The Literature of Honor For Boys (Short Version)

I plan to use this Substack to republish some of my best work from the past, old blog posts that I hope to preserve, and occasional new stuff. This is from a rewrite of a longer list of books. I will note that girls generally like all these books too. I am woman and I loved them all.

Boys! Raising boys in the modern world is problematic. Traditional masculine virtues have become unpopular. In fact, it is being reported that our boys are losing interest in learning and education. They are bored and unmotivated in our schools. They are dropping out. They are not attending college and if they do they are not graduating. In our efforts to stem this tide, we have decided it does not matter what our boys read just as long as they do read and so we have appealed to their baser natures by publishing a slew of books which use all those favorite shock words so seemingly loved by boys. Words like 'underwear' and 'poop' and yet still we fail to engage them.

Did you know that Latin root for Virtue is Vir or "man"? The whole idea of virtue was originally based on masculinity. To be virtuous was to possess the qualities of manliness, to be valorous. These qualities were admired and rewarded by the culture. It is only in the last 50 years or so that we have decided to call the good virtues of manliness bad; in doing so we have left our boys without motivation for living and learning and perhaps even left the weak and needy without the protection honorable men provide. Even in my own family one of my sons came home from Christian college discouraged saying, "Well, I learned today I am the worst thing on Earth-- a white male." This is one reason why we find many young men joining the military which is exactly what my son did after graduation.

This military craze is not only a chance for young men to 'prove' themselves but the military is also the last place left where they can pursue honor without fear of being mocked.

One of the strongest masculine virtues is honor. What is honor? Honor is the meeting of love and respect. While we are busy trying to get our young men to share their feelings, they are busy looking for a place to gain respect, to display love in a masculine way. Many of our young men want to use their strength not by flexing their muscles, but by using those muscles to encourage those in need without fear of being mocked.

CS Lewis nails the problem in his essay The Abolition of Man. “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

Even traditionally masculine places like the football arena are subject to this ridicule of honor. To display honor is it to pledge allegiance to something bigger than ourselves. We mock these things at our peril.

I used to hate getting to a baseball game in time to hear the National Anthem. It is a painful song to listen to. It does not really stir the emotions. I went through a stage where I did not want to put my hand over my heart during the anthem because my allegiance, I reasoned, was to God not country. Then it hit me. My young son was always by my side -watching me.

Putting my hand over my heart was very similar to raising my hands to hear the benediction at church.

In fact, my son was looking over at me during that too. Almost as if he is asking me a question? Why are we doing this? Does it matter? And here’s the rub. Apathy is also religious. We can trade in our patriotism but the ten demons that take its place are terrifying to me as a mother. So for now, as awkward as it is, when I stand for the National Anthem I put my right hand over my heart. And when they give the benediction in church I raise my hands. I do it because it matters. I do it because I have my son’s attention. I do it because I remember that there is such a thing as honor and honor is important to my son's masculine heart.

What good could come of debunking my country? What good could come from teaching him not to care? Lewis reminds us how easy it is to debunk, “to ‘Debunk’ the emotion, on the basis of a commonplace rationalism, is within almost anyone’s capacity.” Debunking is the great enemy of honor and we find it everywhere we go these days sucking the air out of anything that approaches honorableness. William Wordsworth in his autobiographical poem The Prelude illustrates what we might call a priggish child. "How arch his notices, how nice his sense Of the ridiculous..." CS Lewis in his Voyage of the Dawn Treader does a striking job of illustrating to us the salvation of a dishonorable boy named Eustace Scrubb (a name he almost deserved!). Eustace spends the early part of the voyage laughing at the overly serious and honorable mouse Reepicheep. In fact, Reepicheep is a bit laughable, a bit ridiculous. It isn't hard for Eustace to feel superior to the brave though small mouse. On one island stop Eustace finds a dragon's cache and places an armband on his arm only to wake up and find that he has become the dragon. His arm is terribly sore from the now too tight band around his dragon's limb. In the end it is only by the deeply painful removing of the dragon skin layer by layer by the lion Aslan's claws that Eustace becomes a boy capable of honor, a repentant boy. So many boys grow up today only knowing how to laugh and ridicule, Lewis says it is because they have not read the right books.

The West Point Cadet's Prayer illustrates so beautifully what masculinity and honor are in full.

"O God, our Father, Thou Searcher of Human hearts, help us to draw near to Thee in sincerity and truth. May our religion be filled with gladness and may our worship of Thee be natural.

Strengthen and increase our admiration for honest dealing and clean thinking, and suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretense ever to diminish. Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life. Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be won.

Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy.

Guard us against flippancy and irreverence in the sacred things of life. Grant us new ties of friendship and new opportunities of service. Kindle our hearts in fellowship with those of a cheerful countenance, and soften our hearts with sympathy for those who sorrow and suffer..."

As Lewis reminds us We want our young men to read the right sorts of books. Our goal is not to produce self-righteous prigs like our old friend Eustace Scrubbs from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader before he met Aslan, but rather to illustrate to our sons by the examples of true heart change whether that heart change is in the real man Booker T Washington or the fictional mouse Reepicheep. When our sons read these sorts of books they don’t feel smug and good; they feel challenged and even ashamed. They have a plumb line to question their own motives and behaviors and sometimes even their feeling. In the best cases, they repent, gird up their loins, and display the virtues of manliness. They haven't had a moral lesson, they have had a story which bypasses their rightfully guarded hearts, enters their imagination, and allows them to see and hear truth.

Here are five books which I believe remind us just what honor looks like. Let them guide our boys to true manliness and virtue which is far better caught than taught.

1. Farmer Giles of Ham by JRR Tolkien This underrated Tolkien story is full of joy, humor, dragons, knights and farmers. Not unlike Tolkien's other works we find the hero is just an everyman. He is no knight. He is just a practical, hardworking fellow trying to keep his own family safe, not to mention his dog. The unlikely hero is just trying to protect his farm and family when he is called onto a larger stage. Full of humor, Giles defeats the dragon and does his best to stay what he has always been, a farmer.

2. The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle Another underrated book by a popular author. The White Company shows us what it means to be a gentleman both in manners and skill. It is the manliest of stories. One minute our hero is cleaving an enemy and the next we find him deferring to a lady in the gentlest manner. This is no one-sided view of chivalry. Our sons will not see that might makes right from this book. Instead they will find full-orbed manhood which lays down its life for those weaker.

3. The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald Here we see a boy, Curdie, struggling with his own self all the while determined to behave honorably to the princess who comes under his care. This book is full of dark mines, evil goblins, magical grandmothers, scary journeys and poetry. Did you know poetry could be a weapon? It is Curdie's weapon of choice against the Goblins. My own sons have used poetry to get through some of the fiercest challenges available to young men and in running a few marathons too. Curdie protects the princess and learns much about good and evil on his way to being a man.

4. Little Britches by Ralph Moody Ralph Moody has written a series of books on his own childhood and early adult life. Each of these volumes are incredible tales of becoming a man and highly recommended, but Little Britches: Father and I were Ranchers shines forth as must-read top five book. It is at once a parenting manual for moms and dads and a handbook for boys. Ralph's life experiences are shadowed by his mother's love for reading and poetry and his father's efforts to spend time with Ralph and raise him to manhood before Father succumbs to tuberculosis. Warning this is a book on resilience and you will need it to read the ending.

5. Men of Iron by Howard Pyle. Howard Pyle is an author every boy will love from his Robin Hood, King Arthur, and Otto of the Silver Hand, to this story of young Myles Falworth seeking to redeem his father's honor. It is a story of chivalry and honor and a favorite of boys everywhere illustrating that the path to virtue is narrow and treacherous.