Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1871-04-21
5niscellanu.
Learn a Trade.
BY HENRY WARD BEEoHER.

States Penetentiary, have ascertained
that, out of six hundred prisoners, only
six ever learned trade; namely, two
shoemakers, one blacksmith, one cabinet
maker, one tin-smith, one stone-cutter.
Several began to learn trades, but ran
away after short time.
Here is text. One cannot but re-
member the lines of Dr. Watts:
And Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do"
There are good reasons for learning
wholesome trade, aside from the direct
question of good morals. Even if one is
placed beyond the need of manual labor
for his own support, mecha nical trade
will afford amusement. A shop in the
house with all the mechanical tools,
would give exercise to scholars, profes-
sional men, and gentlemen retired upon
competence from business. We have
known men who made the most of their
repairs ON their property; who took care
of their own clocks, who could manufact-
ure excellent pieces of furniture, and
found pleasure and exercise in doing so.
| But trade will always be resource
on which to fall back in case of pecuniary
misfortune. And it is in this view, es-
pecially, that we consider it important
that boys who are expectant heirs of
property, young men who are to enter
upon commercial pursuits, and literary
and professional men, should learn
enough how to work with their hands to
enable them IN case of reverse, to earn
their own bread. We never heard more
bitter curses than those which young
man once poured upon the head of his
father He was the child of very rich
man. He was sent to school all his youth
long, but he was taught to do absolutely
nothing. He could not harness horse,
milk a COW, hold pillow, manage spade
use tool of any kind. He never had
been taught to provide for himself sin
gle article. He was as ignorant how to
get along in the world as baby. And
when be was about of age his father ut
terly failed, and his son was launched up
on the world to seek a livlihood, with no
ideas of money, except how profusely to
spend it and with no tact at business, of
any kind, and with disposition which
had been educated to expect men to look
up to him. With sensitive pride, with
little knowledge of men, with faculties de-
cidedly above the average, he managed
to get along in poor way, forever in
debt, perpetually changing his occupa-
ton, and always with the result of leav-
ing him, if possible, little worse off
than before. He never spoke of his ia
ther without rage. "What business had
he to leave my wholelive open to misery
by negleeting his duty to me +? If he had
cut off my hands and my feet, he could
not have been more cruel than to have
left me helpless as | am"
Every child has right to be taught
how to work with his hands. Every
boy should be taught not only all com
mon work on farm or in garden, but
should be taught some simple elements
of mechanical trades. 1t would be es-
pecially well that the young should learn
minor trades. The manufacture of box
es, baskets, and the hundred little con-
veniences of daily life, not only tend to
create an occupation of amusement, but,
should fortune be reversed, it will enable
one to gather up slender support.