Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-07-27
DON'T LOOK SO MUCH TO THE
PROFESSIONS.

II there is one great fault and egregious
oversight committed by our people, and
especially by our farming population, it
is in fixing their eyes upon the profess
sicns as the gaol and future destiny of
their sons. A greater wrong upon them
selves, upon their children and upon the
country, and more serious blunder, can
not well be conceived. The professions
are crowded already to repletion, and it
is lamentsble to gee the many useful and
capable men, whose energies are being
wasted, whose mental capacities are be-
coming emasculated, and whose vitality
and ambitions are blightiDg and whitening
because they are-and often through the
preference and sgency of psrents-cramp-
ed in offices, and in professions crowded
TO the full, and who could, with proper
scope for the exercise of their powers and
faculties, be useful to themselves and Or
naments to the names they wear, and to
the country that gave them birth. 1t is
nonsense and q cruel delusion, to hold out
dazzling professional honors to all the
youth of the land, by persuading
them that if success does not
come upon them in one place, it will
await them in another. The professions
are crowded everywhere. The profes-
sional man is the pioneer to new towns
and settlements, and the first avocations
filed and crowded are those presented by
the professions. This every traveller and
and every man who has resided in diffe-
rent parts of the country, knows and
readily comprehends. Give US industrial
education. In looking at the professional
plethora and the prOneness to shun the
trades and the farm on the part of our
people, Professor Ball. of the Scientific
School pertinently exclaims: ''Why is it
that American boys are growing too proud
to learn trade2 Is not the case found
in the fact that our whole system Of edu-
cation has quite ignored our industrial
life9 The only legitimate result of our
educational system will be the production
of lawyers and doctors (and ministers),
OF at the least, clerks and school-teachers.
In consequence of this defect, children
receive the impression that education has
NJ boor;pp nv, ,naoboninc. fhot q froda 10
only manual drudgery. The result is that
boys select the mosteffeminate employment
in preference to manly mechanical work.
When our educational system provides
our youth with some intelligent prepara-
| ton for the prosecution of industrial Ia
Dor, the trades will be filed by more
cultivated Glass Of young men, and our
boys will blush to be found selling pins
and needles; but they will not be ssham-
ed 10 be seen using the hammer and CHS
ell"
The foregoing is well put. There ia
dignity and morality that attaches to ele-
waited and educated labor which belongs
to no other calling. Success in life is, or
should be, The chief aim of our farmers
| for their sons, and success is the criterion
by which they will be judged, be their
profession, talents and attainments what
they may. This rule of nature, rigorous
as it may be, is nevertheless MEMORABLE.
'tAct well your part for there the honor
lies" In the avocation Of agriculture,
turning up the rich sweet earth, sowing
seed and reaping haryests, success is GER
tain, and competition need not be dread
ed. There is room for all, and demand
for the products of all, The broad
lands stretch cut to the north, to the
south, to the east and to the west, in fer
tile and illimitable acres, filed with
grain and fruit and flowers till the earth
runs over. 'Tickle the ground with in
dustry and it laughs with abundance.
/ There il No uncertainty before the in
dustrious farmer. His burrows are up
turned through no rasping and dubious
fields of doubt. No pale and painful
anxieties need sit and brood upon his fe-
yered brow. He need not wait for clients
calls and patients aches. He is not