The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-08-21
A CHAPTER FOR YOUHG MEN And
BOYS.
rhe Tendencies OF the Day Toward
LazIuess.

LazIness.
The increasing number of droners in
the national hive is among the most
Important economical facts of the
times. In his letter to the merchants
of Boston, year or two ago, Mr.. Nc
CullOch said that the thing most need
ed in the present condition of the couu-
try was, that the whole population
should return to work. a great many
journals took it on themselves at the
time to ridicule this statement of the
Secretary. They referred to the tradi-
tional activity of the American mind,
to the hot haste to be rich, and to the
signs of industry on every hand; and
concluded that there was no fault here;
that lack of industry could not be pre-
dicated as among,the causes of existing
evils. And yet Mr.. McCulloch was
every way right. Among the worst
features of the times is disinclination,
among large classes, to honest, hard
work; a preference of easy or partial
employments, which barely afford sub
sistence, without promising promotion
or advancement, lowering of that in
dustrial and social ambition which is
the spring of all beneficent activity;
and reliance on speculation, on short
cuts, on sharp practice, on luck, on
anything, to attain the ends which once
were sought by frugality, patience and
toll.
There is not one of our readers to
whose daily observation this does not
appeal. Was there ever time when
young men were SO ready to take up
with positions which secure a living af-
ter a certain fashion, but which look
forward to nothing, and condemn their
occupants to hopeless mediocrity
through life? Was there ever time
when employments not strictly repu-
table, though perhaps not criminal,
were so crowded? Or, to rise step
| higher, when the whole class of EN-
pl0yments, which are reputable enough
| but not useful or beneficial, were SO
much sought after2 Are there not 9th
er classes OF employments, both useful
and honorable when in proper propor-
ton to the wants of the community,
which are filled to positive repletion
and disgust, because they afforded an
escape from pains-taking and selt'de-
nying labor.
Every possible opening connected
| with trade, which dispenses with thor
ough training and long preparation,
attacks q swarm of young men, not one
of whom but could do better-take ten
Il or twenty years together-than to ac-
cept it; yet all but one of whom Will
be disappointed and driven off to some
thing still poorer, or to wait for anoth-
er chance. The number of eXpeclants,
that most melancholy class, was never
applicants on every hand cheapens their
price and SO creates new positions of
an increasingly lower order. The pres.
sure for appointments to Washington
clerkships is an example of this. For
every place there are score of eager
contestants. Yet those positions have
no outlook whatever, afford no reason
able opportunity for promotion or for
social Improvement, and yield preca-
rious and at the best an insufficient
livelihood. a more miserable lot could
hardly be invoked upon an enemy.
Learn Trade.
The value eoflearning a trade becomes
more and more certain every day.
Scarcely a week passes but some young
man asks us to point out field of Ia
Dor for him. With good attainments,
perhaps, or an Unsuitable desire to be
at work at something whereby an hon
est penny may be earned, he finds him
self landed as it were. at the first ebb OF
the tide. The slightest recession of the
waters deposits him on the shore among
the weeds ofidIeness, and upwholesome
vapors becloud his mind. There Is
scarcely man in business but has an
experience like ours his young friends
continually envying him the privilege
of working in a well. defined field, and
wishing that like him they had some
thing TO strike at.
These young men are generally af
fiicted with the disease of ambition.
They want to be something more than
common; and often mistaking their de-
sires for the ability 10 satisfy them,
the hatter themselves that they are
fit for something better than the COM
mon run OF humanity.
Their great fault is in trying TO
achieve manhood without serving an
apprenticeship to it, and they find
themselves, when they should be pre-
pared for their life-work, wondering
what it will be, and fretting because it
doesn't declare itself, and, nine cases
out OF ten, waiting in vain for such a
call, go into politics, agencies, sc.
The great remedy for all this is a
trade thoroughly learned, The time
between school and twenty-one should
be spent at the carpenters bench, in
machine shop or at an anvil, SO that
when a young man commences his
battle with life in any vocation he can,
III worsted at his first attempt, turn to
his trade with confidence that his
skilled labor will at least procure him
a living, and perhaps a competence.
Time frittered away in trying to dis
cover desirable roads to success, foots
up a considerable total on the loss side
of the balance sheet.