Defending Boyhood: How Building Forts, Reading Stories, Playing Ball, and Praying to God Can Change the World

by Anthony Esolen

The right risks bring health and strength. Safety kills.

I understand that there are people who, if they see a child roaming the neighborhood alone or even with a brother or sister, will report it to the police. That is evil.

The boy does not want a domestic Jesus. He wants the Lord of the universe. He does not want to hold hands at the altar with a priest and an altar-girl. He wants to swing the thurible as if it were a sword.

If one boy out of twenty hates school, the problem is with the boy. If nineteen out of twenty hate school, the problem is with the school.

We are the odd ones out here, a people without songs, without a cultural home. I do not exaggerate. Ask yourselves which songs you can expect a teenage boy, his grandfather, and the next door neighbor all to know. If the answer is one or two, or none at all, then you have proved my point.

To sing is more than to say. It is to declare, to put your heart into it, to blazon it across the skies.

Without the desire to fight and to defeat the worthy foe, we do not have bridges, ships, towers, cities, pipes that bring fresh and clean water to our homes, and electric wires that bring the world to us at the click of a finger. All recommendations that boys should be tame and mild and inoffensive must break against the rocks of nature. The better thing to do is to train and direct the healthy desire to fight. A river that spills into and over a field does no good work. When it is channeled and its force is focused upon the mill wheel, it can grind out the corn; at a place like Hoover Dam, it can turn the mighty electromagnetic turbine to provide power for millions of people.

Let boys know that if they would be true men, they must keep their promises regardless of their feelings. Let them know that in the pursuit of truth, what you desire is of no consequence. The bad man to fear is not usually the one who can set his feelings to the side. The bad man to fear is more usually the one who sets his passions upon the throne or arms them with a gun.

“To neglect the training of any part of man is to develop a monstrosity. To form the mind to follow correct moral principles but to omit to train the will is only sharpening the tools of a crook.