Excerpt from Working Lads' ClubsFor the uninitiated, lads' clubs may be at once described as institutions whose chief end is to provide youths of the poorer classes with an opportunity of becoming happier, healthier, and better citizens than they are likely to become if they spend their leisure in loafing about the streets. The means employed are diverse: some clubs are devoted almost exclusively to amusement and physical development by means Of gymnastic exercises and outdoor games, some concern themselves mainly with the advancement of general education, others make religious effort the pivot of all their activities, whilst the more in¿uential and successful pursue the common ideal of moms sana in corpora sano by a combination of all three methods. Sports and games, rest, recreation, and enjoyment are ostensibly the first reasons for the existence of a club of this type, but the advantages of improved mental equipment are constantly held before the boys, and some continuance of their education is often enforced as a condition of membership. And all that may be broadly summed up as religion, though less talked about, is felt as the real background Of play and work, and so may become the determining motive in the lives Of the members, as it generally is, whether acknowledged by that name or not, in the lives of those who work in the clubs.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.