{"id":692,"date":"2026-06-27T06:42:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T06:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=692"},"modified":"2026-06-27T06:42:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T06:42:03","slug":"a-letter-to-boys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=692","title":{"rendered":"A Letter to Boys"},"content":{"rendered":"
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D<\/span>ear boys in school:<\/p>\n

Do you sometimes feel that school is like a bad dream? I don\u2019t mean all the classes. But if one of your teachers ever seems to suggest that your sex is responsible for all the bad things in the world, or that the only reason why there never has been a woman Shakespeare or a woman Newton or a woman Michelangelo is that they weren\u2019t allowed to be, and that somehow you too are responsible for this state of affairs, I want you to shrug it away. It\u2019s either a chip on the teacher\u2019s shoulder or some silly notion that she\u2019s picked up from her own schooling, as a dog in the woods picks up burrs. Have you ever said to yourself, while you were having a bad dream, that it was\u00a0<\/i>only a dream? Say that. Then look out the window, and remember that there\u2019s a fine world of reality out there, with fresh air and a lot of good fun for boys and girls to have.<\/p>\n

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I want you instead to take delight in being boys, as you should. It\u2019s true that men have been responsible for the wars among nations. But then it is also true that men have been responsible for there being nations in the first place. If a bridge is blown up, expect a man to have done it, but the only reason why there is a bridge to blow up is that men have built it. The same goes for every building you see, and every road, automobile, train, airplane, and whatever else is made of metal or stone or wood or glass, and as for plastic, if it weren\u2019t for men drilling for oil on land or in the sea, or growing corn on the plains, there wouldn\u2019t be that, either.<\/p>\n

Have fun. Get your heads out of the smartphones and the computers and go out into that real world and do things. God gave you your bodies for action and for changing the world around you. If you are 10 years old, your big sister and your mother may be stronger than you are. But if you are 15, they aren\u2019t. Enjoy that surge of strength. Make it useful for them. Make it useful for yourself, too. But most of all, put it into action. Climb a tree, build a cabin, explore the woods, get under the chassis of an old car, dam up a brook to make a swimming hole, help your father put a new roof on the barn or garage, chop wood for the furnace, learn how to use power tools to make things with \u2014 and learn how to use the old tools also, which we still can\u2019t do without, like the hammer and the ax and the shovel. Do things \u2014 have fun!<\/p>\n

Use your mind, too. If you don\u2019t like reading what the teacher assigns in English class, read something else. She\u2019s probably not teaching the world\u2019s great epics. If not, read them yourself. It\u2019s not that hard to do if you have a decent translation. Read stories of adventure, stories that used to form the boyish imagination, some of them autobiographical or historical: Treasure Island, Captains Courageous, Scaramouche, The Call of the Wild, Huckleberry Finn, The Last of the Mohicans, Two Years Before the Mast,\u00a0<\/i>Plutarch\u2019s\u00a0Lives, The Right Stuff. <\/i>If you\u2019re interested in a thing, find real books to read about it. It doesn\u2019t matter what it is. Read histories of the Second World War. Read about Louis Agassiz and his explorations of the north. Read about the invention of the telescope. While you\u2019re at it, read about the stars and learn to scan the skies. Read about wild animals and birds and fish. While you\u2019re at it, learn to hunt or trap or fish, yourself. Indoors? That\u2019s for talking with your family, taking meals, reading quietly, playing board games or shooting pool, tinkering in your father\u2019s workshop or your own, and enjoying, with Mom and Dad and your siblings, a little entertainment. Otherwise, go outdoors,\u00a0<\/i>which is alive with wonders.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind that boys your age once did amazing things. Even with school in your way, you can emulate them. If you\u2019re good at music, go for it and keep at it. George Gershwin took up the piano when he was 10, and by age 14, he was studying under one of the greatest teachers in the nation. James Clerk Maxwell developed his own method of constructing curves with more than two focal points, but somebody else had to read his paper on it at the meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, because he was only 14. My point isn\u2019t that these boys were prodigies, though they were, but that you are probably like them in some way, and that before the times when school sat like a fat dark cloud on the boy\u2019s soul, and before the times when looking at things on a screen all the time ate away the boy\u2019s mind and left his body soft and undeveloped, most boys were dabbling in important or highly interesting things long before college. Read about what the boy Tom Edison did, not that you are likely to be another Edison \u2014 who is? But you are\u00a0<\/i>likely to have some grand fun in running with your interests, as he did. Have that fun. Will you set fire to your basement while doing so? Probably not, but there\u2019s something a lot worse than a fire in the basement: no fire in the mind and heart.<\/i><\/p>\n

Your body is that of a boy. Develop it. If you like sports, play them. If you don\u2019t, don\u2019t \u2014 what would be the point? But then, go swimming, or hoe a garden in the backyard, or build a tree house, or whatever else invigorates you. Those paws at the ends of your wrists are made for gripping tools \u2014 you are going to have longer and thicker fingers than your sisters do, a thicker wrist, longer arms, and broader shoulders, and even without the considerable extra muscle you will put on, those will give you quite a lot of useful mechanical advantage. Build them up. Take delight in your strength, and learn to use it for fun, for profit, to help your family, and to show off a little in front of the girls, who enjoy that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

Read more Why Go to Mars? Let\u2019s Count the Reasons.<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes you\u2019ll want to be off with the other boys, without girls around. So what? That\u2019s natural, and it\u2019s an important part of your development. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and their buddies did not have girls join them in their secret cave on the banks of the Mississippi. You can\u2019t play football by yourself, and you can\u2019t really play tackle football at all if you have to include the girls, nor should you try. There will be plenty of time for you to want to be with girls, or with one girl, especially. Meanwhile, you can learn to dance \u2014 you may not enjoy it so much now, or you may already think it\u2019s a grand thing, but do learn to dance with a girl or a lady, as young gentlemen used to do.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be glad of it later on.<\/p>\n

When your body goes through the Great Change, it will be glorious, but sometimes it will be crazy too. You will have feelings you never expected to have. Don\u2019t worry about them. But by all means, stay away from the porn. It\u2019s wrong, and it will hollow out your soul, like a caustic drug. Do you want to be a loser? No?\u00a0 Then don\u2019t go to the Land of the Internet Losers. Talk to your father if you need to. He\u2019ll understand.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll be influenced a lot more than you can possibly suspect by the company you keep. If your friends are losers, you\u2019ll become one too. Hang around boys who do things. <\/i>And tag along after the men. If your father and your uncle are going to check out a used vehicle, go with them. Listen to their conversations. If a couple of men in your church are going to set things up for the summer bazaar, ask if you can help. Overhear what they say. Learn. You can learn more things from simply being around men as they talk about God and man, the church and the state, money and things that no money can buy, than you will ever learn at our schools, such as they are. God never meant for boys to be separated from their older brothers, their fathers, their boy cousins, their uncles, and the men of the neighborhood. Again, I\u2019m talking about nature here, your God-given, boyish, human nature.<\/p>\n

And learn to pray. Shakespeare did, Bach did, Michelangelo did, Maxwell did, and though Edison didn\u2019t, he\u2019d have been a much better man and father if he had. Go to a good church or synagogue that treats men as men. Look up to Moses, admire Saint Paul, and if you are a Christian, look with gratitude upon the Crucified. Sublimity \u2014 this, too, is something the boy can understand.<\/p>\n

Read more Baseball\u2019s Increasingly Rare Complete Game<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE from Anthony Esolen:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Dustbin of Relevance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Studies in Pride, Envy, Pointlessness, and Death<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Bag of Rocks for $400,000?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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