Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1869-04-20

Shall We Encourage Boys to Stay on the
FARM

BY all means, If they want to stav
if they have a taste for farm life, and
take to it more kindly than to any
other pursuit. If boy takes an
honest pride in turning a straight fur
row, rearing fine calves and building
fine hay stacks, doubtless the farm is
the place for him. If he prefers to
go to the county fair to attending
Dan Rice's circus, if he selects the
Prairie Farmer that came in the same
mail with the New York Ledger,
that boy has taste for farming that
it will do we'll to encourage.
But how about the other hoys, to
whom farming is an uncongenial en-
ployment, and whose only lively step
in the field is taken when the trum-
pet calls to dinner? Shall we en-
courage them TO stay on the farm,
with the fact staring us in the face
that they have no natural aptitude
for the business, and consequently
will never become good farmers ?
Much as We respect and honor the
pursuit of agriculture, We think we
should not. We cannot see how
either the farm or the boys are to be
benefited by the procedure. The
fact is, we have too many poorly
managed farms, and too many poor
farmers to hold out inducements for
increasing the number Of them.
1t would be a much wiser course,
every way, to find out what boy is
good for, if, indeed he is good for
anything in. particular, before you
encourage him to adopt any particlar
calling. If the only good boy ever
did about the farm was to repair the
pumps, hang gates, make mole>traps,
put IN rake teeth, file the saw, and
hang the the grind stone. and be did
these things well, obviously the farm
is not the place for him, but ma
chine shop is.
If boy will walk half a dozen
miles, after the days work is done,
20 hear political speech, if he takes
time from his play to attend trials
before justice Of the peace, and sits
up half the night, when be is going
10 school, 10 learn declarations
which bring down the house at spells
ing,schoOl, most likely he will do the
world more good il you put law
book and not a manure fork into his
hand.
If he earns more money trading
jack-knives and fish. lines on rainy
days than he does hoeing pota-
toes and cutting grain in fair
weather, give him chance to ham
die yard stick, and not have him
around troubling otner boys who are
handling horse rakes and pitch forks,
and like the employment.
Again, if q boy is skil!ful in skin
ming small animals and stuffing birds,
if he practised making pills of mud
when he was child and extracted
teeth from the jaws of dead horses
with pincers when he got older if be
reads physioligies when his brothers
are engaged in perusing Robinson
Crusoe, he viii be far more likely to
succeed with lancet than with
scythe.
1t has become very fashionable
lately to eXhOrt farmers to encourage
their boys to stay on the farm ir~
respective Of their ability or taste to
become good farmers but we cannot
see the propriety of it. On the 9TH
er hand, we see many good reasons
why boys who do not promise to be-
come good farmers should encouraged
to try their hands at something else
while they are still young. Because
q boy was born Oh a farm it is no
reason why he should always stay
there if nature gave him gifts for
something else, but denied him the
inherent faculties for becoming
successful farmer In India persons
are born into u Caste but can never
get out of it. La ancient Egypt
children were obliged TO follow the
occupation of their parents to the
latest time. But we have never
heard Of any good, but heard of
. great deal Of evil coming from
from it. The farm is good place
for boys to stay on unless they have
an aversion to farm life, and have, at
the same time, o strong inclination
to 90 into some other kind of busi-
ness that is more congenial to them
in which case we think they had
better go their way and the sooner
the better-Prairie Farmer.