The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-11-19

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| by Americana. The spirit Of go
ahead-atiyen zee, zee sesl;eciss;;s iss;s e5i,sidered
one ofSthe national charactefistics,
tends to inculcate an indisposition to
serve regular apprenticeship at any
purposed occupation. The educating
effect OF learning trade is exempli-
fed in the histories of nearly all our
successful business men. Mr.. James
Parton, who has devoted the best
part of his literary life to historical
researches into the lives of so-called
great men--statesmen, soldiers and
capitalists enforces the value
of learning trade, in lato number
of Packn,d's Monthly:
"Few persons have looked into the
lives of so many remarkable men as
1 nave, yet I cannot call to mind one
of the acknowledged kings of bust
ness who did not, in early life, serve
long and rigorous apprenticeship
to some occupation akin to that which
he afterward exercised, and in which
his great success was made.
Vanderbilt, for example, was q
boatman, sloop captain, and steam
boat captain for nineteen years before
he set up for himself in the business
of building and running steamboats,,
in which he gained more money than
was ever before gained in single
lifetime, except by plumber. There
is not to-day in the whole world,
man who knows as much about steam
ships as this same Commodore Van
derbilt.
castor is another illustration. He
learned the fur business from the
very rudiments. He used to beat
furs from morning till night in his
masters back shop, and after doing
this awhile he used to take basket
of trinkets and nicknacks and go
round among the sloops and markets
driving hard bargains with boatmen,
Indians and market men, for the
akins they had brought to town. By
and by he shouldered his pack and
tramped the country for peltries;
and, extending his journeys, he at
length became familiar with every
place, with every tribe, and every
person connected with the fur trade
in North America. Then he went to
Europe and learned all about the
market for furs, and their prices in
every part of the world. Few men
have understood thing so we'll as
Mr.. Astor understood the business
of collecting, curing and selling furs.
He knew it not as a clerk might have
known it; he knew it rs man knows
trade to which he has served long
apprenticeship, under watchful and
exacting master.
"Another in point was the first
Rothschild, who, from his twelfth to
his twenty-seventh year, laboriously
acquired knowledge of money, first
as errand boy and money counter to
his father, and afterwards as bank
er's clerk.
''Girard. too, was O thorough sail
or before he ever owned ship, and
was personally familiar with most of
the commercial ports before he ever
consigned cargo to one of them.
John Gorham, of Providence, the
head of the largest manufactory of
silverware in the world, did not go
into his fathers counting-room us Al
clerk, but into his fathers shop as an
apprentice; and learned to do with
his own hands what he has since had
to direct others in doing.
LEARN trade, then, boys, you
who aspire to do something credita-
BILE and substantial during your life.
Would you be an architect, and build
the new capital West of the Missis-
sippi? Well. then, go as apprentice
to the best carpenter or mason with
in your reach. Do you wish to be II
sculptor, and yet cannot pay mas
ters fee? Instead of pining in your
mothers chimney corner, go to the
nearest stone-cutter and go to cutting
tomb stones
The ENGLISH The