fidelity among its members, and it usually gets these. The gang
demands devotion and self-sacrifice of its members, and the boy who
cannot show these qualities becomes more effectually ostracized than
any defaulting bank official or corrupt politician. These fine
virtues, then--loyalty, honor, devotion--are cultivated by the gang
just at the time when the instincts for them are strongest, and at a
time when no other agency is prepared to do the work.

For you will realize, when you once think of it, how much we coddle
the baby when he is cute, how we shower him with toys far in excess
of what he can use or enjoy, how we fuss and fondle him, and how
much thought we give to every possible and impossible want; and how,
on the other hand, we neglect the boy when he enters upon that most
unattractive, but very critical, age in which he finds other boys
more interesting than his sister and her dolls, when he cares more
for other boys than he does for his mother and her parlor, when he
thinks more of the "fellers" than he does of his teacher and her
lessons. Just at this time, when the boy is beginning to wonder
vaguely and to long just as indefinitely, we abandon him to his own
resources and to Mrs. White's Bob, the leader of the gang.

The problem that confronts us is: How can we save and strengthen the
fine qualities which this spontaneous association with other boys
produces without encouraging the lawlessness and the destructiveness
and the secretiveness of the gang? First of all, we mothers must
recognize not only that the boy cannot be happy without his
associates, but also that the social virtues will never be developed
in him at all if we keep him at home away from the others or
restricted to one or two play-mates--which we may like to select for
him. Then, when this is perfectly clear to us, we will take the next