48 BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA DISCIPLINE Insist on discipline, and strict, quick obedience in small de- tails ; let them run riot only when you give leave for it, which is a good thing to do every now and then. A nation to be powerful and prosperous must be well dis- ciplined, and you only get discipline in the mass by discipline in the individual. By discipline I mean patient obedience to author- ity and to other dictates of duty. This cannot be got by repressive measures, but by encourage- ment and by educating the boy first in self-discipline and in sacrificing of self and selfish pleasures for the benefit of others. This teaching is largely effected by means of example, and by ex- pecting it of him. There lies our work. Sir Henry Knyvett, in 1596, warned Queen Elizabeth that the State which neglects to train and discipline its youth pro- duces not merely rotten soldiers or sailors, but the far greater evil of equally rotten citizens for civil life; or, as he words it, " For want of true discipline the honor and wealth both of Prince and countrie is desperatlie and frivolouslie ruinated." Discipline is not gained by punishing a child for a bad habit, but by substituting a better occupation, that will absorb his at- tention, and gradually lead him to forget and abandon the old one.
CONTINENCE
In this Handbook I have touched upon many important items of a boy's education, but there is scarcely one more important than that of continence. The training of the boy would be very incomplete did it not contain some clear explanation and plain-spoken instruction on this head. The prudish mystery with which we have come to veil this im- portant question among the youth of both sexes is doing incal- culable harm. The very secrecy with which we withhold all knowledge from the boy prompts him the more to take his own line equally secretly, and, therefore, injuriously.
