1. Forbush, William Byron and Masseck, Frank Lincoln, The Boys’ Round Table: A Manual of the International Order of the Knights of King Arthur, 6th ed. (Potsdam, N.Y.: Brandow Printing Co., 1908), 6 Google Scholar.

2. Among the many books written about “boy work” at this time, see especially Forbush, , The Boy Problem: A Study in Social Pedagogy (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1900)Google Scholar; Fiske, George Walter, Boy Life and Self- Government (New York: Young Men's Christian Association Press, 1910)Google Scholar; Foster, Eugene, The Boy and the Church, 4th ed. (Philadelphia: Sunday School Times Co., 1909)Google Scholar; Burr, Hanford M., Studies in Adolescent Boyhood (Springfield, Mass.: Seminar Pub. Co., 1910)Google Scholar; Horton, Charles, Reaching the Boys of an Entire Community (New York: Young Men's Christian Association Press, 1909)Google Scholar; McKinney, A. H., Guiding Boys over Fool Hill: Studies in Adolescence (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1918)Google Scholar; Merrill, Lilburn, Winning the Boy (New York: F. H. Revell, 1908)Google Scholar; Gibson, Henry W., Boyology; Or, Boy Analysis (New York: Association Press, 1916)Google Scholar; McCormick, William, Fishers of Boys (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1915)Google Scholar; Hoben, Allan, The Minister and the Boy: A Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys’ Work (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1912)Google Scholar; and Alexander, John L., The Boy and the Sunday School (New York: Association Press, 1915)Google Scholar.

3. The term “boy problem” seems to have been first introduced in William Forbush's classic text, The Boy Problem. From that time forward, this phrase became the most common descriptor of the various challenges facing boys at the turn of the century.

4. On the rise of delinquency, see Nasaw, David, Schooled to Order: A Social History of Public Schooling in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981)Google Scholar. It should be noted that “delinquency” was a notoriously broad term that could be used by boys’ work leaders to refer to vices as diverse as fighting, theft, smoking, and street corner loitering.

5. Hall's theories were expounded upon in his classic text, Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1904).

6. The loss of male adolescents, the so-called big boys, from the Sunday school became a pervasive theme in books and articles in this era. See, for example, McKinney, A. H., Our Big Boys and the Sunday School (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1910)Google Scholar; and Alexander, John L. and the International Sunday School Association, The Sunday School and the Teens: The Report of the Commission on Adolescence. A Study of the Adolescent in Relationship to the Home, Church, Sunday School and the Community (New York: Association Press, 1913)Google Scholar.

7. On muscular Christianity, see especially Putney, Clifford, Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880–1920 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001)Google Scholar. Putney devotes a chapter of his book, entitled “Fishers of Boys,” to the rise of Christian movements aimed specifically at boys.

8. Forbush, The Boy Problem.

9. Foster, , The Boy and the Church, 56–57 Google Scholar.

10. On this theme, see, for example, Forbush, William, Church Work with Boys (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1910), 8 Google Scholar.

11. Men and Religion Forward Movement, Boy's Work Message: Ways in which the Local Church Can Adequately Provide for the Development of Boy Life (New York: Association Press, 1913), 11.

12. Ibid., 167.

13. Ibid.

14. Hall, , Adolescence, 281–361 Google Scholar; Starbuck, Edwin Diller, The Psychology of Religion (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900), 195–211 Google Scholar. Hall also cited as evidence the opinions of several religious leaders and revivalist preachers, including D. L. Moody and E. P. Hammond. He noted that these age-based statistics were consistent across denominations. See Hall, , Adolescence, 288–89Google Scholar. On the theme of youth conversions and religious clubs, see also Kett, Joseph F., Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America, 1790 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 204–10.Google Scholar

15. Alexander, , The Boy and the Sunday School, 38–39 Google Scholar.

16. Forbush, William, The Coming Generation (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1913), 11 Google Scholar.

17. On boyhood delinquency in this era, see, for example, Johnson, Franklin and Burton, Ernest, The Problems of Boyhood: A Course in Ethics for Boys of High School Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1914)Google Scholar; McKeever, William A., Training the Boy (New York: Macmillan, 1913)Google Scholar; Adams Puffer, J., The Boy and His Gang (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1912)Google Scholar; and Nasaw, Schooled to Order.

18. On this theme and the use of the tadpole image, see Hoben, , The Minister and the Boy, 30 Google Scholar; Forbush, , The Coming Generation, 11 Google Scholar; and Burdick, William, “The Practical Application of the Principle of Adolescence,” in Reaching the Boys of an Entire Community, ed. Horton, Charles B. (New York: Young Men's Christian Association Press, 1909), 31 Google Scholar.

19. On this theme, see Kimmel, Michael S., Manhood in America: A Cultural History, 2d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 90–93 Google Scholar; and Putney, , Muscular Christianity, 4–5, 31Google Scholar.

20. Burger, William H., Boy Behavior (New York: Association Press, 1919), 28 Google Scholar. Fiske, George (Boy Life and Self-Government, 70–71)Google Scholar similarly suggested, “The only safe treatment … is expression… . Often repression only exaggerates the lower instincts and perpetuates them by postponement; and bad habit results… . To repress it is to seal up dynamite. Let the boy be a barbarian when he hears the call of the wild, and then be done with it. It may keep him out of prison later on.”

21. Grant, Julia, “A ‘Real Boy’ and Not a Sissy: Gender, Childhood, and Masculinity, 1890–1940,” Journal of Social History 37, no. 4 (2004): 831 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. On this theme of overcivilization, see especially Anthony Rotundo, E., American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 222–46Google Scholar; and Kimmel, , Manhood in America, 120–24Google Scholar.

23. Banks, Albert Louis, Twentieth-Century Knighthood: A Series of Addresses to Young Men (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1900), 122 Google Scholar.

24. Rotundo, , American Manhood, 252 Google Scholar; Kimmel, , Manhood in America, 105–7Google Scholar; Hantover, Jeffrey P., “The Boy Scouts and the Validation of Masculinity,” in The American Man, ed. Pleck, Elizabeth and Pleck, Joseph (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980), 290 Google Scholar.

25. Among many addressing these themes, see especially Macleod, David I., Building Character in the American Boy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 47–48 Google Scholar; Hantover, “The Boy Scouts and the Validation of Masculinity,” 290; and Rotundo, , American Manhood, 252 Google Scholar.

26. Cook, David C., The Gospel for Boys: The Boy Problem in the Sunday School (Chicago: David C. Cook Pub. Co., 1902), 22 Google Scholar.

27. Speicher, John, “Why Fellows Drop Out of the Sunday School,” Young Knight 5, no. 5 (March 1912): 12 Google Scholar.

28. Alexander, , The Boy and the Sunday School, 18 Google Scholar.

29. Gulick, Luther, “The Religion of Boys,” Association Outlook 8, no. 2 (December 1898): 41–42 Google Scholar.

30. Forbush, , The Boy Problem, 89–96 Google Scholar. By 1906, 67,000 Christian Endeavor societies had been organized worldwide.

31. Ibid., 90–91.

32. McCormick, William, The Boy and His Clubs (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1902), 29.Google Scholar

33. Richardson, Norman E. and Loomis, Ormond E., The Boy Scout Movement Applied by the Church (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915), 61 Google Scholar.

34. McCormick, , Fishers of Boys, 63 Google Scholar.

35. On statistics, see Foster, , The Boy and the Church, 9 Google Scholar; McCormick, , Fishers of Boys, ix Google Scholar; Alexander, John L., ed., Boy Training: An Interpretation of the Principles that Underlie Symmetrical Boy Development (New York: Association Press, 1912), 145 Google Scholar; and Alexander and the International Sunday School Association, The Sunday School and the Teens.

36. Pinson, W. W., The Church and the Boy (n.p.: Smith and Lamar, 1905), 19 Google Scholar.

37. Foster, , The Boy and the Church, 10 Google Scholar.

38. Fiske's Boy Life and Self-Government (1912) was one of the most thorough and influential adaptations of Hall's recapitulation theory.

39. This term, widely used, was also the title of a book-length study of boy life. See Gibson, Boyology.

40. On recapitulation theory, see, for example, Kidd, Kenneth B., Making American Boys: Boyology and the Feral Tale (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Bederman, Gail, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 77–120 Google Scholar; Neubauer, John, The Fin-de-Siècle Culture of Adolescence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 143–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schlossman, Steven, “G. Stanley Hall and the Boys’ Club: Conservative Applications of Recapitulation Theory,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 9, no. 2 (April 1973): 140–473.0.CO;2-W>CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Macleod, , Building Character in the American Boy, 99–114 Google Scholar. Of course, such theories drew heavily upon evolutionary theories common in the day. Fiske (Boy Life and Self- Government, 50) noted, “Many of the most devout and reverent Christian scholars in this twentieth century find the doctrine of evolution, in its later, constructive form, not at all hostile to the Christian religion, but a most welcome support of a vital, evangelical faith.” While liberal Protestants were always more likely to accept such doctrines, conservatives also appropriated these theories as helpful and “suggestive,” chiefly because they seemed in accord with their own interpretations of boy nature.

41. It should be noted that it was also possible to interpret the findings of recapitulation theory in different ways. Richardson, for example, noted that this theory was indeed suggestive. However, he also felt that the key insight embedded in the theory was the critical nature of environment. As he put it, “The cultural history of the race pictures vividly the cultural possibilities of boys. Give the boys of today the environment of the past and they will reproduce the defective culture of the past.” Rather than trying to replicate previous eras, therefore, the desired end was to produce a better environment to limit the flaws of the past. See Richardson, and Loomis, , The Boy Scout Movement, 69 Google Scholar.

42. Hoben, , The Minister and the Boy, 20 Google Scholar. Hoben noted that the theory should be used “suggestively” rather than “dogmatically.” Fiske himself noted that recapitulation theory was often “overworked” by claiming too rigidly its accuracy in all situations. However, he also found it to be the most helpful theory of boy nature at the time. “As a key to the boy problem,” he noted, “it fits more locks than any other key I know.” Fiske, , Boy Life and Self-Government, 59 Google Scholar.

43. Hoben, , The Minister and the Boy, 21 Google Scholar.

44. Forbush, , The Boy Problem, 100–104 Google Scholar.

45. Hall, , Adolescence, 428 Google Scholar.

46. Ibid., 442–43, 444.

47. Ibid., 442.

48. Forbush, and Masseck, , The Boys’ Round Table, 15–19 Google Scholar.

49. “America's Boys Knights,” King Arthur's Herald 5, no. 4 (December 1911): 1.

50. Forbush, and Masseck, , The Boys’ Round Table, 19 Google Scholar. Forbush also created a group for younger boys (entitled “The Brotherhood of David”), for older boys (entitled “The Knights Hospitaller”), and for adolescent girls (entitled “The Queens of Avalon”). See Forbush, William and Forbush, Dascomb, The Merlin's Book of Advanced Work (Oberlin, Ohio: Knights of King Arthur, 1916), 43–44 Google Scholar.

51. In a representative sampling of castle listings from this era (taken from existing monthly issues of King Arthur's Herald), 25 percent were founded in Congregational churches, 22 percent in Methodist churches, 20 percent in Episcopal churches, 17 percent in Presbyterian churches, 12.5 percent in Baptist churches, and 3.5 percent in other denominations, chiefly Universalist and Unitarian churches. Forbush notes that the KOKA was “the only plan that can be used by every denomination of every name,” suggesting that it was in use within “the most conservative and the most radical churches, and in all with success and satisfaction.” “King Arthur's Herald,” King Arthur's Herald 1, no. 3 (December 1907): 6.

52. The only significant difference in this organization was the addition of a fourth “degree” entitled the “Counselors of the Line.” This degree came after the Knight degree and was designed for those older than the teen years. See Dennen, Ernest J., Knights of King Arthur: Department of The Order of Sir Galahad (New York: Church Literature Press, 1915)Google Scholar.

53. Forbush, and Masseck, , The Boys’ Round Table, 31 Google Scholar.

54. Forbush, , Church Work with Boys, 68 Google Scholar. Club sizes varied greatly, but the largest known club between 1908 and 1920 had 102 boy members. While most were led by men, Forbush and Masseck noted that clubs could be led by women who would take the title, “Lady of the Lake” (The Boys’ Round Table, 32).

55. The degree system is described in detail in Forbush and Masseck, The Boys’ Round Table, 33–34 and 75–95.

56. Ibid., 96.

57. Ibid., 36.

58. Despite the aristocratic components of these groups, there was an inherent democratic impulse at work in club ideals and practices. In fact, many leaders defended the monarchial language of the organizations by noting that they were simply extending the privileges commonly reserved for the aristocracy to the entire American boy population. In other words, all boys deserved the best moral and religious education for elevated and righteous living. On this theme, see Lupack, Alan, “Arthurian Youth Groups in America: The Americanization of Knighthood,” in Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenilia, ed. Lupack, Barbara Tepa (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 204–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lupack, Alan, “Visions of Courageous Achievement: Arthurian Youth Groups in America,” in Studies in Medievalism VI: Medievalism in North America, ed. Verduin, Kathleen (Cambridge (U.K.) and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1994), 55–57 Google Scholar.

59. Jemison, David H., The Boy Problem Solved: A Study of the Boy and the Revised Manual of the Modern Knights of St. Paul (self published, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1911)Google Scholar.

60. The Epworth League, Board of Sunday Schools and Methodist Brotherhood, “Have You Tried It? The Knights of Methodism” (Drew, N.J.: United Methodist Archives and History Center, 1912).

61. Powell, Perry Edwards, Knights of the Holy Grail (Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham, 1906)Google Scholar.

62. “The Boy Scouts and the Holy Grail,” The Young Knight 3, no. 9 (June 1911): 12.

63. Powell, , The Knights of the Holy Grail, 13–26 Google Scholar.

64. Ibid., 20.

65. Jemison, , The Boy Problem Solved, 125 Google Scholar.

66. Horton, , Reaching the Boys on an Entire Community, 178–79Google Scholar.

67. Forbush, and Masseck, , The Boys’ Round Table, 52 Google Scholar.

68. Ibid., 142–57.

69. Forbush, , The Coming Generation, 9 Google Scholar.

70. As Peter Stearns contends, anger was viewed as an emotion particularly acceptable for boys in this era, a quality separating them from females. See Stearns, , “Girls, Boys, and Emotions: Redefinitions and Historical Change,” Journal of American History 80, no. 1 ( June 1993): 36–74.Google Scholar

71. Forbush, , The Coming Generation, 11 Google Scholar.

72. See “News From Castles,” King Arthur's Herald 2, no. 3 (December 1908): 2; “News,” King Arthur's Herald 2, no. 11 (August 1909): 6; and “Castle News,” King Arthur's Herald 3, no. 5 (February 1910): 4.

73. Forbush, William and Forbush, Dascomb, The Knights of King Arthur: How to Begin and What to Do (Oberlin, Ohio: Knights of King Arthur, 1915), 17 Google Scholar.

74. Richardson, and Loomis, , The Boy Scout Movement, 217–18Google Scholar.

75. Forbush, and Masseck, , The Boys’ Round Table, 6 Google Scholar. As historian Susan Curtis has noted, the social gospel provided one means by which late Victorians could masculinize the image of Christ while still focusing upon supposed “feminine” virtues of service, sacrifice, and love. See Curtis, , “The Son of Man and God the Father: The Social Gospel and Victorian Masculinity,” in Meanings for Manhood: Constructions of Masculinity in Victorian America, ed. Carnes, Mark C. and Griffen, Clyde (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 67–78 Google Scholar.

76. Masseck, “The K.O.K.A as a Religious Factor,” Work with Boys 4 (July 1911): 169–70.

77. Grinton, G.W., “Knightly Quest for Purity—The Place of Youthful Sports,” Young Knight 1, no. 5 (March 1909): 5 Google Scholar.

78. Holmes, Lillian, Little Sir Galahad (Elgin, Ill.: David C. Cook, 1904), 24 Google Scholar.

79. Grinton, “Knightly Quest For Purity,” 4.

80. “The Boy and the Brotherhood,” Young Knight 2, no. 3 (December 1909): 9.

81. Forbush, and Masseck, , The Boys’ Round Table, 55–56 Google Scholar.

82. “Our Castle at Hampton,” King Arthur's Herald 4, no. 4 (December 1910): 2.

83. “Castle News,” King Arthur's Herald 3, no. 3 (November 1909): 2.

84. Forbush, William Byron, The Boys’ Life of Christ (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1909), 13 Google Scholar.

85. Ibid., 50.

86. Ibid., 67.

87. Ibid.

88. Ibid.

89. Ibid., 86.

90. Ibid., 77.

91. “The Boy Scouts and the Holy Grail,” 12.

92. Robinson, Clarence, “Utilizing a Boy's Spirit of Adventure in Religious Work,” American Youth 1, no. 1 (February 1912): 164–70Google Scholar.

93. See “News,” King Arthur's Herald 2, no. 10 (August 1909): 6; and “The Siege Perilous,” King Arthur's Herald 3, no. 5 (February 1910): 4.

94. “The Training of an Esquire,” Young Knight 1, no. 4 (December 1908): 6.

95. “Castle News,” King Arthur's Herald 3, no. 9 (June 1910): 7.

96. Forbush, and Forbush, , The Knights of King Arthur, 16 Google Scholar. Fiske, (Boy Life and Self-Government, 80)Google Scholar noted that men without such early dramatic awakenings in adolescence showed through their later actions that they were simply “overgrown boys.”

97. Fiske noted: “I am inclined to explain that remarkable phenomenon of adult male life in America today, the strange joining fever, and the love for the pomp, ritual and regalia of the secret orders. It is a belated instinct which was not properly expressed and worked off in boyhood” (Boy Life and Self-Government, 79).

98. For one example of a group putting on “Gareth and Lynette,” see “News from Castles,” King Arthur's Herald 2, no. 3 (December 1908): 5.

99. See, for example, “Deeds of Chivalry,” King Arthur's Herald 3, no. 7 (April 1910): 7; and “Deeds of Chivalry,” King Arthur's Herald 3, no. 8 (May 1910): 6.

100. “News from Castles,” King Arthur's Herald 1, no. 6 (March 1908): 1.

101. Forbush, and Forbush, , The Knights of King Arthur, 21 Google Scholar.

102. Forbush, and Masseck, , The Boys’ Round Table, 117–18Google Scholar.

103. Ibid.

104. As Gail Bederman suggests, the new corporate consumerism of this era was one of the chief reasons men felt threatened in their masculinity. The loss of small-scale competitive capitalism meant that the gender balance of male productivity and female virtue was compromised. See Bederman, , “’The Women Have Had Charge of the Church Work Long Enough’: The Men and Religion Forward Movement of 1911–1912 and the Masculinization of Middle-Class Protestantism,” American Quarterly 41, no. 3 (September 1989): 432–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

105. Jackson Lears, T. J., No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1920 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), 81 Google Scholar.

106. Forbush, and Forbush, , The Merlin's Book of Advanced Work, 7 Google Scholar.

107. Frequently, chapters devised point systems to trace the boys’ growth in these four aspects of the pure life. See, for example, “The Report on the Standard Requirements for Membership,” King Arthur's Herald 5, no. 6 (February 1912): 4.

108. Forbush, and Forbush, , The Knights of King Arthur, 19 Google Scholar.

109. Fiske, , Boy Life and Self-Government, 11–19 Google Scholar.

110. Lears, , No Place of Grace, 162 Google Scholar. As Lears has argued, a significant antimodern sentiment attracted many at the turn of the century. Medievalism was a significant component of this rejection of modernism. However, as Lears also notes, antimodernism was often utilized in such a way that it simply reinforced modern ideals.

111. On this theme, see Fox-Friedman, Jeanne, “The Chivalric Order for Children: Arthur's Return in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century America,” in King Arthur's Modern Return, ed. Mancoff, Debra N. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 138–54Google Scholar.

112. “The Preacher and His Sermon to the Boys,” Young Knight 5, no. 5 (March 1912): 6. 113. Bederman, Manliness and Civilization, 96.

114. On the knight as an exemplar of such balance, see Rotundo, , “Body and Soul: Changing Ideals of American Middle-Class Manhood, 1770–1920,” Journal of Social History 16, no. 4 (Summer 1983): 27 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

115. Forbush, and Masseck, , The Boys’ Round Table, 101 Google Scholar.

116. Ibid., 22.

117. Powell, , The Knights of the Holy Grail, 88–89 Google Scholar.

118. Ibid., 6. See also Fox-Friedman, “The Chivalric Order for Children,” 142–46.

119. Lewis, C. S., Present Concerns (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), 13 Google Scholar.

120. Ibid., 14.

121. Ibid., 15.

122. Rotundo, , American Manhood, 265 Google Scholar.

123. Ibid., 274.

124. Rosenberg, Charles E., “Sexuality, Class, and Role in 19th- Century America,” in Pleck and Pleck, The American Man, 219–54Google Scholar.

125. On this theme, see Rotundo, , American Manhood, 222–46Google Scholar.

126. See Hantover, “The Boy Scouts and the Validation of Masculinity,” 289.

127. Forbush, and Masseck, , The Boys’ Round Table, 163 Google Scholar.

128. On this theme, see Jacobsen, Marcia, Being a Boy Again: Autobiography and the American Boy Book (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994), 154–59.Google Scholar

129. Forbush, William Byron, “Our Relation to the Boy Scouts,” King Arthur's Herald 4, no. 9 (June 1911): 2 Google Scholar.

130. “Boy Scouts and Knights of the Holy Grail,” Young Knight 4, no. 8 (July 1911): 2; “Two Great Boys’ Societies,” Young Knight 4, no. 9 (August 1911): 11.

131. The popular evangelical Christian Service Brigade, for example, cited Forbush in 1936 as their source for developing boys’ clubs based on medieval themes. See Coughlin, Joseph W. and Jones, Benjamin C., Boys for Christ: A Guidebook for Leaders of Boys (Wheaton, Ill.: Phillips Print Shop, 1942)Google Scholar. The Royal Ambassador movement within the Southern Baptist Convention similarly adopted the developmental sequence of page, esquire, and knight for its boys in helping them prepare for service to church and various missionary causes. See Commission, Brotherhood, Church, Southern Baptist, Manual for Junior Royal Ambassadors (Memphis, Tenn.: Brotherhood Commission, 1957), 19–23 Google Scholar.

132. Lewis, Robert, Raising a Modern-Day Knight, rev. ed. (Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale, 2007)Google Scholar. On these themes, see also Eldredge, John, The Way of the Wild Heart (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006)Google Scholar. While he adds Jedi knights and samurai to the more common medieval knight, Eldredge speaks about the need to raise adolescent boys who are both “warriors” and “lovers.”