Somebody has figured out that it costs $4,000 to raise a boy and then asks if it pays. That depends. If after raising a boy until he was 21 years of age, and spending a good lump of money in getting him thus far, we found that he resembles some people we know, we would feel discouraged and want our money back. The boy who never held anything down except a dry goods box, and who never raised anything except a smoke from a dirty cigarette; who spends his Sunday school hours in loafing on the public square instead of sitting in a church or at home, and who will not go to school because he is too lazy to study his lessons -- that kind of a boy is a poorer investment than buying real estate in the Missouri river. But the boy who reaches the age of 21 and appears to realize that he is a man with a duty to perform, and goes at that duty with his sleeves rolled up, a whole bundle of good, clean energy; ambitious to make a clean record for himself in the world -- that's the sample of a boy that is worth the $4,000 and dirt cheap at that. - Red Oak Express.
The Nebraska Advertiser
Nemaha, Nebraska
Friday, September 30, 1904
