of fourteen have at least seriously contemplated such an action more than once, if they have not actually put it into effect. It is, of course, not pleasant to have a favorite son or pupil "turn up missing" as an Irishman would say, but it is nothing to be especially worried about, for the boy who does so is only following a natural tendency, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he will return better satisfied with home and school than before, and be none the worse for the adventure. It is as normal and as harmless for a young boy to run away as it is for a young girl to weep or to be sentimental.
It is this spirit of adventure, largely, this desire to be independent and to show early in life manly characteristics that leads most boys into certain habits that are either harmful or immoral. It is this reason, I am sure, that caused me first to smoke. The older boys with whom I was associating were smoking—big, black and very cheap cigars they were—and I had never smoked. As I recall now I had never felt any desire to do so nor had I had been given any parental suggestions on the subject. But when one of the fellows handed me a cigar, never guessing that I was quite innocent of any personal experience with smoking, I felt a thrill go through me. He had paid me a compliment as he might have done had he asked me to give him change for ten dollars, or as I might feel if some one should apply for the position of butler at my humble dwelling; and I smoked the bitter sickening thing to the last available shred thinking myself by so doing so much the more a man.
