Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1871-06-29
Industrial Education.

by taking possession of wild land,
where the common articles of food
abound, where a liberal expenditure
in all classes, growing out of these
favored conditions, makes a large
demand for the articles of labor and
of trade, and where great tide Of
foreign emigration is bringing in new
capital, and newcomers to be
changed into producers, the situa-
ton ought to be peculiarly favorable
for poor man to better his condi-
ton, and for workman to rise to be
his own employer. And so it is. 1t
ought also to be a country where
every one finds quick employment.
But every large town has large
class whose employment is sf the
most precarious character. Let a
merchant advertise for a salesman or
book-keeper, and he will receive an
swers from a multitude. In every
town there is always large floating
multitude of both sexes, seeking
some light and genteel employment.
Our educational institutions are con-
tinually turning out great number
of persons to seek employment only
in these branches, which are always
besieged by an unemployed crowd.
In country where there certainly is
employment for all, and where it is
the current opinion that the need of
more people requires the use of
means to bring in emigration from
Europe, there is great and continu-
ally increasing class that cannot find
employment because they have not
been fitted, or have been untitled, for
those spheres of labor where they
are needed. f..
The question is, how shall we train
up the rising generation to fit them
for the real demand? How shall we
avoid training which units them to
fill the demand? ? This is a matter of
more Importance to the people than
any measures to force the migration
of foreign laborers to increase the
competition here. 1t is neither prac-
ticabIe nor desirable to repress the
natural desire of every one to better
his condition by getting above the
necessity of hard labor. Ease and
comfort is the great object of all
our LABOR. We work hard IN order
that we may get above the necessity
of work, and that we may have
competence when our ability to work
fails. But the evil is, that so large a
portion are trained up to seek this
ease and comfort by shorter road,
and are disqualified for pursuing it
through sure way of work in such
branches as furnish a demand for
labor.
The rich mans son is naturally
brought up in the expectation that he
can enter into business with the aid
of capital and credit, or he is educa-
ted for some of the so-called learned
professions. He acquires neither
the bodily habit to make him physi-
cally capable for hard work, nor
skill in any mechanical trade. 1t is
to be expected that the sons of the
wealthy, or of active business and
professional men, will be brought up
in this way. Of themselves they
crowd the professions and the lines
of trade, and enough of them fail of
success in trade, either from want of
capital to make start, or from
blunders after a start, to crowd all
the lines of employment that the
successful ones furnish. To these are
added large number whose parents,
out of their small means manage to
give them an education, in the belief
that with this they can make their
way in the world in higher range
than the trades or in common labor.
And to these are added the continual
stream of recruits from the rural dis
ttricts to the towns, of youths who
have received start in education,
:and who go to seek in the towns a
fortune easier than that of farm-la-
lbor, or the mechanical trades. A
continual multitude of these are
caught by the belief that term in a
commercial college will qualify them
for business men, and that then all
the avenues of business will be open
to them. These and other elements
combine to create that large and ever
increasing class who are out of en-
ployment, who are always in excess
of the demand, and who present in
this country, which is supposed to
have a great need of more popula-
ton, the anomaly of surplus who
are not wanted, and who have no
place in our system.
Every one believes that in a coun-