you, then it is certain you had an overplus of the natural poisons in your body.

If this advice and knowledge had been the possession of boys and youths twenty years ago we should not have to build hospitals for dipsomaniacs as we are doing to-day.

All I am saying to you and shall say, does not mean you should not consult a doctor—quite the contrary. What I want you all to understand is some of the important matters that have not been told boys by teachers or parents—things which, when you thoroughly grasp, will make your growing life free from worry and misunderstanding. Oh! there are so many moments in a boy’s life when he [37] needs to know things; when he longs for that knowledge; when he suffers inwardly, is afraid of himself and when he only gets from his father or mother the advice: “You had better go and see the doctor.” And the doctor? Generally gives him a slip of paper and tells him to return in a day or so to see if the medicine works.

And the soul-suffering chap needed something more than a slip of paper.

He needs someone to help him unburden his mind; to free him from his worry, to confidentially overhaul his mind and put him to rights again. Some man who was and is a boy, and who can say to him: “Here is the trouble, Harry; it amounts to nothing now; so glad you came to me; for we can show you how to rid yourself of the worry. Now be sure to come again when anything worries you; or you want to know.”

Go to your old doctor and talk to him about what worries you. Most doctors will be pleased to chat with you. The trouble is that you have not been instructed in the fact that what you want from a man of knowledge and kind and appreciative heart, is a good talk, not medicines. Go and have a plain talk with your father first; if he is too busy to give you the time then seek a friend in the physician—the right kind.

[38]

Boys, if you are healthy boys, no matter if you haven’t big muscles and strength, all you need for a tonic is fresh air, plenty of sleep and food, and a clear understanding of your body. Not one single portion of it or its uses should be kept from your knowledge, and it shall not in these chats.

Boys often ask me: “Doctor Howard, what shall I eat to make me big and strong? Is underdone meat good? Shall I chew, so many times, all my food?” and many other questions along the same lines.

Eat what you like. In this matter study the healthy animals—for in our bodily living we are simply animals. Let all food fads alone. The only rule to follow is that of common sense. You should be certain that the food is fresh, that you eat at regular intervals and only eat that which you relish. Man, as an animal, needs variety. Sometimes a boy will crave one kind of food, at another time a totally different sort. If he is not suffering from some disease, nature tells him what chemical constituents his body needs and then gives him a craving for the foods containing these materials.

I know of some fathers who wrongly blame a boy because he will not eat fat with his meat. The father likes fat and so unthinkingly, believes that the son should not waste it, but [39] relish it. The full grown and the elderly man needs fat to give him heat; the boy has hot blood coursing in him and besides, exercises; his system does not need fat; so his appetite rebels. If he relishes fatty substances, it shows that his system needs it.

And so on through all foods—eat what you relish if it is fresh. Of course there are a few general principles to be followed. Chewing, for instance. Every animal chews his food according to the nature of its food. Man has teeth to handle all sorts—flesh and vegetable. Watch a good-sized dog eat—not the lap dog brought up on candy and cookies; such is not a regular dog; just an unfortunate, wheezy, overfat, ill-smelling substitute for a little baby—something to fondle. The boy’s dog will bite, grind and then chew his bone or meat. He does not count the number of times his jaws work, just gets the food ground up into small pieces so that the digestive fluids in the stomach can get it ready for further digestion in the intestines. For in reality it is these latter organs which have more to do with digestion than the stomach.

This brings us to a very important subject—the care of the teeth. There is only one thing to say about the teeth—ALWAYS KEEP THEM CLEAN. I know boys are naturally careless in this matter—we all are; but if you [40] commence the habit of always cleaning them after each meal—or whenever they have had work to do, you will be saved much future misery and chagrin. Foul teeth always means foul breath. Decayed teeth means that your muscles can never reach their full development because the food cannot be properly chewed and churned; hence the blood and muscles do not get the benefit of the nourishing elements of the food.

You should not delay nor try to attend to your teeth aside from keeping them clean. At the least sign of decay or the appearance of color on them, go to a dentist. There is no pain or distress in the dentist’s chair if you attend to the matter at once.

Drink plenty of water before breakfast, then when possible, fruit. Remember that there are about thirty-three feet or more of piping in your body. Through this piping—the intestines—there is a constant flow of food-stuff undergoing a chemical process. It leaves a lot of dirt—useless stuff—in the pipes. Now if you had a series of lead pipes through which flowed constantly some fluid which made a deposit on the sides, you would naturally flush out the pipes, every once in a while—wouldn’t you? Of course you would.

Well, do the same with your system of piping. In the morning there is a lot of useless [41] matter containing germs left in your thirty-three feet of intestines. Flush them out by large drinks of water, plenty of it. This will also keep your bowels free; the principal thing to observe if you wish a healthy body.

Shall I drink water with my meals or after—or when?

Again watch your dog; he drinks when he is thirsty; do the same. It is better to drink some water just before meals, and if your meal has been somewhat a dry meal, drink water during that meal; if you desire it—just do as your system demands.

Do not attempt any training through a regular system of diet. If you prefer a lot of meat and like it, it is going to do you good; if you force underdone meat down against your liking, it is going to weaken your muscles instead of strengthening them.

Is candy or other sweets harmful?

No; not a bit—the normal boy often needs sugar—his system demands it. But here is the trouble with all sweets—they are too often eaten between or just before meals. This destroys the edge of a good appetite and hence the habit is injurious—not the candy itself. After meals if you crave sweets they will do you good. Chocolate is beneficial to all boys if eaten only after the second or third meal of the day.

[42]

But there is so much adulteration of all candies and chocolate that in order not to injure yourself you should avoid all cheap stuff, and especially that rotten mess sold on the street stands. Then think of the dirt and germs which have accumulated upon these adulterated sweets. Get the best or leave sweets alone.

Now one little word about training for the boy and the youth. Never train to get off weight but to put it on. Remember that every tiny cell in your body is growing and developing to be of use when the great time in your life’s struggle comes. Anything you do to stop this growth injures your future prospects. The stoppage of one minute’s growth of a cell can never be regained. That little improvement that was about to be made has been interrupted—stopped. Aid Nature in her growth and development—don’t interrupt her. If you do, later on in life she will punish you—this is as certain as is the rise of the sun.

If you have done some sprinting in the spring, and when you return to school find that you are a little too heavy for running, don’t for a moment think of trying to reduce your weight.

Just quit sprinting and be very thankful that you are in such excellent health that every organ in your body is growing big and strong.

[43]

Any exercise that puts on weight in the boy or youth is good exercise—anything that takes off weight is harmful. When you have reached middle life, if you are in good health and busily occupied in doing your allotted work in this world—as every healthy—mentally and morally—man has to do, you will have enough to do to keep off the extra and unhealthy fat that has accumulated around your organs.

I know of a very sad case of this trying to insult nature in a growing boy. He was sixteen years of age; big, strong, and a champion wrestler in his class. He was entered to wrestle for the interstate championship—140-lb. class. His instructor and the athletic club to which he belonged expected him to win for them. But as the weeks went on he gained weight at a very rapid rate. He was a straight, wholesome, moral boy—of course he gained weight—he lived right. Two days before the contest he was seven pounds overweight. His trainers took measures to bring him down—to rob Nature of that seven pounds of her good work. They did it; he lost the match and from that time onward he has never regained his full strength. The process of building going on smoothly in all his organs was interfered with, and the inevitable setback followed.

Every boy—every person—should sleep alone. [44] Think of what I have said about the skin and its emanations. You do not want to be under the sheets with another boy who is throwing off from his skin poisons; breathing some of them, letting others be absorbed by your own pores. Try to get two dogs to sleep under the same blanket—respectable dogs, such as you or I would own. In about two minutes each will get from under cover with distended nostrils and deep breathing. They’ll sleep together without covering; but never under it.

Sleep alone under as light coverings as possible for comfort. This will aid you in getting big and strong. Don’t forget this advice.

[45]

We have seen that the human body after it gets started is quite as much a physical apparatus as a chemical laboratory, and the harmonious working of all its parts is to a considerable extent a matter of mechanics.

You will find that this is true for every disease or disturbance of the body. For instance; nervousness or headache from eyestrain. This strain may come through insufficient light or light wrongly entering the pupil of the eye. The nervousness may come because there is too much effort to adjust the lenses of the eyes by a constant pull on the tiny muscles. Even that peculiar nervousness that many unwise men and women are suffering from which makes them take ruinous drugs, is due to a chemical disturbance of the nerve cells. All the drugs in the world will not help them—it only increases the chemical disturbance. These sufferers need the poison out of their system; not more put in.

And so it goes on throughout the whole system; some of the physical or chemical elements [46] are unevenly balanced or worn out for the time. In diseases due to a particular germ—like diphtheria or pneumonia—it is the disturbance of the chemical elements in the body which brings about the disease.

But we have finished with the chemistry and machinery of the body and now enter upon the wonderful and interesting part of life which deals with reproduction—the continuance of species. Every living thing—flowers, fishes, animals, man—is reproduced by laws all having the same principles. The underlying facts in all these different forms of life are the same. There is absolutely no exception to the law of reproduction. Every living thing is the result of the mating of the male element with that of the female.

We shall not have much to say about botany or zoology, you can read all about these sciences in your books. What I shall tell you in the rest of our chats are things which you do not get from your books or teachers.

It makes no difference what your religion is; what you have been taught to believe, how little or how much you already know about the laws of nature, you will all have to come to one conclusion as you get along in the world—that God, Nature, or some great Power controls and rules everything on this earth. You cannot avoid this conclusion after knowing certain [47] facts—positive facts which are to be seen everywhere in all their glory.

As you grow older and reach full manhood many of you will become scoffers at all religion; some of you will call yourselves atheists, others agnostics—one who does not know—more of you will have a blind faith in orthodox religion.

But if you have kept your brain power and moral health, and I shall show you how to do this, in the end you will all come to the right point—reverence and love for the great Power which controls us all.

You cannot avoid this desired point in life; it WILL come in time. Worry and impatience in your youthful days; self-questioning and a feeling that something is wrong with the world, will be your portion of man’s burden. You will see what looks like injustice, the apparent success of the evil-minded, the accumulation of wealth by the man of shady methods, and those who should be happy, miserable, and those who in your estimation should receive punishment, living in luxury, and highly esteemed.

But this vision will lose its distortion as you live on; you will then see matters in their true light. Have you ever looked down through clear water and seen rocks, even fishes, appearing queer and out of shape? When you dive down to the bottom and open your eyes, how different the true outlines of these things look [48] to you. You first saw them through distorted rays; a false vision. It is just so with the truths of life: you have to dive down into your heart and mind to see their real shape and meaning.

I believe that every man is better for going through all the phases of doubt, irreligion, and becoming worldly wise; for when he does reach the point of seeing right he thinks right. This state causes him to be a true man to himself and to the Power which controls him.

Get all sides of a question and then think for yourself. And don’t forget that every question has FOUR sides: the right, wrong, inside and outside. When you have decided, be true to your convictions and at the same time keep looking around and INTO yourself.

We can all see the marvels of nature around us, but we can never understand until we also see the things IN us.

Deep within ourselves lie our powers. Getting them out is what brings success. These are the forces which every young man must study for himself. There are no rules we know that can be laid down for the governing or control of that thing we call conscience, soul, or whatever you care to call it. It is the vital principle—it is the power within us to DO. It varies in all men, its force, direction and application directed rightly will bring man up [49] to marvelous deeds. No matter what your impulses are, if they are for good living and helping along the progress of man, go at them and win out. If they make for evil, or the working of injurious suggestion; go at them also, but to give them the count. Put them down and out. The first victory will be a hard one; but as the pugilist gains confidence after winning his first fight, and then goes on easily winning, so you all can in this matter of fighting wrong impulses.

Yes; it is this vital principle in us to Do, that makes life worth fighting—that is, knocking out the bad. It is also from this wonderful source that comes the vital force in the seed of males and the eggs of females, which, when united, brings forth life—flowers or man. It is with the laws governing this uniting of the two sexes we shall now, in easily understood explanations and words, chat about.

If I explain to you that the yellow or grey dust coming from flowers is the male seed, and that by wind, insects or birds it is deposited in the female flower’s womb to grow into little flowers, you certainly do not see anything to laugh at; nothing wrong to talk about, nothing in the wonderful arrangement of nature to sniggle over or to go behind the house or barn and whisper to other boys. Certainly not. Neither will you, when you understand [50] all those marvelous laws which enabled your good mother to give YOU life.

I want you all to take a hammer-lock upon this fact—the holiest, most wonderful and everlasting laws of nature will bring you to a state of reverence and pure thoughts when you see them from the inside; as you shall, as every boy and girl ought to see them.

It is your birthright to know yourself and the living brothers and sisters around you; to realize that a mother dog with her little puppies has gone through dog troubles and pain to be able to give birth to her babies and to nurse them just as your mother did for you. That you owe to the mother dog the same kind words you always owe your mother and sister will be plain to you.

Everything during the course of reproduction—and this is the only way the world is kept alive—suffers pain, trouble, but in the end gains happiness. We are bound, if we are true boys and men, to remember this fact and act accordingly. You can no more bruise a flower in the spring without killing some little life than you can kick a mother dog without running the risk of killing her unborn puppies.

Both of these mothers, flower and dog, are going to bring forth new lives from the same great cause; the union of the male seed and the female’s eggs.

[51]

All life comes from an egg. This is the first law of nature. Every form of female has a method of protecting her eggs so as to bring them ready to receive the life germs of the male. Some flowers bury their ovaries—the organ that makes the eggs—in the ground. Some form of water flowers show us how careful we boys and men should be to protect our powers from being wasted. These flowers protect and keep their seed by closing their sacks—corollas—under the water until the time comes for them to act as fathers. If they kept their seed sacks above the water the wind would carry it away and then they would have none to place in the female flower when she was ready to receive it; or the egg, which is the same thing. Then this female flower would be childless, and soon we should be without the beautiful flowers.

It is on account of this care of the life-giving germ that all nature, including intelligent and strong men, is able to keep the world populated and growing better. For in spite of apparent signs of the non-improvement of the men and women to-day, in reality we are getting to be better men and women. And a plain understanding of life such as I am chatting to you about, is one of the good signs; for in your mother’s and father’s days these important matters were left for them to pick up at [52] hazard and often from the wrong sources. But it will not be so with you; knowing the truth you will all be able to live right, go to your little wife a healthy man, strong in body, clean morals and conscience and not suffer the horrible self-accusation later on in life when seeing your son or daughter a cripple, helpless or incompetent. No, I believe that many of these awful conditions will cease to be; for they can be entirely wiped out if you heed and act upon what I tell you.

Boys and young men have not had the seriousness of this matter fully explained, and through their ignorance have wasted life-energy, ruined themselves and finally become broken down in morals and bodily health, been sent to insane asylums, or died in hospitals from diseases caught through evil habits.

Ignorance has caused them to be fathers of weak boys, sometimes idiots, and of daughters who followed the unmoral life of their father.

Now it may sound funny to you, but the truth is, that if the boys in the past had really known as much as the chipmunks, we should have very few asylums for the insane or hospitals for the horrible diseases. To be sure, the chipmunk’s habits of right living so as to have only healthy and sane children, is due to instinct; but we have the same instinct; let us see that it is not suppressed by ignorance on [53] the one hand and the upheaval of evil thoughts and acts on the other.

Of course there are many diseases which are not due to wasting of life’s energy or vicious habits, but more than one-half of the degeneracy and insanity in our land is due to these awful mistakes.

We do not have crazy foxes or idiotic colts; we seldom have any wild animal born unfit to live. Yet the method of reproduction, the mating of the male with the female, is just the same as with man. The great difference is that animals mate when in PERFECT condition. Neither the lion, eagle, nor the rose, has wasted or poisoned the vital fluid or dust by bad habits, or lost their power by ruinous indulgence.

All these facts are a wonderful and plain lesson to us; and when we think it over carefully and recognize all it means, the question rises: why have we done as we have been doing all these long years of supposed intelligence? Because your parents and grandparents were not allowed to know the truth.

The pollen-dust of flowers is, as I have said, the seed of the male flower, just as full of life-giving energy as is the seed being produced in you—and which you must protect and save for future power and reproduction. That is, when married to be able to be the [54] father of strong, healthy children. The Bible distinctly calls your attention to this matter, and lays down the law.

Life is a long foot race; a constant struggle to reach the tape. Now if you knew that you had this race to run and to win, would you be so foolish as to dissipate your strength, to lose sleep, to run long distances until you were completely exhausted just before you were to start on the REAL race? Of course not; yet when a young man exhausts his energies and powers by wrong living and when tired out enters upon his LIFE’S race—marriage and fatherhood—he comes to the tape wasted, exhausted and way behind the man who has trained properly. As a rule he will not finish the race—just be one of those “also ran.” He will leave weaklings on the path, poor unfortunate children who suffer all their lives because their father was UNFIT—unfit to be a father at any time. I realize these are harsh and strong words, but they tell you the truth, and I warned you that you would hear the truth.

I believe with a very strong belief that you boys to-day will be in a position to give the world better men and women than the world has ever known. You are being shown how to make yourselves fit to bring this about.

Every day I hear the cry: “Oh! Doctor [55] Howard, if I only had known these things when I was a youth! What a different man I would be to-day!” I have had men tell me that they would willingly have cut an arm off for such knowledge as you boys are getting, and considered the fee cheap at that.

We will now leave the flowers and their forms of reproduction and get right into things that every boy sees, yet had not had a thorough understanding of what relations they bear to his life and those dear to him.

To repeat: All life comes from an egg. You know how the eggs of fishes look as well as the fact that the shad roe you eat is a mass of eggs. The male shad is called the buck shad or the milt shad. The milt is the semen of the male shad. It is a milky-white substance. The little life-giving germs are hidden in this milk-like fluid. They are so small that it takes a powerful microscope to see them.

The eggs of the female cannot produce life unless the life germs of the male pass into them. This is true of all animals, including man. Every form of living thing has a different method of doing this, but the principle is the same for all. Let us first take the fishes.

Springtime is the season for all life to bring forth its kind. In the spring the fishes swim to their spawning or breeding places. They seek warm and generally still waters. The [56] shad, for instance, swims up rivers until it finds the proper place. By this time the eggs are ready to be expelled from her ovaries, the sacks in which they have been forming all winter. As she lies still in the warm waters these eggs drop out in large quantities. Then she swims away, gradually making her trip down to the sea. At the same time that her eggs are ready to be deposited in the waters the male shad is filled with milt-fish semen. He is strong, vigorous, and never having wasted any of this seed he is able to give full life to the waiting eggs. He slowly swims over the floating eggs and the semen in him pours out. Once over the eggs each little life-germ wiggles through the outer lining of an egg and meets the true egg. At once these two, the female and male germ, are the beginning of a little fish. It takes some time, of course, for even the little fish to burst from its covering, for the growth from the two germ cells into a completely-formed, though tiny fish, occupies many days. But just as soon as it is ready to swim, out it comes.

The way the different kinds of fish protect their young until they can care for themselves, is an interesting study, but you can read all about such matters in your zoologies.

In breeding, or propagating, fish at the hatcheries, the eggs are squeezed out of the [57] female and immediately after this has been done the milt from the male is squeezed out over them. This is never done except when both female and male fish are ready to deposit their eggs and sperm. By this method the little fish can be kept in confined waters, arranged according to their ages, and when old enough, be sent to replace fished-out streams.

It is wonderful that with all the hundreds of different kinds of fishes in the ocean and rivers, the seed of the male will enter only the eggs of its own kind. It is the same throughout all life on the world; like can only reproduce like. If it were not so, we should have a sorry mess of mixtures and all life would die out.

When we leave the fishes and come to the higher scales of life, we see the same method of development from the union of the female and male elements—the egg vitalized by the male seed. But there is a difference in the methods of protecting the growing life in the egg. The fish simply drops her eggs and leaves them for the warm water to hatch. The birds deposit them in a ready-made nest and keep them warm by their own bodies.

The “frog spittle” you see on ponds and along the banks of streams is the mass of eggs and sperm from the male and female frogs. The bullfrog does not, like the male fish, throw [58] his life germs over the eggs of his mate after she has deposited them in the water. This is done before she lets them leave her body. The frog’s method of vitalizing the eggs is that of all the higher animals.

When the eggs in the female are ripe for the male seed they lie inside her near their outlet. The bullfrog introduces his seed directly into her body at the spot where the eggs are waiting to receive it. A short time after this takes place the eggs are cast upon the waters and left for the sun to develop the little pollywogs, or tadpoles. When ready, those tiny fellows with their funny tails swim out and remain in large groups until their tails drop off and hind legs have grown.

If you have ever tried to stir up a large lot of “frog spittle” you have noticed how difficult it is to break up. This is another wonderful provision of Nature to protect her living and growing things. The greenish mass you see is a mucilage-like substance made to hold the eggs together. The real eggs are those tiny black spots. If it were not for this sticky material, the wind and waves would break up the whole mass and leave the eggs to be washed away and chilled. In other words, not one would send out a little pollywog, the wiggling frog bodies would be chilled to death. So remember that when you try to break up a [59] lot of frog spittle you are really killing thousands of little pollywogs—frogs to be.

The same method of breeding takes place among the turtles and snakes. Only here the eggs are not cast off directly after receiving the male seed. They stay in the female, as they do in the birds and hens, until they have received a protecting cover. These reptiles have not reached the scale of the birds and hens; they are between the frog and the bird. As we have seen, the frog has the mucilage-like substance holding together the eggs; the hens and the birds the hard shell protecting each egg; the turtle and his like have a soft shell.

The turtle, alligator, and those of the same kind of reptiles do not sit on their eggs. The female makes a kind of a nest in the sand or dry mud, lays the eggs, covers them over with sand and leaves the sun to do the rest. There are, however, many differences in the manner of HATCHING, the way the eggs are protected, and how the little ones are left to shift for themselves. But the manner of starting each different form of life is always the same.

In the bird, as in all live creatures of the female sex, are what we call ovaries, from the Latin word ovum , meaning egg. These ovaries are situated in the body in the region we call the groin. These ovaries are little sacks which [60] have the power of creating eggs. As breeding time comes, these eggs drop out from the ovaries and remain for a short time just outside the sacks, but still in the bird’s body.

Now the birds commence to mate, which is really nothing but the powerful instinct to reproduce their kind. The male bird is ready to be a father. He becomes vigorous, proud and strutting. His plumage is shining brilliant and he tries to show himself off before the females, who soon pick out their mates. The birds of the turkey or partridge type, dance, fight and sing in order to attract the attention of the females.

As soon as mating takes place, off the couples go to build their nests, both working together early and late to make a warm place for the little ones to be hatched.

The mating has taken place, the eggs of the female have become vitalized. The life germs have worked their way into the interior of the eggs; the eggs now commence to take on a protective covering; the shell. This soon grows to a hard shell. The eggs now being safely protected they drop out into the nest, and when all have been laid, the mother, and at times, the father bird, sit upon them until the little ones are hatched.

If the female bird was kept in a cage and away from the male bird, the eggs would come [61] just the same. But no amount of sitting upon them or putting them in an incubator would bring forth the young. The reason you all readily understand; the eggs have not been vitalized, given the sperm, by the male bird. So if you want to breed chickens you must always have a cock in the yard.

All breeders of chickens first examine the eggs they are to put under a hen or in an incubator. By the light of a candle in a dark room you can see a tiny spot in the egg if it has been vitalized. This spot is the germinal spot—the evidence of the male element. Such an egg will hatch; one without such a spot will simply rot.

When we reach the higher scale in animal life, where the dog, horse, lion, belong, we have reached that point where all reproduction takes place in the same manner as in man. I am referring now to details only, for as I have told you, the PRINCIPLES of reproduction are the same for everything that lives.

All through nature, if you carefully think over the strict laws governing the continuation of life, you will be struck with wonder and reverence; not curiosity nor evil thoughts.

At first it may sound a little harsh to have me tell you that you were developed from a single cell in your mother’s womb which had been vitalized by the seed of your father. [62] But such is the undeniable truth, and it is the truth concerning ourselves that I want you to understand.

Of course we are different from the mere animals in having a something in us that they do not apparently possess. This “something” may be called a soul, the essence of a Great Will, the evidence of God. But it makes no matter what you have been taught to call it—it is there; and some day you will recognize it.

It is the great Power back of us, in us, ahead of us. It is the something we can feel, but not see nor demonstrate. As you study over what I tell you it will be plain that, while we can and should understand the laws of nature, this Power, the actual Power itself must be studied in our hearts.

But no man has done justice to this great Will, or to God, or to himself, who has avoided trying to understand those laws which are indubitably for our benefit and future progress. One of the plain duties which the law points out to us, is that of so regulating our lives that we can give health and moral strength to those who come after us. And this can never be done unless we know and obey those laws which we have plainly set before us.

Before going further into the facts of reproduction, let us see how strict Nature is in some of her laws controlling this process. [63] Remember what I said about the marvelous fact that fishes do not inter-breed; that is, that the seed from a male salmon will not enter the eggs of a female bass, nor that of a “shiner” into a sunfish. Nature will not allow such a mixing of things. A dog cannot impregnate a cat, only a dog. So you see that Nature has so arranged matters that in spite of the running wild of all kinds of animals and species, each egg is so chemically adjusted that only the male seed made for its particular eggs can vitalize them.

“But,” you say, “I saw at the circus a half tiger and a half lion, he rode a horse.”

True, but you have so long been accustomed to think that the lion and tiger were different species of animals that it did not enter your minds that in reality they were the same. Both belong to the cat tribe—felines. Circus men call all these animals, lion, tiger, cougar, leopard, etc., “big cats.”

In their natural state even these animals of the same species will not inbreed; there is a social class among them; and while man forced the lion to mate with the tiger, it was a forced marriage and presumably a disagreeable one. We have too many lion and tiger marriages in our own society.

From all this we should derive a lesson.

Nature will not, however, give in altogether [64] to man’s foolish acts; for even when we cross the species we get a thing that cannot reproduce. The strict laws here step in and say: “So far shalt thou go, but no farther.”

The mule is an example of what I mean. The mule is the result of breeding the ass to a mare. It is hybrid; it cannot reproduce its kind. So in order to have mules we must always use an ass and mare. The mule cannot reproduce its kind because it is a born eunuch. That is, it has no seed to give life to eggs.

Now in some respects the mule is more useful to man than the horse. Again we see that the laws controlling our lives are often adjusted to our desires when these desires are for our benefit. So we can breed from a mare and stallion ass; but cannot go any farther with the species. It is about the same with the inbreeding of zebras and horses, although this has not yet been carried far enough to determine what the outcome will be. But don’t forget this fact: ass and horse, zebra and horse are all the same species—equines.

You have seen how birds and hens lay their eggs in a nest, and how, if they have received the male germ, the eggs bring forth their young. In the higher forms of animals—those who nurse their young—exactly the same PROCESS takes place but under different details. In these higher animals, the dog, for [65] instance, we have the ovaries making the eggs just as in the birds. At certain intervals in the year these eggs slip from the ovaries into a nest lying just down beneath the two ovaries—one on each side of the female dog. This nest we call the uterus—or, in ordinary terms, the womb. When these eggs slide into their nest they produce an inflammation of the parts; also a peculiar odor. This is another wonderful law of nature, for without these conditions life would soon cease to exist. The inflammation gives the female dog—bitch is the proper name—a longing to be a mother. It is nothing impure in her, nothing to be ashamed of, but a condition to be proud of and to cause reverence in those of pure minds. The odor is to tell the male that now he must do his share in keeping dogs on the earth.

So they mate.

When each little egg is vitalized by the dog’s sperm, they remain in the womb—the bitch’s nest—for nine weeks, growing day by day until they are ready to come into the world.

Then did you ever see such a beautiful sight as the watchful and happy mother? Never, if you have all the real feelings of the genuine boy. There must arise that in you which we all feel but cannot explain. Kind words come to you as you watch the happy dog mother; gentle strokes as she cuddles [66] to warm her little babies. And yet there are boys who have so little understood the beauty and wonder of all this act of reproduction that they sniggle and make sport of the desires of the innocent want-to-be-mother dog.

Exactly the same details happen throughout all the animal kingdom. The larger the animal, the longer it takes for the little one to grow and develop in the mother’s womb. This is the only difference, except that in the larger animals we find one or two babies the general rule. You see these big babies require so much milk that the mother could not supply enough for many hungry mouths, so she gives birth to only that number she can well nourish and care for.

[67]

As the anxious mother bird watches day after day, while keeping her eggs warm, for the sound of the little tapping from the inside followed by the soft bill and wondering eyes of her little ones, so did your mother anxiously watch and pray for the coming of her helpless baby.

In her warm nest, the womb, you lay from the meeting of the two cells until your tiny body was completely formed. This was a period of nine months. Then you were born.

No boy or man can have a full appreciation of all he owes a mother until this wonderful work of nature is thoroughly implanted on his memory, never to be effaced. While the period of watching and waiting is only nine months, to the mother it is a whole lifetime. For to her it means ALL her life—sometimes she gives her life for yours. Think what wondrous love there must be for a woman to run the risk with pleasure and happiness. Every moment of these nine months the mother has her mind upon one thing: the tiny life growing [68] in her womb, nourished by her blood, given oxygen through her breath, brought into the world smiling and laughing because the mother is laughing and smiling. And her one hope is that you will be able to go through your life smiling and laughing; that you will so live and grow that both of you can show to the world the most powerful searchlight known to man: the light which shines from a pure face and healthy mind. And such a light is far more penetrating than you have ever realized. It searches out truth, it reflects your mother’s face even after she has gone; it makes others happy and brings hope to many worried homes. And it is your mother who lights this bright ray of a pure mind; but it is your duty to keep the flame and reflector ever active and shining.

Thousands of boys and men have brought tears and dimmed the once bright eyes of their mothers. They have not consciously done so. It is against all nature for a boy to deliberately inflict pain and grief upon his mother. When he does, it is because he has been ignorant of all his mother has gone through for him. He has never been told in plain talks just all his mother worried and suffered while waiting for him to make his appearance on this earth. He never fully realized how she often dragged herself around weighted with his little body; how her nights [69] were sleepless on his account; how she worked, sacrificed and planned for him. He never knew how careful she was about her food so he might grow strong while in her womb; how she forced herself to walk when every step was an effort, how she tried to keep her mind upon pleasant subjects and to read only such books as might send pleasant and beneficial impulses to his then unconscious mind.

When you have reached eight or ten years of age you have never been told how careful you should be to use kind words and be ever on the watch to help your mother in little things, because there is a little sister or brother growing in your mother’s womb who will soon be in the cradle. No, you have of course been told to be always kind to her; to help her in little matters; but JUST why you should now be more careful than usual has been kept from you. So if you have been cross and disobedient at times; brought tears to your mother, and who knows but unconscious tears to the little unborn one, you are not wholly to blame. You didn’t know, and nine times out of ten, if you asked questions about how babies come, you were put off with queer answers or else told not to ask such questions. The fault has been in a wrong idea of instruction. Your mother was never allowed to know when she was a child; your father [70] picked up what knowledge he could from older boys, which was generally wrong knowledge gathered from another generation of boys, and your teachers and those of your parents were either criminally silent or themselves ignorant.

From all this false attitude of teachers has grown much of the misery and disease which is with us to-day. It is my intention to have this misery and disease abolished, and it can be done by giving you the information your parents and teachers did not possess until too late. All information regarding right sex living and care should be in the possession of the boy and youth while they can utilize such information. Of what use is it to you after the harm has been done through ignorance? No use; more—it does much harm when it comes too late.

“Oh, Doctor; if I had only known. Can I never be a well man again? Why didn’t my teachers and parents tell me all this was wrong?”

I am going to try to stop the cause for these pitiable cries so that in your and future generations they shall be no longer heard.

In the same manner you have been kept from knowing the absolute necessity of attending to the sex organs with the absence of any ideas except those of cleanliness. It is as [71] reasonable for you to clean the teeth and leave the wax to accumulate in the ears until deafness follows, as it is to wash your hands and neglect the penis.

Your sex organ needs attention at an early age. If you have parents who understand this matter, they have instructed you in the details; but if you are like most boys, these have been left to chance and possible wrong treatment.

The gland of the penis secretes a cheesy material. This is constantly being poured out in small quantities and unless cleaned away will at first become offensive to the nostrils, then irritating and in some cases proceed to an inflammation which will require the services of a surgeon.

But to begin with the small boy. He should pull back the foreskin every morning as he washes, and with a soft cloth soaked in warm water, remove all the accumulation. Do it carefully; but don’t forget to do it, even if you have to let the face go. The reason for being so particular about this matter I shall explain further on in these Chats.

If your foreskin is too long, or if it hangs over so as to retain some drops of urine after you have relieved the bladder, go first to your father; and if you are so unfortunate as not to have a father or mother to whom you can [72] go in these matters—and I know there are many such—go to your doctor and explain to him.

Many boys are far better off when circumcised. This is a simple little operation—just the snipping off the overhanging foreskin. If your parents have been wise and instructed in this necessary detail of the sex toilet, you will have been circumcised when a baby. But you cannot blame them if it has been neglected. However, your boy will have a right to blame you if he is allowed to be a victim of irritation and inflammation of the penis when he is a youth.

As you grow older this detail of the toilet becomes more and more necessary, for at puberty—fourteen to sixteen years of age—all your glands become very active, and those of the penis especially so.

I have told you in the first Chat about the bad effects of allowing your bowels to retain matter that should always be kept out of the body. The absorption of the poisons from this dead stuff left from food causes headaches, laziness and in time affects the complexion. It is a lot of natural filth left in the pocket of the lower bowel which Nature intends should be thrown out daily. There are muscles in this bowel or pocket especially for this purpose. If you neglect to work the [73] muscles placed for this purpose, they soon become weak, inactive and refuse to perform their duty unless irritated by some drug, salts or castor oil. In a healthy boy—one who has taken any decent care of himself—these medicines are never needed. If such methods to make the muscles of the lower bowel work are constantly used, the muscles lose their tone and of course usefulness. Then in later life the veins become full of black blood, swell and often burst. These swollen veins are generally called piles. You see how you can avoid these disagreeable things, which are only plain signs that the man or boy has kept in his lower bowel filthy stuff. Just think for a moment; would you allow filthy stuff to remain in your pocket? Of course not; yet if this stuff were kept there, it would not do you physical harm. It would be a little disagreeable, I admit, but not bring about the ill health it does when kept in the pocket of the bowel.

Now, when you have the gland of the penis inflamed from the gathering of the matter behind it, you can readily see how it may be aggravated by any other dead material in the same region of the body. And this region in the growing boy is very sensitive to all disturbances. So here is another reason why you should empty your bowels EVERY day.

You will ask: Why is this secretion coming [74] behind the gland of the penis harmful if it is natural?

It is there to keep the gland and its covering from growing together. If it were not there the urine would irritate and inflame the parts. Whenever we have inflammation we have a tendency to growth. Under these circumstances the covering of the penis would adhere to the gland, and then would come great trouble.

The secretion is a sort of oil for the sliding parts. But this oil has to be renewed by fresh oil—this is the reason for washing the old, rancid oil and letting fresh oil take its place. Again, if this rancid secretion is allowed to remain it becomes absorbed and then you have another poison in your system.

It is useless for a boy to try to become a strong man unless his sex organs have the best of care. I don’t mean that you should keep your mind upon the subject; quite the contrary. If you have kept them clean and attended to the little matters I have mentioned, your mind will not be upon the sex organs. If you wash your teeth every day and have them always in good condition, you do not think of them. You chew your food thinking of the coming ball game—not of your teeth. But if you neglect them soon come pain and trouble; then in spite of all the thinking of the next [75] ball game, your mind WILL go to those awful teeth.

Just so with your sex organs; a decent regard for their care drives out all thoughts but what are necessary and decent.

The neglect or abuse of the sex organs—this latter subject we shall have a plain talk about—affects all the other portions of the body. It causes stupidity and soft muscles. Sometimes big muscles will be seen in a youth who has neglected the toilet of his organs. But these muscles are fatty muscles. They do not contain strong, blood-red fibres of true muscles. Moreover, the FORCE behind these muscles, the nerve cells, are themselves weakened by the absorption of secretions and the whole general effect of the unclean and often abused parts.

Remember this fact: You cannot perform big deeds when a man if you have neglected the little ones belonging to the development of your body. The foundation of every big structure, brain or building, is the essential part of the work. Unless this is built upon solid ground and of solid material, ruin comes when pressure is brought to bear.

I have seen hundreds of men with powerful brains and intellects unable to utilize them because their foundations for withstanding [76] pressure were weak. And it was ever the same old cry: “No one ever told me, Doctor!”

At an early age you will be faced by a great injury to all boys. It is the appearance in the public schools of smutty pictures, lecherous talk and nasty stories. Now all these go to make for a weak foundation. If you have grasped the full sense of sex life,—what it means to your future, what it can do for a glorious life or a miserable end,—you will shun such nasty things as you would a boy with the smallpox. I want you all to know everything about sex life; but smut and filth are not connected with this knowledge. They have nothing to do with sex development. Nothing more to do with a full appreciation of the powers growing in you than the ulcers of a foul disease have to do with the growth of a healthful skin.

These nasty tales and pictures befoul a good mind. In listening or looking you are simply allowing your growing brain to wallow in a pigsty of thought. Scientific books on sex life, all the real knowledge you can obtain covering the real meaning of life, are proper reading. It is not necessary to roll in a manure heap to understand the care and diseases of cows. It is not necessary, but harmful, to live in an atmosphere of vice and mental filth to understand man and woman.

[77]

So you can see that it is as important to keep the mind clean as it is any organ. For one affects the other. If you have an unclean mind, poisons flowing through the brain from filthy talk, you will find that the sex organs will feel the effect. This is a dangerous state. Clean both at once and keep them clean as they grow.

Why, boys, there is scarcely one of your waking dreams of big deeds that is not possible of being true if you keep a mind clean for big thoughts and work. But this mind cannot work if it has to compete with foul matter working alongside.

If you were engaged upon some delicate work and had a chap working alongside of you who pulled down as fast as you built up, what would you do? Throw that fellow out. Of course. Well, if he gets along inside of your good thoughts, throw HIM out.

At this early age in your career I would not advise you to attempt any missionary work among those boys of evil thoughts and acts. Just let them alone; have nothing to do with them. This will appeal to such boys much more than any attempt at “goody-goody” talk. I don’t believe in this kind of education for the boys of vicious habits; it doesn’t appeal to them. What you can do if they ask questions is to show them the PRACTICAL side of the [78] whole matter: That you want to be a strong man, a man who can do things, a man whose children will bless instead of curse him.

Sometimes it is necessary to smash a boy who makes evil suggestions to you. Don’t talk to him, smash him in the face. Smash him good and hard. Remember that if you have followed my advice and directions you will have much more strength than a boy of evil thoughts and habits. Such a one will be a coward; even if he LOOKS larger than you.

But beyond all, don’t blame such a boy; don’t unjustly blame him for what he is. Perhaps he had not had the chances you have had. Possibly he has had no parents to care for him and his associations have been such that he cannot see the good in life. Remember that such a boy has some good in him; often he wants to be the right kind of a fellow but does not know how. After you have licked him—if he makes any really bad suggestions—then he may become your good friend. If so, then you can tell him what you know. But no preaching, mind you. Don’t try to make him think you are any better than he is. Just let him understand that you know what is necessary to make a strong and successful man. Then he will want to know.

[79]

As you reach the age of puberty and for a few years thereafter, you will have many little worries and hours of fear. There is absolutely no reason why you should have these times of self-fear or any kind of worry. The gradual change from boyhood to manhood should go on without mental worry or too much thinking of the changes in yourself. Nature never intended that this time should be any but a joyful and happy time. And it can be made a period of full content and feeling that all is right with yourself and the good world.

But why have boys been so depressed during this time of sexual growth and development? Why is it that we see men whose whole careers have been handicapped and physical misery been their lot, just because when they were youths they had some fright which has lasted throughout life?

Because they were left the prey of their own thoughts; because little matters that are natural to the growing boy were exaggerated into fearful diseases, because they struggled through [80] a fog of ignorance upon which were blown the lies of older boys and the advertisements of those beasts—the QUACKS.

To sum it all up in a few words: because the boys were never told the real truth.

Truth is never vile, nasty nor injurious. To hide the truth is criminal, cowardly and injurious. But conditions which we will not bother ourselves about here have kept our parents and teachers from seeing the truth. It is here where all the harm has been done to the boy and the girl. You were not able to get the truth because it was hidden from you, but the lies, nasty lies, were allowed to get to your ears and eyes. If there were any false colors surrounding truth it certainly would not be the TRUTH; would it? If the laws of nature were untruthful in their significance, if nature were all lies, then the whole world and the power behind it is a LIVING LIE. But it is not; it is a beautiful revelation of powerful truths and when you know it as it is, nothing more astounding or wonderful can possibly fill your mind.

And to know the truth these things should be plainly told you:—

About fourteen years of age you may feel a gradual soreness in the nipples. This will increase and sometimes be a little annoying. Now don’t become frightened and try to recall [81] some blow you have received there. It is only a demonstration of how the growing sex instinct affects all the body. There are little glands in the breast that for a short time become slightly inflamed and this produces the soreness and itching which bother you.

I knew a boy who was much affected with this soreness; he had no idea what it meant. He worried about it silently and ceaselessly. He could not apply his mind to his studies; he lost sleep and ceased to play with his companions. One day when he was moping around the house his mother noticed how pale and listless he was. She asked him what the trouble was. He told her that his chest was very sore; that the nipples pained him; that he had suffered day after day.

Now what did this mother do? At once became frightened so that she frightened him. He at once thought that something horrible was to happen to him. Poor boy! The mother at once asked him if he had received a blow on the breast? Of course he remembered such a blow. Then this ignorant mother rushed to her family medical book—the curse of many a home—and commenced to read up on cancer of the breast. Then she rushed off to the doctor, leaving the book, which was at once seized upon by the trembling and pale boy. Then he read his doom—cancer of the breast; he had all the [82] symptoms! At once he lost what little heart he had left, and when the mother returned she made matters worse by her fear and sympathy.

The doctor? He wasn’t at his office; would return the next day. That boy spent the night in a fear which almost wrecked him. He could not go to the doctor the next morning, he was so weak from fear. When the doctor did come, instead of laughing at the whole matter, taking the boy aside and telling him what the signs meant, he hemmed and looked wise. Then he said he “thought it would pass away.” But it did not, neither did the fear. The boy just escaped complete ruin of his health, or perhaps a worse fate at his own hands, by a stroke of luck.

In the small city where he resided there were a number of Chinese youths—sons of gentlemen—being educated. One of them, a chum of the unfortunate boy, called to see what was the matter. Tearfully the boy told him his pains and fear. The Chinese boy laughed loud and heartily. Then HE told the boy the truth.

You see these foreign boys had a real knowledge of the truth given them before being sent out into the world.

From that time onward this American boy never told his mother anything about himself or his thoughts; he had to get what knowledge [83] he wanted from other sources, and as his Chinese friends soon went off to a large prep. school, the later information came from older boys who only knew the lies and untruths.

So never worry about these little pains or uncomfortable feelings. They belong to your natural growth and are signs that you are becoming a man.

At about the same time hair will appear on various parts of your body. It will make its appearance there before it will be seen on the face.

New and strange feelings will now be part of your mental life. You will wonder about everything around you. What is life? where shall I go to when dead? what is religion? am I fit to live? and all sorts of new and queer ideas. Don’t bother about them; just go along doing your best with the knowledge that all is coming out right when you do your best.

Of course you cannot be perfect—you will make many mistakes, do things which you would be ashamed to repeat; often tell an untruth when you wanted to be truthful. But this does not make of you a sinful boy—just a natural boy. Time and forthrightness in TRYING to correct these errors will make you a square man. That is what you must aim at being—a square man—square with yourself, God and man. A boy is a thing of many sides; [84] he is in the rough; experience, growth and determination cut away, hammer out and finally polish the rough youth into a square man.

But he must have the proper tools for this work and these tools are knowledge of self, determination and forthrightness.

One natural act of the glands in the body which now commence to secrete profusely, is to empty themselves of an overload. Your testicles are secreting life fluid. They do this constantly and will keep on doing so throughout a long life if you have cared for them as they should be cared for; left alone until the time has arrived for you to be a father.

Nights when the testicles are overloaded with seminal fluid, they empty themselves. But remember this fact: they only let out the overflow, they never WASTE any. It is something like that which goes on in a good spring of pure water. This spring is always welling up with fresh water; its overflow must be taken care of, so off the excess water runs. But you will notice that no more water runs away than is necessary; the spring keeps up to the same level and always has fresh water. Dam it up and you all know what happens—a muddy, dead mass of useless water. Go to work and pump out the spring, and what occurs? It is emptied, and if the pumping is kept up will disappear altogether. It is now [85] a useless, dirty and moldy hole where once flowed pure, sparkling, live water.

Just so with the life spring in you. Let it take care of itself. It knows how. But you must protect it, as you would any good thing. And this is done through the mind; by keeping evil thoughts out of your mind the spring is not emptied or muddied.

When the testicles are overflowing with their fluid there comes a night for casting off this overflow. Now this overflow irritates certain nerves around the sex organ, these send a message to the brain telling it to open the glands and let out this overflow. This message is the dream you have. It is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing sinful or wrong, just a sign that you are in good health and growing to be a strong man.

Here is where the injury of evil thoughts, smutty talk and reading comes in. If you have been listening during the day to these injurious things, when you sleep, some memory of the things heard or seen remains on the memory—as everything does. This brings about injurious dreams, these dreams send a message to your sex organs and they return an order to open the valves of the testicles and pour out precious life fluid. As you see, in such a case it is not the overflow you are casting off, but most valuable energy and muscle-giving [86] power. You have been drawing from the well, and if you persist in this method you will soon be a ruined boy. But the dreams which come naturally do no injury to you when they do not occur too often.

But how often should they come, Doctor?

Just wait for a few moments; we will soon come to all those questions and their answers.

Let me first tell you, boys, that all the statements of the Quacks, and of too many doctors who are not known as Quacks but in heart and method are worse than Quacks, are abominable LIES. Every one of their advertisements about “Lost Manhood” is a mean falsehood. They are founded upon what is natural for every boy to have occur to him, but they confound in your minds the true and the false. They try to scare you, and they have scared millions of American youths and boys, by telling you what happens is ALWAYS a symptom of “Lost Manhood.” Nothing of the kind, as I have shown you. If you will all grasp and hold the facts I have and shall tell you, we can drive these bloodhounds from the land. When you realize that the advertisements you read in some papers and those booklets sent to boys are nothing but a pack of lies gotten up to bleed you and frighten you, the Quacks will fall away like leaves in an [87] autumn gale. We can raise such a wind, you and I, that every Quack and his kind will have to go digging sewers for a living—where they belong.

“Lost Manhood” is such a rare condition in the boy and youth that many doctors go through a career of practice and never see a case. Of course we have boys born with weak brains, idiots, and those with a growth or disease of the sexual center in the brain. This makes them constantly handle their organs; they are thinking of vile things only, they are really insane on this one subject and of course soon sink to the level of—no, not beasts—animals are pure in their instincts—to the level of imbeciles.

I have shown you how you can bring yourselves to the point of not being the fathers of these unfortunate and horrid things.

The Quack takes all those natural occurrences of boyhood and in his advertisements points them out to you. He well knows that each and every symptom he describes will be found in all HEALTHY boys. For instance he says that if you have dark rings under your eyes it is a dangerous symptom. Of course you will find dark rings under your eyes at times. Just after a night’s natural emission. This is the time to throw a scare into you. You have never thought of those dark rings [88] before, but now you look into the mirror, and “Oh, I’m lost—there they are!”

Rotten nonsense! They have always been there, but you didn’t receive the suggestion before you read the advertisement or those criminal booklets. And that picture: “Before Taking; After Taking.” You know them well.

I was acquainted with a fellow who had been quite an athlete. Somehow he never seemed to make good. He tried almost everything but never stuck to one thing. He passed out of my mind for some time. One day I met him on Broadway, swinging along full of health and apparent contentment. He told me that he had tried to be an actor, but was now doing something better. He smiled and answered that he was “making good money” when I asked him what he was doing.

A few days after this little conversation he came to my office. At least a forlorn creature staggered in and sank down in a chair. He was thin-looking, pale and had pimples all over his face. His clothes hung on him—just hung, nothing else. His arm was in a sling and he talked with effort.

“You don’t know me, Doctor?” Then he straightened himself up and showed a magnificent figure even under the draggled clothes. He was the athlete. Then he explained:

He had fallen downstairs in a photographer’s [89] shop and broken his arm, and without waiting to wash and dress had rushed to me. As he paid the fee out of a big roll of bills he said:

“Oh, it’s easy money, Doctor.”

“What is?”

“Beating you simple men out of your rights. Why don’t you all wake up? These fakers I am working for have gotten you chaps beaten to a frazzle. Why, the phony docs I work for just have a basket to shove their suckers’ money in.

“What do I do? I am the ‘Great and Only Before Taking and After Taking Artist.’ See? No?

“Well I learned the make-up on the stage. I sit before the camera with my chest out, hair curled, and in the best clothes this burg can turn out. Then I am mugged as a fine specimen of the doc’s work. This done, I go and make up as you see me—next scene with slow music: ‘The Lost Manhood’ act. Then the photos are placed side by side and off they go to the boys of this free and unwise land.

“Oh, yes, I have several other stunts. I am the original ‘Kidney Cure’ chap. Never seen me, bent over, holding on to one rotten kidney with an expression of Death on my noble brow? I’m It in the next photo, fine girls hanging onto my brawny arms or sitting [90] happy with my two hundred pound, but happy, wife while the fireside burns cheerfully. But even the fire is a fake.

“I have a partner, too, in all these stunts; she stands for a photo with all the latest on her for the shapely woman, then they put a rig on her and blow her up. ‘How to Reduce Flesh. Why Be Fat When You Can, By Using Old Doc’s Food, Look Like THIS?’

“Say, honest, Doc,—pardon, I forgot, Doctor,—how long did it take you to learn your professional duties? Look, the fakers I work for can’t even write their own ads—it’s all done for them by men who understand what’s wrong with the boys and girls, schools and parents. Wake up, Doctor, wake up and get some of the Mazulum that’s flying around.”

I think, boys, that this story of a faker’s tool will explain the whole matter to you better than a talk in our own tongue.

How often may a boy have these night emissions without being injured by them?

Like all other physiologic functions the answer depends upon the boy. That is, how he works and plays; how well fed he is, and how he lets off his steam. The boy in good health and good surroundings, after he is sixteen years of age, need not think about the matter when they occur once a week. Should [91] they be more frequent, occurring two or three times a week for several weeks in succession, then it means that something is wrong. But nothing to worry about; just some little fault to adjust. And the youth can do this adjustment himself. He will understand himself better than a physician can, after he has seen the truth of these matters. Here is what I mean: Supposing you have these “wet dreams” two or three times a week and they keep up until you commence to feel their weakening effect. Now there is a cause for every effect. Find the cause for their increase of frequency. Look well into yourself. Have you been listening to nasty stories? seen pictures which aroused your baser instincts, or read books which you know you should not have read? Yes, a little, perhaps. Well, remember what I said about the mind influencing the action of the sex organs. You see that the remedy is in your own hands. Just stop such pictures and stories getting a place in your brain and the emissions will also stop.

But above all things don’t get frightened, don’t take any medicines or drugs, DON’T BELIEVE A THING THE QUACKS ADVERTISE. Be your own master in this as in all matters.

There are other causes which you must correct. The irritation I spoke about which comes [92] by letting matter remain in your lower bowel, is sometimes a cause for too frequent emissions. This material remaining so close to the sex organs causes a pressure and heat. This excites the parts and then goes the message to the brain, bringing dreams and the letting out of seminal fluid. Such a cause if continued will do harm, but you can at once stop the cause and then the emissions cease.

Too warm clothing will bring about the same state by overheating the organs, hence always sleep with as little clothing as is consistent with comfort. In this matter you can commence in the autumn to accustom yourself to light coverings, so that when winter comes you will not want a lot of heavy blankets over you. And this is much better also for the breathing process of the skin. Sleeping on the back will, with some boys, always bring on a night emission. Sleep on your side always. If you are inclined to roll over in your sleep and remain on your back, take a towel and tie a knot in it. Tie this towel around your back so that the knot comes in the middle of the back. Then go to sleep on your side. Should you roll over in the night, the knot will wake you up. After a few nights of this scheme you will break the habit of sleeping on your back and so correct the habit of emissions.

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Cold-water bathing of the sex organs every morning and night is an excellent way of keeping up their tone and preventing a laxity which has a tendency to bring on emissions.

If you hear a big, strong boy say that he has an emission once a week and you have only one a month, don’t worry about it. Nature is taking care of you. It simply means that the big boy secretes more seminal fluid than you do. This by no means implies that he has more manhood; it is just a difference in temperament—the same difference as is shown by a fair-haired boy and a black-haired boy. This stands true only if both boys are living a correct physical life.

I am not trying to preach to you, boys, but I cannot let this subject go without warning you about smoking. Now there is nothing wrong or wicked about smoking—I smoke a lot myself. But there are reasons why you should not smoke before you have reached complete development. Smoking does affect the growth and vigor of the sex organs. It does so through lowering the nervous system. Frequently I have seen boys whose night emissions were fast pulling them down, and the whole cause of these losses was smoking. In strong doses tobacco is a powerful depressant to the sexual activity. It can be given in such doses as to completely stop all seminal secretion. So [94] don’t forget this fact. I don’t think many boys would smoke if they knew these facts, but the trouble is that you have been told that smoking was not nice, that it injured you, but just HOW it injured you has not been told in plain language.

Our next Chat will be on self-abuse, its causes, how to stop the habit and what it means if you do not stop it. We shall also have another shot at the Quacks.

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This is a subject, boys, that has been much distorted in its facts and quite frequently put before you in a wrong light. To try and frighten you, to prevent you from making mistakes through ignorance, is not the way to help a worrying boy. If he makes mistakes and falls into injurious habits through lack of knowledge of a certain subject, give him that knowledge. But instead of placing knowledge and truths before you, scarecrows and words to make you fear have been hung for you to see and hear. It is this fear that has been put into you by those who have not fully explained the whole matter, which the Quacks use for extorting money from their victims.

Of course the HABIT of self-abuse means ruin to both brain and body. It is degrading to your true self, causes a loss of self-respect and makes a coward of every boy and man.

How can it do otherwise? The mere loss of the bubbling spring of manly life, the seminal fluid, would bring about this cowardice in a bravely born boy. Self-abuse is a cowardly way [96] to treat the growing man in you, and it throws that cowardice right back in your face, makes you a real, can’t-help-it coward. All this is true of the HABIT. But this one fact I want to impress upon you—don’t think because you have succumbed to the desire a few times, that you are lost, going to become insane, or show upon your features the wrong acts of youthful ignorance.

No, don’t worry yourself ill, don’t become frightened at these misstatements, at what the advertising doctors say in their lying circulars and daily papers. All their statements are lies and used to get your money and ruin your health and happiness.

Little slips now and then before you have reached full knowledge of what is right should be forgotten, but the HABIT kept up will, of course, bring you to uselessness and make for failure in life.

Let us see how the practice is usually started. I have told you all about the irritation which arises from an unclean penis and a secondary irritation from an unemptied bowel. Also about too warm bed-clothing. In most boys these irritations call attention to the organ. Then there is an itching. This the boy seeks to relieve by scratching or handling his penis. All this sends blood to the organ. The blood enters the spongy penis and causes an erection. [97] Soon the boy finds a new and strange sensation and finally performs the act.

What should he do when this strange sensation comes over him? He should immediately rise from the bed and pulling back the foreskin—if he is not circumcised—plunge the organ and surrounding parts into cold water. But you see he has never been told, and so the “first time” happens.

This is his first attempt at self-abuse. And it is rightly called self-abuse, for it is an abuse of a boy’s greatest power—manhood, muscle-force, brain-health.

I know that some of your teachers and parents will object to my telling you that a few mistakes in boyhood will not ALWAYS ruin you. All the fakers and Quacks will certainly object, for the truth will drive them out of business. But I intend giving you the truth in these matters. It is the only way for you to start right and know how to keep right. I have no patience with those who would build up a great scare for you when young to have you find out later that it was only a warning but not the real facts. I am going to hit out from the shoulder in this matter; no feints or ducking in going at the truth.

I have seen hundreds of men and youths complete nervous wrecks from fear that the few times they practiced self-abuse when boys, [98] meant that they were doomed to go to the asylum or death. And all this misery and often a missing of good opportunities in life, were due to the fact that they were told hobgoblin stories which remained with them and rose to frighten them at the most sensitive age in life—early manhood.

No more of this wrong treatment should be allowed. If these boys of the past generation had been told how to care for their sex organs, as you have, more than one-half would never have succumbed even once to the temptation of self-abuse.

Those of you who have not had proper instruction in the care of the sex organs and felt the irritation so much that you relieved yourselves, don’t think about the past; don’t worry, don’t read the scare-books and the advertisements of the Quacks.

Keep a clean body and a clean mind. But you cannot keep a clean mind if you allow the accumulation of secretions to remain anywhere in your system. The mind can be cleaned just as well as the bowels or penis. You can flush the brain so that nothing but pure thoughts and right thinking flow through it. This is done by good reading, good desires and a constant study of yourself and what certain impulses mean. Evil impulses WILL get into the brain; flush them out. Look ahead, [99] never backward. No man ever succeeded in life by looking behind himself. Look forward in all things. Don’t worry and work yourself ill by remembering the time when you did give way to the desire; just try to think of the times ahead that you will NOT.

Keep in your mind whatsoever things are upright, just and manly. This does not mean that you should be a “goody-goody” or a “sissy.” No, these two specimens of half-boys are detestable to all real men and women. So are the other kind—the vulgar and vile. Proper thoughts and clean acts in boyhood all go to make a man of character, of honor, give you the inward grace of a gentleman which cannot manifest itself outwardly save in good manners, modesty of bearing and fearlessness. Let your mind be stored with evil thoughts, indecent pictures made up in your mind, then act upon all these foul things, and nothing can bring you to the point of being a man and gentleman. Never.

And the reason is this: The memory is something like photographic films, like millions of them, some exposed, some unused. Every thought is registered on your memory films. Every tiny brain cell is a film ready to take a picture the moment it is exposed to a thought. You can have a pile of bright, good, inspiring ones so big and thick that they hide forever [100] those films which have registered evil and wrong thoughts.

Every debasing thought or waking dream of filth leaves its photographic negative somewhere in your brain. Every thought or mind picture remains there to come forward again and again, if it is not darkly and deeply hidden by manly thoughts and ambitious dreams of what you want to do to make something of yourself and do something for the world.

It is in these facts that the great injury of self-abuse enters. You cannot commit the vicious act without having in your mind some kind of nasty and unnatural pictures. You first bring this picture to your consciousness which accompanies the act.

This picture you may think is only a passing one, but it has left its negative in your brain. It will stay there to some time reappear, unless it is packed so far behind natural and manly thoughts that it cannot possibly throw itself before your consciousness.

From this explanation you can see that if the habit of self-abuse and all the pictures in your mind which accompany the habit are continued, your brain cells will soon be occupied by these negatives, and there will be a constantly decreasing space for right thoughts. Now comes the time when the youth finds it [101] hard to apply himself to his work or studies. His mind will wander; he is called stupid, he becomes discouraged and leaves school or work. Yet, he can, at this period in his life, be brought back to be a normal youth. He can start right by knowing that if he will at once put all evil thoughts away he can hide the brain pictures which have been holding him down.

You should remember it is not so much the PHYSICAL injury self-abuse does; not the “losing a pound of blood” every time he abuses himself; it is the brain power he is weakening, the filling of brain cells with pictures which shut out proper thoughts.

Of course it hurts your growing strength, keeps you weak and finally affects your whole nervous system, but the youth has wonderful powers of recovery from PHYSICAL injury, and if he has not kept up the habit, all this injury may be repaired.

But not so with the brain. We cannot get rid of the negatives there, but we can keep them suppressed. And how well they may be hidden and not allowed to shut out good thinking, depends entirely upon the length and frequency of the practice of self-abuse.

But one thing is certain: if the boy will at once stop the habit, get away from all those boys and things which bring out these injurious [102] brain pictures, he can forget the past and look only at the future.

This is the cure and the only cure.

But there are a lot of details which, when understood, help a boy to do all this. First, never sleep with another person, man or boy. In a former Chat I told you that to sleep with another person was unhealthful; that it prevented your skin from breathing fresh air and that you could absorb the poisons from another’s skin.

Sleeping with another person causes extra warmth under the clothing; this affects the sex organs—sends blood to them and causes a feeling of attraction towards these delicate organs. Often this will end in an emission—an unnatural one, due to the heat, not to an effort to empty overloaded sacks. Again, many boys will be tempted to talk and play with each other. These boys may be ignorant and innocent at first, but in the end it means self-abuse.

Thousands of boys have been started on the habit through sleeping one with another. One may have been innocent and ignorant, one vicious—no matter; the result is the same.

Never trust yourself in bed with a boy or man. No matter if you are so situated that there is only one bed to be had. Sleep on the floor, anywhere; go without sleeping rather than have that “first time” happen to you. [103] And it is so easy to avoid all this danger when you know the facts. The trouble has been that these matters have been withheld from your knowledge. It was so easy to tell you to be good and then send you to bed with a vicious boy.

There are things in trousers called men, so vile that they wait in hiding for the innocent boy. These things are generally well dressed, well mannered—too well mannered in fact—and pass as gentlemen; but they are really human skunks hatched from rattlesnakes’ eggs. They hang around fashionable summer hotels, city boarding houses and hotels where families live. They fool your mothers and sisters; are always ready to play the gallant in parlor games, croquet with the girls and often are much sought after as dancers.

Look out for these vermin, be suspicious of any man in trousers who avoids real men, who never enters or takes interest in manly sports, who tries to see you alone and prefers to go in bathing with boys instead of men. Don’t go to drive or walk with these things, for all the time they are only waiting to teach boys to help them in self-abuse or something far nastier.

So never sleep with a man, except your father. If you should be so situated that you find yourself in bed with a man, keep awake [104] with your eyes on something you can hit him with. At the slightest word or act out of the way, HIT him; hit him so hard that he will carry the scar for life. Don’t be afraid, these skunks are all cowards.

It is to be hoped that you will never come in contact with or know such beastly men. There are not many of them sneaking around, nevertheless I feel I should warn you against everything that might be the commencement of your ruin.

Almost all the deeds and thoughts which go to make up a career of success or failure, have their beginnings in youth. Youth is the springtime of life. It is the planting time, the crop you sow is reaped in the summer and autumn of life.

Just being good amounts to a useless life unless you can be good for something. You cannot be good for anything unless you are good to yourself. The time has passed when a youth or man can neglect his body and brain and, when they are no longer working as they should work, go to a doctor and have him repair the trouble with medicines. The doctor of the future and those of the present who understand man and his powers, study to show you how to keep in the best physical and moral health. These two conditions cannot be separated; neglect your [105] body and evil thoughts and weak will are sure to follow. Both come from the Great Source and both must be equally cared for and respected.

You have been told that it is wonderful to look around and see God’s work. But this is not exactly the whole truth. It is more wonderful to study self and recognize the spirit of God IN YOU. And this spirit in you will always respond to your appeals for help in these matters of taking care of the body and all that belongs to the body.

Just say to yourself: “I have a lot of dirt in my body; I know now how to get it out and keep it out. I have some filthy thought germs in my brain, I will wash them out and keep them out.” Doing this until it becomes a silent habit, you start as a youth whose foundations are such that, as a man, you can become what you will.

Boys have been scared to death, or to the point where they think death would be a relief, by being told that pimples on the face were signs of self-abuse and the commencement of “Lost Manhood.” Pimples on the face of a growing boy have no more to do with these conditions than a corn on the toe. Remember this truth: Self-abuse kept up will, of course, bring about a dirty complexion, pale face, trembling limbs and the general appearance of something [106] wrong with the youth. But the purest-minded and healthiest youth will have pimples on his face for two or three years.

When the age of puberty arrives, every gland, including the sweat glands of the face and others, which exude a fatty material, are pouring out an excess of their secretions, like the sap in young trees during the springtime. This state naturally leaves a complexion muddy-looking and helps also to make pimples. But the pimples on the youth’s face are mainly due to another cause.

When the beard commences to grow, each hair, in trying to push its way through the tender skin, leaves a hole a little larger than the size of the hair. Consequently there are around the pushing hair of the beard little open spaces into which dirt and some of the acid secretions enter. This sets up a slight inflammation and so, of course, makes pimples.

Let these pimples alone. All pinching, opening and applications make them worse. Sometimes a boy becomes so worried and ashamed about them that he goes to a druggist, who gives him an ointment or wash which closes up the opening spaces and thereby keeps the dirt and inflammation hidden for a time. But this is an injurious thing to do; for soon the inflammation increases downwards in the skin and unless at once relieved the boy will have one [107] form of a real skin disease, which, even when treated by a doctor, is liable to leave scars on the face; deep pits which resemble those of smallpox. If you are foolish enough to smoke cigarettes when growing, your pimples will be irritated, and then, of course, enlarged and more difficult for Nature—the only genuine doctor—to bring about a good complexion.

As a general rule, the stronger the man you are to be, the more numerous the pimples will be on your face and body. This is because a full and heavy beard generally belongs to the strong man. So if you have more hairs pushing through your skin than a less-powerful youth, you will have more pimples. Temperament, that is, your racial traits, color of hair and family complexion, all these kinds of things, of course, make a difference in the way your beard grows and the quality of it; but the principles are all the same for every growing youth.

Frequently boys are frightened almost to helplessness because some of these pimples appear upon the parts surrounding the sex organs. These pimples are generally from the same cause; most often due to the curling of the young hairs which re-enter the skin near the point where they come out.

In all these matters you only need to keep your face and other hairy parts clean by [108] simple washing with soap and water. Use only a plain, pure soap—castile soap is excellent for this purpose. Don’t use highly-scented soaps. Many of these are poisonous to such conditions, as I have explained.

When you feel that it is about time to commence shaving, do it yourself—DON’T “let a barber do it.” It is an easy matter to learn to handle a razor, and now the safety razors make it inexcusable to go to a barber. Then think of the nastiness involved in having a stranger’s hands running all over your sensitive skin! Would you let any other kind of brush which had been used upon a thousand of all sorts of human skins, be smeared over yours? Then the soaps, towels, all the things the barber uses! Ugh, if you had seen all the diseases I have seen on men’s faces, you would allow no hands but your own to touch your face. You know where your hands have been; do you know where the barber’s were a half-hour before he shaved you?

True, all first-class barbers try to have everything they come in contact with kept clean and sterilized, but we cannot get away from the fact that the razor, brush, soap and hand of your own are far, far preferable to use on your tender face. Then traveling, if you do not shave yourself, you are liable to be obliged to enter some barber shop from which [109] you come out diseased; perhaps diseased for life. And if you do not know all about these diseases they will get such a hold upon your system that your career is ended. There are many other good reasons why you should shave yourself; one will come to your mind—the fact that you save valuable time and can start out in the morning looking clean and neat, as every gentleman should and does.

In traveling and other conditions which keep you away from your own toilets, especially in the public schools, the seats of the closets are often found to be covered with a form of lice—“crabs” they are vulgarly called. When these get on to you they cause a terrible itching. They will become so irritating that you cannot keep still. Many a boy has been sent home from school because he could not keep still or refrain from scratching himself. This form of scratching has often been thought by his teacher to mean evil thoughts or habits.

Poor fellows, how many of you have been unjustly accused!

If you will examine yourself closely, you will find the tiny lice. Little bits of things looking like a black pin-point. The best thing under these circumstances is to go to the doctor. He will give you an ointment to apply which will soon kill them. So don’t let some older boy, through fun and the love of scaring you, or [110] perhaps through his own ignorance, frighten you. Some boys and shameful men will tell you that the itching is a sure sign of self-abuse, or that you have a bad disease which will soon rot your whole body. And as many boys have once or more done things of which they are ashamed—always a good sign is this shame—these mean tales do much injury. There is nothing in it, boys; just “crabs.”

It is every strange, little symptom which comes to the developing youth that is seized upon by the Quacks to exaggerate in their advertisements and try to make you believe that physical or mental ruin is right ahead of you—unless you buy their drugs. Here is one way they work upon the youth’s ignorance and fears.

You are just an ordinary boy; full of fun, play and no better nor worse than the rest of us. One day you receive a circular or booklet through the mail. There is no printing on the envelope. Just one of the catalogues or circulars you sent for, as you wanted to see the prices of bats and mitts for next season’s games.

So thinks your mother also. And your father? Well, he is too busy making money for you all to really know what his son needs and wants in the way of confidential talks. But you will know when you have a boy—I am sure of this.

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But let us get back to the circular. You open it and at the first glance of the heading, down it goes deep into your pocket while you sneak off to read it.

I say sneak off, because that is about what you do. Then you read in the circular what your awful doom is to be. As you read on you tremble, and there comes over you the feeling that every bit of real life is leaving you. Once again you read those cursed lies and then commences the habit of looking in the mirror when no one is around, to notice your pale face and those tell-tale pimples. You feel your pulse, which is, of course, now going at a rapid rate, and get into exactly that fright the fakers knew you would get into and so send them money for their “cure” of “Lost Manhood.”

If I could have my way, I would send to prison for life every criminal who advertised or sold stuff for “Lost Manhood Restored.” These vampires are criminals, soul-murderers and body-destroyers, and just as guilty as though they stuck a knife into every youth and boy.

Then you read in the circular about the awful effects and signs of “Seminal Losses at Night,” and know for certain that they are fast telling on your face. “Surely,” you say to yourself, “I must show how rapidly I am [112] failing, for someone has noticed it and sent to these doctors to have them tell me what to do. Oh! what shall I do; can I ever be cured?”

Poor, scared and suffering boy! Why have father, mother and teacher left you to be the prey of these criminals? Ask them!

No, these blood-suckers did not get your name from anyone who knew you; that is, in the way you think. This is the way the names of boys and youths are procured: All through the land, especially in the weekly papers which circulate in the country towns, are to be found advertisements saying that if you will send your name—“only send your name; no money is wanted” is the general way they put it—you will receive the catalogue of the goods these advertisers have to sell. Sometimes it is some form of puzzle you are to solve and get a prize—“Just send us your name,” that is the trick. Others will offer you “A gold watch, 18-carat,” if you send a list of your young friends who would like to earn a little money selling soap, or canvassing for books or journals.

Rarely it is a fake sporting-goods house which advertises to send catalogues if you will send a list of names. But you all know the real ones; these are honest, absolutely straight houses. When you send these reputable houses [113] your names they are safe from being bought by these quacks and criminals.

All these advertisers want is to obtain the name of every boy and girl between fourteen and eighteen years of age, so as to mail them their circulars. Some of these advertisers are the firms selling the “Lost Manhood” fakes and other nasty fakes; some are in the disreputable business only to get the names and sell them to the blood-suckers, and once they get your name, they will follow you up to the last minute of your youth; then, if you have been easily bled, they will follow you up into your married life.

They work the Sunday School teachers by offering to send samples of mottoes or some other tempting bait to catch the unwary young woman who has a class of boys—yes, and girls. All they want is the name of each scholar for some contest—the winning class to get a prize; or else it is to introduce some new line of CHURCH work—and to introduce it in their city, samples will be sent free to each pupil.

In the high schools, they have their own agents—pupils—who send a list of names and with these names other information that these scorpions want. Of course, many of these pupil-agents do not really know just all the evil they are doing, but I think they are generally those of bad and injurious habits.

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So when you receive one of these circulars just tear the vile thing up and say to yourself: “Nixy for me, I don’t bite at such bait—I’m no sucker.”

I am pleased to say that all these nefarious schemes I have investigated are run by foreigners; not one I know of is controlled by a genuine American or Britisher.

“But,” you say, “some of these fakers and quacks must be honest. There must be something in what they say in print, because they offer your money back if you are not cured. They give you a written guarantee and refer you to a bank.”

True, and you will find that the guarantee is legally correct and binding. But—

This is the way they trap you: In the guarantee they promise to return your money—and sometimes more as a bait—IF YOU GIVE REASONABLE PROOF THAT YOU WERE A VICTIM OF INJURIOUS HABITS BEFORE TREATMENT, AND THAT THE TREATMENT HAS NOT CURED YOU.

When you demand your money back they will send you a blank to fill out and return. They inform you that when this blank is properly filled out they will at once return the money. I presume they will, but I have never heard of such a case and [115] I have investigated hundreds of these schemes.

The blank you are asked to fill out is such that no victim will return it. It requires you to get the signatures of your minister, one of the principal business men in your town and your father or next of kin, certifying that you had the habit before taking treatment and that you have it now. Then this must be taken before a notary and witnessed—the blood-suckers!

If you have any reason to think that you may be in danger of falling into the habit of self-abuse, do this: Every time the temptation comes to you go at once and bathe your sex organs in cold water. If it is in one of those half-waking conditions in the morning, WAKE UP. Go at once and plunge the parts in cold water. Take a cold shower, if possible; if not, have a big sponge always ready and let the cold water run down your back and all over the sex organs—testicles and penis. If the temptation comes at night before you have gone to sleep, get out of bed at once , no matter how cold it is, the colder the better, and apply the icy water.

Take cold? Not a bit of it. These are old women’s tales; what all boys need are the true facts of life from men. You want to be stopped from being cuddled up in warm blankets and [116] told not to get out of bed, and all that nonsense.

While you are breaking up any impulses to do that which you know is injurious, is the time for developing the will. This can be done by all boys and bring you to a state of self-control that has been sadly lacking in the past generation.

If you want big muscles, those always under your control and acting when and how you want them to, you exercise them regularly. Those which have the least development and are not under ready command, you pay much attention to strengthening and bringing under control. By this way you soon get them under full control. The will can be made to do as you desire, by the same method. When the temptation comes, and as you are pouring over the cold water, just say: “Will, do as I want—Take my mind off these subjects. Will, drive out that dirty picture—That’s the way, now, once more.” If the thoughts still linger and try to throw down the struggling will, stay up reading some interesting book. Some exciting book that you really like, something about pirates, Indians, detective stories or travelers’ tales. I think it is a good thing to have always on hand a book you want to read. Keep such a book for emergencies, just as a soldier carries bandages for emergencies. When a thought [117] or impulse comes to you that may carry you to wrongful acts, jump out of bed and get the book and read, even if you stay up all night. This helps to strengthen the will and takes you safely over the danger point. You may call such a book: “The First Aid to the UNinjured.”

By these many little methods you gradually develop the will to act your way. You do more, you strengthen it, make it a BIG power for you to move and direct and finally DO BIG THINGS. The will certainly can be brought to a high development, and what a magnificent sight is the man with big muscles, big brain and controlled will force.

Of course you cannot do all this at once. Do not be discouraged if you fail time after time. Stick at it. Every EFFORT means an increase of power. It is like the gradual development of the muscles, as I have said. You all know the story of the man who commenced to carry a calf and lifted it every day until it had grown to be a cow. Then he could lift and carry off the cow. Do you suppose he could at first have lifted a cow? Of course not. Neither can you carry off the first attempt of your will to get the better of you. But by keeping at it and doing a little every day, in time you can get a strangle-hold on it. When you get this hold call to it [118] to get up and OBEY. It will do your bidding.

You need no drugs, medicines or “electric belts” to get you to full manhood. Just the power in you well brought out is the way to complete physical and mental development. And again, don’t get discouraged. Man never succeeded in anything by remembering past failures. It is just this constant fighting discouragement and mistakes that shows where the faults lie, and knowing these faults, we can in the next attempt avoid some of them, finally all of them.

I have mentioned “electric belts.” These are another great fake, a monstrous fake, and if the people were not ignorant of the facts I have been telling you, such frauds could not live a day. You have all seen those pictures in the papers of the big, strong-looking man to whose arm clings a smiling young woman. Then there is the companion picture, the picture of the “down and out” man looking as if he had one foot in the grave and one hand reaching out to the insane asylum. Of course the advertisement tells you that this is the way he looked before he used the “electric belt.” If it were not for the curse of these pictures and the great injury they do to the ignorant people, these advertisements of “electric belts” would seem roaringly funny to the [119] doctor. The fact is that all the statements in these advertisements and similar ones are nothing but bare-faced lies—every one of them.

Again you say, “I know a man who was cured by one of these ‘electric belts.’” Or a youth will state that he wore one for three months and was made into a well man again.

Both these statements are probably true, and will be given in writing to the advertisers who challenge the world to dispute the facts.

But how, then, if these advertisements are frauds? Let us take a part of the advertisements and discover:

After telling you that “Weaknesses, Nervousness,” and all that kind of advertising rottenness, will be removed by wearing the belt, this advice follows: I quote word for word—“No drugs to be taken, NO CONDITIONS IMPOSED EXCEPT THAT DISSIPATION MUST CEASE.”

Now you see the nigger in the woodpile—“DISSIPATION MUST CEASE.” In other words, stop your evil habits, the ones which have caused a little or great weakness, and you will be cured.

Is this any different from what I have told you? Not at all, only I say don’t use the fake “electric belt,” and you will be far better off. Using these belts or any kind of appliances, is worse than useless because they give you a [120] false idea of what really cures you, and you may be foolish at some later period in your life—but not if you have developed the will—and resume your injurious habits, thinking all you need to be well again is to resort to the “belts.” You might just as well tie a piece of lead pipe between your legs.

Some boys have been told they should wear suspensory bandages all the time they are growing. No; if Nature intended the testicles should have greater support, she would have given this support.

There are times in athletic sports, such as wrestling, jumping, hurdling, pole jumping, when it may be advisable, in order to save the organs from shock or strain, to wear a “jock strap” or suspensory bandage. But if you have taken decent care of yourself, the muscles which suspend the bag should be strong and elastic enough to protect the testicles in it. Cold water, again, is the best and only way by which these muscles should be developed.

Frequently the boy imagines he has varicose veins of the testicles—that is, another scare has been thrown into him by the advertisements of quacks—and such a lad will worry himself to a state of uselessness. He is constantly feeling the worm-like cords and attachments inside the bag. He is sure now that it is all over with him, he can play no more ball, but must sit [121] quietly and await the awful operation, or else he goes to some drug store for a suspensory bandage. If not warned and cared for in time, he gets into the talons of the Quacks who bleed him for all he can beg or get otherwise, and when he can give them no more money he is cast off hopeless, and we find him in the hospital clinic a trembling, wasted youth. And there was nothing the matter with him except a big scare.

Such a fright lowers the whole tone of a boy, moral as well as physical. His muscles become weak and flabby. Now it is a scientific fact that whatever part of the body your mind dwells upon will show the effect, evil or good, according to the kind of thoughts. Such a boy as we have described, has his mind fixed upon those worm-like cords in his bag. Now the muscles relax, then he feels those “worms” so big that the fright increases to almost a mania.

And all this suffering of thousands of lads just because parents and teachers have been criminally silent! But, boys, as I told you, it is not fair to put all the blame upon our parents. In their days they were not allowed to read such books as you are now directed to read; and such Chats as I am giving you—well, I should be elsewhere than here, had I lived in those days.

Never worry about those “varicose veins.” [122] You can all feel worm-like cords if you try. Especially if you wait until some warm day or after some great fatigue when the tiny muscles of the testicles are relaxed.

That’s all there is to the whole matter, but if you do worry about these and the other matters, the fakers “will get your goat,” and when that has left your side, like the horse, you lose your race.

Perhaps many of you do not know what I mean. Well, let us close this Chat by explaining:

It is the custom among racing stables in England to have some little pet kept in the box stalls with the horses. These highly-bred horses are very sensitive and timid. They have been accustomed to always have around them and in their stalls, when sleeping, boys and pets. Fox terriers and other small dogs of a sporty nature are generally found sleeping with the horses, sometimes on the horses’ backs, or if it is cold, between their legs. Take away for a night one of these pets and the sensitive horses will not sleep, lose their appetite and generally get out of form.

Now a few years ago there was a famous horse being made ready to win one of England’s big races. He had for a box-stall companion a billy goat. The goat and horse had been together since both were youngsters. It was [123] well known that the horse was uncontrollable, would neither eat nor sleep, if the goat was away from the stall. So some mean man who wanted the horse to lose the race, made the stable boy drunk and then took away the goat.

All night that poor horse stamped and whinnied for his goat. In the morning he was a nervous wreck and would not touch his food. Nevertheless, he was sent to the race and, of course, lost it because he had “lost his goat.” Another fellow “had his goat.”

So you see what I meant by using this slang of the day. The fakers first get your goat—your WILL and COURAGE—then you are bound to lose the race of Life.

Keep your goat by and in you always.

[124]

You will now see that a perfectly-balanced and well-cared-for body is necessary to produce a clear-thinking brain; that it is impossible to bring out the best in you unless you have the best of tools with which to work. No machinist would think of trying to do good work with dull, rusty or weak tools, and the most valuable tools of all are those which we are endowed with—hands and brains.

The boys in the past—many of the UNsuccessful men of to-day, though not by any means through their own fault—were brought up under a false idea of democracy. Matters were not as well understood as they are now, and the progress made all goes to benefit the boys of to-day. There is a fairly good reason why we have had so many dissatisfied youths in the past who are the failures to-day. It is because these men as youths were never fitted for the work in the world they could best do.

The error was in the false idea of the teachers that all boys’ brains were made of the [125] same workable stuff, and all that was necessary was to give to each and every boy the same teaching and then turn him loose to try to make a happy career.

Of course in many, too many cases, there was nothing the boy could find to do that meant anything to him. He could hang around corners, smoke cigarettes and hear stories and words of injury to any healthy youth. He could find some job in a store or perhaps office work, but fitted for real work and happiness in that work, he never was. Such a boy had really wasted valuable time in school, and it was not strange that when he left school he had no sense of the value of time. And such a boy often left school with an idea that he was not as bright as some other boys; this was the commencement of a state of discouragement all through his life—the reason he felt himself a failure.

Yet all these unfortunate lads were the equal of those who had graduated with high honors in Latin or history, only the things they could do best had never been given them to do.

If a boy disliked Latin or history and could not come up to the teacher’s idea of the interest he should have in these studies, he was too often considered lazy or stupid. If that boy was interested in mechanical drawing and [126] happy in such work, no matter, he MUST do his Latin, and disliking it, he, of course, neglected it.

This line of treatment went on throughout the boy’s school-life if he attended a public school, and generally he left disgusted and untrained for anything. Then he found there was really no place for him in the world, nothing but some small clerkships or other uncongenial work, and being continually dissatisfied, of course, never made a success in anything—just a living. As he grew older such a youth soon dropped into habits of drinking, or worse habits, worked like a machine day in and day out, not much caring how things went, so long as he received his weekly pay envelope.

The thousands of men of this kind with whom I have talked, were discouraged from the start. As boys they were always blamed for being useless, when, in fact no efforts had ever been made to make them useful.

With you boys of the present day all this is to be different. Every one of you can now find education and training in what you are fitted to do. Ideas are rapidly changing, as are methods. You are aware by this time that vocational schools are being rapidly established, and I hope to soon see the day when all academic high schools are retained only for those who are going to college and from there to the [127] professional schools. Of course you should all go to a high school, but to a high school where the foundation for some practical vocation, trade or business career is thoroughly taught.

I am frequently asked by young men, “Do you advise me to go to college?” The answer is easily understood when I say: “Never be SENT to college.” Here is where much of the harm has been done—the boy has been sent to college when in reality he WANTED, or needed, to go to some institution where his particular talents could be trained. For we each and every one are born with SOME particular talent, something in us which makes us able to do a certain thing better than the other man. If we were all equal in the matters of thinking and doing,—that is, if we all did the same thing,—how far would the world progress?

So this brings us down to the question, what is the basis for success? What is it the boy needs to progress every day in the trade or vocation he has chosen?

I have already told you, but purposely repeat it, NO BOY OR MAN CAN BE A SUCCESS UNLESS HIS HEART AND COMPLETE INTEREST ARE IN HIS WORK. The most difficult part of the problem is at the beginning. Your father or mother [128] wants you to be a lawyer or minister, your teacher says you have great talent for a medical career, but you do not care for any one of these professions. You find it hard to really know just what to do, and I sympathize with you all. I think that those who see you from the outside, who look upon you just as a real boy and have no such relations to you as parents or teachers, are in fact the best judge of what you are capable of being fitted for in a life’s career. Go and advise with some successful man who knows you in your play and daily life, but do not take his advice if it is something HE likes and you detest. You will soon have to be your own master, and now is a good time to commence. But fit yourself for something, you MUST. Notice how everything around you is fitted by nature and then trained by man, to do its work. The bulldog is not taken out in the field to nose for game; the draft horse is not taken to the trotting track; the canary bird is not trained to catch eagles. No, each and every kind has its special work to do in making the world go around, and each of us has to be trained according to our talents. Just because we all have two legs and arms does not indicate that we are all the same—just human beings all turned out from the same mold. Arms are made for one man to use them in a certain line of work that another [129] man cannot, with success, use his. And so on.

Every man who has trained his particular talents to their highest point and then strives to widen them, is an aristocrat—a prince, whether he is a brick-layer or lawyer. He only sinks to the level of a commoner who has neglected that working stuff which is in him. And he does not neglect this if he is happy in his work, or rather, if it is pleasure instead of work.

This does not mean that all the preparatory work will be congenial or without real labor. No, much of the work that you have to do preliminary to that which is to bring you success, will be HARD work—plugging work, full of disagreeable details, but all necessary to build the foundations.

The dirty, muddy work involved in digging for the foundation of some building that will be a pride to its architect, is disagreeable, but the architect must see that this work is properly done; must get right into the mud and dirt himself to know that every detail he has worked out is being rigidly followed. If the designer of the useful and beautiful building did not have constantly in his mind the results of all this digging, he would be a failure, he would never be a designer and builder of magnificent works for the future generations to admire.

[130]

It is just so with everything you start out to do. Start out with a high purpose and the common-sense idea that you HAVE to learn all the details first—to do the digging before that purpose can be fully carried out.

Concentration, constant concentration upon your goal is the only rule to follow. Like football, you move toward the goal by punting, touchdowns, and penalties which put you back, but you have ever one end in view—to reach the goal. A willingness to take all the hard knocks and throw-downs with the mind’s eye fixed on the goal, is the kind of stuff which wins out.

Never be a quitter.

Concentration is absolutely necessary to get the power out of you and force it to do its work. As someone has said, if you will concentrate the rays of the sun by the means of a magnifying glass you can burn a hole in almost anything. If you focus all your forces on one thing you can do wonders.

Don’t be a scatterer.

You do not all want to be mere office clerks, bundle wrappers, or what is far worse for your future, mere political petitioners hanging on to your job by petty and ofttimes crooked work. No, be something, do something that means a future for you.

“But,” you say, “how do I really know what [131] I want to do, how can I find out for myself what my future SHOULD be? You say not to always follow the advice of successful men if such advice does not agree with my ideas of what I should like to do.”

Yes, here is a difficulty. Let us see if we cannot solve it.

Don’t make the mistake so many thousands of boys have made in the past, of confusing what you would LIKE to BE with what you are CAPABLE of DOING. Here is where so much of the trouble has arisen. You have in your mind, as an example, the success a young man is making in writing for the magazines and papers. You remember him when he was a youth and you were a small boy.

His success has stimulated you, and you think that you will be a writer or reporter. Now the ambition is all very well, you have made up your mind what you WANT to be, but, and here comes the problem: Are you fitted by nature, temperament and TALENT for such work? This is a matter you must solve for yourself, at least at first.

If you have done any writing at school, been connected with the school’s paper, or in any way found more pleasure in writing than you have in mathematics, more fun in reading than in loafing, real pleasure in putting together words and sentences so that they really sing [132] to you, then you probably have the talent for the hardest vocation or profession in the world—journalism or literature.

If all this is well proven to you—if you feel that you MUST write—then all the hard work at first will be willingly accepted. If the drudgery, petty details of learning the art of writing, is disagreeable, then it shows that while you have perhaps a desire to see your work in print you really have not the inborn talent.

Now we come again to that question, “Shall I go to college?” If you are going to make a strenuous attempt to become a writer, the answer is yes, by all means. Even if after leaving college, and after a year’s trial at newspaper work, you find the petty details disagreeable and determine to drop the work, the college experience will be valuable to you, for your tastes show that in some line of intellectual work, you will be a success. And you will finally drop into just the vocation you are intended for, and finally make good.

If the inclinations of your tastes are towards mechanics, or electrical engineering, if every bit of your studies at the high school where language, literature or logic was a disagreeable task—if you fairly hated such studies—don’t think of going to a classical college. In such a case what you need is a technical [133] education. If you have the mechanical or scientific mind a course at a technical school puts you at once in the position to DO.

In art, music, literature, however, the situation is somewhat different. Take the case of one who desires to be a writer, and the facts are the same for the other arts. A college education will not make a writer out of anyone. Most men could spend their whole lives studying HOW to write, but in the end never be ABLE to write. In other words, a college education simply gives you the tools for writing and shows you how to use these tools. The tools for writing are such lines of reading, thinking and verbal construction as education gives you. Teaching you how to think clearly, calmly and justly, is what the college does for you. But if you have no original thinking powers, of what use are all these tools to you? You may have exceptional brain power, thinking qualities, but not along those lines necessary to make a successful writer, and so you are at a loss to know how to apply the tools given you. If you still struggle along in this false position you soon sink to the hack writer, the mind becomes clouded by failures and then comes the “down and out” state too often seen in those who have made the mistake of trying to be what they could never be.

Let us take another case as an example of [134] what I mean. You really have talent for wood carving and finally decide that you will take up this vocation—an admirable one. You thoroughly understand that in order to become a good wood-carver you must first learn to use the tools, to know how to take care of them. After this you must learn all about the different kinds of woods, how they are prepared and what effects the weather and climate have upon them. When you have been through all this preliminary work, there must come a study of designs and the history of your vocation or art. This is YOUR college education in preparation for good work and the success good work brings. You have been taught the use of every detail which goes to make up a good foundation for your career. You know HOW to use the tools and everything else is now up to you to make good. If your heart is in the work you will surely win out.

You will be apt to hear a lot about the cultural advantages of a college education; that it is never amiss in any calling. But right here comes a fact generally overlooked—you can receive a cultural education along any line you take up, and the better you apply yourself to your vocation, the better will your culture be.

In wood carving, for instance, there is much along the lines of art, painting and sculpture [135] to be learned. Such progressive work may lead you to become a famous sculptor or decorator of the highest order. If you have wasted your time along the cultural lines needed for a writer or doctor, learned how to use their tools, but do not possess their mental equipment, failure is certain. The failures come from mental dissatisfaction.

Get out of your minds the idea that there are only three or four professions which bring position and respect. This is a great mistake and is the cause for many poor doctors, the hordes of unscrupulous lawyers and weak-kneed ministers.

Many of these failures would have been successful as carpenters, machinists, draughtsmen or contractors. But they all wanted to go or were pushed into holes they could not fit.

Remember the old saying, “A round peg will not fit into a square hole.”

A trained machinist, one who takes delight in his trade, can rise far higher in worldly goods and the respect of his fellow-men than ever can a half-contented doctor. It is the same with an electrician, bridge worker, house painter, any and all trades where the man has learned to use his brain-tools and keeps sharpening them on the grindstone of pleasure.

Don’t go into law or medicine unless you go into these professions for the love of the work. [136] You may not know it, but the income of the average doctor or lawyer is not that of even the paper-hanger or bricklayer. If you are determined to be a doctor for the love of the profession and the great good you can do—and most of you will have to do it free for the needy and poor—then you will be happy and also probably poor.

In law, medicine, or the ministry, a college education is absolutely necessary, both cultural and preparatory. If a doctor, you must spend four years at the medical college, a year or two in the hospitals, then finish by visiting the clinics of Europe. By the time you are thirty years of age you are fitted to step into line with the best doctors.

And unless you can do all this—and it takes a lot of money—KEEP OUT. The days are passing when the boy can go from the high school to some cheap commercial medical college and take any kind of a stand among the educated doctors and the now enlightened communities. There is plenty of room in the world for the kind of a doctor I have first described, but absolutely no places waiting for the latter kind. These are not doctors, just medical warts, the sort of quacks we had a shot at in our last Chat.

The boy who has business talents and tastes will, of course, be far better able to rise and [137] command positions if he possesses an education. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that a college education, just because it is a college education, will make a business man of you from the start. Of two boys having equal business talents the one whose mind has been trained to think and who has mixed with all sorts of fellows at college, will probably have advantages for getting along that the non-college boy does not possess. But unless your father or someone back of you has money to spare, I believe that the average boy with commercial instincts does better in the end by getting into business early in life. He gets a better fitting for his career.

Now I think you can readily understand the first rule for becoming a successful man. Find out what your talents are, then fit yourself so that you can utilize all these talents. There are schools now being established where every boy can have this done. But he must work with pleasure. If you find you have made a mistake in your choice—and you will know this by being constantly dissatisfied—get out and try something else. Keep trying until you find some vocation or trade which you go at with increased pleasure every day. When this state of mind has arrived you have found yourself.

[138]

We now reach the most important details concerning the keeping of the brain in activity and vigor. Having brought you to an understanding of the body, how to take care of it, of all that belongs at the start to make up a successful man, we must put ourselves in a position to know how to live and act so that throughout adult life and up to the age of many years, but not old age, we can get out of us all that is possible.

I speak of living many years, but not getting old. I mean exactly what I say. There is no reason why a man should be old at sixty, no, not at seventy. I do not imply that a man should be able to do the same amount of physical work at seventy that he can at thirty, but I do mean to say that all his mental forces should be under his control at seventy years of age, although he will naturally have to use them with care. A man who has not injured his brain forces should retain them up to the last moment of his life, but as he has not the repairing [139] powers of the younger man, he should be careful of the strain put upon them.

In this latter fact lies the only difference.

Having started well in your vocation, trade or profession, with your fine brain-tools edged to their best, you may now proceed to success or gradual failure. For, of course, just having the training and education does not mean that everything else comes along your way. Not a bit of it. In fact, you will find at first that the care of the working instruments you now have will take a good lot of self-control and the formation of certain necessary habits.

It all depends upon how you keep your brain-tools what your future will be. Whether you neglect them once in a while so that they have to be sharpened again, whether you leave them to rust and finally become useless, whether you lay them aside in good condition and take them up again in perfect order, all these matters go for success or failure. If it is only occasionally you neglect the brain-tools, you must remember that each new act of resharpening them leaves a less keen edge. Resting your brain, taking time to recuperate tired cells and enjoying some kind of sport or pleasure that is a benefit instead of an injury to your thoughts, is necessary for every man.

These brain-tools I have been speaking of are your powers of thinking correctly, creating, [140] doing, and the absolute integrity which must be retained between the impulses of the mind and the hands which respond to these impulses. The engineer, the auto driver, the mechanic, the draughtsman, the airman, the man who works in perilous heights while constructing tall buildings or bridges, must have perfect harmony throughout all his body—brain, muscles, eyes, ears. Let any one of these senses become unconsciously dull through neglect of right living, and the awful moment comes when an engineer sends a train to wreck with its innocent passengers, a tender pulls a lever a tenth of a second too soon and lets down the derrick’s load upon his fellow workers, or a chauffeur misses the turn by a few inches and sends the auto crashing over a precipice.

It is because these little matters of keeping the brain in its best condition by attending to details of living have not been thoroughly understood, that we have so many unaccountable accidents occurring every day. The knowledge of man’s forces and how they are controlled has not kept pace with his wonderful mechanical and electrical discoveries, so we have gone along with brain, instincts and training well enough for handling the plow and side-wheel steamboat, but not for the safe control of the delicate and powerful machines of to-day.

For example: a young man who runs an auto [141] goes one night to a dance where he breathes foul air, smokes and drinks a little beer. He returns late to his bed and rises early in the morning to take out the auto for a speedy spin. He knew the day before that he was to go with a party of children and women for an early drive. But what he did not know was that the foul air, tobacco and beer would surely make for less correct connection between his brain impulses and the response from his muscles, hands and arms.

Now all this little night’s pleasure, while harmless enough perhaps in its way and certainly harmless for a man who was to drive a hack the next morning, was injurious for one who needed every tenth of action between brain and hand under absolute control. There is coming a time when all these matters will be taught as well as the combustion parts of an engine.

In these details I am not referring to dissipation as it is generally considered. We accept without argument the injury such habits do—the certain ruin which follows drink and all that goes with that state. We take this auto driver whom we are using for an example, as a temperate man. And justly considered he is one, but nevertheless he has by this apparently harmless pleasure of one night, gone to work the next day with the fine edge off his brain-tools. [142] When the time comes for the most accurate judgment and an immediate response of hands to avoid the danger the brain sees, there is a part of a second in delay, and then the awful accident happens.

How did it happen? Those left alive cannot understand. The right thing was done at the right moment, so all think. The driver was a careful young man, of good habits, temperate, “never known to have been under the influence of drink, and always trustworthy.”

To-day is the day of the brain worker, and the man who lets the edge of his brain become dulled is a danger to himself and whatever he controls. And it is these little things which dull the brain; matters of such little importance in a man’s outward life that no one would suspect the direful results.

You can no longer do as your fathers used to do; we are living in a distinctly different age; we are daily dealing with powerful forces undreamed of in the past generation, and we must make ourselves ever ready to handle these forces.

There has been such a tremendous move in mechanical devices the last twenty years that this necessity of adapting our methods of living so as to safely accomplish the things our brains are called upon to do, has not been fully appreciated. Take the case of an engineer who has [143] been on duty for twenty-four hours. The old idea was that he simply became tired, that if he could keep his eyes open, everything would go all right. Now I have told you that fatigue produces a poison in the body; so here we see that when an engineer meets with an accident it was not due to merely being tired, but because his brain was being saturated with poisons, and when the moment came to act there could not be the ready response of hands or arms to avoid the accident.

But one class of men and women have known the absolute necessity of keeping the brain clear of poison. This class belongs to the professional circus people—trapeze performers, animal trainers, riders. These individuals live an ideally moral life. Not that they are any better than the rest of us, but because they know they have so to live in order to do their work. It is a very old profession, perhaps the oldest in the world, and experience, tradition, training and marrying into their own class—a very important factor—has brought about their unconscious acceptance of the physically pure life.

Undoubtedly after a generation or two in the use of our wonderful mechanical and electrical aids for easier living, we shall all be brought to the same method of grading our habits. Those who have not the mental vision to see this necessity will cease to enjoy the [144] world’s improvements. They will all become victims of their own stupidity or foolishness.

Not only does all this danger in dulling our brain-tools apply to the engineer, electrician, airman, auto driver and the hundreds of other active callings, but it applies also to the writer, painter, musician.

In these latter professions the danger is to the individual, but the result is the same—ruin in the end. The writer loses his force, his biting words; the painter shows a lack of his former color-tone, the musician finds that his latest work is severely criticised.

All these conditions may occur and yet the creator of brain output still remain an average man, not noticeably dissipated. In fact, he may live a strictly moral life, yet show in his prime a deterioration which neither he nor his friends can explain.

This fact brings us to the point of explaining the little and big factors which produce these causes of failure.

It is some little break in the connection between brain-cells that brings about the inability to think and act without effort. When a task is difficult to perform that is usually accomplished without difficulty, you may know that there is a temporary interruption somewhere in the tiny fibers and cells of the brain. Something has disturbed their normal action. It is [145] either fatigue poison, the poisons from overfeeding or underfeeding, effects of alcohol, tobacco, or the foul air you have taken into your system. Look into the matter and see what is the cause. It is the state brought about by some of these poisons which is at the bottom of all these lapses of full control of self and powers. The most frequent cause for this condition is due to two factors—external surroundings and mental absorption of injurious suggestions and sights.

The external surroundings are most frequently those of which the individual is not fully cognizant. That is, they are constantly at work doing their little injury day by day until they have finally made an impression upon the activity of the brain—dulled its keenness.

First of all these is the breathing of unfresh air. Not the noticeably bad air found in tenements, many shops and factories, but the air into which are thrown the emanations of thousands of all kinds and conditions of human bodies. No matter how well ventilated, theoretically, a big department store may be, the air one breathes in it is certain to contain poisons from well and diseased bodies. In most department and other large stores much attention is paid to ventilation, the best possible methods are used. But these stores cannot [146] regulate the personal hygiene of those thousands who enter.

The man who is in the habit of daily and nightly taking into his system nothing but fresh air cannot remain a half hour amid the surroundings of a crowded store without having a headache and a general feeling of sluggishness. Always having his brain free of poisonous substances, he rapidly becomes affected with the smallest amount. Living amid such atmospheric surroundings keeps the man and woman from doing their best. It is the same with the thousands of men who work in shops among hundreds of their kind; with the traveler who has to sleep in our microbe canisters, the sleeping cars; the theaters where continuous performances go on, and worse than all the commuter who twice a day takes in the poisons swarming in the smoking cars.

It is not necessary for me to enumerate all these unhealthful conditions we have to face every day of our lives. They are here and many of them cannot be changed as long as man and woman herd like sheep, one after the other, to the cities. Of course it would be an ideal state if before entering these large department stores, factories, etc., every man, woman and child was compelled to strip and have a hot bath and vigorous rub down. And this idea is not such an impossible one as you [147] might at first think. These very same conditions existed in Rome. There every man and woman took a hot bath before and after being in a crowd, whether it was shopping, in the Forum, or the amphitheater. There were baths for the poor, for the children and nurses, for the laborer as well as those magnificent ones for the rich and noble. But you see they were all Romans. I don’t think we should have much success in getting ALL of our citizens to bathe. In the hospitals, we doctors sometimes have to use a hose to get any effect upon a certain class of patients. I have seen thousands of men and women who wanted the doctor to give them “something to make them feel well” when plenty of soap and water was all they needed. And they were not the poor, the tramps and outcast, by any means.

I would go farther than the bathing before entering a crowded place. I would have them, after the shopping or factory work is over, pass through a system of breathing exercises in the open air—skin exposed—then allowed to go their way.

But practically, what can be done? Get out in the fresh air three or four times a day and take breathing exercises. No matter what the weather is, do this simple thing. At noontime there is always opportunity for ten or fifteen minutes of new life. Get it. No matter what [148] the weather is, always have your bedroom window open. Better let the snow and rain come in and spoil your carpet than allow the poisonous air expelled from your or other lungs to re-enter your system and dull your working capacity. Do not forget what I have already told you when speaking of athletic prowess—that the skin is, next to the lungs, our greatest breathing organ. Whenever possible, take an air bath—in your room when the sun shines, when you go bathing in the sea or swimming “in the ole swimmin’ hole.”

NEVER take “headache powders.” The habit of taking any kind of “nerve tonic,” digestive tablets, “harmless bracers,” will in the end put your brain-tools in poor shape. You have now the knowledge of what health means and how to keep it; if you will apply that knowledge with judgment you will be taking the best and only medicine man needs unless a destructive disease attacks you. And here is an important item; the ordinary diseases man is afflicted with will not get a hold upon the WELL youth.

I thoroughly appreciate the fact that all boys must have some kind of recreation. The working-boy needs it more than the schoolboy. You cease to be a healthy youth when you do not care for recreation, and fun, play and release at certain intervals from all kinds of work [149] is your birthright. But this recreation should be taken in fresh air and with proper companions. While speaking of fresh air I am reminded of several letters from boys sent to me after our last Chat. They asked about the same question: “If my father or mother died from consumption, is there any use of my fitting myself for a trade if I am to have consumption?”

We can settle this question in a very few decided words. No matter if your whole family died from consumption, it does not mean you will have consumption. Consumption is not a disease you can inherit. Now don’t forget this truth. But if you are born of consumptive parents it generally means that your parents did not know the curative value of fresh air. If you were kept in the same rooms where the germs of tuberculosis lived and thrived you ran big risks. But if you got away from these conditions as soon as you knew the danger, then, even if you have slight symptoms of the disease, you can be assured of a complete cure.

FRESH AIR DAY AND NIGHT, WITH NOURISHING FOOD AND PLENTY OF IT, WILL KEEP YOU FREE FROM CONSUMPTION. These conditions will cure you in the first stages.

It is very important, however, that the boy whose parents died from consumption should [150] not follow any trade or vocation which keeps him indoors during the growing period of his life. He never should take up any employment which means living in a dusty atmosphere, where metal filings are floating in the air. Keep out of button factories. The dust from the old bones used to make buttons and similar articles is apt to irritate the lungs, and when this condition is brought about the germs of consumption find a ready soil to breed in, and they do so.

You need have no fear of consumption if you follow the rule of keeping your lungs clean; fresh air is the broom for this kind of cleaning.

The curse of the public dance halls is not known to you all. I do not speak of the immoral conditions surrounding many of these places, but of the physical conditions. You cannot frequent these poorly-ventilated halls without having poisons circulated in your brains. If you are studying to perfect yourself in some vocation which calls for a perfect adjustment between the brain and hands; if your work calls for the keenest eyesight or acutest form of hearing; the edge will be taken off these tools should you spend your nights where the air is foul, where the skins of careless and ignorant persons are giving off their poisons, where the dust brought in by skirts is [151] swirled in the atmosphere by the dancing crowd.

There is no doubt in my mind that many a boy is started on a career of “laziness,” incapacity and unhealth from the constant intake of poisonous matter always to be found up in the gods’ gallery. Foul and hot air exhaled from the lungs always rises upward, so a boy sitting in the gallery really has his lungs over a vast pit which sends up rank poisons for him to take into his system. Indirectly this leads to drink, for with a headache, a feeling of weakness and sometimes a dizziness he, at first, takes a little beer. From this to ale and then liquor is the easy path. What can we expect from the brain of such a youth? Nothing—that is, nothing good. So at the start of a useless boy and ofttimes criminal, we see it was not vicious tendencies nor criminal instincts, but vicious air which brought about a poisoned brain and this results in a wrong view of things, so the youth takes to anything but real work.

What the hookworm is to the unfortunate troubled by this parasite, the air in the top of the cheap theaters is to the boy and youth. It is worse than the hookworm, for along with the foul air he takes into his system go the fouler suggestions of the stage.

Every evil suggestion, spoken or acted, works great harm to your brain-tools. I do not intend [152] to say anything to you about the moral side of evil—that is the Sunday School side—and I want you to get this fact well in your minds. I am trying to tell you what are the many causes for not getting along, as well as about those conditions of brain that will put you toward success. To do so I have to warn you about evil suggestions and companions. The moral side of your life will be taken care of if you avoid all those conditions which go to make a weak brain and body.

If the girls who frequent the PUBLIC dance halls were your equals, if they were fit to be your future wives, I should have no objections to your going there—provided the ventilation was of the best. But you all know in your hearts that you would not want your sister to go to these PUBLIC dance halls, and that a mother who brought up her daughters in the right way would not allow them to frequent such places and associate with strange men and youths. There are a large number of girls who frequent these places unknown to their mothers, others lie to their mothers about these matters. Now, you can put this down as a fact, a girl who will lie to her mother and disobey her will do the same to you if she becomes your wife.

You know all this, I dare say, but I want it deeply stamped upon your mind by one who has [153] had a large experience with these kinds of girls and women. They are not wholly to blame, but we will not go into this subject here.

Now if this is the solid truth, do you not see that in these associations you are bound to see and hear things which fill your mind with thoughts and ideas which do not help your mental growth; more, they injure it. It is the same fact over again—the brain is a sensitive photographic film.

When you go to dances see that the hall you go to is well ventilated, that no smoking or drinking is allowed and that those you dance with are girls you can introduce to your mother and sisters. For dances and fun you should have, but see that they are of the sort that the next morning when you take up your work nothing evil enters your mind, that remorse and shame do not crowd out the teaching of yesterday and that you feel more ambitious to work to-day than the day before. If this state of mind is held day by day, you are certain to achieve success. If the contrary state of mind takes hold of you there is a going backwards, and kept up, this state means FAILURE.

Then there are those nasty holes, the public “poolrooms.” There is no objection to playing pool, billiards or any games, but there is objection to hanging around in the foul air—you see I am at your health again—the dead [154] cigarette smoke, and listening to the animal language and ideas of the useless youths who make these places their “hang-outs.”

Don’t hang around with “the gang” unless you want later to hang with the gang.

The country boy needs this advice as much, if not more, than the city boy. He more frequently becomes fascinated by the evil attractions which reach him than the boy who is surrounded by good gymnasiums, teachers of manual labor and open-air playgrounds. But at heart he is a good boy.

There was a time when the boy who lived on a farm was free from evil suggestions, associations and shows. It is not so now. In fact I believe the country boy has more temptations thrust in his way than the city boy. He has not been brought up to see the outside world as has the city boy; hence, when these evils reach his neighborhood, all is new and fascinating to him. The trolley has penetrated his district and established “White Cities,” dance halls have been erected, moving picture shows and other dubious attractions follow the trolleys and are not always under the control of these railways. I have seen picture shows at these places which would not be allowed in the cities. The country fairs have many side shows that cannot but injure every youth who witnesses them, but to explain where the injury comes in [155] is never the duty of school-teachers or parents—at least they will tell you so.

But we must not blame the country boys for flocking to these shows. It is very tempting bait held out for their dimes and nickels. The boy’s life on the farm is devoid of many of the harmless pleasures given to the city boy. There are no places where he and his companions may gather—no boys’ clubs, no gymnasiums. But worse than all his parents seem to lack knowledge of what such a lad needs in the way of real instruction concerning life, of the dangers of associating with the girls brought from the cities to fleece and disease them, and to the dangers around the “White Cities” and other public places, which the most innocent lad is liable to fall into.

These boys are to be pitied and not blamed for their sad ends, for it is a fact that in the country towns, especially in New England, there are more useless youths than can be found anywhere else in the land. The harvest of the quacks is gathered from the country boys and girls.

For the boy who is to stay on the land there is but one thing to do. Farming being his vocation, he must fit himself to get the best out of his farm. This he can do by attending an agricultural school. No matter if your parents do scoff at scientific farming; you must [156] get out of the old rut and show them their error. The boy must when he returns to the farm during his vacation, realize that he is being given brain-tools,—his education,—and not to dull these delicate instruments he will have to avoid all evil companions and shows. He can demonstrate by this attitude that his mental powers are developing and that he is ABOVE those chaps who loaf around the store telling the latest stories and of what they saw at “The Pavilion.”

It is your duty, as a growing man, to set this example. From a sense of duty it will become a pleasure. It is only by such examples we can save the thousands of country boys, for many of them, perhaps most of them, will see a new light and a future; something that has not yet come into their vision. You will find that taking a leading part in your community will be far beyond any sport you formerly found at the shows and dances, that you are growing in mind, spirit and power. The boys who refuse to follow your example will be those whom you hire, when they are sober, to cut your wood or pitch your hay. And all of them will have had your opportunities.

To the boy who has wealth or knows he will have it, there is little to say. If such a youth does not use his wealth to develop his powers to their highest degree and also assist in every [157] possible way the progress of the world, there is nothing but universal condemnation. The world to-day has no place for the mere spendthrift and idler. A man of wealth has the right to live as luxuriously and well as he likes, but he has no right to allow his brain to sink to nothingness or by example lower the thinking powers of his fellow men. It does not make much difference what kind of work a man of wealth does, so long as WHAT he does aids instead of hinders his fellow men.

Thousands of boys have been made into MEN through the training they have received in the navy. Most of these youths went from homes where never a word of what should have been told them was uttered. Especially so is this true of the country boys. Their fathers took a colt as soon as it was old enough and commenced to train it, give it good manners and see that it was kept from running wild and with the mares. He took pride in daily making it step lively and surely. He saw that its food was of the best, and proudly drove it around the neighborhood.

But his SON was allowed his own way, never taught to keep in the right road, never controlled, never confidentially considered. If such a boy went into the navy, he received the training needed, but which his PARENTS would have neglected. Those who have received [158] the fatherly instruction of the navy have been turned out well-mannered, given the best of health and the knowledge of how to keep it. And do not make the mistake too often made that the navy takes unruly boys, those SENT away from home or the riff-raff from the cities. The navy will not accept such useless stuff.

If for no other reason I am a believer in a bigger navy, for it seems to me the only way we can control and bring to full and decent manhood the thousands of neglected youths throughout the land. Trained, having a vocation, worldly-wise, but not evil or sneaking, these youths are exerting a good example wherever they locate after leaving the service. They bring their brain-tools ashore with them and use them, take care of them and know the fearful results of an immoral life.

So I say to you boys who cannot decide upon just what you want to do, yet know that you must do something, try the navy. There you will find several vocations from which to pick and be trained in. You will obtain a knowledge of the world, broaden your intellect and secure perfect health. When you come out you will be fitted to do something. If you remain home hanging around, you will probably end in being a helpless man—in more ways than one.

Yes, helpless in mind and perhaps limbs. [159] Why? Because the boy who goes through the public schools and then out into the world runs imminent danger of being ruined for life through one fact—HE HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT LIFE.

I have hinted in these Chats that there is one factor that does more to injure man’s brain and body than all the ordinary diseases in the world. It is such a big factor in making or unmaking man that I shall only point out here the importance of knowing all about this disease and other troubles following the disease.

This disease is sexual in its origin. Of course you all know that venereal diseases exist. You have heard about syphilis and gonorrhea. I have classed them under one disease only because they arise from one cause. Besides these two there are many complications arising from both.

Now what is the truth about these diseases? Why should a boy, girl, everyone, know about these fearful things if they intend keeping away from the women who spread these vile troubles?

Just because the danger does not lie altogether in those of evil habits and professions. If the diseases were only caught by those who lived immoral lives, and stayed with these people, it would not be necessary to go into full details. But these diseases do their great injury to the [160] innocent and ignorant—those ignorant of these important matters.

The germs of these diseases are now everywhere—in the schools, public drinking cups, on hotel towels, on the lips of girls who freely allow you to kiss them. They can be left by the cook on the tasting spoon, are found upon the seats of public toilets, on soiled linen, anywhere man and woman goes and works to-day. You may have your eyesight completely destroyed by getting a few germs in your eyes by rubbing your face on some apparently clean towel. In fact, the ways you can contract these diseases are too numerous to mention; you must know them all.

The greatest fact for you to know is how both syphilis and gonorrhea can ruin your brain; gradually, but surely. If you have had some of the germs of syphilis enter your system through the lips by drinking from the shop cup, or perhaps from kissing a good girl who has a syphilitic sore on her lips from a similar cause, deep into your system goes the poison unknown to you until too late. Then, if you don’t know the whole truth about these matters, nothing can help you. Remember it is ignorance of these subjects that does the harm. If you know what a sore in the throat means; if a pimple on the lips look suspicious to you, then a full sense of what it MIGHT [161] be sends you to the reputable doctor and your disease may be stopped from going further.

These are the diseases the quacks thrive upon. These are the “Blood Diseases,” “Kidney Troubles,” sores on the scalp and body they advertise to cure. They know you are ignorant of the real truths concerning these awful diseases and they play up to that ignorance and bleed you for all you are worth. And when they get through with you there is a general ruin of both your brain and body.

Not one of us can avoid the danger of contracting these diseases; the germs are all around us to-day. You must know all about them to make you safe, your sister safe, your mother from running the risk of giving it to the little baby.

What, for pure, moral persons? Yes; these are just the people who should be armored against the plague. Knowledge will protect them; ignorance will not.

Then there is a lot you should know about the women who directly spread the plague. You must know all these things if you are to start in a career amidst life as it is to-day.

So important is all this subject and everything relating to it that I could not, in these Chats, go into the details. But I have written them all down in plain language and have not omitted a single fact about which you should [162] know. The little book is entitled, “PLAIN FACTS ON SEX HYGIENE.”

I cannot thank you, boys, too much for your interest in listening to me. I have, I know, often repeated facts to you, and frequently rambled and been somewhat discursive. But remember these are CHATS, not studied speeches whose every word has been picked for its nicety. My heart has been always in what I have said to you, and you know sometimes when a fellow feels that way, he lets literary style go hang.

In closing I want to repeat to you the oath of the knights of old. I want you to take to your hearts:

“Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things,—and do them, and for them live and die.”

Sex Knowledge

judiciously imparted is the greatest insurance toward the development of sterling manhood and womanhood. It is the duty of every man and woman to be informed upon the subject of sex and the care of the body. It is a subject vitally important to every individual.

Dr. Howard presents facts as they are, and speaks from a knowledge gained through years of study and experience in the great hospitals of the world. He shuns no details and presents a clear cut analysis of the wages of sin and ignorance.

A FULL LIST OF DR. HOWARD’S BOOKS

Price $1.00 Each, Descriptive Leaflets Free

The author says, “I want to make clear to the world through these books that right sex living is of as much, if not more, importance, than right physical living; that sex laws must be as well known and observed as those of eating, sleeping, and the general rules for bodily health.”

EDWARD J. CLODE, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York