The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1870-12-15
Industrial Education.
Epm he nprllenes Journal.

Miss Ellen Townsend has rendered TO
the city Of Newporta free gin OF o yalua.
BILE farm upon which the boys who are
neglected, or arc without the means Of
support, shall be taken and be taught how
10 support themselves by honest labor.
This act Of Miss Townsend contains q
practical suggestion emincntly fit TO be
Incorporated into our system Of public
education. Boys who are without pa
rents, or who have parents who neglect
them, ore left TO grow UP without that
training which is necessary TO fit them to
become useful members Of society, and, us
consequence, almost inevitable, they be-
come public burden. They generally
go to swell the criminal class; sometimes
they are idle and worthless; tho State Is
made the worse by their lives, and Is re-
lieyed when they die. Industrial Schools
or the character endowed by Miss Towns
end, ought TO take charge Of large class
of tho boys who now nrc left to them
selves and fall under influences which fit
them for tho Reform School, or, if they
escape this, in after life, us their vicious
inclinations increase, they are subjected
to the discipline Of the State Farm or the
State Prison.
The SUCCESS Of such an experiment
will depend upon tho manner in which 1t
Is administered.
The boys at this school, Miss Townsend
provides, shall DO taught how to read,
write and Cypher, and be trained to virtue
and honesty; beyond this, she desires that
they should be instructed how to labor.
One great defect in our present educa-
tional system Is, that, instead Of instruct
ing our children how to become useful by
practical labor, we are constantly creating
in them q desire to find some short road
to greatness or to wealth. N
A large majority Of the men who are at
the head of our great industrial interests,
are men who began their career US practi-
cal workers. Take for example tho foun-
ders Of Fall River. Holder Borden work.
cd when boy in small grocery store,
while bis cousins Richard and Jefferson
were daily tOiling hard 10 subdue the soil
of o poor farm. Oliver Chance was a
carpenter aud worked constantly at bis
trade. Bradford Durlee, too, was u trades
man; he married the mother Holder Dor.
den. These men were the founders oil
Fall River, and those Of them who yet
survive enjoy tho proud satisfaction OF
having seen tho place Of their birth ill.,
crease, we may say, under their influence,
from township with 1900 inhabitants,
and taxable property OF 100000, to u
city containing near 10000 inhabitants,
and its capital swollen To near $50, 0O0, 900
None Of these men had any brilliant
schemes for the future; they worked from
day TO day, and those who survive CON
tinuc their toll; they performed the work
they found at hand and entered upon that
which seemed to open before them and
suggested itself by what they had accom-
plished, and we witness tho results.
The boy or tho man who is taught
otherwise than to begin life by patient
and assidious toll, and to progress onward
by slow and steady steps, will almost GER
tlinly fail. 0...-I.. ....
The vice Of our present system of train |
ing is, that in it We do not enough honor
labor. Our daughters arc taught that 1t
is degrading 10 cook, To knit or To sew.
Our sons arc made to believe that 1t is |
disrcputable 10 toll in the field or in the |
mill. This is great national calamity; |
the sons of the men who do the labor for |
this generation will be the governing and
influential class in the next.
The country needs men whose muscles
are hardened by toll and whose intcllects
have been sharpcncd by actual expert
cncc in every industry. The hot.hOuse
culture of the time, which stimulates an
unnatural growth, soon cxhausts the sour
ccs OF production, so that our children,
when they 20 out into the cold air Of real
life, are too often found unequal to its Con-
tests.
Ifpractical labor could be made part |
of the education OF every child under the
protection Orthe government, We can have
no doubt that this would result in advan'
tage to the State.