A good boy is dutiful to his Father and Mother, obedient to his master
and loving to his playfellows. He is diligent in learning his book
and takes a pleasure in improving himself in everything that is worthy
of praise. He rises early in the morning, makes himself clean and
decent, and says his prayers. He loves to hear good advice, is
thankful to those who give it and always follows it. He never
swears[17] or calls names or uses ill words to companions. He is
never peevish and fretful, always cheerful and good-tempered.


7. _Stories of exaggerated and coarse fun_. In the chapter on
the positive side of this subject I shall speak more in detail of the
educational value of robust and virile representation of fun and of
sheer nonsense, but as a preparation to these statements, I should
like to strike a note of warning against the element of exaggerated
and coarse fun being encouraged in our school stories, partly, because
of the lack of humor in such presentations (a natural product of
stifling imagination) and partly, because the strain of the abnormal
has the same effect as the too frequent use of the melodramatic.

In an article in _Macmillans's Magazine_, December, 1869, Miss
Yonge writes:

"A taste for buffoonery is much to be discouraged, an exclusive taste
for extravagance most unwholesome and even perverting. It becomes
destructive of reverence and soon degenerates into coarseness. It
permits nothing poetical or imaginative, nothing sweet or pathetic to
exist, and there is a certain self-satisfaction and superiority in
making game of what others regard with enthusiasm and sentiment which
absolutely bars the way against a higher or softer tone."