New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1865-08-21
BOYS PREPARED FOR BUSINESS.

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A Commercial Academy in this city, and for
aught we know good one, as Academies 90,
advertises that it will teach its pupils manly
business habits" We hope so. We should
hold in particular esteem any Academy Skillful
enough to convince its young students that it is
mean and not manly to steal--that though it
may be hard it is not impossible to preserve in
tegrty OF character in the business OF money
he who bolts with stolen bonds is
Just as much thief as he who sinks out Of the
area with the family spoons in his pocket-that
he takes life who takes that whereby widows
and orphans live--that Theft in Wall-'t. Is the
own brother of Theft at the Five Points-that
high trusts should be executed with clean hands
and rigid iidelity-that thimble-rig banker Is
morally 10 better than the detected confidence
man who figures in the police reports-that
there is no business worth pursuing except
a moral one morally conducted; and
that, whatever may be the current creed
of the Stock Exchange, honesty, in spite OF the
mustness of the proverb, is the best policy,
and purity alone in tho long run profitable.
The dying man gaspcd out to his son; Make
money honestly if you can--but make money!"
This was his opinion while yet alive; what he
thought after he was dead may be deduced
from a parable in the Holy Scriptures: "The
rich man died and was buried. And in Hell he
lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth
Abraham afar of, and Lazarus in his bosom.
And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have
mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may
dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my
tongue; for i am tormented in this flame"
Clearly, this persons commercial views were
much changed after his translation. 1t would
be good plan to open the sessions of all model
Commercial Academies with the reading of this
bit of Scripture. And if the terse Command
ment, "Thou shalt not steal, could be tattooed
along the spinal column of each pupil without
inAicting too much pain, perhaps the effect
would be salutary.
There is nothing boy more warmly desires
than to become "manly;" but unfortunately
his views Of virility are apt to be little crude
and confused. The earliest Of them are often
beclouded by the smoke of clandestine cigars
Frequently the youth, in his quest of "manli-
ness" is carried in quite wrong direction by q
passion for horses. Then he sometimes gets
manliness" and ardent spirits mixed with dis.
astrouS results. As he grows older he disc0v-
ers intimate relations between "manIness'
and packs of cards. Going on in the career Of
manliness," he becomes the haunter Of broth
els and concert saloons; and when his heart has
grown as hard as his head has grown soft, and
ready to cap the very climax of manliness by
lght-fngered meddling with his masters cash.
After that he may be detected and sent to Sing
Sing he may DO kind enough to cut his own
larly George Barnwelld.
In most Commercial Academies we fear that
too much attention is paid to penmanship and
too little to morals. Clearly it would have
been far better for Mr.. Ketchum, jr., if he had
been unable TO write at all. In no mercantile
school with which We are acquainted, has the
duty of keeping clear Of Miss We've Brewer and
of Miss Rosa Allen been duly inculcated. A
knowledge Of the art Of bookkeeping is ncces-
sary to clerk, but the ert of doctoring accounts
and of coaxing the poor figures to lie, should be
pointed out 70 tender pupils as the old original
Black Art, the professors Of which, sooner or
later, are invariably carried away to the places
prepared for them by chuckling and victorious
Satan. With excellent effect the sublime yet
simple beauties of seven per cent and no more,
might be impaired to the neophytc. These are
but hints for q course Of instruction.; but any
ingenious teacher, with sound moral views, will
easily complete the scheme.
We always use the word Education' in
good sense. We forget that there may be such
a thing as bad "cducation," leading only to
disaster and the confusion Of life. A boy, fresh
from the Commercial Academy, is flung into
Wall-st before there is any pth in his arms
he is hourly taught that the chief end of man is
money-making-he sees his elders wrangling
squabblng, hustling, shoudering, crowding,
around him, and all in the quest Of
money. He is made familiar with sharp prac-
tces, aud daily innoculated with the views of