Weekly Trinity journal., 1870-06-11
NUMBER %.
why Don't Boys Learn Tradest

/ The present generation of young men seem to
have Il strong aversion to every kind of trade
business, calling or occupation that requires
manual labor, and an equally strong tendency
toward some so-caled " genteel - employment
| or profession The result is seen in supera-
bundance of elegant penmen, bookkeepers and
clerks of all kinds who can get no employment,
and are wasting their lives in the vain pursuit
of what is not to be had and terrible over
stock of lawyers without practice, and doctors
without patients. The passion on the part of
boys aud young men to be clerks, office attend
ents, messengers, anything, that it is not
work of the kind that will make them mechan-
les tradesmen, is deplorable sight to those
who have full opportunities to see the distress
ing effect of it in the struggle for such emyoy-
ment 10y those untoruuates who have put it out
of their power to do anything else by neglect
ing to learn some permanent trade or business
in which trained skill can always be turned to
account. The application for cerkships and
similar positions in large establishments, are
numerous beyond anything that would be
thought of by those who have no chance to wit
ness it. Parents and relatives as we'll as the
boys and young men themselves, seem to be
afflicted with the same intatuaton. To all such
we say the most uuwise advice you can give to
your boy is to encourage him to be clerk or
bookkeeper. At the best it is not II well paid
occupation. Very irequntly it is among the
very poorest. This is the case when the clerk
is fortunate enough to be employed but if he
should happen to be out of place, then comes
the weary search, the fearful struggle with the
thousands of others looking for places, the never
ending disappointmets, the "hope deferred "
that makes the heart sick the strife with pow
erty, the humiliations that take all the man
hood ont of your souls, the priyations and suf-
ferings of those who depended upon his earn
ngs, and who have no resource when he is earn
ing nothing. No father, no mother, no relative
should wish to see their boys or kindred vast
ing their young lives in stving after the gcntcel
positions that bring such trials and privations
upon them in after life.
How do these deporaby false notions as to
choice of occupations get into the heads of
boys? Why do they or their parents consider it
more "gentccl - or desirable to run errnnds,
sweep out Office make fires, copy letters, etc,
than to make hats or shoes, or lay bricks, or
WELD the saw or jack plain, or handle the ma
chinist's file, or the bNcksmth's hammer We
have heard that some of them get these notions
at school. If this be true, it is II sad petversion
of the means Of education provided for our youth
which are intended to make us useful MS well as
intelligent members OF society, and not useless
drags and droncs, Should it he so that the
present generation Of boys get it into :hcr heads
that because they have more school learning
and book accomplishments than their fathers
had they must therefore look down upon the
trades that require skill aud handicraft, and
whose productions make up the vast mass of
the wealth of every country, then it is time for
the controllers and directors to have the interior
of our school houses covered with maxims and
mottos warning them against the fatal error
Philadelphia Ledger.