Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1871-05-19

a printer. No doubt there are too many
boys going into the professions. Many
good mechanics are wasted to make poor
ministers, lawyers and doctors. The pro-
fossions are overcrowded with inefficient
men, though, rs Daniel Webster said, there
is always room in the front rank. As
rule boys should be put into business for
life in which they can maintain themselves
with credit But we are more painfully
impro ssed with the situation of the boys
who are not destined for professions, who
never seem to have any purpose in life at
all except to drift along with the tide and
trust to what turns up. They are kept in
school as long as possible by fond and
injudicious parents, and, too proud to learn
a mechanical trade, though too poor to live
in idleness, they generally drift into that
large and always growing class of clerks,
who arc the slowest to'advance in life and
the first to feel the pressure of hard times.
Now and then one develops business ca
pacity, and makes rapid progress, becom-
| ing successful merchant, an energetic
railroad managerVor an enterprsng man
ufacturer. But the great majority DRIFT
along, sometimes employed and sometimes
idle, always poorly paid, always uncertain
as to the future. Even in brisk times the
supply of clerks exceeds the demand; and
when times are dull an advertisement for a
clerk in Boston or Chicago, New York OF
San Francisco, will have thousand an
swers. If moderately smart young man
should learn mechanical trade, now, any
where in the United States, with ordinary
management he would be master work
man in few years, and would always bt
sure of employment and good pay. Sucf
is the demand for skilled labor in this new
country, where there is so much work t.
be done, that no good mechanic ever neeC
to go without employment, and no smar
mechanic skilled in the higher parts of hi
trade, and with capacity for business
need to work with his hands at all. Sucl
a person is in demand to superlntend labor
to guide the labor of skilled hands by tn
work of an educated head. There neve
was a better time or place to learn a trad
than now, and in this country. Few Amer
lean boys are learning trades. We are de
pending TO n large extent upon the foreigi
immigrants. So much the worse for Tn
American boys. Some favor industrial
schools to teach children skilled labor
Perhaps the object could be accomplished
in that way, but we believe it is the wors
possible way to go about it. The best wa
is the old way of apprenticeship with
good master workman. And here let Il
say that the policy of trades unions is ri
diculously short-sighted. Labor is tn
source of all wealth. Skill doubles an
quadruples the value of labor. The nor
skilled laborers the more wealth, and tn
better for all, especially all workingmei
One trade union might naturally not sc
this fundamental truth; but labor cor
gress in which all trades are represente
should certainly see it. Master workme
are disinclined to take apprentices, boy
are unwilling to become apprentices, an
journeymen would limit the number. \
three classes are blind to their own int
ests in this matter, and the country lack
skilled workers, while the almshouses an
prisons are overlooking with people VIII
: have never learned to do anything. Boy
decide this matter for yourselves, and lear
to do something.