The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1871-09-21
Farmers, Educate your Sons to the Farm
and Useful Labor.

and Useful Labor.
oversight committed by our people, and espe-
cially by our farming population, it is in fixing
their eyes upon the professions as the goal and
future destiny of their sons. A greater wrong
upon themselves, upon their children, and upon
the country, and more serious blunder; cannot
we'll be conceived. The professions are crowd
ed already to repletion, and it is lamentable to
see the many useful and capable men, whose
energies are being wasted, whose mental capac-
itics are becoming emasculated, and whose
vitality and ambitions are blighting and with-
ering because they are-and often through the
preference and agency Of parents-cramped in
offices and in professions crowded to the full,
and who could, with proper faculties, be useful
to themselves and ornaments to the names they
bear, and to the country that gave them BIRTH
1t is nonsense and a 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 professional man is
the pioneer of new towns and settlements, and
the first avocations filled and crowded are those
presented by the professions. This every trav-
eler and every man who resides in different
parts of the country knows and readily com:
prehends. Give us industrial education. In
looking at the professional plethora and the
proneness to shun the trades and the farms OIL
the part of our people, Professor Bail, of the
Scientific School, pertinently eXclaims: "Why
is it that American boys are growing TOO proud
to learn trade? Is not the cause found in
the fact that our whole system of education has
quite ignored our industrial life? The only
legitimate result of our educational system will
be the production of lawyers and doctors and
ministers, or at least, clerks and school teach
ers. In consequence of this defect, children
receive the impression that education has no
bearing on mechanics; that trade is only nat
ural drudgery. The result is that boys select
the most efeminate employment i'll preference
to manly mechanical work. When our educa.
tional system provides our youth with some
intelligent preparation for the prosecution of
industrial labur; the trades will be filled by a
more cultivated class of young men, and our
boys will blush to be found selling pins and
needles; but they will not be ashamed to be
seen using the hammer and chisel."
The foregoing is we'll put. There is digni-
t. and morality that attaches to elevated and
educated labor which belongs to no other CALI
ing. 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,
De CnelT pTOIeSSlOn, IalcutS anu dItalHueHtS
what they may. This rule of nature, rigorous
as it may be, is nevertheless inexorable. "Act
we'll your part, for there the honor lies" In
the avocation of agriculture, turning up the
rich, sweet earth, sowing seed and raeping har-
vest, success is certain, and competition need
not be dreaded. There is room for all, and
demand for the products of all. The broad
lands stretch out to the north, to the south, to
the east, and to the west, in fertile and illimi.
table acres, filled with grain and fruit and
flowers till the earth runs over. tickle the
ground with industry and it laughs with abun-
Dance"
There is no uncertainty before the industrious
farmer. His furrows are upturned through no
raspng and dubious fields of doubt. No pale
painful anxieties need sit and brood over his
fevered brow. He need not wait for clients
calls and patients aches. He is not blown
whims and envious breaths of political favor:
itism. The same holds good of the trades and
of the thousand and one avenues which the
channels of honorable labor offer and open up.
Life with the farmer is full of hope, of buoy
ancy, of elasticity. To him the sun rises and
sets in beauty, and the nights of his repose are
soothed with pleasing dreams and sweet sum-
bers. At least eighty-fve per cent. of those in
mercantile pursuits fail, while the few only
achieve success. The few do so by wearing
and tearing cares, and sleepless nights and
anxious days. In the professions the larger
number fail, while the very fewest attain any
emncnce or distinction, OIL win what the worlds
popular verdict calls success.
i've wish our farming friends to bear these
facts in mind, with Il fixed and permanent
lodgmcnt: Educate your SONS, and make it
part of their education not to be allured by
false professional glitter The professions are
full of drones and idle dreamcrs. An idle pro-
fession never yet pttshed inan upward. Moth
never yet snufed a star. Then leave profess
sions out of the question, and educate your
sons to the farm, and to vocatons of useful
labor Through such avenues honor and pre-
ferment are as swift and sure to accrue as
through any other-NashuiAe Union and Aner-
icdn.