West-Jersey pioneer., 1867-07-19
LEARN A TRADE.

Why is it that the proportion of young
men in this country, who turn out badly,
is so 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 alta loss for the true explain
ton. In our judgment the question is
one of 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. III H4 lstlj
In this city, at the present time, mer-
chants, bankers, insurance men and 9TH
ers of this class are overrun with apple
ations from parents who want situations
for their boys, but manufacturers find it
almost impossible to get apprentices. 1t
was not so in former times. Fifty years
ago-much later, in fact parents gen
orally regarded a trade as something es-
sential 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 point to have
their boys learn trades, in order to give
them practical ideas about business, to
make them industrious, and also to fur
nish them something to fall back upon
in case of adversely. How is it now?
Mechanics and laboripg men, even,
have too generally imbibed the idea that
they ought to place their boys peg
above the drudgery Of manual labor. They
seem to think that they are not doing JUS
tice to them unless they place them in
positions where they can wear "nobby"
clothes and keep their hands white. =
Their never was greater mistake.
Look at the leading men in our coun-
try, and you will find that as a rule it is
the men who learned tradesin their youth
who have become foremost in every branch
of progress and enterprise. The boy who
is placed in store or Office usually gets
his head full of vanity and self-conceit
before he has been long in his position. =
He acquires an inordinate love Of dress,
and soon becomes so pulled up in his own
estimatation that practical common sense
can find no Judgment in his brain. His
aim is to dress as we'll and live as high as
those with whom he comes in contact,
and he is quite likely to go from habits of
extravaganza to habits of dissipation.
We do not wish to be understood as say
inc that this is invariably the road which
all boys travel who do not learn trades
I We simply say that such is the tendency,
and it requires boy of good mind, for
titled by good early training, to resist the
temptation. The boy who is put to a
trade, on the other hand, gives vanity but
little chance to get hold of him. He ac.
quires practical ideas about business; bis
habits are moulded by frugality and econ.
omy, and he lays the foundation of a good
useful and industrious citizen. The idea
that manual labor is not respectable is
of the absurdest things in this age of alb
snrdities. No person with thimbleful
of brains will say anything of the kind
and those silly creatures who do say So
are generally the degenerate scions OF
hard working mechanics. Boys, whether
rich or poor, high or low, ought to learn
a trade-not that they should always
work at it, but that they may have it as
a reserve capital, together with its infu
ence in forming their character 7.
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