Recognizing the importance of education, more than two hundred student loan-funds are now being permanently financed by Rotary clubs. The boy of today will be the man of tomorrow.

Rotary clubs have for many years financed Dr. Charles E. Barker’s lectures to high school students throughout the United States. In this way it has been possible to reach approximately one-half million young men and women of the critical adolescent period and to take to them the most important of all messages. Of scarcely less social value is Dr. Barker’s famous lecture to men, “A Father’s Duty to His Son,” and to women, “A Mother’s Duty to Her Daughter.”

Boys’ week was the inspiration of the Rotary Club of New York City. The “Back to School” movement has been one of the activities in nearly five hundred Rotary clubs.

The present attitude of the adult toward the boy is quite different from the attitude of earlier generations. The great aim formerly was to keep the boy in his place; the modern plan is to gain his confidence and affection. It is more practicable to lead a boy than to push him. A nation’s most valuable asset is its youth, and it is worth studying. How can the best results be obtained? How can the lives of young men and young women be so directed as to make sure of their future welfare and happiness and of the stability of the government which will come within their control? Taken at the psychological hour it is a comparatively easy matter to switch a boy from the wrong track to the right track. The Union League Club of Chicago experimentally established a boys’ club in a ward which was considered by the police to be one of the worst wards in Chicago with the result that crime diminished to the point of being almost negligible. The boys of the ward had been switched to the right track.

In the day of our forefathers there were few idle moments in the life of the average boy. His services were needed on the farm, in the store, or whosesoever else his life was cast. Work served not merely to keep the boy out of mischief; it served also to provide him wholesome discipline. Labor-saving devices have cut down the father’s hours of labor and almost entirely deprived the boy of the necessity of working with his hands. What is he to do to consume his restless energy?

The question: “What are the boys to do with their restless energy?” is being answered in part by the boys themselves in the various types of youth movements. Many Americans view the hitchhiking epidemic as a national menace and would suppress it by process of law. To the writer, some manner of regulation seems more in order. The temporary camps seem a step in the right direction. To say the least that can be said of the hitchhiking development, it does serve to give energies an outlet; it does give the participants an opportunity of learning something of their own country, of experiencing life as it is, and last but not least it provides many young men with wholesome hardships, and even with characters building suffering of which many are much in need.

In any event, if one is to condemn the hitchhikers, it should be some person other than the writer, who in his own youth worked his way to most every corner of his own country and across the Atlantic Ocean three times, in search of knowledge of the world and experience in real life, and suffered every manner of hardship available at that period in the world’s history. What the hitch needs, in the writer’s estimation, is regulation, not suppression. If adult leaders will not arise, youthful leaders will. What then?

The certainty that hours of labor will constitute an even smaller percentage of the day in the future, is cause for alarm. If hours of leisure are to exceed in number hours of labor, why should education center entirely upon teaching the boy how to work? It is essential that the boys of tomorrow learn how to employ their leisure time.

What will business success avail a boy if he lacks the capacity to enjoy the fruits of his labor? Business is important, but life is more than business. Culture is more than technology. Americans might advantageously take a chapter from the book of Europeans. The writer, after many visits abroad, has become convinced of the fact that the people of the older countries view business relationship to life in saner perspective than Americans, at present. The trouble is that Americans in the process of building up a country territorially great, have speeded up productive machinery to a point where it threatens to get out of control.

The development of National and State parks to lure youth away from the neurotic influences of city life into the beautiful out-of-doors seems to the writer to be one of the most promising indications of the times. It is almost unheard of that a true lover of nature is a vicious person. Nature soothes and rests tired nerves. It is a refuge to fall back upon in time of stress and strain. Emerson said that beauty is a necessity and so it is as far as the higher life is concerned. Let us cultivate a love of the outdoors in the hearts of our boys; it will pay rich dividends. If we carry on faithfully today, the coming generation will carry on faithfully tomorrow.

The work in the interest of crippled children is steadily progressing. The movement has vast economic as well as spiritual value. Thousands of children who otherwise would have become charges upon their communities have been helped to become happy, independent, self-sustaining, self-respecting members of the social system. Rotary clubs in some cities also have vocational guidance committees through which rehabilitated children find suitable employment. The humanitarian appeal to individual Rotarians has been remarkable.

In keeping with the spirit of Resolution thirty-four, heretofore referred to, the crippled children work is not monopolized by Rotary. All other agencies interested in it and willing to lend it support are invited to participate. Rotary provided the initiative and much of the capital in the beginning and divided responsibility with others as rapidly as was consistent with orderly progress. It may in truth be said that the International Society for Crippled Children grew out of Rotary. It is a great humanitarian achievement of which we may well be proud, and it should be of interest to those inquiring as to whether or not Rotary is worthwhile.

At its tenth annual convention, held in Cleveland, the International Society for Crippled Children adopted a resolution entitled, “The Crippled Child’s Bill of Rights,” the closing paragraph reading as follows: “In brief, not only for its own sake, but for the benefit of society as a whole, every crippled child has the right to the best body which modern science can help it to secure; the best mind which modern education can provide; the best training which modern vocational guidance can give; the best position in life which its physical condition will permit, and the best opportunity for spiritual development which its environment affords.”

The International Society for Crippled Children has brought about two gatherings in Europe for the exchange of ideas and for the advancement and coordination of the work for handicapped children. At the second, nineteen nations were represented. The progress in North America and in Europe justifies the belief that the time will come when there will be no such thing as a crippled child, except in cases beyond surgical remedy. From the ranks of the young folks who have been beneficiaries of Rotary’s ministrations, many civic leaders will be recruited in the days to come.

The extraordinary progress of Rotary has, most naturally, necessitated the expenditure of large sums of money, but the financial policy has always been conservative and sound. There has always been a substantial surplus in the treasury available for all emergencies which can be foreseen by prudent and far-sighted men.

Though the annual budget seems large, it is nothing as compared with what it would necessarily be were it not for the fact that much of the Rotary service is entirely gratuitous. Thousands of Rotarians throughout the world are giving their best efforts in the interest of the movement without any compensation other than the satisfaction they find in the work itself.

But a sound fiscal policy is not the only means adopted to make certain the uninterrupted flow of Rotary service. For many years, Past President Arch C. Klumph of Cleveland has been devoting time and energy in organizing and financing the Rotary Foundation.

Two elements are essential to important achievement:  first, vision, without which there can be no beginning; second, determination without which there can be no successful end. He who would launch a great movement must be prepared to walk alone during many weary discouraging days. Great movements are the result of devoted, self-sacrificing, individual effort. Leadership is not vested in regiments or platoons; leadership is individual. The writer long ago became aware of the fact that Arch was struggling under his heavy burden, but he knew Arch and he has always been firm in the belief that his persistence would eventually be rewarded, that it would not always be necessary for him to walk alone. Long after Arch’s journey is ended other men will be following the trail he has been blazing throughout the years. Results thus far obtained justify the belief that the Rotary Foundation will eventually take rank as one of the important humanitarian enterprises due to the vision and determination of one devoted member. With justifiable confidence Rotarians look forward to the morrow.