has the right start, the undesirable citizen will either adopt the
morals of the club or be squeezed out. And the right start is
chiefly a good meeting place. It is here that the church and the
school and the home can cooperate. In the larger cities the
settlement has pointed the way by carrying on practically all of the
work with children through the medium of clubs.

It is not necessary for every parent to furnish a suitable meeting
place; indeed, each club needs only one meeting place. But every
home can contribute something. If you have not the suitable garret
or barn or shed, you can supply the baseball outfit, or the Indian
clubs, or the work-bench, or some of the tools. You can lend your
homes for those not very frequent occasions when the boys are quite
satisfied to have a quiet evening of table games or theatricals, or
imitation camp-fire with chestnuts to roast and songs to sing. You
can make up lunch-baskets for fishing or tramping trips, or you can
sew tapes on the old pants for "uniforms."

It does not matter so much _what_ you do, so long as you do as
much as you can, and, above all, if you show an "interest." The bond
of sympathy and intimacy that comes from such an understanding and
from the hearty cooperation of the home with these natural instincts
of the children is an immense gain to the individual parent, as well
as to the individual child. Instead of friction and opposition of
forces, there results a cooperation of forces that all make for
good.

As for the community, the village or town that can provide meeting
places for all of its groups of young people, under the direction of
those who understand them and sympathize with them, with suitable