The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-07-05
ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN.

ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN.
Horace Greeley delivered brief ad'
dress to the young men in attendance
upon business college in New York
We give it for it's intrinsic interest, as
follows:
"LADIEs AND GENTLEMEN: - The
greatest orator and agitatOr of the New
England StatestMr. Wendell Phillips
is reported in the journals as having
lately asserted that every State owes t.
every citizen, male or female, instruc.
ton i'm some useful trade. do moi
know that should care to be RESPONSE
bic for q proposition SO broad and SC
bold as that; but this am perfectly
prepared to stand by-that if l had my
choice either to have every youth III
this community provided with good
useful trade, and then take his or heI
chance of what we now call education
that is, the education of schools OF
to have every youth get our school edu-
cation and then take his or her chance
with trade, would prefer to take the
trade, and do as We could about school
education. [Applause.] That is, do
not believe, if it waspracticabie to have
every citizen provided with a good trade,
that there is another good within the
reach of human efforts so important
and SO advancing rs that would be. !
do not believe that there is sanythiDg by
which our people suffer SO much. In
the whole community people are grow
ing up all around us in ignOrance-nOt
so much i'm letters as of the rudiments
of some means of earning an honest
living. Nothing so Oppresses me as to
he accO5ted OH this hand and on that
by the plaintive appeal and inquiry,
" Can't you find something for me TO
dOw You know as well as any what
that means that they net only lack
the persons who SO apppeal-fOr some
thing to do, but they lack in knowing
how to do it. That is the trouble, and
the main trouble. 1t is not altogether
to that class born to poverty,
but extends even to the classes born to
affiuence. wish it were possible that
every one should have a good trade !;
for l know men and women in this
city, many of them, who know not
how to read, who cannOt write their
own names, and yet each of them is
an honorable subsistence. On
the other hand, many men and women,
on whose education large sums have
been spent, are helpless and hopeless.
Il sometimes lament the narrow
ness which governs the common views
of the term education. For if there is
in the world which education
should mean, it is the arming and
men for the battle of life.
Applause We who are not seeking
for reinfOrcements to the means of ed
ucatiOn arc not disparagiDg critics of
what was done before we were born.
We don't mean to say that colleges are
bad or useless, but merely that there is
a large variety Of continually expand
ing wants for which new devices must
be created in order to meet them.
Thus the business college means not
that other colleges are worthless, but
that there are wants that pre-existing
were not calculated to
meet. Human tastes aud wants widen,
and create new means for their own
+" have the largest and deepest in
terest in what is called our agricultural
colieges-[great applauseE EinstitutiOns
intended to educate young men, and l
trust, i'll time, young women also, for
useful work. [Applause.] Men say
they will fail. No doubt if you start
fifty years in advance of
the public sentiment you are likely
to fail, not because it is bad, but be-
cause it is too good. [Applause.] 1t is
so grand, so noble, that it does not
meet an ascertained and expressed
Want of the community, or a respect
able part of the community. l fear
that out of one hundred young men
who enter an agricultural college, you
won't find ten who want to be farmers.
They want to get an education, and
then men wonder they do not turn out
the best possible farmers. Just so
with the business colleges, and yet /
am sure they meet very decided
want.
81 was glad to hear Mr.. Packard say
be did not expect all his young men to
find clerkships. The best divinity
school that ever was cannot make u
out of a man who is not
qualified for it. [Applause]. Unless
nature has qualified him for that ex-
alted vocation he cannot be a good
So you may give man
the best education for merchant, and
if he have not the qualification necessa-
ry his education would not make lin
one, for aspiration is one thing and ca
pacity is quite another. (Applase] The
business college would be a desirable
thing if there were never to be a clerk
ship on earth. 1 apprehend tha ehs
yuncOnsciOuslys str.ves to that
state of things wherein there shall be
fewer clerks and bOok-keepers i'll pro-
portion to what is done than now.
There are less now than there were
fifty years ago i'm proportion, and L
think this reduction Is destined To go
OIL. The time will come when great
merchant will buy and sell millions
worth of goods with fewer clerks and
fewer figures than he now requires. 80
then, if young men are looking Tor
ward to growing demand for clerks,
think they will be disappointed. But
this is narrow conception of the SUBJ
ject. Why, there is farmers to-day who
work on tOlerable farm-Or an in
one-[laugterl who would
not be a better farmer for q good edu-
cation. He would be able to keep
debit and credit with everything-with
every crop, and ascertain when he
came TO sell it, whether he had made
or lost by it. And then he
could shape his husbandry for the next
year SO that he could produce that on
which he made profit, and cease to
produce that on which he had suffered
loss. Instead of this, many go on from
year to year producing the same things,
never able to eliminate their expenses
on Improbable productions, or to in
crease those crops on which they may
have gained. So it is in every vOca-
ton. l wish business education were
ten times as widely diffused as it is,
even though many entered it with
false ideas, as they now dO-fOr am
sure the country suffers in its prOsperi-
by the want of knowledge. One grand
difference of what is called the Yankee
race from some, perhaps from most of
the races, is its ability to do many
things; to run from one business pur-
suit to another. l don't say it is de-
sirable; but | was impressed with it
when our war broke out, and several
regiments were centered at Annapolis,
and the Constitution lay there aground.
One of the officers asked how many
men were able to work that ship, and
fifty-eight men stepped out ready to do
it, and fight her, too, if necessary. ZAP
plause.]
eff we had a hundred thousand
young men educated for business, we