Smyrna times., 1866-11-21
Learn A Trade.

Why is it that the proportion of young men
in this country, who turn out badly, is 50 much
larger than it used to be? Every moralist, and
in fact every close observer, knows that the
proportion Of shiftless, goOd-for-nothing young
men has largely increased within the last few
years, particularly in this and other large cities,
but those who discuss the subject seem to be at
loss for the true explanation. In our judg-
ment the question is one Of very easy solution.
We attribute it to the spirit of false pride
which induces parents to put their boys into
stores and offices, rather than to apprentice
them to good trades
In this city, at the present time, merchants,
bankers, insurance men and others OF this class
are OVerrun with applications from parents who
want situations for their boys but manutactu-
rers find it almost impossible to get apprenti-
ces 1t was not so in former times. Fifty
years agO-much later in tact-parents gene
rally regarded trade as something essential in
the preparation Of their boys for the battle OF
life. Even men whose circumstances did not
require them to do manual work, made it a
point to have their boys learn trades, in order
to give them practical ideas about business, to
make them Industrious, and also to furnish
them something to fall back upon III case Of ad-
versity. How is it now? Mechanics and la
boring men, even, have too generally imbibed
the idea that they ought to place their boys a
peg above the drudgery Of manual labor
They seem to think that they are not doing
justice to them unless they place them III posi-
tlOnS where they can wear "nObby clothes
and keep their hands white. There never was
greater mistake.
! Look at the leading men in our country from
! the President down, and you will see that as a
rule it is the men who learned trades in their
! youth who have become foremost i'll every
branch OF progress and enterprise. The boy
who is placed i'll store or office usually gets
! his head full of vanity and selt-conceit before
| he has been long in his position. He acquires
an inordinate love Of dress, and soon become.
SO pulled up in his own estimation that practi-
cal common sense can find no lodgment in hi,
| brain. His aim is to dress as well and live a>
high as those with whom he comes in contact
and he Is quite likely to go from habits OF eX
travagance to habits of dissipation.
| We do not wish to be understood as sayin-
! that this is the road which all boys travel VIII,
do not learn trades We simply say that such
is the tendency, and it requires a boy of gooC
mind, fortified by good early training, to resist
the temptation. The boy who is put to trade
on the other hand, gives vanity but little
chance to get hold of him. He acquires prdc
tical ideas about business; his habits ar,
moulded by trugality and economy, and he .ay
the foundation Of a good, useful and industriou
citizen. The idea that manual labor is not re-
spectacle is one of the absurdest things in TIN
age OF absurdities. No person with thimnlc
full of brains will say anything of the kind, ;,ul
those silly creatures who do say 50, are gene
rally the degenerate scions of hard-workin
mechanics Boys, whether rich or poor, hlgl
or low, ought to learn a trade--not that the
should always work at it, but that they ma
have it as reserve capital, together with its in
fuence in forming their character -Ne1o Kon
Sun.