and the deepest impressions of his life. The reason why the church does
not get and hold the boy of the wage-earner, or any other boy, is
because it stupidly ignores him, his primary interests, and his
essential nature; or goes to the extreme bother of making itself an
insufferable bore.

The reflex influence of boys' work upon the church herself should not be
ignored. Here is a great plant moldering away in silence. Not to mention
the auditorium, even the Sunday-school quarters and lecture-room are
very little used, and this in communities trained to sharp economic
insight and insisting already that the public-school buildings be made
to serve the people both day and night and in social as well as
educational lines.

The basement is perhaps the most vulnerable point in the armor of
exclusive sanctity that encases the church. Here, if anywhere, organized
church work for boys may be tolerated. Whenever it is, lights begin to
shine from the basement windows several evenings a week, a noisy
enthusiasm echoes through the ghostly spaces above, in a literal and
figurative sense cobwebs are brushed away. The stir is soon felt by the
whole church. A sense of usefulness and self-confidence begins to
possess the minds of the members. Things are doing; and the dignity and
desirability of having some part in an institution where things are
doing inspires the members and attracts non-members.

It will be a sad day for the pastor and the church when they agree to
delegate to any other institution all organized work for boys and
especially those features which the boys themselves most enjoy. The
ideal ministry to boyhood must not be centralized away from the church
nor taken altogether out of the hands of the pastor. There is no place